Free Wallflower In Bloom by Claire Cook

Jerry’s Triple Caramel Chunk ice cream I’d grabbed at Tag’s, then buried it in chocolate soy milk. I opened the bottle of pretentious vodka and filled the blender right to the tipitty top. I knew the proportions were off, but at the moment, I didn’t really give a triple caramel shit.
    “Let the pity party begin,” I said.
    I curled up on my loveless love seat in my tiny great room. I thought about starting a fire in the little fireplace and burning my pitiful underpants one by one, but I was afraid all that scorched elastic might set off the smoke alarms. So I turned on the TV instead.
    I lucked out and found a Mary Tyler Moore Show rerun. Growing up, I’d watched the show religiously with my family on Saturday nights, long before I understood what it meant to be a single woman who knew she needed to move away when a long-term relationship ended.
    It wasn’t just any episode I’d stumbled upon, but Season 1, Episode 1, “Love Is All Around.” Mary has just moved to Minneapolis when her neighbor Phyllis butts in and invites Mary’s old boyfriend Bill to visit. Bill is a doctor and such a jerk that he even brings Mary flowers he stole from a patient’s hospital bedside. Finally, finally Mary gets up the courage to tell him good-bye for good. When he leaves, she tears up and tells herself how lucky she is to be rid of him.
    I wiped my eyes as the credits rolled. “I’m really lucky, too, Mary,” I said. “I’m so lucky.”
    I took a long drink from my tall glass. It was like the world’s most incredible milk shake. The vodka had completely disappeared into the rich, sweet chocolate-covered caramel of the ice cream. Boyohboy,Ben and Jerry sure knew their stuff. I wondered if one of them was single.
    I drained my glass and shivered as the Russian vodka hit my brain. American men could mail-order Russian brides—who knew, maybe if I placed an ad, a Russian man would order me. Totally cracking myself up, I took a moment to laugh, then clicked off the TV. I picked up the glass again and tucked my cell under my armpit on the same side. I took the handful of steps required to get to the kitchen and grabbed the blender off the counter with my other hand. Then I worked my way back up the steep stairs, occasionally putting the blender down and leaning on it for balance. I decided my next house would be a single story ranch in the south of France. And I was a poet and I didn’t even know it.
    I threw my phone on the comforter I’d been meaning to replace for at least two years and put the blender down carefully on the table at my side of the bed. Wait a minute. I didn’t even like this side of the bed. Ten years ago Mitchell had claimed the other side. And I’d let him. But they were both my sides of the bed now.
    I moved the blender over to the table on Mitchell’s former side, just because I could, and poured myself another glass of frosty heaven. I wondered if Ben and Jerry would be open to expanding with a line of soy-and-vodka-based ice-cream drinks. Frosty the Snowsoyshake? Shake, Rattle, and Drink? As soon as I had a good night’s sleep, maybe I’d pitch them. I mean, my time working for Tag certainly qualified as product development, so I had plenty of experience.
    I took a long rejuvenating drink. And another. Those Russians sure knew their vodka. Then I decided I’d cruise the Internet for a little while, catch up on the state of the world, and work up to the messages on my cell phone. My laptop was all the way over on the little desk on the other side of the room, which was starting to feel like a long, long way to go just to catch up on the state of the world, but its largerscreen seemed like a good thing right about now, and I had to pee anyway, so if I made it all part of one loop, then it made sense.
    I should have gone to the bathroom before I picked up the laptop, but I didn’t think of that until I got to the bathroom. But no worries, I just put the laptop on the floor. When I bent down to