The snow had left a lovely fluffy blanket of white on everything when Tori woke the next morning. After looking out her bedroom window, she pulled off her flannel nightgown and grabbed a favorite hoodie from the bedroom chair. Stepping into yoga pants, Tori praised herself for the small step of even wearing a nightgown to bed last night, making the effort to change, instead of wearing the T-shirt or whatever she’d been wearing when she decided to go to bed.
The Christmas Challenge had started her thinking. It even prompted her to make a tiny effort to challenge herself. On the blog last night, the Elevators had been hopeful about the Challenge, excited to register and by the time Tori went to bed she had women from all over the world thinking about how to be a better version of themselves in the next two months. The American women talked in the chat group about dieting while the European women leaned more towards education and travel to gain confidence and by the time Tori got her cup of coffee and opened her laptop, she was ready to guide these women towards whatever they needed to feel better about themselves.
She didn’t want everyone to think this was all about being thinner, more fashionable, well-read, or anything else that might take someone away from being their true authentic self. This was about loving yourself and being present. Leading a quiet life was fine but leading a life where you were terrified to leave the house was not fine.
Writing her blog, Tori made sure to carefully word her instructions to all those in the Christmas Challenge to approach this thoughtfully, slowly, carefully.
“What do you most need to make yourself happy and complete?” She wrote. “If you would feel more committed and better about yourself by getting out of jeans and into dress pants, do it. If you feel that making an effort to style your hair would help, do it. But, if you feel too styled, too formal, mess up a bit. Don’t be afraid to identify what you need to be the version of yourself that will ultimately lead to you loving yourself the most and make you feel the most confident, true version of yourself.”
For Day One of the forty-day challenge, Tori wrote that the first task was to identify the problems that keep you from achieving your best life. “Go small at first,” she wrote. “For example, for me, I’m going to go outside for a walk in the snow because I don’t get out in the fresh air enough.” That was a huge understatement, but Tori hadn’t revealed much of herself. She certainly hadn’t divulged her true identity to her blog readers and wasn’t sure how they’d react if she confessed that she was the woman from the viral video who’d gone underground in hiding from fear of being recognized.
Two cups of coffee later, and nine hundred words later, Tori hit send and posted her blog, complete with inspirational quotes from admired women. Writing about being brave was therapeutic for her and she was fully aware that she was counseling herself as well as the women who read the blog.
Tori stood at the window and looked outside to see Sasha, her friend who lived down the hall. She stood on the snowy sidewalk with her boyfriend, Will, dressed for the snow, standing beside a pitifully small snowman. Their apartment building didn’t have much of a lawn where snow accumulated but in the square patch in front of the building, they’d made a three-balled structure and were now kissing.
Tori smiled. She considered knocking on the window to wave, then wondered if that would break the spell of the moment in the new-fallen snow with a lover. She drew away from the window and remembered her promise to the Challengers to go for a walk in the snow.
Baby steps.
The street was quiet as Tori emerged from the safety of the building’s front door and stepped out to the sidewalk. Sasha and Will were long gone but their footprints were still visible, along with everyone else’s who’d walked down their street that morning. It was still only nine a.m. and as she turned left and ventured the block towards the park at the end of the street, Tori realized it did feel good to be outside in the fresh air.
Taking a deep breath, she continued to the end of the street and stood at the break in the black wrought iron fence to the park. Should she push it any further and walk through to the lovely park or call it a victory and go home? Even though she wore a trapper hat, the kind with the flaps over her ears and a fold-up piece at the front, Tori still wondered if anyone would recognize her if she headed out further in the world. Her face was famous. Beyond the fence, there were people in the field of snow throwing balls for dogs, two kids making a snowman, and other people walking purposefully, probably on their way to work.
Just to say she did it, Tori took two steps into the park, then turned around and started back to the building where she lived. She walked quickly but not in fear today. Her apartment building had once been a grand home in the last century but was now split into twelve apartments on three floors. Tori occupied the top apartment closest to James Street, farthest from the park.
Back inside, she removed her hat, coat and boots but didn’t throw them in the closet just in case she decided on another walk today. Her adventure hadn’t been difficult. There’d been a few racing-heart moments, but not the usual anxiety that prevented her from descending the stairs to the bottom floor and sent her back to the safety of her apartment.
What was this new feeling of pride? Feeling particularly brave and empowered, Tori went to the bathroom and rooted under the sink to find something she hadn’t used in a long time. Her pedicure kit.
Although she’d cautioned her readers against feeling like they needed to glam up to feel good about themselves, there was something about a cheerful color on one’s toenails that made Tori happy, so she set out her supplies on the coffee table in front of the fireplace and twisted the top off the nail color that was named Good Vibes. Before she started, Tori decided it was a good day to turn on the fireplace so she flipped the wall switch and sat back down on her couch.
When she’d finished the second coat on the last nail, Tori’s phone rang. It was the tone she used especially for her closest friends, Sasha and Maddy. Tori answered.
“You’ll never guess what I just did,” Tori answered.
“Went outside in the snow. I saw you out the window,” Sasha said, sounding like Maddy had just scored a lead role in a movie. “Well done, Tori!”
Lately, Sasha had given up trying to get her friend out of the apartment after a year of probably what felt like hitting her head against a wall, so her excitement was warranted.
“Yes, I did that too.” Tori secured the top on the nail color bottle and admired her gorgeous toes. “I also painted my toenails. I don’t know what’s gotten into me,” she said.
“It’s a sad state of affairs when someone is deliriously happy to see their friend leave her house then gets ventricular fibrillations to find out she also painted her toenails.” Sasha said. “I’m standing at your door, but it’s locked. Let me in please. I want to see your toes.”
Tori walked carefully to the door of the apartment, passing the kitchen, and pulled open her door. Sasha stood there with her phone to her ear.
She glanced at Tori’s feet. “Yowza! Will you look at those toes!”
Tori stood back to let her friend inside. “Careful you don’t step on them.”
Sasha was a tall blonde with a long attractive nose and aquiline eyes. She might have been a model except for her profound interest in biology and a burning desire to be on a team to research a cure for cancer. Working at a lab all day did nothing for a possible modelling career, but Sasha couldn’t have cared less. Approaching thirty like the rest of the gals Tori went to high school with, Sasha was still trying to save the world and that included helping Tori not turn into a hermit.
“To what do we owe the excitement of a walk and painted toenails all in one day?” Sasha made her way to the coffee pot, saw there was none left, and put the kettle on for tea, obviously intending to stay until the polish fully dried.
“The beautiful snow and the fact that it’ll all be melted by tonight, got me out there,” Tori said, pulling a banana bread loaf from her fridge. “I was reminded how beautiful life is and how… “She looked at her friend who stood with her mouth open staring at her. “Stop, will you?” Tori laughed and cut them each a thick slice of the bread she’d made yesterday.
“I’m happy,” Sasha said, pouring boiling water into their tea mugs. “Would now be a good time to ask if you said yes to Maddy?”
Tori shot her friend a reproachful look. “Don’t push your luck.”
They walked to the little living room beyond the kitchen counter and settled into the couch with mugs of tea. Tori did not want to rehash this conversation but felt like Sasha needed to know the whole truth. “I told Maddy to ask her sister to be Maid of Honor two months ago. She didn’t. Then, I told Maddy again to ask her sister last month. Please don’t tell me she hasn’t asked Hana.”
“She hasn’t asked Hana. She and Hana haven’t spoken in years.” Sasha tipped her head at Tori. “Beside that fact, she’s waiting for you to say yes. Don’t you talk to that girl every other day?”
She did talk to Maddy on the phone, probably more often than that, and she knew that Maddy was still campaigning to have Tori as her maid of honor but something in her held out hope that her best friend since kindergarten would break down and ask her sister, thereby letting Tori off the hook. “She knows I can’t go to a wedding. Not yet.”
“Do you ever think you’ll be able to attend a wedding, Tori? Like if Will and I end up saying “I do,” will you be there?” Sasha blew on her hot tea.
“Someday. But this one is too soon.”
“Nineteen months by the time she walks down the aisle.”
“Christmas Eve is inconvenient.” Tori was grasping at straws now.
“Are you joining your mother in Arizona.”
“No, but I like to be home for Christmas.”
“Here? By yourself?”
“It’s a destination wedding vacation at Mistletoe Lodge.”
“With private rooms where you can hide all week until the wedding.”
“There’ll be so many people.” Tori wanted to be able to stand up for her best friend, but she couldn’t imagine a world where she’d be perfectly OK to drive to Mistletoe Lodge in a matter of weeks and take part in a whole week of festivities. “Are you going for the week?”
“Yes. Will and I have had this planned since June,” Sasha said, excitedly. “And it’s only five days.”
“There’ll be a lot of couples there. It’ll be a nice getaway for you two.” Tori was trying to talk herself down from feeling like a failure.
“You could come for the rehearsal the night before and leave right after the wedding. Not even stay for the reception.” Sasha said this with such hope it almost broke Tori’s heart, almost as much as telling Maddy she couldn’t be a part of her wedding.
“We could medicate you, wheel you in, then wheel you out.” Sasha looked hopeful and Tori wondered how she could possibly think there might be a yes coming from Tori’s lips anytime soon.
“I went outside today. Let’s be satisfied with that.”