“Grammy. She knew it was time. Had a stroke about nine months ago and was in a wheelchair. If she couldn’t make dinner for her family or go shopping for bargains, life wasn’t worth living. Back to you. You’re meeting a friend? An insistent one, I take it?”
Insistent was one way of looking at it. I’d spent the week vacillating between stubborn, annoying, selfish, spoiled, and sweet. Maybe all of the above—especially sweet.
“You’re thinking about it, I see.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “He’s an old friend, and we have…”
“Reacquainted?”
“Yes, that’s one way of putting it. Anyway, he needs to go to Hawaii on a work project and I’m joining him.”
We started pulling away from the gate, the attendant walking down the aisle making sure our seat belts were buckled.
“Sweeeeet,” Nelle commented to me. “I mean, that’s so hype. A true love story— Friendship story,” she quickly corrected herself.
I knew she didn’t mean “sweet” in the “kind” sense, but more scintillating. Except I was too old to refer to gestures assweeeet.
“For how long?”
We were on the runway now, and I was feeling certain there was no sleep or work in either of our futures. Nelle was a dog with a bone.
“Probably two weeks,” I said softly as the plane turned its nose in the air.
“Two weeks! Girl, this guy must be crazy for you. That’s a commitment.”
Swiveling to face Nelle, I spoke honestly for the first time in days. “That’s what I’m afraid of. Two weeks is way beyond the moratorium for getting sick of people. Using the bathroom, sharing routines, walking around without makeup. I’m in my forties…”
Nelle shrugged and said, “Duh, so what?”
“Forties is way different than twenties. One day you will know what I mean. I’ve known this guy all my life, and yeah, it’s so amazing we’ve reconnected on some level. But I’ve been on my own—mostly—since my twenties, and I’m in a routine. I’m set in my ways.”
I hadn’t even been this transparent with Val when she’d been on a bender, calling me silly for not wanting to go and telling me I was scared of happiness.
Could be that this stranger put me at ease, but whatever it was, it felt great to get it out of my head and into the world.
“So? We all have routines?” Nelle kept after me long after we were at cruising altitude and on our way to LAX.
“Those routines look different as you age. I need to do face masks and apply collagen to my skin. Sometimes I need a laxative, and other times I need Beano. My belly changes sizes multiple times throughout the month, and without a bikini wax, it’s an ugly jungle…”
Nelle threw her head back in laughter. “Oh. My. God. I can’t breathe,” she exclaimed, holding her stomach.
“TMI? I know, but that’s the reality. You asked about my friend.”
“Let me tell you this. You ever run up and down a court for thirty-five minutes, sweating, with other people trying to stop your every move, while jumping in the air to lob off a shot?”
“Do I look like I play basketball?” I waved my hand in front of my beige sweater and stretchy jeans, my curls bouncing on my head.
“No, which is why you wouldn’t know what my stomach feels like when I come off the court. Rumbling, needing a bathroom,ASAP. Then I chug a bunch of water later, and you never know if it will hit again. Plus, my skin is dry from all the showers, and I need a face mask too. Did any of this stop me from seeing my man? No. Not until he proved to be a dick. Point is, we all have habits and things we think are embarrassing to share. But if we hide behind those things, we’d never find love.”
How was she spewing wisdom at me? “I have a few decades on you. How do you know—”
She interrupted me. “So, we all have stuff to contribute.”
I nodded and murmured, “Thanks, Nelle.”
“Anytime, Jamie. Now show me a picture of this friend.”
On the verge of arguing about doing so, I pulled out my phone and toggled to my recent photos, where there was a selfie Ford took of us while we were golfing.
