fresh snow

"Why are you wearing that? Didn't Ian give that to you?"

"Yeah, so?"

Eleanor gave her a look of death. They were sitting in a bar in the East Village, drinking red wine and watching the white snow slowly build up outside against the black of the night.

It wasn't as bad as she was making it out to be. Eleanor loved to be dramatic, and Chloe usually let slide most of any perceived antagonism associated with her overreactions.

"I don't mind it, you know..." Chloe went on. "It didn't end so terribly."

Eleanor sat up in her stool, her back straightening. Chloe could almost see her spine bristle. "What are you talking about?! It was awful!" Slumping down back into her position on the stool, with her arms folded, she added "Well, it was awful for me, at least."

This much was probably true, and she deserved to be overly dramatic about it. Chloe told Eleanor everything. It's possible she was so used to telling her things that she might tell her too much sometimes. When they spoke, it was as if her brain took control of her mouth, and any kind of filter that Chloe would use with any other person was rendered useless. It was the result of years of friendship, and there was nothing she could do about it.

"Really, I mean. Despite everything, I just really like this necklace," she explained to her friend.

The necklace in question was a golden, precious affair, with a fine chain and a small heart pendant with a hammered finish. Chloe didn't have any good reasons to back up why she liked it, like she could some other things she owned (i.e. "it was my grandmother's" or "it has a bird on it"). She didn't even like hearts, really. But there was something about it.

"Anyway" she went on, "I've purged it of all its negative meaning, in that way."

"Oh, and how have you managed to do that?," Eleanor shot back, dryly, skeptically.

God, Eleanor could really be a bitch sometimes.

"I created a kind of new life for it. Ever since Ian and I broke up, I've worn it every day. And every day I wear it, it acquires new meaning and becomes a part of new memories... such that its previous context, its old memory, gets farther and farther away."

"Have you been eating those street cart berries again?? I told you those things...."

Chloe had already zoned out, her attention stolen by some commotion between pedestrians. Eleanor was always getting on her for buying fruits from the street cart vendors in her neighborhood in Chinatown. There was nothing wrong with it, but Eleanor only bought her fruits from Whole Foods for twice as much, so what did she know?

She definitely didn't know that Chloe was rather fond of her new theory, which she called The Theory of Replaced Meaning. She could toss out the physical vestiges of past relationships which she didn't like, but the precious few ones she liked she found she could keep and make them her own. She applied this theory not only to objects but to places, too, reclaiming over the course of time the spaces they once shared. Over the past month since the breakup, Chloe had retraced all of the steps they took together. Up and down Elizabeth, Mott, and Mulberry Streets, and across Prince and Spring, Kenmare and Broome and Grand. She'd eaten at the same restaurants, drunk the same wine in the same bars, all in this new incarnation, with friends or without. It was a daunting undertaking, but once put in practice, it was downright enjoyable. She saw it all with fresh eyes, and it was even better than before. By now, she'd canvassed the whole of their relationship, from beginning to end, and this bar, unbeknownst to Eleanor, was the last stop. The place where it ended.

"Well, are you ready to go?" asked Eleanor, slurping down the last of her wine with clear impatience at Chloe's zone-out.

"Yes, let's go eat. Max's?," asked Chloe, putting on her coat and scarf.

"Isn't that where...?"

Chloe gave her a perplexed look. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

They stepped out together into the streets full of fresh snow, their boots leaving a double trail behind them.