Take better care of myself.”

“What else?”

What else? I thought that was really good stuff.

Olivia rises, and her stomach goes concave, making her trousers hit even lower on her magnificent hip bones. “You need friends.”

“I have friends.”

“Where?” I open my mouth, but she holds up a slender honey-cocoa finger. “Don’t say ‘here.’ Work isn’t your social circle. If you got fired—”

“Am I getting fired?” Olivia doesn’t own the company, but as a director she’s high up in management, knows everything, has a say in everything. It doesn’t hurt that Olivia has that enviable trait called star quality. People want to be around Olivia. Customers flock to City Events to work with Olivia. Olivia makes things happen.

“No.” Olivia glances at my half-eaten burrito in the foil wrapper, the crumpled napkin on my desk, the Diet Coke with the smudge of lipstick on the rim, and the files spread open in front of me. “You work hard; you’re conscientious, detail oriented.”

But?

“But what happens here, at your desk, is only part of the job,” she adds. “We’re all responsible for bringing in new accounts, for promoting City Events, and one of the best ways to sell City Events is by selling you.” And she smiles, a dazzling smile of lovely straight white teeth—-her own, not veneers. “But you know that, Holly, and that’s why I hired you.”

I like her, I really do, and yet right now I’m wanting to crawl under my desk and stay there forever.

More pathetic internal monologue: if Jean-Marc had loved me, I wouldn’t be here, in San Francisco, in a strange, cold apartment, at a strange, confusing job, trying: to figure out where I got it wrong, how I failed in love, why I’m the first of my friends to marry, as well as the first to divorce.

Rationally, I know that Olivia is trying to help me. It’s her job to give me feedback and direction, but honestly, her cool, crisp analysis cuts, wounding my already bruised self-esteem. I know we’re not supposed to rely on others for our self-worth. I know we’re supposed to look inside for validation, but how are you supposed to like yourself, much less love yourself, when the person you trust most asks you just to go away?

“Two words,” Olivia says, holding up two fingers and looking down her long, elegant nose at me.

“Zone diet?”

“Image. Success.”

I can feel my thighs sprawl on the chair, the weight of my limp ponytail on my neck. How can it be only Wednesday? I need Friday. I really need Friday.

“You’ve got to take charge, Holly. I know you said in the interview you’ve just been through a rough patch—divorce, you said—but it’s time to return to the land of the living. Get back in the ring. Make something happen.”

“Right.” And she is right. More or less.

“We’re going out for drinks after work. Join us. You already know some of my friends, and you’ll meet some new people. It’ll be good for you.”

“Right.” Her friends are gorgeous. And manically extroverted. A thought comes to me. “But cocktails have calories.”

“A lot less than a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.”

Enough said.

Olivia walks away. I stare at my desk.

So that’s where we are. I’m Holly Bishop, living the suddenly single girl life in San Francisco, which is also the turtleneck capital of the United States. Everyone here wears turtlenecks, lots and lots of black and gray turtlenecks with the inevitable leather coat, barn coat, barn leather coat.