“Right, Alma! Thanks, girl.”
“Ope! Not a girl. But you’re welcome!” Alma ducks into the driver seat. The car glides away from the curb in the way only German engineering can.
And then there were four.
Pen mutters something to Josh about Louise, and he coos soothing tones back to her, stroking her shoulders.
I shield my eyes from the sun, which also allows me to avoid intruding on their moment. Now seems like a good time to go clean up that popcorn-tissue disaster. Maybe test out Eitan’s theory about talking to a stranger.
“Thanks for inviting me,” I say. “I’ll see?—”
“No, we need to do something! This is a perfect day.” Penelope grabs my wrist. Code red. I’m not prepared for anything besides this florist appointment. “Let’s go to the beach!”
“I don’t have a suit,” is the first synapse my brain fires. The second, third, and fourth synapses are not fit for public consumption:I can’t be away from my emotional support couch for this long. I haven’t worn a bathing suit since before my body was hacked to pieces and sewn back together. Only one person has seen my scars and they dumped me so, empirically, it’s a bad idea.
“Clara and Izumi are on the concrete. There won’t even be sand. And you can jump in with your bra. Who cares?”
I care!a disgruntled voice in my head asserts.
“I can’t swim,” I lie.
“Then just sunbathe, babe.” Pen’s attention shifts to her phone.
Eitan nudges me. “This is a good thing, Bathroom Girl.”
“Stop calling me that,” I growl under my breath.Yes, we know it’s a good thing!the same disgruntled voice hisses. I choose not to examine the use of pluralwetoo closely.
“I’ll switch to Beach Girl if you say yes.” Eitan puts his hands together in front of his chest in supplication. He looks like a puppy who ate too much dog food and grew way too big.
I know I should say yes. This is exactly the kind of thing I have been waiting for. But I expected to have at least two business days to prepare for a social gathering. Psych myself up, create talking points. Select the perfectI’m back and better than ever!outfit.
“I was not prepared for this.”
“That’s the thing about socializing, you have to be able to do it without warning.”
I have no rebuttal other than to glare-grimace at him.
“We’re in,” Eitan declares as he puts his arm over my shoulder, and the other over Josh’s shoulder, forming one chain as we walk to Penelope’s car.
chapter
twelve
The beach is a Chicago institution.It’s the alpha and omega of gathering spaces between the months of May and September. Summertime Chi means something because of its impermanence. In just six months, the world will be an iced-over tundra. The sun will set at 4:30 in spectacularly frozen slashes of color through naked branches. Everyone will stay indoors, peeling off layers of sweaters and coats and scarves as they travel between home and bar and home again. But right now, winter is a distant memory, and the city is lush, humid, alive.
In the winter, I was still living at my parents’ house. I had a three-hundred-square-foot space in the basement with a sliver of skylight, a workout mat, and a small desk leftover from my college bedroom. My strength was returning, and my haircut could officially be called a pixie. I walked along the lake every day during my lunch break, watching the drifting ice flows that cover Lake Michigan. I used to think that all the water froze, but I learned that lakes freeze from the top down. There’s an entire ecosystem in the water, insulated from winter by a thick coat of ice. Just waiting for a moment like this, when the sun is beating down and the wind is whistling about freedom.
The lake is barely recognizable from the frozen beast I walked beside six months ago. It’s a deep, freshwater blue, sparkling beneath the sun like a net of diamonds. Pen parks her Audi across the street and pulls a beach bag out of her trunk. As we trudge through the grass that borders the concrete steps, my stomach is practicing its Tsukahara vault. The air is faintly smoky from a barbecue a few picnics over, and the gentle waves lapping at the lake’s concrete edge create a soundtrack of running water that attempts to lull me into relaxation.You can do it, I coach myself.Just talk about the weather. A new restaurant you tried recently.Another voice in my head volleys back,We haven’t tried any new restaurants, unless you count venturing to the River North Sweetgreen instead of the usual Lincoln Park one. I tell that voice to sit down and shut up.It’s like a roller coaster, I switch gears.Just strap yourself in, and prepare for five minutes of brutal fear exposure.All I have to do is launch myself over this first hurtle, and my social anxiety will have no choice but to piss right off.
Clara, Izumi, and their significant others are picnicking on a pink gingham blanket with a portable table in the middle set up with charcuterie and wine. The scene is almost too idyllic to interrupt, but Pen marches in unabashedly and plops herself between them. I drag my heels through the grass.
Clara and Izumi exchange polite hello’s. Pen immediately spreads out a striped, tasseled towel that may have come from a Mediterranean resort. I sit on my knees on a corner of the gingham blanket, still caught between intruding and settling in as an invited guest. Pen’s dress slinks down her tan legs, revealing a bikini made of aloe-tinted velvet and lace trim. It’s pretty and feminine, but still sexy. What would I look like in a swimsuit like that? Exposed here, beneath the sun?
“Hey,” a low gravelly voice says from my right. I turn to see a guy who looks like he walked off the backpages of GQ: drippingin water, bronze torso gleaming, charcoal swim trunks slung low and stretched around thighs dotted with tattoos. He has dark eyes with molten irises, sharp cheekbones, and a confident chin. His hair is buzzed short, which only adds painful emphasis to said cheekbones.
“Hi,” I squeak.
“‘Sup.” Eitan reaches for a dab with this Adonis.
