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

replace it,” Arianna corrects. “You can’t wear another ring on that finger.”
    I know why not. Because everyone who only does a quick glance will think I’m taken, and I’d never have a stranger propose a date when we bump into each other in the produce department at the food store. I would look married. And maybe that Why not ? is my why . Why I am willing to finally take off my wedding band—because I am merely slipping on something else in its place. Having something there means I can keep the memories even if the original ring and the husband who gave it to me aren’t there anymore.
    “Absolutely not,” Arianna tells me.
    “Then where will I wear it?”
    “Your middle finger. It will double as a big fuck you to Adam.” Arianna explains to the sales woman, “My friend got divorced this year.”
    “That is so sad,” the woman says in a completely unconvincing voice.
    “It is sad,” Arianna corrects in a more believable tone. “And she is finally getting rid of her wedding ring. So don’t you think she should wear the cuff on her middle finger? Rings on a middle finger are bad-ass.”
    “I’m not really that bad-ass,” I remind her.
    “This will make you bad-ass. Please, Rach. Not the ring finger.”
    There is a plea in her voice, one that reminds me that she has been the listener on the other end of the phone all the times that I’ve called her crying in the middle of the night. She has lugged over Beckett and brought cookies and camped out on my floor.
    She has given me for years what Adam couldn’t even muster giving me for minutes at a time—her attention, her ear, her sympathy. She advises me not out of cruelty, but because she will be the one on the other end of the line when I call her a few days from now, crying because the new ring still reminds me of the old ring. I extend my middle finger towards the woman and hope that because it is not pointing upward, it is not offensive.
    Sandra Bullock’s stunt-double measures my finger with a ring of sample sizes and finally picks out the proper copy of the paisley-printed cuff to slip onto my hand. I stare at the exquisite cuff, just slightly right of the puffy line left behind by my old ring. And I choke on my words, telling her how much I love it. That I’m going to wear it home.
    I should sell my wedding ring but I can’t bear to do it. So I tuck my wedding ring into the back of my underwear drawer. I’m aware that the back of a drawer isn’t the best place for a diamond ring valued at several thousand dollars, but it seems safer—both fiscally and emotionally—than lumping it in with the other pieces of jewelry that I keep in my night table. I won’t have to ever see it again unless I run out of good underwear and need to scoop a few pairs of period-flecked panties from the back of the drawer.
    I sit down at the computer, reading first through a few emails. My brother has secured two friends to come to my place for dinner and asks if I’ve broached the topic yet with Arianna. Comments have come in on a recent post on my blog about the best way to de-skin butternut squash—I didn’t know this back when I mentioned that I needed to prep the squash for a soup, but apparently there is a long-standing peel-first-or-roast-first debate. An online friend has sent a recipe-exchange chain-letter email.
    I minimize my email and open another tab and take a deep breath. I Google Arianna’s suggested online dating site, and the screen is immediately filled with a carousel of happy couple photographs. Everyone has perfect teeth and perfect skin and perfect happiness contained in a rotating 4x6 image. The newly-formed couples are playing tennis, horseback riding, and enjoying dinner in front of a fireplace. Quotes from happy customers run down the right side of the screen:
    Thank you, Datey.com, for helping me find Dave. He’s one in a million, and so are you.
    Datey.com made dating easy. And now my fiancé and I are getting married in Vail!
    I