“Check the fit! Someone’s found her personal running style!” Daphne emits a loud whistle and a twirl of her index finger, demanding that I give our improving thirteen-minute-mile running group a spin so they can catch me from all angles. The collective clap celebrates both my deep-evergreen running jacket with matching joggers for our cold December runs and the fact that we have all shaved a minute off our mile time.
“Did you buy that online?” Eric asks. “I’m thinking of something like that for Nicole for Christmas.”
“After four years of dating?” Daphne publicly scolds Eric without a thought. “You’re going to get her running clothes you order off Amazon after about six minutes of half-assed searching? There better be something sparkly hidden in the hip pocket, because if not, I’m telling Nicole that running from you is the only exercise she needs.”
“Really?” Eric responds in genuine surprise that the group’s reaction to his gift idea is not favorable.
“Clueless.”
“Sad.”
“Doesn’t he have two sisters?” the women in our group comment, shaking their heads at Eric in profound disappointment.
“Can I get everyone’s attention?” Maureen hollers from atop Sally Bernstein’s bench. The beam of her headlamp sweeps over everyone to make sure all eyes are on her. Running at 6:30 p.m. in the dead of winter means Maureen is not only the multitasking manager and Heart and Sole’s club leader but also our safety-first supervisor. To run in the dark under Maureen’s stewardship means we are required to wear either a headlamp or reflective vest during daylight saving time months.
“Tomorrow is Chap’s birthday,” Maureen announces to the crowd like she’s already bought the hats and noisemakers. Some people make a big deal out of their birthday, like it’s an uncommon event, which, I suppose, when you have only collected a handful of them, it is. I, on the other hand, have had enough of ticking off the years. “Chap, get on up here, young man!” With a dynamic leap aided by joints not yet threatened with arthritis, Chap lands lightly on the commemorative bench and turns to bow to the crowd. I surprise myself by opening my mouth and belting out “Happy birthday to you ...” to our club’s cult of personality. One by one, Daphne, then Eric, then all our other clubmates, join in.
When we finish singing to Chap, who is most definitely basking in the attention like the social media star he has become, Maureen asks, “So, Chap. Do you have any words of wisdom for the group to mark your twenty-three spins around the sun?” I can’t help but roll my eyes, which luckily, Maureen can’t see. The amount of wisdom an almost-twenty-three-year-old man has can fit in the key pocket of a pair of running shorts, otherwise known as not much.
Chap takes a moment to mull over his answer. He is not at all rushed by the thirty-three of us bouncing on our toes, not just to warm up our muscles for the run but also because it’s too effing cold.
“Believe in second chances,” Chap proselytizes from his makeshift pulpit. After his declaration, I swear, from under my headlamp, Chap searches the crowd only to land his eyes on me.
Daphne notices Chap’s lingering look and raises her eyebrows. “I believe in second chances. Don’t you, Callie?” she both answers and asks me.
I think of the five finished essays that are sitting on my desktop. There is one in particular I am gathering the strength to share with Lisa and Quinn for their feedback before I send it, along with two more news-focused articles I will select for Elizabeth and Leslie ahead of our meeting in New York. I know my pieces are good, but I need the opinions of my two most honest coastal critics on whether the personal essay is overly revealing.
I took my cues from what Quinn told me Elizabeth and Leslie are attempting to create: the antithesis of the perky and Hamptons-preppy Katie Couric; and more the sardonic, smart, city commentary of a Fran Lebowitz if she were still in her fifties and a tad less caustic. All the words I have penned in the five promising essays feel like the faintly familiar tone ofMilk, but with the wisdom and maturity of fifteen more years of living. The difference is that now I am writing more about the juice of our existence and less of the smooth, clean slate thatMilkrepresents. I have finally tasted the sticky, sweet, pulpy, sour sips that we all take along the bar crawl of life, whether we want to or not. If the interview next week goes well and I feel bold, I may even suggest to the lespondents that I write a weekly column called exactly that:Juice. I kind of love it. And I love using my brain again in all the ways that once gave me the optimism and confidence I needed to walk into a classroom at Princeton, run the newsroom of my college newspaper, write and produce for CNN, and be willing to move across the country to build a new life and developMilk. I did that. I did all of that. And I trust I have it in me, even though it’s been many years, to take a cross-country leap again.
“I do believe in second chances,” I answer Daphne with more conviction than I’d had only a few months ago.
“That’s good to know.” Daphne nods definitively, her headlamp bobbing up and down. “Because your mom has been telling the residents at Mercy that you are getting married.”
“Ha!” I burst out in a wail, and all headlamps turn to me. “She definitely has mixed up my telling her details about Alice’s weddingwith mine forever ago. I’ll do my best to set her straight when I see her on Monday.” I think it may be time for me to remove the framedNew York Timeswedding announcement that my mom has held on to a little too tightly. The memento may be causing her extra confusion.
“Don’t sweat it, Callie. She’s having so much fun talking about your upcoming nuptials. The flowers, the food, her dress—all of it. Let her enjoy herself.”
“I’ll admit, it was a beautiful wedding.” And it was, even though, as I slipped into my dress, I whispered to Quinn that while I loved Thomas, he was not the man I thought I would be marrying. Quinn had, without words, hugged me in solidarity and recognition that neither of us had ended up living happily ever after with our first and, what we both knew but no longer said out loud, forever loves. The future that Quinn and I meticulously planned over four years of our various shared Princeton dorm rooms never came to be. In those young, idyllic days, we believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that our wishes would come true. Quinn and I could have never conceptualized what ultimately transpired.
“What are you two talking about?” Chap strides over to us, his bright smile lighting up the evening.
“Marriage,” Daphne says in a way that challenges Chap to add his two cents. She enjoys toying with him and Eric and every other under-thirty male she believes is incapable of commitment. In her defense, that has been the dataset she’s collected, given the losers she tends to date. Maureen and I have more than once not so subtly suggested that if commitment is what Daphne is looking for, she needs to date up a few years from her thirty-three on this planet.
“I don’t know much about marriage,” Chap tosses out, casually draping his arm over my shoulder. I melt slightly from the weight and also the warmth of his muscles. “But I do know a man’s got to eat, particularly on his birthday.”
Daphne and I both nod. The amount of energy Chap burns coaching, running, and generally just being young surely keeps him eating nonstop.
“Let’s go, kids!” Maureen yells, and blows her whistle, marking the start of our five-mile run. Daphne turns her back to Chap and me and begins to shuffle out of the park.
“Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?” Chap murmurs in my ear, holding me under his arm a few seconds longer so I can’t escape on Daphne’s heels.
“On your birthday?” I ask, the question registering my shock that Chap would want to spend his birthday with me.
“Best birthday present ever,” Chap declares, and skips off to give Maureen a hand down from her makeshift dais.
“Are you going on a date or taking a vow of celibacy to join a Catholic order?” Lisa inquires with none of the empathy needed for the task of dressing for my first date in a quarter century.
“Right?” Quinn yells from the screen of my phone that Lisa is holding and pointing at me. I never should have suggested that Quinn join in on this struggle session via FaceTime, which is quickly becoming a two-against-one scenario. One neighbor with zero verbal filter is more than enough commentary amid my clothing crisis. My once-favorite dress hangs off me a little too loosely. It’s true the black bias cut, wool crepe, calf-length garment now resembles a nun’s habit, but I don’t believe I am yet a full size down to justify a shopping spree or digging deep into my closet where old clothes live with the hope ofMaybe one dayattached to them.
