Every once in awhile (not often enough) I go through my files and clean things out. And I find things like this:

“I’m
having second thoughts about the wedding.”

“Good,”
said Jean. She pushed back her chair and stretched around behind
herself to grab a sugar packet from the table, tore it apart like she
was imagining the groom’s head and neck between her hands, and
dumped the contents into her cup. She stirred vigorously. “Dump
that wedding. Or let me do it for you. It’ll be my pleasure.”

“I’m
not sure I should. Business has been slow, and we need the money.”

“Speak
for yourself.” Jean sipped caffeine and sugar and eyed me
suspiciously. “Is there something you aren’t telling me? Did
the rent go up? I can pay for my own coffee. We can’t possibly be
so broke that we need this wedding.”

“
The
rent didn’t go up.” I quit stalling and came clean. “It just
didn’t get paid last month. This wedding will put us in the black,
and we don’t have any other events coming up before Valentine’s
Day. We need this wedding.”

“
Trust
me, nobody needs this wedding. Including the bride and groom, except
maybe they deserve each other.” Jean nodded sharply as if agreeing
with herself.

She
had a point. I agreed with her myself. But I have trouble sleeping
when the rent doesn’t get paid. I lay awake imagining scenarios
that end with me trying to fluff up my pillow in a cardboard box in a
dark alley, a blanket of newspapers failing to block out the cold
night air. Homeless. Hopeless. Bankrupt and ruined. Better to
suck it up and coordinate my ex-fiance’s wedding, collect the cash
(I didn’t trust him to write me a check), and pay the bills before
that alley became my reality.

“We
need this wedding,” I repeated. I read somewhere that repeating
your point is assertive. I might be the older sister, but Jean is
the assertive one. I need all the help I can get.

“You
know, if we have to stoop to doing this wedding to keep from losing
our home, maybe we should move.” Jean put her coffee down and gave
me a serious look. “We don’t need that much space.”

Hey, at least it gave me a blog entry. Have you cleaned out your files lately? Also, everything gets screwed up now when I copy/paste which is why the formatting above looks like that. Will have to get around to fixing that. When I’m done cleaning out the files.