Chapter 5
Helen took a deep breath and put on her sports bra. It was Sunday morning, which meant she put on her running shoes, met Henry on the corner, and jogged to the Daily Drip where they met up with Grace, and Helen basically cajoled them with her organization and focus skills into keeping up with their ambitious academic publishing schedules. It was a Sunday morning tradition, and sometimes the only exercise Helen got all week. It was important. It was time for her to explore the colleague side of her relationship with her friends, and it led to really good things in all of their professional lives.
She so very badly wanted to skip it this morning.
She’d woken up the morning before with her disco dress tangled around her waist and her pillow covered in sparkles. Also, a giant hangover. For which she had no one to blame but herself. And the entire bottle of wine she drank. By herself. There was no one else to blame.
She also vaguely remembered crying her eyes out to “MacArthur Park.” And Henry was there. Ugh. Henry was there, then she fell asleep on the couch, then she woke up to Henry doing dishes in her kitchen, then that song came on and she bawled. That poor cake! Someone left it out in the rain! She cringed, even after having a whole additional day and night to absorb the fact that she’d been totally wasted and crying, and the only thing she could remember was the badly disguised look of horror on poor Henry’s face.
And what had she said to him? She must have tried to explain the tears in some way, but she couldn’t remember a word she’d said. Maybe she didn’t say words. Maybe she just blubbered.
Or maybe she did say words. Terrible, embarrassing words. That would explain why she hadn’t heard from Henry all day. She’d gotten a call from Grace, but her head hurt too much to talk to her. And her doorbell rang early in the afternoon, but by the time she stumbled down the stairs, there was nobody there. Just a greasy bag of fast food, for which she thanked the gods of good friends. And she thanked Henry, via text, then turned off her phone and binged on fast food and shame and old British ladies solving mysteries on public television.
She felt much better today. At least her head did. Her shame reflex still kicked in whenever she remembered that she didn’t remember anything she’d said to Henry. But today was a new day, and she wasn’t going to let a little secret-baring (or possible secret-baring) slow her down.
She might, however, act like it hadn’t happened.
Shoes tied, door locked, she did a few quick stretches, then started off to meet Henry.
* * *
When Henry saw Helen round the corner in her running clothes, he felt a surge of relief. He didn’t even know he was worried until he wasn’t. He shouldn’t have worried, though. Helen never disappointed. She always showed up where she said she was going to show up, and she always pitched in when she said she would pitch in.
Of course, she had also been keeping a pretty big secret from him.
While she was cracking the whip, making sure he and Grace kept up with their scholarly writing, she’d been secretly writing novels. Romance novels. He didn’t even know she read romance novels.
Not that there was anything wrong with romance novels. He just didn’t think Helen went for that sort of stuff. It was all so cheesy and predictable. Just a bunch of dudes with big muscles seducing women into becoming good little housewives.
He was actually a little disappointed. He’d thought she was more creative than that.
But what kind of friend would he be if he didn’t support her? Besides, he knew for a fact that she thought he dressed like a stuffy old man, but she still let him make his own sartorial mistakes, as she put it. If she wanted to write fluffy nonsense books, he would support her.
First, he should stop thinking of them as fluffy nonsense books.
She jogged up to him and gave him a weak smile, then pulled out her phone. He’d never actually seen someone’s face drop before, but there it went.
“Something wrong?” he asked, his heart dropping faster than her face.
“Grace isn’t coming.” Her phone pinged again. “She’s . . . never mind.”
“What? Is something wrong?”
Helen blushed. “Uh. She’s hanging out with Jake.”
“Oh.” He couldn’t believe it. Grace would choose hanging out with her fiancé—who she lived with!—over their regular Sunday afternoon date? What did Jake have that they didn’t have?
“Oh!” He really was an idiot. “Well, that’s OK. We can still get coffee, right?”
“Right.” She didn’t sound so sure of that. “Actually . . .”
And here we go again, he thought. Gettin’ the old brush-off. Well, he wasn’t going to stand for it. “I really need coffee,” he said firmly.
“OK, well, I had some before I left . . .”
Not going to stand for it, he reminded himself. “OK, great. Let’s run over to your house. You can brew a fresh pot.”
“Excuse me? Did you just tell me to make you coffee?”
He almost smiled. There she was, pushing back in response to any sort of bossing around. That was his Helen.
Instead of smiling, he just took off running. In the direction of her house. She could follow him, or not. He knew where the spare key was. He’d get to the bottom of her romance novel situation. That’s what friends were for, dammit.