A knock on my apartment door jolts me from the seductive words of the journal I’ve been reading to the point I darn near toss the notebook over my shoulder. Guiltily, I slam it shut and set it back on the simple oak coffee table where it had been left by my neighbor and close friend, Ella Ferguson the night before. I hadn’t meant to read it. It was just...there. On my table. Absently, I’d opened it, and I’d been so shocked at what I found that I hadn’t believed it could really be my sweet, close friend Ella’s writing. So I’d kept reading. I couldn’t stop reading and I don’t know why. It makes no sense. I, Sara McMillan, am a high-school teacher, and I do not invade people’s privacy, nor do I enjoy this kind of reading. I’m still telling myself that as I reach the door, but I can’t ignore the burn low in my belly.
I pause before greeting my visitor, and rest my hands on my cheeks, certain they’re flaming red, hoping whoever is here will just go away. I promise myself if they do, I won’t read the journal again, but deep down, I know the temptation will be strong. Good Lord, I feel like Ella seemed to feel when living out the scene in the journal-–like I am the one hanging on for one more titillating moment and then another. Clearly, twenty-eight-year-old women are not supposed to go eighteen months without sex. The worst part is that I’ve invaded the privacy of someone I care about.
Another knock sounds and I concede that, nope, my visitor is not going away. Inwardly, I shake myself and tug at the hem of the simple light blue dress I still wore from my final day of tenth-grade summer English classes. I inhale and open the door to have a cool blast of San Francisco’s year-round chilly night air tease the loose strands of my long brunette hair that have fallen from the twist at my nape. Thankfully, it also cools my feverishly hot skin. What is wrong with me? How has a journal affected me this intensely?
Without awaiting an invitation, Ella rushes past me in a whiff of vanilla-scented perfume and red bouncing curls.
“There it is,” Ella says, snatching up her journal from the coffee table. “I thought I'd left it here when I came by last night.”
I shut the door, certain my cheeks are flaming again with the knowledge that I now know more about Ella’s sex life than I should. I still don’t know what made me open that journal, what made me keep reading. What makes me, even now, want to read more.
“I hadn’t noticed,” I say, wishing I could pull back the lie the instant it’s issued. I don’t like lies. I’ve known my share of people who’ve told them and I know how damaging they can be. I really don’t like how easily this one slipped from my lips. This is Ella, after all, who in the past year as my neighbor, has become my confidante, the younger sister I’d never had. Together we are the family neither of us have, or rather, neither of us wish to claim. Uncomfortably, I ramble onward, a bad habit brought out by nerves, and guilt, apparently. “Long day of classes,” I add, “and I had piles and piles of paperwork to finish up for the summer. Lucky you got to avoid that this year, though I had some great kids I enjoyed.” I purse my lips and tell myself I’ve said enough, only to find I can’t help but continue, “I only just got home a few minutes ago.”
“Well thank goodness you have some time off now,” Ella says, lifting the journal. “I brought this over last night when we’d planned to watch that chick flick together. I wanted to read you a few of the entries. But then David called, and you know how that went.” Her lips tilted downward, guilt laden in her tone. “I deserted you like a very bad friend.”
David being her hot doctor boyfriend. What David wanted from Ella, he got. Now, I know just how true that is. I study Ella a moment. With her dewy youthful skin, dressed in faded jeans and a purple tee, she looks like one of my students rather than a twenty-five year old teacher herself. “I was tired anyway,” I assure her, but I’m worried she’s over her head with this man ten years her senior. “I needed to get to bed to be ready for today’s classes.”
“Well they’re over now and yay for that.” She indicates the journal. “And I’m so glad to get this back before my date with David tonight.” She wiggles an eyebrow. “Foreplay. David is going to love this. This thing is scorching hot.”
I gape in utter disbelief. “You read him your journal?” I’d never have the courage to read a man such intimate personal thoughts-–especially not about him. “And it’s foreplay?”
Ella frowns. “This isn’t my journal. Remember? I told you last night. It’s from the storage units I bought at that auction at the beginning of summer.”