My period.
I should’ve known, and not only because The Planner of Park Slopeobviouslyhas a very specific method by which she tracks her cycle—an extremely genius tiny red dot next to the expected date in my monthly log. I should’ve known because I woke up on Friday morning in the kind of mood that swings wildly between “ten seconds from murdering someone” and “three seconds from crying because you noticed a layer of dust on your windowsill, you absolute filthypig.” Lucky for the world at large I did not have to leave the apartment all day, but unlucky for me there was a marathon ofHouse Hunterson, during which I listlessly made my way through a few regular client jobs while fantasizing about murdering every single house hunter who complained about paint colors. Then I cried about the per-square-foot cost of housing in Missouri (it’s really very affordable!).
At one point I’d rallied, trying again to finish the sketches I’d been working on since Tuesday night, when my phone had honked with the obnoxious horn sound I’ve assigned to my dad’s text messages, which come in pretty rarely. I’d swiped it open and there’d been a photo of him, tanned and smiling, shaking the hand of some man in a suit with a flag pin on the lapel, a framed certificate between them. Behind my dad was Jennifer, the woman he married two weeks after he and my mom officially divorced, which was also, as it turned out, barely three months after I’d left home.
was my dad’s caption, bland and informative, and I’d felt a spike of old, awful anger. I’d opened my notebook and swept my hand through a single word, adding a few dramatic swashes for decoration, and snapped a photo to send back to him.
it read, beautiful and celebratory, but four of the letters there—L-I-A-R—fell minutely beneath the baseline, so minutely that only I would notice.
And then I’d thought:Reid would notice.
I’d felt so bad to have done it, so petty and small, that I’d almost,almosttexted him to cancel, my fingers hovering over the keypad on my phone.
But then I’d thought of him spelling out that word to me—T-E-N-S-E—and I’d known—in some certain, specific place inside of me—that I didn’t want him spending his Saturday alone. I’d gone to bed early with that dull, anticipatory ache in my lower belly, hoping for better luck with the premenstrual mood pendulum in the morning.
And when I wake up, Idofeel less like murdering or crying. Of course, that’s because the main event has arrived, which means the dull ache has turned into something heavier and sharper. My lower back aches, everything I put on feels a half size too small, and I would very much like to attach a vacuum hose to my mouth that connects directly to a bag of chocolate, clutch a heating pad to my middle, and watch a series of rom-coms where no one ever seems to get a period, ever.
But I said yes to Reid, and I don’t want to go back on my answer—not only for him, but for me, too. Iwantto walk and play and get inspired again.
So I shove a few extra tampons in a small purse—I can’t imagine hauling my bag today—knock back a couple Advil, and take a long subway ride to the Village.
He’s waiting for me when I walk up the steps from the station, as he’d promised he would be, his casual-Reid uniform in place: sneakers, jeans, T-shirt, jacket. His face, obviously, looks fan-fucking-tastic, which I’d appreciate more if he didn’t look immediately at my own and wrinkle his brow.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, in lieu of a greeting.
The only solace I take in this question is the private speculation I indulge in about what would happen if I loudly announced to Reid on a public street that I got my period. Imagine the throat clearing! It would be legend.
“Oh, you know,” I say, waving a hand back toward the station. “Long ride over.”
He straightens his already straight posture. “I would’ve come to Brooklyn.”
He’d offered, actually, when we’d first made these plans, but it’d been my suggestion to meet in the Village, where I know there’re tons of examples of old, painted signs. I force a smile, try to smooth over the wrong-footed start—whatever my face was doing when Reid first saw it, that note of embarrassed defensiveness in his voice.
“I know,” I say lightly. “Your turn to come up with a game.”
I start walking, not really caring if he had another direction in mind. I’ve just had a fresh bout of cramping, the kind that snakes all the way down the front of my legs. If this is going to work out today, I need to clench my teeth and keep moving.
So it’s a good thing Reid does, in fact, have a game in mind. This time, we’ll each pick a color, and then we’ll try to get as many letters of the alphabet as we can in that one color over the course of an hour. No limits on type of letter or sign, but we know the game—or each other—well enough now to know we’re both going to try finding the more interesting stuff. The hand-lettered, the hand-painted, the stuff that’ll give me something to draw about.
Reid offers me first pick and I choose blue, which gives me my first genuine smile of the afternoon because I absolutely know he was going to pick blue; I can tell by the look on his face when I say it. He chooses green, and I tell him that’s basically cheating because green is aversionof blue, and he definitely does not like being called a cheater because he says, “Fine. I choose red, then.”
For the first couple of blocks, I tease him about that, too, because red isobviouslythe easiest color for sign-watching. He does theswoonshand keeps snapping his photos, while I grumble about being the more nuanced competitor. We both get a win on the old, cracked-paint C.O. Bigelow sign, tall and huge on the side of a brick building, though Reid gloats about how the red paint is holding up better than the pale blue. “Gloating” for Reid basically involves him stating a fact, but still.
But we’re only a half hour in when I start to flag. That Advil I took must’ve been stale candy, because I’m pretty sure my uterus weighs thirty-five pounds and everything from my waistband down is uncomfortable. I ammiserableand too far from home to do anything about it immediately. I definitely should’ve canceled, or at the very least picked red before Reid could and—
“Meg?” I hear him say.
I look up at him, realize I’ve missed something, and since Reid doesn’t talk much in general, it’s a real loss.
“I’m sorry. I zoned out.”
“We could stop.” Then he does that thing again, tugging down the sleeve of his unnecessary-for-the-weather jacket. Maybe the sleeve tugging is the same as Lark’s two fingers along her hairline, or maybe it’s the same as me wanting to lie down in the middle of this sidewalk to contemplate the various horrors and indignities of my childbearing years. “If this isn’t helping, I mean.”
My shoulders slump in defeat. I’ve done such a bad job of pretending today, of being my normal, cheerful self, and even the ideas I’m getting from the signs can’t compensate for the way I feel.
“It’s only that—” I break off, sigh heavily. He looks over at me, his brow wrinkled in that same way as it’d been when I’d gotten off the train. “I don’t feel very well today,” I admit.
I barely have time to feel embarrassed, because Reid stops, sets a hand under my elbow—whoops,still an erogenous zone—and gently guides me to the edge of the sidewalk, out of the way of the pedestrians behind us.
