Free Impossible Things by Alexandra McBrayer Page A

pleasure that was building but she found it impossible, so giving up she sat up, washed off and got out. Letting the water out of the tub she dried herself off with a towel while staring at her reflection in the mirror.
    She thought that she was attractive, cute more than pretty, with black hair and blue yes, but she wondered what the stranger had seen in her.
    When she realized that she was thinking about him again she turned away from the mirror and shut off the light.
    Putting on an old t-shirt of Sam’s she crawled into bed next to him.
    She felt lost.
    She didn’t have a job, she was living in a strange city, and Sam was away from home all the time, added to that was the fact that she had done something so uncharacteristic that she didn’t feel like she knew herself anymore.
    Sighing she rolled over and went to sleep.

Chapter Eleven
    She woke to the sound of the phone ringing and rolled over to pick it up. It was Sam’s mom, and Lucy spent the next hour lying in bed listening to her talk about all the things that needed to still be done for the wedding.
    She didn’t have to say much, a few grunts of agreement every now and then, and when they finally hung up Lucy wanted to cry with gratitude. She liked her future mother-in-law but she was driving her nuts.
    Lucy didn’t care, had never cared about having a big wedding. She had wanted her ceremony to have meaning but that had been lost long ago when Sam’s mom got involved. It was now more his mom’s day than Lucy and Sam’s and it made Lucy sick to think about standing up in front of three hundred guests, most that she barely knew, and pledge their love to each other.
    Sam didn’t care either but as always he did what he mom said and told Lucy to follow along.
    She realized that it was only nine and she was already feeling depressed, so she got up, fixed herself toast and coffee and took it back to bed.
    Looking around the apartment she had to shake her head. Sam’s clothes were scattered everywhere. His suit from the day before was on the couch and his discarded socks were in a pile by the bathroom door. It was a small apartment, just one room, but it was expensive in comparison to what Sam made.
    She knew she needed to get up, and get going, she had so many errands to run for the wedding that she didn’t even know where to start but the idea of all of it left her feeling drained.
    She finally made herself get out of bed and she cleaned the apartment and started a load of laundry. Seeing that Sam only had two clean shirts left she gathered together a pile of his clothes for the dry cleaner and went to take a shower.
    When she got out she got dressed, grabbed her list of errands and Sam’s clothes and left the apartment. She dropped the clothes off at the cleaners, stopped by a place that allowed you to send faxes and sent the church their last instructions. She stopped at the place where Sam had purchased his suit to make sure that they had his measurements, and finally, in the early afternoon, she was able to stop and grab a coffee.
    As she sat and drank her coffee she realized that she had only one place left to go and while part of her was excited about this particular errand the other part of her dreaded it. She had an appointment to do a test run on her make-up for the wedding.
    She finished her coffee, got back on the tube, and ten minutes later she was standing in front of the small store that Julie, her florist, had recommended.
    When she went in she was immediately transported back to her days as a teenage girl who had haunted mall make-up counters. She was wondering around admiring everything and smelling the sample bottles of perfume when a girl with bright pink hair approached her. “Hi , can I help you?”
    Lucy felt dowdy next to her. Her hair was in a bun, again, and she hadn’t put on any make-up before leaving the house. Her jeans and sweater were boring and she suddenly felt much older than her twenty-seven years as she answered, “Hi.