Every Lady Needs a Chaise

Maggie lay on her blush pink silk chaise longue in her bedroom. Her mother had insisted that all Southern ladies needed a chaise longue in their bedrooms. Maggie had never really gotten a good answer as to why since she, herself, had never felt the need to swoon. Usually, it was just a place to lay her clothes while she was ironing or hanging up laundry but today, today she guessed she needed it. Her head was throbbing and her eyes were bloodshot after staying up through most of the night crunching numbers. They didn’t really need to be crunched, she knew, as she kept meticulous books, but her mind wouldn’t settle, and rogue tears kept escaping her eyes. She continued to work the numbers over and over until she was literally too tired to keep her eyes open. She had run into JT leaving the house to go get the kitchen set up for the breakfast rush at 4 AM. He could tell she had been crying, of course. “Maggie!” he’d cried out in surprise as he almost ran into her in the darkened kitchen