Read Anything Less Than Everything for Free Online Page B

hers.
    “Wonderful!”
she exclaimed. “I’m Caryn. Welcome to Dwell.”
     
    I drove
straight to the empty apartment, making three trips to get all of my purchases
upstairs to my unit. I carefully unpacked each item, placing them all in the
living room so I could sort out where I wanted things to go. What seemed like a
houseful in the store now looked incredibly sparse. The problem was furniture.
I had none. At home I had a bedroom set--bed, dresser, nightstand, desk--but it
reeked of fifth grade girliness. Mom picked it out, and I had never been in
love with it. I decided it could stay at Mom and Dad’s. I grabbed a notebook
and pen from my purse and started making a list of all I would need.
Replacements for the bedroom furniture I was leaving behind, of course, but
also a table and chairs, bar stools, rug...I wasn’t even through the dining
room, and already the list filled an entire page. I needed back up. Marcie. Our
friendship had cooled some, what with my hiding from everyone after the breakup.
Now that school was over, and I didn’t see her every day, I knew I was going to
have to reach out to her if I wanted to salvage the relationship. And since she
loved a project and shopping more than pretty much anything, I thought asking
for her help filling my new space might be the perfect way to reconnect. The
old me--the original one--had been an initiator when it came to friendships,
and if I was trying to reclaim that self, then that was something I needed to
do.
    "Brooke!
I wondered if I would ever hear from you again!"
    "I just
saw you two weeks ago," I replied.
    "But do
you realize how long it's been since you called to make plans with me?" Or anyone , I thought to myself. I winced at how much I had abandoned my few
friendships, how I had pushed everyone away. At the same time, though, I saw a
little bit more of the old me--the real me--peeking through.
    "I'm
sorry," I said. "I just..." I trailed off, not knowing where to
go next.
    "No
worries," she cut in. "And yes, I would love to help you with your
apartment! Can I come over now?"
    Her
enthusiasm was contagious, and twenty minutes later she was sitting on the
floor of my living room adding to the list I’d begun.
     “Okay,” she
said in a matter-of-fact, let’s-get-down-to-business voice, “you’ve made a good
start here. Where did you find this?” she said, holding up a goldenrod colored
vase.
    “This place
called Dwell,” I replied.
     “Oh, I love
that place! I should have known.” I decided to wait to tell her about my very
recent new job there. I wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle it. “Okay, I can
definitely see where you’re heading in terms of color and style.”
     If you
say so , I thought.
    “Let’s go
room by room and list big items first and then go back and add the other
accessories you think you want. You won’t really know until you get into the
store and see, of course.”
    “Of course,”
I said, mimicking her tone. She rolled her eyes in reply.
    Two hours
later, the list complete, gossip caught up, Marcie stood up to go. “Tomorrow,
eleven o’clock,” she said firmly. I nodded. I was now officially excited about
filling my new home, and the day of lunch and shopping ahead would hopefully
end with a firm move in date.
     
    My room at my
parents’ house was filled with boxes half-packed, bags ready for the trash or
donation slouching among them. That’s the worst part of moving--the time
between packing and leaving, when nothing is where it should be and everything
is a mess. And so my bed had become an island of sorts. With music playing
softly in the background and pen poised over notebook, I pondered the words I
had just written on the page between scribbles and cross outs. Writing was
something else I’d lost along the way, and getting back to it was like the
first workout after months of skipping the gym: painful. The metaphor I was
attempting to weave into the poem I was writing was not working. It was