“Seriously, Callie?” Porter barked, madder than I had ever seen him. “You know me better than that. I am not that guy, and I can’t believe, after all this time, you think I ever could be. You know me, Callie. You know me better than anyone. I would never do that to you. Never!”
I let out the biggest sigh of release while Porter railed against my inquisition. I was temporarily relieved, but at the same time I figured at least if there had been a girlfriend from high school, then there would have been a concrete answer as to why Porter wanted me nowhere near Manning, South Carolina.
“No, Porter, I don’t think I know you better than that. In fact, I’m questioning if I know you at all. If you aren’t embarrassed of me and you don’t have a girlfriend at home, and your mother has already met me even though it was under scary circumstances, then tell me why. Why can’t I come to visit and meet your family? I just want to see where you’re from, Porter. I love you, but I want to love all of you, and that means knowing where you grew up and meeting all the people who love you too. Loved you from the beginning. I have to meet them before the end of school. It’s going to be awkward for everyone if the first time I meet your dad and Rose and spend real time with your mom is at graduation. That’s just weird, Porter, so weird, and I don’t want it to be like that.”
“Drop it, Callie. You can’t. You just can’t come to Manning.” Porter stood and crossed the room to pick up his book of poetry and shoved it into his backpack, his way of indicating that our conversation was over.
I, too, rose to my feet and opened the door to my room. “If I can’t come to South Carolina, then I’m not sure we can be together anymore.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Present
“Callie, what has you looking glum this morning? Nothing is so bad that it warrants such a morose face on such a beautiful Saturday.” Maureen examines my mood a beat longer before opening her arms wide to offer me a hug I clearly need. I notice Maureen’s wearing the lightweight mint-green-and-pink windbreaker running jacket I’ve been eyeing in the front window of Jock and Jill, which I haven’t tried on because I’m afraid it might not zip up. Maureen doesn’t seem to carry such concerns, as the jacket pulls tight across her robust chest. Her mismatched orange Halloween pumpkin hat is also more than I am gutsy enough to pull off.
“Yeah, you look like one of my male patients when I catch him doing the shame shuffle, coming out of one of the women’s rooms, dejected and smelling like too-strong cologne,” Daphne adds before returning to the selfie she’s stretching her arm out above her head to take.
“Dejected?” Maureen’s attention momentarily shifts from me to Daphne, which I appreciate. I slip my hand into the waistband of my running tights to get some air between my skin and the Lycra. Stretch aside, the leggings feel tighter than when I wore them last night to go for a walk with Lisa, and though I wish I could blame it on the dryer, Ican’t. Yesterday I was feeling super proud of myself. It was the third walk I had strong-armed Lisa into taking with me, and I was able to push her to keep up with my seventeen-minute-per-mile clip. And though she complained the whole time, at the end of our four miles she asked if we could do it again on Tuesday night. Then she leaned into an IT band stretch and admitted to having picked up the move drooling over Chap’s videos during slow moments at work.
After politely turning down Lisa’s invitation to jet out and grab us grapefruit Radlers one, two, five times, I sent her home and set to grilling enough lemon chicken to cover several meals and take a plate over to my mom for a break from the Mercy Care fare. Smug from my layered day of making healthy choices, I settled into my favorite overstuffed chair and noticed how easily my legs folded crisscross in front of me without the shock of sciatica searing down my hamstring. Before cracking open the spine of Margaret Atwood’sThe Penelopiad, one of the many novels I missed in the throes of parenting through the toddler years, I held myself to brainstorming ten more article ideas to consider submitting to Elizabeth and Leslie. I even took twenty minutes to scroll through the Bergdorf’s website, an early venture into dress shopping for Alice’s wedding. That’s how positive I was feeling about myself. That’s how well my night was going. Until it wasn’t.
“Dejected because it turns out that while the older gentlemen at Mercy are trying to work the facility, the women can’t be bothered with men still being led by their penises. Your mother excluded, of course, Callie.” I nod at that truth. Now Maureen also knows that Helen has shuffled into more than a handful of male residents’ rooms, looking for an eager partner to engage in moves she hasn’t made herself in a half century, and in my mind, ever. “Rejection hurts at any age, but at least the male egos at Mercy forget their advances were refused by the time they make it back to their rooms. They get props for rising to give it another go the next day.” Daphne raises her eyebrows at the two of us. “I don’t mean rising literally.”
“Well, you know I believe consistent effort is the key to achieving any goal,” Maureen reminds us, finally pulling me in for that hug.
“Anyone seen Chap yet?” I eke out in the crush of Maureen’s embrace. I should have bought the windbreaker; the material feels nice.
“He’s over there getting his kids warmed up, and don’t change the subject.” Maureen gives my ass a strong smack before letting go, perhaps trying to slap the melancholy out of me. She doesn’t realize how deep my self-loathing has penetrated this morning.
After taking his milers to the state finals in track and field in the spring, as a first-year coach, Chap earned himself what I have come to understand from Maureen are impossible-to-receive high accolades from his uncle, as well as the head-coaching gig for Regis’s cross-country team. We missed Chap’s inaugural home meet due to a crosswording competition in Fresno Maureen was competing in, while I was in Berkeley helping Andrew change rooms in his fraternity. This weekend, though, the three of us were able to make it to the district meet to cheer Chap and his young runners through the 3.2-mile terrain.
“Spill it.” Maureen turns my upper body to face both of my new friends rather than avoid their inquisitive stares by searching for Chap.
I drop my head so the only view they have is of my side part. “For two months I have been so good, like really, really good. I haven’t been drinking. I’ve been running on my own two days a week, plus running club. I take every supplement known to middle-aged womankind. I mean, have either of you even heard of Acetyl L-Carnitine?” Maureen’s face readsOf course, while Daphne’s scrunches up in disgust. “I’ve been sticking to a high-protein and veggie diet. And I even meditate. Do you know how boring meditating is? So when I say I have been good, I meanSo Good.”
“That reminds me, don’t let me forget that I have a beef enchilada casserole to drop off to Eric after the meet but before we head to brunch,” Maureen says to Daphne and me. Last Wednesday, Eric spent the warm-up eyeing a new guy talking to his girlfriend in the eight-minute-mile group. When our plod-along posse headed out forthe evening’s 8K, Eric failed to avoid a metal post that controls the flow of traffic in and out of the park. His neck was so craned, taking in his assumed competition, that he rammed his groin right into the post, pulling the muscle he needs to walk, run, and keep his girlfriend.
“God, that sounds so yummy.” Twenty-four hours ago, salivating over the cheesy concoction would have been something I thought I no longer did, but now my whole body feels like one big creamery. “But I can’t make it to brunch today—I’m fasting,” I say definitively to convince myself as well as Maureen and Daphne that I can make it to bedtime without eating, even though it’s only 10:13 a.m. and my stomach is rumbling louder than the gathered crowd.
“Why would you do that?” Daphne questions, shaking her cup of frothy iced latte to try to slurp up the last sip. Why, when I am hell-bent on making up for last night’s bender, am I surrounded by dairy everywhere?
“Well,” I start, but then pause, rolling my shoulders into myself, beyond embarrassed to put to words the spiral I could not pull myself out of last night. Maureen and Daphne both wait quietly for me to continue, compassion written across their faces. I start and stop my opening sentence several times, not knowing what words to put to my shame. Neither Daphne nor Maureen hurries me along—a by-product, I suspect, of working with seniors who can’t find their thoughts and toddlers who don’t know them. I cover my face with both hands and push out the words between the gap in my pinkies. “I lost it. Really lost it.”
“Lost what?” Daphne asks. Peeking over my fingertips, I see she’s scanning my fingers, looking for a tan line where a ring may have been. “Whatever it is that has you all in knots, we can come over and help you find it after brunch.”
“I didn’t lose athing, unless you count my mind. And my self-control. And all my willpower.” My dignity, too, though that one I really can’t say out loud. “Weeks of doing so well, I don’t know what came over me. I was curled up in my living room, ten pages into a newbook, and I became a woman possessed. Insatiable. I felt out of my mind. After I finished off a gallon of ice cream left over from John and Andrew visiting, I went into their rooms and rooted around for any candy or snacks they left behind. I’m pretty sure I polished off some chips from under John’s bed that were from this past summer.”
“Cool Ranch Doritos?” Daphne wants to know.
“I wish. Pringles, which I don’t even like. Then when I couldn’t find anything else in my house to snack on since I did a tempting-foods pantry purge weeks ago, I hopped in my car and went to 7-Eleven for a foot-long hotdog and a shareable-size bag of Rolos, which, of course, I never planned to share at eleven o’clock at night. I was done with the hot dog by the time I pulled back in my driveway, so I washed the Rolos down with a half bottle of pinot Lisa left in my fridge. She leaves it so she can hydrate after our Tuesday-night walks. I now at least know for sure that red pairs best with chocolate.”
Maureen agrees with me. “That is so true.”
“I was full and in so much pain that I had to pop my last Xanax to fall asleep. I was holding on to that one for emergency purposes if I need it to get through seeing Thomas at Alice’s wedding. Now I’m going to have to white-knuckle it. Which sucks. All because I couldn’t just turn off the kitchen light and go to bed like a normal person.” I can feel Maureen and Daphne judging me. I’ve said too much to a couple of women who have not known me that long. Aside from Lisa, Maureen and Daphne feel like the first real friends I have made in Sacramento, which is ironic since my house is on the market, I have a semi-semi-job prospect in New York, and Quinn has offered that if I get the job, I can move in and room with her like it’s 1993 all over again.
“Anyway, I’m fine, I’m totally fine.” I try to brush away my confession with a solution that is sure to put Maureen and Daphne at ease. “I was so pissed at myself in bed last night that while I was waiting for the Xanax to kick in, I made a plan to fast all day today. Instead of brunch, I’m going on a run and then doing an online Yogasculpt class with the hand weights I just bought. And I’m drinking so much watertoday that I’m practically drowning myself, but my hope is that I can pee away some of the damage.” I hold up my water bottle as evidence. My friends probably noticed my body looking puffy from my binge session but were being too polite to say anything. I’m sure Maureen has a pithy one-liner at the ready to cheer on the strict punishment I quickly implemented to atone for my gluttony.
“All this Saturday-morning woe-is-me confessional is just because you had a snacksident last night?” Maureen chuffs, waving her hand in my face like my four-minute heart bleed was a waste of air. Daphne yawns, looking bored by the foodfession that I was sure was going to illicitoohs andahhhs of horror.
