These days, I’m drinking a lot less booze and a ton more water. I’m not smoking (Oh, you didn’t know I still did that? I probably never mentioned it in previous Kingman family Christmas cards). I joined a running club, and yes, all who know me well are still as blown away by this development as I am. Not only that, but I continue showing up on Wednesday nights for these torture sessions filled with lovely people, some I now call good friends.
Most memorably and celebratorily of all, pinch me, along with the above changes and the aid of my beloved hormone therapy, I am sleeping through the night (or four-hour stretches, but still) without soaking throughmultiple sets of my ratty, decades-old college sweats and worrying about the state of the state. Trust me, that is quite an accomplishment for this middle-aged woman.
All in all, life has been a dark bitch the last nine months, but I feel myself turning toward the sun as the year comes to a close. I eagerly await all your spin-doctored, self-congratulatory, chipper-as-Charo Christmas cards and letters. I will likely call bullshit on each and every one of them.
Merry Christmas (and because I am a lazy Christian, let your Jewish and Muslim friends wish you Happy Chanukah and Eid) and have a mediocre New Year, because, let’s be honest, breaking even is doing pretty fucking well.
Forward is forward,
Callie Kingman
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Present
From outside the restaurant, my cheek nearly skimming the building’s rough facade, I peek through the picture window to the right of the door and spot Chap waiting for me next to the host’s stand, which is festooned with classy Christmas tinsel. Hands in his pressed-pants pockets, Chap has his suit jacket buttoned, and I blow out a small breath of relief that I am not overdressed, potentially looking like his mother rather than his date.
Even in the nippy thirty-eight degrees, my insides heat up at the absolute worst moment. Whether it’s from nerves or tanking hormones or both, I take off my long wool evening jacket and stand in the biting air with my arms outstretched to cool myself in all the places I might begin to sweat and leave a stain. After a two-minute cold plunge, I feel my internal temp return to normal and hope a rosy flush is dappling my cheeks. Glowing is attractive, glistening is not.
Opening the door, I chirp, “Hi, Chap,” with a casualness I do not feel.
“Whoa, Callie. You look unreal,” Chap admires, appearing surprised by my shape-shifting from sweaty, heaving runner to a woman who wears heels and her hair down. “I mean, you always do,” my datebacktracks, realizing that his compliment may have been served with a side of insult.
“Aw. That’s nice of you to say,” I respond to his lie and place my hand on my dinner companion’s forearm as he reaches to take my coat. Chap looks down at my hand on his arm, and I quickly pull it away. Was that too forward? Too presumptive about what this dinner is? “Are you having a good birthday?” I ask to swing our first minute together from breezy to awkward to back on neutral footing for both of us.
“I am,” Chap says, as he hands my jacket to the college student manning the coat check. “And it’s about to get better.” I blush, my mind spinning, wondering if Chap is referring to the meal, our shared conversation ahead, or the possibility of what may follow.
“Come with me.” Chap puts his elbow out for me to take.
Very old-school charm of him, but I can’t stop myself from asking, “Shouldn’t we wait for the host to seat us?”
“Don’t worry, I got this,” Chap replies, but I detect a waver in his voice. I appreciate him revealing, even if unintentionally, that there is a small part of him that is as nervous about this evening as I am.
Walking with Chap to our table, I catch a quick glimpse of myself in the oversize gilded mirror hanging on the wall. My thick chestnut hair looks perfectly polished, compliments of three hours and $380 spent in the salon yesterday. The profile of my breasts looks perky, as if here is where my boobs have always been. I need to remember to thank Lisa for insisting I wear the lifting and minimizing contraption she helped wrestle me into. My lipstick is a tad heavy, so I roll my lips together to try to take the velvety reddish-brown sheen down a notch.
I took a nap this afternoon to ensure I don’t yawn in Chap’s face at 8:58 p.m., my body anticipating its usual 9:30 p.m. bedtime. With the investment of time and preparation for this date, I do feel like I’m bringing not only the best A-game for my age, but I daresay I’m also feeling ten years younger these days. I take a tiny but joyful skip alongside Chap, relishing the sense that a few heads are turning my wayas I stride through the dining room to our table, which seems to be romantically tucked into the farthest corner of the restaurant.
When we reach our two-top, one of the seats facing us is already occupied. Chap clears his throat and, with the certainty of a detective who has cracked his career case, reveals, “Callie Kingman, I believe you know my uncle, Porter Beaumont.”
My right arm falls out of the crook of Chap’s elbow, and my quilted black chain purse drops to the floor with several clinks and a thud. The man at our table rises slowly. I look at Chap, who smiles sheepishly but doesn’t make any gesture to indicate what I’m supposed to do next. Running away, sitting down, and fainting, among others, are all viable possibilities.
“Hello, Cal-lee,” Porter drawls.
The sound of my name coming out of this man’s mouth after three decades is so achingly familiar, it hurts. My eyelids close, and I will my pounding heart to slow, slow, slow down just enough to allow my brain to possibly grasp this impossible moment.
“You look beautiful.”
I reopen my eyes and guardedly turn my head from Porter to Chap and back to Porter.Do I look beautiful to Porter after thirty years of living?Just minutes ago, I felt like I was representing middle-aged women everywhere pretty well, but I certainly am no longer my twenty-two-year-old self Porter could not get enough of a lifetime ago.
“Do you want to sit down?” Chap whispers in my ear, my body frozen in inaction.
I don’t know. Do I?
Chap moves to pull out the empty chair, and Porter steps in. “Let me do that, son.”
“Wait, are you actually his son, not his nephew?” are my first words.
All this time, I thought Chap was flirting with me on text and at running club, showing genuine interest in me. I thought I was beginning an affair with a man who turns out to be the son of the love of my long-ago life. Like a thwack to my fog-filled head, of course, Ishould have known there was something else at play. What would a young man like Chap want with an older woman like me? I was no Demi Moore, and even she and Ashton Kutcher couldn’t make it work. Grasping what a joke I’ve made of myself in front of Chap, Lisa, Quinn, and the Heart and Sole Running Club, my pounding heart drops into the pit of my stomach like a lead ball hitting concrete.
