Chapters (46)
- Cover
- Other Titles
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Friday
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- Saturday
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- Sunday
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- Monday
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
If this were a movie, she would offer to pay Unremarkable Man to go home to Thunder Bay with her and pretend to be her fiancé, and then somewhere along the way, they would really fall in love. But this is not a movie, thank god. She slams her wine glass down on the coffee table. “Get out,” she says. Unremarkable Man just stands there, blinking at her, so she stomps into the bedroom, grabs his shoes and his belt and his wallet and throws them at him, and then closes the bedroom door.
She stares at the doorknob, daring him to come in, but after a few minutes she hears the front door open and close. She lets out a deep breath. Then she climbs onto the bed with her laptop and wraps herself in the sweaty sheets, searching through news sites until she finds it: footage of Nicki standing in front of the hospital, screaming at the camera like she’s on crack, giving the television station’s censor a heart attack. “Why the bleep are you still bleeping here? She’s just a bleeping crazy old lady who did a stupid, bleeped-up thing and you guys are talking about it like it’s the biggest bleeping news story since…since bleeping ever, and if you think I’m going to just stand here and cry for your bleeping cameras like some kind of bleeping baby, then you’re bleeping crazier than she is. Now get the bleep away from me before I call the bleeping cops.”
Finn stares at the screen until Nicki’s face fades away. Welcome home, Finn!
She closes her laptop and lies back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She can still smell Unremarkable Man’s ridiculous frat-boy cologne hanging in the air. It will probably still be there when she gets back from Thunder Bay, just like the bed will be unmade, like her dirty dishes, she suddenly remembers, will still be piled in her sink. If she gets back. The stuff she has going on is not what’s keeping her here, in this nondescript suburb, in her nondescript townhouse with its plain white walls and straight-from-the-showroom furniture – 9-piece living room, 5-piece bedroom, without any personality or history, just the way she wanted it. No, the stuff she has going on is keeping her away.