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Jack said, “I expect you to come to work. Where you belong.” Clearly, I was talking to a man. A woman would understand that I belonged at Saks.
    “Douglas and I are having some problems,” I said, brushing my hand against a row of spring dresses. “So, I just need a day to get back to myself.”
    “Vanessa said he kicked you out of the apartment,” Jack said.
    “Well, yeah,” I said, “that’s sort of, like, the problem.”
    “What are you doing in Saks?” he said. “Come to the office and I’ll take you out for lunch.”
    “I don’t want lunch, I just want Douglas,” I said. I hoped he understood that I was saying that I wanted Douglas back, for things to be the way they used to be, and not that I was actually suggesting that I wanted to
eat
Douglas for lunch. Although I was not opposed to the occasional afternoon rendezvous….
    “Well, it’s over, so why don’t you let me take you for lunch,” he said.
    “Can you even
pretend
to be supportive?” I asked.
    “You want me to support your going to Saks?” he asked.
    “I don’t have any clothes or makeup,” I said. “I didn’t get a chance to pack anything on my way out.”
    Jack didn’t respond. I could tell that he was brushing his hand through his hair as he thought.
    “Well, then,” he said, clearing his throat as he did, “I’ll pick you up at Saks right now and take you to the apartment to pack a bag. It’s the middle of the day so he won’t be home.” I could tell that he was deliberately refraining from saying Douglas’s name, sort of the way Harry Potter only calls Voldemort “he who shall not be named.”
    “Thanks, Jack,” I said, “but I’m fine.”
    An hour and a half later, I walked out of Saks with three enormous shopping bags, two garment bags and a tiny shopping bag that held all of my cosmetics. It was amazing that you could spend that much money at the cosmetics counter and the sum total of your purchases could fit into a tiny bag that would barely hold a pair of shoes.
    As I pushed open the door to the Fifth Avenue exit, there stood Vanessa in front of a town car holding a sign that said “Brooke Miller.”
    “What on earth are you doing here?” I said, my eyes almost brimming up with tears at the sight of her.
    “Jack said that you were here, so I thought I’d take you downtown to get your stuff.” She grabbed a shopping bag and garment bag from me and signaled for the driver to pop open the trunk. “We’ll do it quick and painless, like ripping off a Band-Aid.”
    “Thank you,” I said, a tear escaping from my eye.
    “Breakups suck,” she said, putting her arm around me.
    As the car sailed down Fifth Avenue, Vanessa and I sorted through my shopping bags, deciding which items I would have to return and which she would be borrowing.
    We arrived in front of the Soho Triumphe and Vanessa got out of the car with me. I told her that I thought I should do this part alone.
    “Hi,” I said to the doorman as he stopped me on the way in, “I’m Brooke Miller, I live in 32G. Well, lived,” I said, unsure of my new status. I finally settled on saying: “I’m in 32G.”
    I got up to the apartment and opened the door. Even though it had only been mere hours since I’d left, it already felt as if I didn’t recognize the place. Everything somehow looked colder, more antiseptic, and I didn’t see a trace of myself in it. I walked over to the windowsill and saw a picture of Douglas and me, taken when we were down in the islands for Christmas the previous year, nestled among the other
objets d’art
he had lined up on the sill like little soldiers.
    It’s not over,
I thought. If it were over, that would have been the first thing I’d have thrown out. My first step in moving on. (I probably would have hurled it right out the window, but let’s not get technical.)
    Walking into the bedroom, I took a deep breath. It smelled just like Douglas. Woodsy and manly and dark. The bed was unmade and I smiled,