Holly Shumas - Five Things I Cant Live Without

This book is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright S 2007 by Holly Shumas

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Hachette Book Group USA

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First eBook Edition: July 2007

Summary: The witty story of a woman approaching thirty who must abandon her penchant for overanalyzing her life and learn to trust her gutProvided by the publisher.

ISBN: 0-446-19754-8

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

About the Author

Five Things I Cant Live Without

Acknowledgments

Many thanks go to:

My parents, whove championed me in my writing and just about everything else. Every year I get more in touch with my sheer good fortune at having been raised by people like these.

My editor, Karen Kosztolnyik, for her enthusiasm and spot-on feedback. The book is much richer for her efforts.

My agent, Stephanie Kip Rostan, who knew when to be fun, when to be frank, and when to hold my hand. She made this process smoother than I ever dared hope.

My tremendous inner circle. It will forever include Alan, for innumerable acts of kindness and for always believing someday Id arrive here. Avie, for knowing me so long and so well, and for being one of my first readers and supporters. Lisa and Jen, fo

r their unwavering friendship and their great stories. Darla, for being my kindred spirit and confidante extraordinaire. And Tarawhat role havent you played to perfection for me this past year? Miss Y, you are nothing short of magnificent.

C.S. If only I got to write all my endings Much gratitude for the ways you made my manuscript (and me) better.

My grandparents, those who are here and those whove gone. Especially Zayde, who, when I was seven, told me someday Id write the great American novel. (Well, its American, and its a novel.) And to Pop-Pop, my favorite character ever.

Chapter 1

H eres when I knew it had gone too far.

My kitchen window was stuck, and I was trying to open it. No mental gymnastics required, just simple physical action. There I was, starting to sweat with the effort, and the normal reaction would be, Wow, this is harder to open than I thought, possibly accompanied by some annoyance. Maybe the normal person would have been dimly aware that it smelled ever so faintly like cat turds because it was an unusually hot day and the litter box was sitting directly under the kitchen windowa spot that had been chosen because, in theory, that window opens while the living room windows are just floor-to-ceiling panes of glass. And the normal person might even go so far as to think what a glaring design flaw that is in an otherwise pretty decent apartment. What the normal person wouldnt do is what I did. Which was to think all those things, plus:

Why is everything always so hard? Why cant anything just open for me? Maybe this window is the symbol, and this is the key moment in my life. Maybe this is who I am and who Ill always be: some neurotic twenty-nine-year-old woman living with a roommate and her roommates obese cat, not even having what it takes to commit to a cat of her own, or what it takes to open a window.

But thats not true. I wont always be twenty-nine. And in two weeks, Ill be living with Dan. Poor Dan. He doesnt deserve this crap, all the crap involved in living with me, living with me while I live in my head.

Oh, man! Thats what this is! This is me, living in my head right now. Stop it! Sometimes a window is just a window. Stop it! Why cant I just perform a simple physical action without stepping outside of myself and wondering about it all?

Stop asking yourself questions!

All the while, as I careened from irritation to despair to rage, I was tugging at the window. It must have been the adrenaline from my anger that made the window suddenly yield. The cooling breeze rushed in and I thought, Well, that should feel nice.

I slumped to the kitchen floor just as the phone rang.

Hey, you. It was Dan.

Hey, I said, slightly dazed from the physical and mental exertion that had just taken place.

You sound funny. Whats going on?

Id feel silly if I told you. I felt silly anyway. Whats going on with you?

I just got a lead on some moving boxes. This obsessive guy I work with actually breaks down and stores all his moving boxes in his garage, and he said hell loan them to us. I noted how upbeat Dan sounded. Hes one of those people who enjoys the little things, doesnt sweat the small stuff, etc.

Meaning we have to return them? I said. Yes, I generally do sweat the small stuff, sometimes quite literally. I wiped the back of my hand across my forehead.

Yeah. And we cant write on them, either. You know how normally you write in Magic Marker, kitchen or bedroom? Well, we need to work with the existing writing. If it says bedroom on it, thats where youre packing your socks.

Okay, I said. Cool! I realized I was overcompensating; no one sounds that enthusiastic about used moving boxes. On loan.

Nora, whats wrong? Dans voice was somehow warm and expressionless at once. He was remarkable that way. Even-keeled, thats what my mother had said when I first told her about him. Shed said it approvingly. She thought I needed someone like that to balance me out, like my stepfather, Ed, does for her. It infuriated me because I suspected she was right.

I went to open the window, and it wouldnt open, and while I was trying to open it, the whole time, I was thinking and thinking and thinking, analyzing and analyzing, and It all came out in one angsty, humiliating rush.

Nora, he broke in firmly, youre doing it again.

It meant leading my meta-life. Meta-life is the opposite of living in the moment. Its the syndrome of simultaneously having an experience and being an observer commenting on and questioning the experience. By observing something, you change it, sometimes for the better, but in my experience, usually for the worse. You know youre in the meta-life when youre critiquing an experience while youre having it (This is fun but it would be more fun if ), trying to talk yourself into happiness because you