Life From Scratch by Melissa Ford Read Free Book Online Page A

I’m-sorry-that-I-missed-your-work-function-yet-again-because-I-was-working-really-late gift.
    It wasn’t even about Me&Ro or jewelry at all, but the fact that we went from thinking-about-you moments to forgot-you-existed-at-all. When we first started dating, he noticed everything about me. He knew more about me than I even knew about me, remembering what I wore on certain dates or which book I read on which trip. But while I could still rattle off what he ordered at each restaurant, which tie he liked with which suit, the movie he wanted to see after glimpsing it on a coming attractions kiosk, he stopped noticing me. He stopped hearing what I was saying and filing it away for later use to show me that he thought about me even when I wasn’t around.
    Maybe he needed me to spell it out for him, have Arianna drop the hint directly before an anniversary, but it felt like it didn’t count if you needed to tell the person outright. He should have been attuned to that sort of thing, looking out for dropped clues into what would make me happy, just as I was always trying to read his mind and do little things for him.
    Instead, since he always had his nose buried close to his blackberry screen, I’m not sure he could have even named this store if someone put a gun to his head. I don’t know if he could have named my favorite cereal (Special K) or the book I had read at least 12 times ( Jane Eyre ) or the brand of lipstick I used (always Bobbi Brown). I knew every detail about him: his choice of after shave (Gillette, picked up at Duane Reade), his favorite piece of sushi (unagi), which turnstile he always used at the 6 th and 23 rd subway stop (the one all the way to the left).
    Which only makes the store more enticing as the place to replace my wedding band. Toss out the old, bring in the new. Be good to myself.   Arianna is a patient shopper, even when she’s paying a babysitter at home $15 per hour to entertain Beckett with fuzzy toys. She points out idea after idea in the case. A ring covered in Tibetan writing, one that looks like a skull with ruby eyes, a set of three, hammered, stackable rings.
    “Have you ever considered online dating?” Arianna asks.
    “Not exactly,” I say, not wanting to offend in case she’s thinking about searching for a husband herself online.
    “I’ve actually been on a few dates through Datey.com, and they were all really good.”
    “Then why aren’t you dating those men anymore?”
    Arianna chooses to ignore this question and instead reads a tiny card propped up next to a bracelet. “You could try it. You can set up an account for free and wait for someone to contact you and go on one date before you write it off.”
    My eye catches on a thick cuff ring, etched with flowers and leaves and tiny designs.
    “This one is beautiful,” I breathe.
    And just like that, Arianna hears the love in my voice and drops all other suggestions—jewelry or online dating—coming behind me to agree that it is not only love at first sight, but it is love within the first eight minutes of stepping into a store, and therefore, it is also fate that this ring and my hand be joined.
    “You just know, you just know,” she murmurs, like a sorcerer testing out a potion.
    A woman who could have been a dead-ringer for Sandra Bullock unlocks the case and pulls out the ring for me. I slip off my wedding ring, taking my time twisting it over my swollen knuckle. I’ve taken it on and off before, but there is something about this time that feels momentous, as if I’m about to set it on fire or toss it into the sea, rather than place it in my pocket.
    “Do you know your size?” she asks politely.
    “I don’t,” I admit, extending my ring finger so she can slip on the cuff.
    “Rach,” Arianna admonishes, “you can’t wear it on that finger.”
    “Why not?” I ask, completely taken aback by this thought. Wasn’t the entire point to this outing to get rid of the wedding band?
    “Get rid of it, not