Maybe it’s because I didn’t go to as prestigious a college as she did; maybe it’s because I studied English, not finance and international economics; maybe it’s because she’s very thin and doesn’t overeat and it’s obvious from my pants size that discipline isn’t my forte.

“I’m going away this weekend,” she says, and her gaze stays fixed on a point behind my shoulder. She’s checking out the fireplace. “Make sure you keep the front door locked at all times.”

We share a common entrance and front door. “I will.”

“And please don’t let your guests park in the driveway.”

What guests? “I won’t.”

Her forehead creases. She stares harder at the fireplace. For a moment she says nothing, and then, “Is there a crack in the surround?”

I turn around, look at the fireplace and the pink marble surround that’s original to the place. The apartment looked so much fresher and prettier in the sunshine that very first day I saw it, three months ago, than it does now. But three months ago I was desperate for a place of my own, and right now all I want to do is close the door and be alone. “There’s always been a crack.”

“There was never a crack.”

The good margarita fizz is wearing away, leaving the bad margarita fuzz. “The marble’s been cracked since I moved in.”

“No.”

I don’t want to do this anymore. Any of this. I’ve had it with people I don’t like, people I don’t know. I want the Marshes back, who ran Main Drug and let us charge everything to our account—Band-Aids, toothbrushes, grape sodas, Jean Nate perfume sold in sets. I want Mr. Parker, who always gave us balloons when we bought our shoes. I want the short, stocky lady at Togni Branch, who could get any filler for any academic planner, you just watch. I want my brother and sister and the sprinkler in the front yard, and most of all I want my dad back with my mom and to have him happy that we’re his family again.

“I’ll pay for it,” I say, hating Cindy, hating Jean-Marc, hating growing up and what it did to me and my heart. I used to like me. I used to believe in me. I used to believe in happy endings. What the hell happened?

Where did Holly go?

What happened to my future?

Why isn’t life more like fairy tales?

I was never going to live in San Francisco. I was never going to wear turtlenecks seven months a year. I was never going to be ruthless and severe.

I was supposed to be charming and fun, lively, entertaining, a cherished wife who’d wait a year or two and then have adorable children.

“You said it was already cracked.” Cindy’s voice snaps.

I take a quick breath and look away to stare down the dim hall that seems to wind forever to the back, where the bedroom and kitchen are. “It was,” and my patheticness just grows. I’m drowning here, I think, and I used to be a good swimmer. I was the strongest swimmer I knew.

“Then forget it.” She turns, walks out, her tiny heinie marching toward the stairs, leaving the door wide open.

I hear her climb the steps back to her apartment, the two-story apartment that dominates mine. Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

I let the door shut, harder than I’m supposed to, and in my bedroom I throw myself face-first onto my queen-size bed with the girlish headboard. I bought the bedroom set when I left college, when I got my own first apartment and thought it was pretty and grown up, and it wasn’t until I was divorced and forced to use it again that I realized the furniture set was never grown up. It’s a princess wannabe set, with a pale pink princess headboard, the kind of headboard I never had as a kid.

So I bought it as an adult.

For the adult I wanted to be, the adult I was trying to be. Oh, God.