She set the phone on her dresser, opened the closet, and fingered the forest-green taffeta dress she’d impulse-purchased in a fit of optimistic shopping earlier this fall. She’d thought then it would be a perfect holiday dress. But in addition to being too formal for this evening’s party, not to mention for her afternoon class, taffeta was a try-hard fabric. Not an “I am completely over the fact that all of you in this room knew my husband was fucking around on me but apparently didn’t respect me enough to tell me” fabric. Anyway, who was she kidding? She was never going to wear that dress. A year ago, she could have worn it to the opera with Vince. But she didn’t go to the opera with Vince anymore. She didn’t go to the opera with anyone.

Which was fine, because she didn’t like the opera. She and Vince had been scheduled, in what turned out to be the week after he left, to go see some avant-garde production about a dude who loses his nose. Dani had looked at the entry on their shared calendar and, even though she’d still been in the sobbing-hysterically stage of the breakup, thought to herself, Well, at least I never have to go to the fucking Met again.

She moved the dress to the back of the closet and pulled out her standard day-to-evening black dress. It was a contoured number with a pencil skirt that had a pleasingly 1950s vibe to it. She could wear a blazer over it for teaching, then lose the blazer and jazz up the dress to make it more festive for the party.

How, though? Scarf? No. If she added a scarf to the retro dress, she would come off a little too Rizzo from Grease—although maybe some Rizzo energy was exactly what she needed right now.

Maybe she could make a jaunty hat out of the divorce papers Vince wouldn’t sign?

Because wasn’t that the cherry on top of everything? Husband leaves not only her but also the country—to spend a year’s sabbatical in Spain, where his girlfriend spends her time posting Instagram shots of herself hiking the Camino de Santiago in a bikini top—but that same husband will not sign the divorce papers.

Vince was back for the holidays. Maybe all that time relaxing in the sunshine with said girlfriend had inspired him to move things along? A girl could hope. Even though seven sessions of mediation before he left had not provided her with reason to do so.