Secret Italian Prince's Baby

"I'm a mess," I told her.

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"You'll be okay," she said, her hand rubbing my shoulder. "You'll be okay."

I didn't feel okay at all. I drained the rest of the cup of coffee. "Thanks for the coffee."

Jessica took the mug away. "I'm going to make some scrambled eggs. Get in the shower. I'll be ready in 10."

I sighed. I didn't want to eat anything, really, but I knew I had to. I had that empty morning-after feeling without the fun part.

I scrubbed the remnants of my makeup off before getting in the shower and pretending like I cared about being clean. A headache was threatening to start throbbing behind my eyes. I wanted to get back into bed, but I could already smell the eggs. I hoped there'd be cheese.

I got out of the shower, dried off, and put on a bra, some underwear, and a dress. I left my hair alone. Nobody but Jessica would see me anyway.

When I got out there, she was sliding scrambled eggs onto a plate. She'd actually made a sort of fancy scrambled eggs with spinach and cheese.

"Eat up," she said. "And drink a lot of water." She pointed to the large carafe of ice water.

I ate. "This is really good," I said. She had a tendency to have a heavy hand on the pepper, so the balanced flavors surprised me. I just needed to finish it so I could go back in my room, take off my dress, and sulk some more.

"We're going to the market," she said.

"What?" I asked.

"I need to buy some fresh vegetables. You're coming with me."

"I'm not," I said.

"I don't give a fuck if you want to sit in your room and feel sorry for yourself. You work too much and you’re unhappy. You're coming with me."

"No."

"Too bad," Jessica said.

She was such a bully. I shambled back into my room like a zombie and tied a scarf over my hair. I just couldn't care enough about the big circles under my eyes to whip out my concealer or use any makeup at all.

With Jessica's encouragement, I got downstairs and sat in the passenger seat while she drove us to the farmer's market. It was full of so many people that it took us a solid 15 minutes to find a parking spot, and we only got it by cutting off another person. If I cared, it would've scared the daylights out of me. But I just couldn’t muster up enough emotion to be outraged or scared. I just felt drained.

I followed Jessica around as she picked up Pink Lady apples from a man who mumbled and shouted when she couldn’t understand him. We picked up mandarin oranges and a whole bunch of mint and coriander, what we called cilantro in the US, so that she could cook some Vietnamese dish that she wanted to try out.

By the time that we made it to Annie’s and picked up coconut coffee, I was feeling a lot better. I didn’t mind paying $5 AUD for coffee that tasted better than Starbucks. We sat on a bench outside of the farmer’s market.

“Thank you for taking me out of the house,” I told her.

“You’re welcome,” Jessica said, smug as a cat who’d gotten the cream. “But you can’t mope around forever. I’m not letting you go back in there until I’m ready. Let’s get gelato.”

We walked from the farmer’s market to Devine Gelato, which was my favorite.

“Hi! Could I get three scoops, please? After Dinner Mint, Rainbow, and Cookies and Cream.”

Jessica shook her head. “That’s way too much.”

“Fuck it,” I told her, giving my credit card to the girl behind the counter who was wearing a cute apron. “You only live once.”

Jessica got a mini cone of raspberry sorbet for $3. We sat down under a big umbrella and devoured our ice cream. She was done within a few minutes. She started talking about ombré hairstyles while I concentrated on eating a mountain of gelato before it melted.

We were getting a lot of looks from the young backpackers walking by us.