Switched (2 page)

The corners of Jackson’s mouth curved up in a smile. Happy. I smiled in return. It briefly occurred to me that I was crazy, allowing a stranger in my bed like this, but I was happy, too. It felt right. I threw away my last doubts, secure in the cloud of desire that surrounded us.

“Crazy, right?” Jackson whispered, reading my mind. “I’ve only just met you, but I know you. And I want you. You were made for me.”

With no more preamble than that, he kissed me.

There are more varieties of kisses than colors of jelly beans. Our first kiss was the best color with a long-lasting flavor. A giant jelly bean, sweet and satisfying, full of calories and not an ounce of guilt. Our lips moved together, deeper and deeper, our tongues exploring each other.  My eyes closed, and our bodies drew closer until the length and breadth of us were touching.

Lying in my bed, wrapped in a man’s arms, I grew dizzy. The room spun around, and it wasn’t because of the Vicodin running through my veins. Jackson was a much more potent narcotic than anything the pharmaceutical companies could dream up.

The pores of my skin opened and sprouted goose bumps. It was the Olympic gold-medal jelly bean kiss. And it went on and on. It occurred to me that I had just met my forever man, and he was mine.

“Jelly beans,” I murmured against his lips.

“Jelly beans,” he agreed and kissed down my neck and then farther down after that.

That was three years ago.

***

Stacy handed me a tissue, and I wiped my nose. “He saw me, and it was love at first sight for the both of us,” I blubbered, reading from my wedding toast note cards. “Since that moment it’s been a perfect life. A lifelong love, a beautiful condo with a view of the lake, a Porsche Cayenne, and this.” I held out my left hand where a gorgeous diamond ring hugged my third finger until only this morning.

“Are you done?” Stacy asked me.

I dropped the note cards to the floor and wiped my nose with the lace hem of my wedding dress. “Y-y-y-yes,” I cried and broke down in heaving sobs, throwing my body onto the leather recliner/massage chair I bought for Jackson as a wedding and welcome home present.

“Do you feel better? Do you feel a sense of closure, making your wedding speech, even though, you know, you didn’t get married?” Stacy asked me from her seat on the couch. She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “How many calories are in Jordan almonds?”

There were four-hundred ribbon-tied packages of Jordan almonds on the coffee table in the gorgeous condo Jackson bought as part of our new life together. The almonds were just some of the casualties of my canceled wedding.

“Help yourself,” I blubbered. “It’s not like anyone is ever going to eat them.”

“It’s like the botanical gardens in here, like a potpourri factory exploded. Why did they dump all the flowers in your place?”

“Because I-I-I-I paid for them.” I broke down in more tears, curling up in a fetal position on Jackson’s chair.

Stacy covered her mouth and nose with a tissue. “I’m thinking all these flowers aren’t healthy,” she said. “I’m thinking wearing your wedding dress isn’t healthy.”

I lifted my head and wiped the snot from my nose on my bare arm. Stacy was sitting on the couch, looking around at my wedding decorations-stuffed luxury condo with an expression of disgust.

I was peeved at her non-best friend attitude. “You’re supposed to pat my head and tell me it will all get better,” I said.

“It will all get better,” she said absentmindedly. “I’m looking around for a suitable weapon to kill Jerkface. But Jerkface only left you with half of the bills on a ludicrously expensive wedding after he jilted you three hours before the ceremony.”

“He’s not Jerkface,” I cried. “He’s Jackson. He’s wonderful.”

“He’s Jerkface with a rich family, who could have easily paid for the whole thing.”

“Jerkface’s—I mean Jackson’s—mother told me that I needed to pay half to maintain my self-respect as a businesswoman,” I said.

Stacy snorted and moved some of the flower bouquets onto the balcony.  I knew what her snort meant. In the past three years, I sort of let my career slide off the partner track while I focused on being in love. I had joyfully maxed out four credit cards to fulfill his mother’s idea of a perfect wedding, knowing that I was going to spend the rest of my life with the man of my dreams.

“At least he left you this condo?” Stacy asked me hopefully, dusting pollen off of her yoga pants. The minute we learned that Jackson had called off the wedding, she had thrown her bridesmaid dress in the trash.

“Uh, I think so,” I said.

She raised an eyebrow, put her hand on her hip, and tapped her foot on my hardwood floor. She was a lot smarter than you’d think for a model. Wise. “Did you put it in both of your names?”

I returned to my fetal position and sobbed. No, we didn’t put it in both of our names. It was Jackson’s alone. He had explained to me why that was the better way to go, and I trusted him.

“And you, a CPA,” she said, pointing her finger at me. “Homeless.”

“You’re supposed to be my supportive best friend!”

“I am! That’s why I’m going to kill Jerkface.”

“He’s not Jerkface,” I said. But Jackson was going to prove me wrong.

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. I jumped up from the chair. “It’s him! It’s him!” I cried in a whisper. “He’s changed his mind.” I tried to wipe the mascara from under my eyes, did a last swipe at my nose, and charged for the door.

But it wasn’t Jackson at the door. It was the process server with a notice for me to vacate the premises.

“Six weeks,” I read. “It says I have six weeks to move out.”

“Jerkface,” Stacy said.

I picked up the phone on the eleventh ring. It was time for Stacy’s regular call. “What?”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m lying on the couch, watching a Christmas movie marathon on cable.”

“In June?” she asked.

I put a handful of a popcorn-M&M’s mixture into my mouth and started chewing.

“Are you still in your wedding dress?” she asked.

“I took it off yesterday,” I said. “Too many Cheetos stains.”

I was lying on the couch in my bridal bra and panties, covered with an afghan my mother crocheted for me before she died ten years ago. If she were alive, she would make me homemade fudge and brush my hair until I felt better.  I sniffled at the memory.

“We’re four days in,” Stacy said. “I wish I were there for you.” She was in New York for a two-week shoot. She had offered to stay in Chicago to take care of me, but the shoot was too important for her career, and I really wanted to be alone.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Guido’s Twenty-Four-Hour Pizza and Groceries delivers. They’re taking care of me. I ate a large sausage pizza and a box of Milk Duds for breakfast.”

“Lord, we’re going to have to grease your hips to squeeze you through your front door.”

“That’s the thing,” I said. “Even with all the junk food I’m eating, I haven’t gained any weight. Even fat doesn’t want to stay with me.” I broke down and cried into my popcorn-M&M’s.

“Damn this shoot,” Stacy said after a minute of my blubbering. “I wish I could be there. I wish I killed Jerkface three years ago when he got the taxi for me and took you to the emergency room. I shouldn’t have left you then, and I shouldn’t have left you now. I can’t even find him now to kill him.”

“He’s in Bora Bora,” I said.

“How do you know? Did you talk to him?”

“He posted it on Facebook before he unfriended me. He went on our honeymoon without me.” I rolled onto my side and took a bite of a slice of pizza I found wedged between the cushions.

Stacy’s breathing grew heavy, like she was getting ready to blow. “Jerkface,” she breathed. “What did your brother say?”

My brother, Richard, was ten years older than me and the only family I had. He was also a lawyer, and Stacy was sure he could sue Jackson for the condo or something. Richard was sympathetic but said there was nothing to do except to vacate the condo in five weeks.

“And I know a debt relief guy who can help you out,” he told me with a distinct note of disapproval in his voice. I had failed in his estimation, either because of my choices or because I wasn’t good enough to keep Jackson. In any case, I cut the conversation short. I told my brother I wasn’t feeling well—which wasn’t a lie—because more than having my heart carved out, it hurt to have my big brother disapprove of me.

Still, no matter how much I didn’t want to let him down, I couldn’t get myself off of the couch. I couldn’t go back to work. And I couldn’t stop crying.

“Will you think about showering today?” Stacy asked me on the phone.

I sighed.

“Just think about it,” she continued. “That would be a start. Think about using that giant Jacuzzi tub in your marble bathroom. I mean, you should use it before you get kicked out of there.”

My breath hitched, and I stuffed some more popcorn in my mouth. There was a long, awkward silence over the phone.

“Oh, my God, my God, my God that probably wasn’t the smartest best friend remark to make,” Stacy said. “Sorry.”

“I’ll be okay,” I croaked. “I’ll probably stop hurting in five or six years. Besides, you’re right. I’ll take a bath.”

I hung up and called Guido’s for Pop-Tarts, chocolate cream soda, and a hoagie. Then I turned back to my Christmas marathon on TV just in time to see the end of
While You Were Sleeping
and the beginning of
The Holiday
.

The movie got my attention. Kate Winslet was crying on TV because the love of her life dumped her. She wept uncontrollably. For the first time in four days, I focused on something besides myself. I related to Kate Winslet. She was my sister in misery.

I started crying in sync with her. It felt good to have somebody understand exactly what I was going through, even if she was a fictional character on television. Despite having seen
The Holiday
several times, I watched it with new eyes. The eyes of the jilted bride.

A few minutes into the film, Kate Winslet was on her way to a luxury house in Los Angeles and Cameron Diaz was on her way to a snug little cottage in England, both on their way to heal in a new environment.

My doorbell rang. I wrapped myself in the afghan and opened the door. Bob, Guido’s delivery boy, was there with my latest order.

“Bob, have you ever done a home exchange?” I asked him. Bob was an acne-prone teenager with a scooter. He probably wasn’t in the home exchange demographic, but you never know, and I was excited to be thinking about a way to alleviate some of my misery.

“What’s a home exchange?”

“It’s where two people exchange their houses for a vacation,” I explained. “So you don’t have to pay for a hotel or anything.”

“I went to Disney World with my family once. We stayed at the Ramada.”

I nodded. “I see. I see. How much is it this time, Bob?”

“Fourteen bucks even.”

I handed him a twenty and told him to keep the change. I was feeling generous in my burst of optimism. Maybe there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

I grabbed the groceries and closed the door. I dug my laptop out of my briefcase and opened it on my coffee table, next to a half-eaten brownie and the remains of a lasagna. I ignored the hundreds of unread emails from people telling me how sorry they were that I was jilted and went straight to Google, where I looked up home exchanges. I found a website quickly.

It was an easy process. I just had to pay a nominal fee and post a description of the condo along with photos. Then I had my choice of a whole world full of beautiful homes. For a month I could escape, live in another home far away, walk in the shoes of someone fabulous, someone whose heart wasn’t broken, whose life wasn’t a crumbled mass of destruction.

I have to admit I first looked for home exchanges in Bora Bora. It may have been an unhealthy fantasy, but I couldn’t help but imagine myself stumbling on Jackson at his honeymoon-for-one on the beach while I wore my white bikini and convincing him to change his mind, to love me forever, and marry me right then and there during the sunset.

But there was no home exchange available in Bora Bora.

Undeterred, I was still convinced that if a home exchange was good enough for Kate Winslet, it was good enough for me. I sent messages to home owners in Los Angeles, Hawaii, Paris, and Monte Carlo. Then I sat back and ate a couple of Pop-Tarts while I finished watching
The Holiday
and waited for a reply to my offer. While the characters in the movie rebuilt their lives and found love and happiness, I got my replies.

Six rejections hit my inbox one after the other. I gasped. Even home exchangers didn’t want me. I took a bite of the hoagie and curled back into the fetal position on the couch.

My tears started flowing again, until I was hiccuping through sobs. I couldn’t believe I still had tears left after crying for four straight days. It was like I had superhuman tear ducts. I was the Wonder Woman of crying. All I needed was spandex and a cape to seal my superhero status.

Who was I kidding? If I kept eating, I couldn’t go near spandex.

I had to get a plan B and quick. Maybe I needed to join a cult or become a drug addict. I pulled the afghan over my head. I didn’t want to join a cult or become a drug addict. I didn’t even drink, and I wasn’t what you’d call a spiritual person. The Hare Krishnas probably didn’t want me, either.

Just as I was ready to order something else from Guido’s, my email chirped, notifying me of an incoming message.

Dear Chicago Luxury Condo,

We are in love with your home, and we would be thrilled to exchange our villa in Mallorca for the next four weeks. Our home is completely renovated in a beautiful village. Please enjoy the photos of our house. We hope you will accept our exchange.

Someone wanted me! Someone wanted to exchange my luxury Chicago condo for their home in Mallorca. I was thrilled. For the first time in four days, I felt wanted. Loved.

Mallorca.

Where was Mallorca?