she was that he didn’t find the real girl in the pink hat. A beret. A basic fashion IQ would’ve gone a long way, buddy.
One night after torturing herself with the missed connections, she took out her list and folded it in half. And then again. She tucked it in a desk drawer under her tax information from the last few years. “Sorry, Jenny,” she said. “You had too much faith in me.” She unscrewed a new jar of the strawberry-lime jam she’d made, and started eating it with a spoon. “Yeah, look at me now.”
She closed her eyes and set down the jam. This was pathetic. She could do anything in the world—and Jenny couldn’t. Was she really going to disappoint her and do nothing? Just because of a misunderstood missed connection? She and Jenny would be laughing about this, not crying in jars of jam.
She opened her desk drawer and found the list. Spreading it across the desk she read it for probably the hundredth time. She ran her finger down the items and stopped on one that would force her to have a new attitude. “I’m going to do it, Jenny.”
She scheduled an appointment with her hairdresser and got ready to cross another item before she lost steam.
***
“Pink?” Katie, her hairdresser asked.
“Yep.”
Katie raised her pierced eyebrow; the small diamond stud winking at her like it was in on this joke. “Pink.”
“Pink.”
Katie shrugged. “What shade?”
“Like my hat.” Zoe held up the hat sitting in her lap.
“Hot pink.” She shrugged. “You really don’t seem the type, but okay.”
An hour later when it was all done, Zoe stared at herself in the mirror. It was by far one of the craziest things she’d ever done and part of her wanted to cry, she looked so different. Katie was right. She just wasn’t a pink hair kind of girl. But pink hair wasn’t something to cry about these days. Pink hair was an adventure—an adventure Jenny would never have. What the hell, it’s just hair. “I love it!” Zoe said, after staring at herself for a moment. “This is going to be fun.”
***
But it hadn’t been. Not yet. She had to answer endless questions at work about her hair. The girl in the cubicle next to her swore there was something in the employee manual about hair color under the dress code section. Retelling Jenny’s tale so many times to explain why she’d made the color change had taken its toll. So, Zoe should’ve been thrilled the weekend had arrived. But it just seemed like a long stretch of time to spend by herself feeling lonely and sad. Maybe she’d learn how to knit; it was on the list. I’ll knit myself a cover up for the nude beach. When she walked into the lobby of her apartment building, there was a note on her mailbox to see the building superintendent. Was Mrs. Beener next door complaining about the smell of cooking jam again?
She walked down to his office and knocked on his door. “You wanted to see me, Harry?”
He looked up from a baseball game playing on TV. “Miss Zoe. How are you?”
“I’m alive.” Which was a good reminder to enjoy what Jenny didn’t have.
“Always a good thing. I’ve got a rather large package for you.”
“For me?” Lord, had she been sleep shopping again? She really had to figure out how to block QVC from her cable box. The perfume of the month was more expensive than you’d think.
He picked up the big box and handed it to her. The return address showed a post office box, but no name. “Thanks, Harry.”
“You’re welcome. You have a nice weekend. Hope it’s full of more surprises.” He smiled at her and turned back to the game.
She took the elevator up to her apartment and set the delivery on her kitchen table. She put her ear to the box, and didn’t hear any ticking or smell anything weird. With a shrug, she grabbed a knife and sliced through the packing tape.
Slowly, she opened the package. Whatever was inside was surrounded in bubble wrap. She tore that off and her jaw dropped. Then she laughed. She laughed until she cried, then laughed until she had to run to the bathroom to pee. She ran back to the kitchen table and looked at it again “An accordion!”
She lifted it out of the box, and an envelope fluttered to the ground. She picked it up and slid out a note card. “Dear Zoe, I hope this