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me).
    Vanessa and I made Law Review together and then went to the same law firm for our second-year summer. We’re both litigators, which means that our offices are mere footsteps away from each other on the eleventh floor.
    Which worked out perfectly for me the day after my breakup with Douglas, since I couldn’t get out of bed and needed someone to go to my office and turn on the lights and computer to make it look as if I were actually there.
    I lay in bed in Vanessa and Marcus’s guest bedroom for most of the morning, simply unable to move. Everything around me reminded me of Douglas. The picture of Vanessa and Marcus on my bedside table — a happy couple; the earrings that I had forgotten to take out of my ears the night before — a present from Douglas; the red silk drapes covering the windows — his favorite color for me to wear.
    How could this be happening to me? Why is this happening to me? What have I done to deserve this? Why didn’t I deserve to be a happy couple, like Vanessa and Marcus?
    My eyes opened at around noon, when the telephone began to ring. I listening to it ring, over and over, and threw the covers over my head in an effort to make it stop. The answering machine picked up, far and away out in the living room, and I heard Vanessa’s voice calling out to me.
    “Brooke?” she said. “Brooke, if you’re there, pick up. Pick up! Pick up, pick up, pick up….”
    My cell phone rang next. I pulled the covers back and threw my arm out to the bedside table to pick it up.
    “Didn’t you hear the phone?” Vanessa asked.
    “No,” I lied, eyes still shut.
    “Okay,” Vanessa said, “well, nothing’s really going on here. I checked your voice mails and your e-mails and I told your secretary you were in court on some
pro bono
case.”
    “Thanks, Vanessa,” I said.
    “Are you still in bed?” she asked tentatively.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Well, you should get up and eat something,” she said, “it’ll make you feel better.”
    Vanessa was right. You should always listen to doctor’s orders. Or doctor’s wife’s orders, as the case may be. I rolled out of bed and padded into the kitchen.
    “What else is going on over there?” I asked, taking the half-eaten roll of cookie dough out of the fridge and plopping myself down on the couch.
    “Quiet day,” she said. “What are you going to do about your stuff?”
    “Stuff?” I asked, flipping the television on.
    “Your stuff, your things,” she said. “As in, what are you going to wear to work tomorrow?”
    “My stuff,” I said. Right.
    “You can borrow mine until you get back downtown to pick up yours,” she said. That would have been a great idea if I could actually fit into any of Vanessa’s things.
    Vanessa was right. I should pick myself up, dust myself off, and go down to Douglas’s apartment and collect my things. That would be the mature, responsible thing to do. I should just go down there, pack my bags, and go about moving on with the rest of my life.
    Two hours later, I’d hit the makeup counters at Saks, bought a new pair of black pumps and was headed up to the fifth floor to get some new outfits when my cell phone rang. I could see Jack’s work number pop up on my caller ID and I answered it.
    “How’s it going?” Jack said.
    “Fine,” I said, hoping he couldn’t hear the music playing on the fifth floor of Saks. It was kind of loud.
    “Did you win?” Jack asked.
    “Win what?”
    “Vanessa said you had a hearing on one of your
pro bono
cases?” Jack said.
    “Oh, yes,” I said, “that. Of course I won. It went great. Great! Great, great, great…”
    “Excuse me, miss,” a salesperson asked, “would you like me to start a fitting room for you?” I smiled and nodded, and quietly handed her the clothing I was holding.
    “Brooke, are you shopping?” Jack asked.
    “Well, you can’t expect me to sit at home eating raw cookie dough all day,” I said. “Saks can be very therapeutic.”
    “No,”