“Let it be known you saved yourself, Callie. We were all just here to cheer you on.”
Ten Months Later
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Present
“Quinn, I told you, I can’t go this weekend. I’m buried in emails from readers that I haven’t had a chance to get to, and Elizabeth and Leslie demand a seventy-two-hour response time for customer retention. Then there’s theJuicepodcast proposal I haven’t even looked at yet that I have a meeting about first thing Monday.” Though my days of having a face for broadcast news—simultaneously trustworthy, sanguine, and smooth—are long past me, apparently the gravelly resonance of my voice rings with the evidence of a life that’s been lived. I think it’s a combination of a thirty-year secret cigarette habit that I still desperately miss, coupled with the exhaustion of a move across country, working fifty hours a week in a start-up, and training for the New York City Marathon. I’ve also never felt more awake and alive. More me.
“That’s what the train’s for.” Each sweater Quinn adds to my weekend bag to combat the possible chill of October’s changing seasons, I take back out. “And you promised me.” Since joining as Employee Number Three atJuicelast winter, I went from aimless days rattling around my house in Sacramento to my hours being organized in fifteen-minute increments. On Mondays and Thursdays, I write opinion essays for my feature section, “Squeezing the Truth Out of Life.” I go onto edit the news copy of four journalism junkies I manage, who have also reentered the workforce and are members of the sandwich era.Juiceis now a team of nine women—all between the ages of forty-two and sixty-eight—and growing, led by Elizabeth and Leslie, all of us hungry to regain the intellectual stimulation and financial independence that we stepped away from for individual reasons and varied amounts of time.Juicehas been accused of being discriminatory in our hiring practices, and to that accusation, my response is always the same: “Yes, yes, we are.”
American media feeds to middle-aged women that the only full-time job we are qualified for is wellness addict because no one else will hire us. Acai, antioxidants, ashwagandha. Almond milk, oat milk, cashew milk, pea milk—any milk that leaves you scratching your head, wondering how it’s milked. Hot yoga, hot saunas, hot stone massages. This is the industry in which we are allowed to participate. But what’s really on fire is a group of women who can lift a car off a pinned child launching a start-up. Work is the mundanity of living for other people. Getting up five days a week to run in the outdoors and then head to the office at 30 Rockefeller Plaza has been nothing short of a mash-up of an adrenaline rush and a cerebral high. I now believe that women come into their true calling in life in their forties and fifties, and it is my personal mission as the chief of content atJuiceto make sure we all know it.
What I also know is that Helen misses Daphne, and our trips to the mall food court particularly, because I have established a strict “no Nutter Butter” policy with the caretakers at her new facility five blocks from Quinn’s apartment. At least whenever we step out for a walk on Madison Avenue, my mom lights up with the spark of familiarity. With her age-spotted hand hooked through my elbow for sturdiness, we walk a few blocks, taking in the throngs of faces passing us by. I know she’s looking for my father. And one too many times, she has stopped a tall, handsome gentleman in a Burberry raincoat with a full head of silver hair and asked, expectantly, “Rhodes?” Of course, it never is. My heartdoes clench when her eyes light up with anticipation, but the hunt for my father seems to have supplanted her porn addiction, at least for the hour we go outside together, so there is no upside to nipping her fantasy of finding my father again in the bud.
“When I invited you to live with me, it was because I thought we could rediscover fun together. Remember the things we once did when we were younger? We got dressed up, we drank cocktails, we went out to clubs, we made other women jealous.” I should correct Quinn that people were jealous of her. My definition of fun was living in the pages of books filled with the accuracy of the perfectly placed semicolon, precisely chosen words, a beautifully crafted passage.
“If I wanted a workaholic wife, I would have chosen one who makes way more money than you. First time, marry for love. Second time, money.”
It’s true. Financially speaking, I am a terrible choice of a life partner for Quinn. Adjusted for inflation, I am making roughly the equivalent of my salary as a twenty-nine-year-old producer back when I worked for Elizabeth in 1998, but I do now have a hefty stock-option package, and I believe in us. And by us, I mean the women of my generation.
“Sorry to disappoint, on all fronts.” I lean in and give Quinn a quick peck on the cheek to soften her pout.
Ding.
“I’m not done begging,” Quinn informs me, and hands over the phone lying face down on my bed.
5:52 p.m. (Maureen)
Twenty-day countdown! Whether we think we can or we can’t, we are! Last big training run tomorrow morning and then we start to taper. Don’t forget to send me your mileage from last week.
The accompanying picture is of Maureen, Daphne, and Lisa in their hydration vests and matching neon-purple running tights Daphne gifted the four of us when we made a pact to train for the NovemberNew York City Marathon together. The ladies looked like a ’90s glam band, but the gear was Daphne’s attempt to keep our efforts fun and the group connected with me across the country. Maureen, not surprisingly, took on the role of managing our training schedule. Her spreadsheet of our mileage, protein intake, rest and recovery modalities, and topics covered on our runs is more complex than most financial models.
Though Maureen has told Lisa a hundred times she should not run in cotton, there she is in a canary-yellow T-shirt, and in bright-red letters, her chest screamsRunning Is Cheaper Than Therapy. Lisa was devastated when I came back from Alice’s wedding and told her I had accepted the job in New York and texted Cathy Culpepper on New Year’s Day to expedite the paperwork on my house, and that she would now be living across the street from twins. I tried to ease Lisa’s pain by assuring her that no one needed a drink more than a mom of two, so there was real friend potential there. Lisa insisted that the one thing she hates more than exercising is screaming babies, but that she actually enjoyed the morning she joined me, Maureen, and Daphne for a run to get the download on the evening with Porter. She has since joined the Heart and Sole Running Club not only for the comradery, but because she’s still holding out hope that Chap Beaumont really does like his women older.
On Saturdays, our long training day of the week, the four of us head out together. I start a little later at ten, my California training partners at seven, and we run. With my sweatproof earbuds tucked in tight, I call Maureen, and the three of them take turns passing her phone around so we can talk and catch up on our week. Any topic is on the table for our Saturday discussions. Except Porter. That is the one subject that’s off-limits.
On New Year’s Day, curled up beneath a pile of blankets, Quinn and I had rehashed every moment of Alice and Jack’s wedding, which felt like one big lovefest, the perfect way to usher in a new year. Quinn shed happy tears and said more than once that she wished Charles hadbeen there to see that Alice and Jack shared a great love, just like Quinn and Charles once had. All I could do was agree.
Padding into the kitchen to grab the cartons of leftovers the caterers loaded us up with at two in the morning, I had realized that on the first day of this new year, I, too, wanted a committed love. Not to John and Andrew, who will always have my heart; not to the man who gave me the loves of my life or the man who taught me what love is—but I wanted a love of self. I made a commitment that, going forward, I would love myself first, and from there, maybe one day I could love another. If not, look at what I already had: my sons, Quinn, my running club. And New York. I was ready to rekindle my love affair with New York.
Open cartons in front of us, Quinn and I repositioned next to each other on the couch, my phone between us. “Are you absolutely sure?” Quinn had asked me for the hundredth time that day. “I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to stay in Sacramento. I would probably stay in Sacramento.”
“I’m sure.” I squeezed her hand and banged out my text to Cathy Culpepper of Central Valley Real Estate before I chickened out.
2:12 p.m. (Callie)
Happy New Year, Cathy. Glad to hear the family now loves the house given the unexpected circumstances. Let them know the twins have a home.
“Come on, Callie, you swore for my birthday we could go to Princeton for a football game.” My reverie is interrupted when Quinn picks right back up, begging us to spend this weekend together. “I got us a room at Nassau Inn and everything. You made me miss our thirtieth reunion because you were a pile of tears over Thomas and in no condition to be seen in public. But now you owe me a weekend of cheap beer, greasy pizza, reliving Cottage tales, and checking out the football players.”
“Ewww. Those players are younger than our children!”
“Never stopped you before.” Quinn still enjoys an opportunity to tease me about my one-sided almost-affair with Chap.
“I have my last long training run tomorrow before the marathon.”
“Do it next week.” Quinn is tired of my run-work-eat-sleep-repeat routine, but I’m holding out hope that she’ll cave and join me one day.
