“I can’t. I got a text from Lisa that she suspects Daphne may have a new job offer and that Maureen may have a secret lover. Her words, not mine. I need to catch up with these ladies.” Quinn rolls her eyes and drops her head back in exaggerated exasperation. Just as I am with Perfect Stephanie, I think Quinn is a little jealous of Maureen, Daphne, and Lisa.
“Fine. Tomorrow morning, go for your run around campus. The leaves are changing, and it’s supposed to be sunny and sixty. You know it doesn’t get any better than that here.” After years in Sacramento with the only indication of seasons shifting being Starbucks flavors swapped out, Quinn knows she can soften me with talk of East Coast fall foliage.
“Okay, fine. Don’t talk to me on the train tonight so I can answer emails. Don’t make me drink or stay out late tonight either; I have to run in the morning. And don’t try to convince me to go get Saturday brunch rather than run. If you follow those rules, I’ll go.”
Ever the lawyer, Quinn considers my negotiation and counters, “Don’t complain about how tired your legs are. Don’t make us late for kick-off. And don’t leave me to drink alone at the tailgate.”
“Deal,” I agree, and Quinn puts my sweaters back in my bag.
“How’s Ms. Helen doing?” Daphne pants into the phone. “We miss her at Mercy.”
“No, you don’t,” I say with a laugh. When I walked my mom out of Mercy Community Care for the final time, I overheard one of the male attendants tell another, “Now I can work on rebuilding my self-esteem.”It took all my willpower not to return to the reception desk and tell him that, in fact, my mom is right: No worthy woman likes a man in Crocs.
“The mom across the street looks like she’s twelve and drinks nonalcoholic beer!” I hear Lisa yell toward the phone as she strides next to Daphne. “Have you tried that shit? It’s foul.” I can’t even think of something to say to her to make her miss me less, because sadly, not for Lisa’s lack of trying, the woman now occupying my house not only doesn’t appreciate Lisa’s T-shirt collection, but also has turned out to be a total dud.
“Hand the phone to Maureen; I have to ask her something.” Behind Maureen’s back, the three of us decided that it would be best if I was the one to inquire about what is going on that she’s not copping to. After being the ultimate mastermind to bring Porter and me together over dinner in Sacramento last December, there is no way she can tell me to mind my own business from New York. Daphne is convinced that Maureen is sleeping with a man she met at a pickleball clinic she joined over the summer when she claimed she needed to find more friends in her age bracket. The signature AARP move of picking up pickleball is also how we found out that Maureen is turning sixty next year. The surprise-party planning has already commenced, and I will be flying in for it.
“Did you remember to put electrolytes in your water this time and bring some gel? That bonk last Saturday was not pretty,” Maureen reminds me as the fallen golden leaves on Princeton’s Ivy Lane crunch under my feet in a twelve-minute-mile pace synchronized with my across-country teammates.
“Hold on one sec, Maureen,” I interrupt our club nutritionist in the middle of her sermon on whole-grain carbs as fuel and squat down to retie my left running shoe into a double, then triple, knot. Laces on new sneakers tend to be slippery and come undone the first few runs.
“Hi, Cal-lee.”
Startled, I fall back onto my butt, hearing my name drawled out loud on the Princeton campus.
Shielding my eyes from the unseasonably strong October sun, I mutter into the phone, “Uh, ladies, I’m fine, but I have to go.”
“Tell Porter I say hi,” Maureen sings into the speaker, accompanied by a chorus of giggles from my running mates.
“Here, let me help you up.” Porter extends his hand, and even though I don’t need it, I take it.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” I stutter, and look around to see if Chap or Rose or anyone is with Porter. He is alone, making us the only two people on Ivy Lane. Football fans have not yet begun shuffling their way to alumni tailgating spots or to claim favorite seats. A cloud passes over us, and I shiver. Whether it is from the chill of sweat or a ripple of déjà vu, I can’t tell. Nor can I recall the number of times Porter and I walked this path, hand in hand, feeling like we were the only two in the world. And today, right now, we are.
“I took a job as wide receiver coach. There was an unexpected retirement in March, and I applied. Thought it was time for me to take a chance on something new. Well, something old, but it feels new again.”
“I didn’t know you could do that. Go from high school to college coaching?”
“We had a hundred-and-two-game winning streak when I was at Regis, so yeah, I can do that.”
I smile as my memory slips back to the first meal I shared with Porter in the Rockefeller dining hall after our Rewriting the World literature class. Porter had shared that on top of being a big reader and a pretty good football player, he had a perfect SAT score. Winning is clearly still his thing.
“I’ve also stepped in last minute for a teaching assistant in an American Literature survey course in McCosh Hall. She went home for the rest of the semester with mono.”
“That’s where we met.” I sigh out loud, my mind caught in the memory.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I realize I have become the ma’am he referred to me as that first day we met.
Though we are now both standing upright and next to one another, I have not let go of Porter’s hand, nor has he let go of mine.
“I’ve also just finished the first draft of a book that’s been rolling around in my head. I started it the day after our dinner in Sacramento.”
I find myself teasing Porter. “I thought I was the writer of the two of us.”
“You were. You are. But I thought I would give it a try.” Porter averts his eyes downward, shyly.
“What’s it about?” I ask.
