13,431 steps
I was up and fully dressed, in clean exercise clothes no less, long before Rod Stewart was even thinking about crowing to wake up The Supremes over at the lavender farm. I had time to throw down a quick spinach-and-berry smoothie and brush my teeth. I actually remembered to turn on my front light so I could see my feet while I sat on the stoop next to the pumpkin to put on my socks and sneakers.
Given the amount of tossing and turning I’d done throughout the night, it had been a relief to finally roll out of bed. I’d dreamed that the three missing Noreens were bound and gagged in the back of a sleek silver truck. They were using my lipstick to write SOS in mirror writing on a makeup mirror while they bounced around. Since they only had one tube of lipstick, they had to pass it around, which wasn’t easy since they didn’t have hands. I woke myself up screaming at Rick to please, please hurry up and sculpt them some hands.
I’d turned over and over, trying to get comfortable but only managing to tangle my sheets some more. When I finally fell asleep again, I’d dreamed that I was in the back of the silver truck with the Noreens, trying to teach them how to lift suspicious fingerprints with lavender anti-stress putty. It actually worked pretty well, but the duct tape over my mouth made me claustrophobic, and I had to focus really hard on not hyperventilating. A mouthful of pillow woke me up from that dream.
After that I’d dreamed that a carrier seagull delivered a ransom note to me. We hit it off right away, so the seagull hung around to help me try to analyze the note’s handwriting to figure out how dangerous the kidnapper was. Eventually the seagull got around to asking me if I’d go undercover with her to find her cheating seagull boyfriend because he’d eaten all the french fries. I told the seagull to ask Alison because she had the magic feather. That’s a whole lotta TMI you just spewed at me, the seagull shrieked as it soared away.
I shook my head to bring myself back to my stoop and tying my shoes. “Too much information,” I said to the pumpkin. “I had to stop and think what it stood for. I guess I didn’t expect a seagull to use acronyms.”
Soft laughter cut through the dark, sounding louder than it really was because everything else was so quiet. A moment later a streetlight lit up shadowy versions of Tess and Rosie walking down Wildwater Way. They didn’t even glance in my direction.
I waited until they got to the end of my front walkway, then hit my phone flashlight.
“Freeze,” I said. “We need to talk. Now.”
“She lives and breathes,” Tess said. “I knew you’d miss us eventually.”
“Hey,” Rosie said. “Sorry I was such an itchbay the last time. I mean, you deserved some of it, but I was on complete overload. I was even stress ironing, which is always my telltale sign. You know, just iron out those problems. It’s kind of a metaphor, if you think about it.”
“I didn’t know you stress ironed,” Tess said. “I stress order socks we don’t need, because I can’t handle the thought of trying to match up our existing socks and wondering where the misfits disappeared to, which made a lot more sense back when the kids were little and wearing itsy bitsy socks, but I guess it’s more like a tradition now. So, for me, there’s stressed and then there’s buying-socks stressed. It’s the key differential.”
I rested one hand on the pumpkin for courage.
“So,” I said. “You didn’t start walking early to ditch me?”
“We left you a note,” they said in unison.
“Owe me a Coke,” they both said as fast as they could.
“A note?” I said. I shined the flashlight on my front door: nothing. I followed the beam to where a piece of lined paper had fallen and impaled itself on a bush next to my foundation.
Tess and Rosie strolled up my walkway. “I would have texted,” Tess said, “but I’m trying to use up all my paper. Once I’m paper-free, I’ll be a full participant in the great dematerialization of the planet and unreservedly contributing to helping the environment rebound. Not to mention that not having paper will make it easier to fit into my micro minibus. Although I might have to draw the line at special books and sexually explicit love letters.”
Tess paused for a breath, so I jumped in while I could get a word in. “It’s on the azalea,” I said as I leaned over and pointed.
“Girlfriend,” Rosie said, “that’s a hydrangea.”
Tess grabbed the note first. “Walking a half hour earlier until further notice,” she read, “since I drew the short straw and I’m stuck doing heinous early arrivals because my colleague broke her ankle, possibly on purpose.”
Rosie grabbed the note away. “Me, too,” she read. “The quicker I get out of my seriously overpopulated house these days, the better, because I can’t take it much longer. Hint. Hint.”
They turned and starting walking briskly back toward the road, arms swinging, making up for lost time. I gave the pumpkin another quick pat, raced down the steps, jogged to catch up to them.
“Thanks for not abandoning me,” I said.
“It’s amazing how often the world doesn’t revolve around you, isn’t it?” Tess said.
“Next time I promise I’ll bring tape,” Rosie said. “So the note will stay on.”
“Unless it’s duct tape,” Tess said. “Duct tape is my department.”
“Maybe we could all put whiteboards up next to our front doors for future notifications,” I said. “It’ll feel like we’re back living in a dorm.”
“That would be a nonnegotiable no,” Tess said.
Rosie was still holding the note. She crumpled it up and tossed it to me. I stuffed it into my leggings pocket. If I had a scrapbook, I might flatten it out after we finished walking and give it a whole page all to itself. Just as a reminder for the next time I started spinning out of control. Because once you get sucked into the vortex, all that drama, real or imagined, is like being under the influence of a spell. And even with a whole batch of lavender anti-stress balls, it’s hard to break free.
We crossed the street to our shortcut to the beach.
“Wait.” Rosie stopped and retied her gray barbarian hat as if she were putting on her thinking cap. “What happened to the Noreens? I just realized they weren’t in front of your house.”
Tess grabbed Rosie by the elbow to get her walking again.
We spread out across the street, ready to jump out of the way if some idiot started speeding straight at us.
“You’re never going to believe this,” I said. I waited a beat to let the suspense build. I mean, it wasn’t every day that I was the victim of art thievery. In fact, it wasn’t any day up until now.
“This better be good,” Tess said. “That ridiculous pregnant pause you’re orchestrating is a lot to live up to.”
“Someone stole three of the Noreens,” I said.
“Holy felony,” Tess said. “That’s totally worth a pregnant pause.”
“I don’t think it’s a felony,” Rosie said. “In Massachusetts, if a crime isn’t punishable by death or imprisonment in the state prison, it’s a misdemeanor. Please don’t ask me how I know that, but it involved my mother’s love of purple and the lack of impulse control brought on by early Alzheimer’s.”
I put my arm around Rosie, gave her a quick hug.
“I mean, death seems like a lot,” Tess said, “but I would think you could get prison time for theft, especially if you’re a serial garden statue thief.”
“The statues are limited editions, signed and numbered,” I said, “which I believe constitutes an art heist.”
“Who do you think did it?” Rosie said.
“I have no idea,” I said. “They were there one minute, I went to bed, and they were gone the next morning.”
“Maybe,” Tess said, “some kids stole them and put them in the elephant fountain on the town common just to be funny. You know, where we made the bubbles happen.”
“Shh.” I looked over my shoulder to make sure nobody was out on their front porch eavesdropping. Even though Tess was the one who’d done the actual pouring of bubbles in the elephant fountain, I’d been an unwitting accomplice. And I had no idea what the statute of limitations was.
Tess shook her head. “You’re such a wimp. Anyway, I have to drive right by the common on the way to my hellish job, so I’ll check.”
“I’ll tell Connor and Nick to ask around,” Rosie said. “If some of the kids at school did it, they won’t be able to keep their mouths shut.”
“We’ll find the perps,” Tess said. “Saturday morning, right after we finish walking, we’ll drive up and down every single street in Marshbury and beyond until we find them. I bet it’s those same women who tried to take the credit for our clothesline activism. They’ve probably got those statues in somebody’s over-decorated game room right now, shining the bright lights of their hanging artisanal fixtures on them, trying to figure out how to copy them. I mean, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that, but come on.”
We rearranged ourselves into a single file so we could walk through the break in the seawall, then spread out again. Tess claimed the middle like she usually did.
I took a deep breath as we picked up the pace. “I know I’ve already said this, but I really missed walking with you.”
“Of course, you missed us,” Tess said.
“Ditto,” Rosie said. “So, if three were stolen, what happened to the rest of the Noreens?”
I scrunched my eyes shut. “My mother borrowed your lavender farm truck without telling you it was for me, so we could get them out of here before they got stolen, too.”
Tess swiveled her head to look at Rosie first, then at me. “Just when things were going so well.”
Rosie untied her hat and tied it again. I zipped my jacket up and down a few times.
“I can let the fact that you dropped the ball with the chickens go,” Rosie said.
“I told you,” I said, “I was only going to coach them until I had a human client.”
Rosie shook her head. “But you never really told me when you got a human client. I think it deserved more than a note saying you’re not walking today stuck to your door. And you never told Rod and the girls it was over.”
“That’s just weird,” Tess said.
“And,” Rosie said, “you know our parents are driving me crazy, and you know it’s only fair that they divide the time between our houses until we figure out what to do with them permanently. And you’re not even trying to help. You’re simply melting down all over the place and acting like your life is falling apart, which is a cunning way of being such bad company they’ll stay away from you. And spend yet another day and a way too romantic night . . .” She took a long, raggedy breath. “At. My. House.”
Tess and I both patted her on the back.
“To be fair,” I said, “my life is falling apart. My buyout package is on its last legs, Rick doesn’t even answer my texts, I only have one human health coaching client, and I’m probably going to end up in a double-wide tent by the side of the road and then you two won’t want to walk with me anymore.”
“Why?” Tess said. “Because the tent is too far away or because it doesn’t have a shower and you smell? Either way, I think you’re undervaluing our strength of character.”
“Your mother,” Rosie said, “has rearranged my mother’s spice cabinets. Our parents wear matching bathrobes and bike shorts. And, and I had to buy the boys noise-cancelling headphones to sleep with because our parents have loud, laughing sex every night. And without the headphones my young, impressionable sons can hear them two floors away.”
“Maybe your parents are just watching porn,” Tess said.
“I don’t care who’s having sex,” Rosie yelled. “I just want one good night’s sleep before I die.”
Two not-very-friendly-looking women walking in our direction froze.
“Take a picture,” Tess said. “It lasts longer.”
The women turned and racewalked the other way.
“Did you see those looks they gave me?” Rosie said.
“It’s going to be all over town before noon,” Tess said. “You know, that woman from the lavender farm doesn’t care who she has sex with. She doesn’t even sleep anymore.”
“Yikes,” I said. “You don’t think we’re going to have to have a family meeting, do you?”
“Technically,” Tess said, “since they’re not married yet, it would be more like a framily meeting.”
“I don’t think we have any choice.” Rosie shook her head. “I’m picturing an intervention. Lots of pain on our part, way too much raucous laughter on theirs. Until eventually we manage to get through to them.”
“I can help you prep,” Tess said. “As a teacher, I’ve spent approximately eighty-three percent of my career in meetings.”
“Do you just make up those percentages?” Rosie said.
Tess shrugged. “Only thirty-six percent of the time. Anyway, the most important thing is that you figure out exactly what you want to happen before you walk into the meeting. You have a script, you know which one of you is going to say what, and you don’t leave that freakin’ room until you get exactly what you want.”
“Okay,” I said. “Once we locate and rescue the missing Noreens, we’ll turn our attention to getting our parents to do exactly what we want them to do. As soon as we figure out what that is.”
Rosie did a little skip and a jump to catch up to our longer legs. “Why do I think this is going to be a lot harder than we’re making it sound?”
“Which part?” I said.
Even though I’d screeched into the parking lot at 7:59 for our 8 AM session, I made it to the track before Joel did, which was a first. I would have arrived earlier, except that once we finished walking this morning, Tess and Rosie had stopped in front of my house and started singing our version of “I Feel the Earth Move.” I couldn’t bring myself to walk away from that, so I just had to join in. It might have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that the time off made us sound better together. It certainly made us louder.
While I waited for Joel, I zipped up my jacket and retied my sneakers. It was getting chilly enough that I decided my best bet was to keep moving. So I looped around the track, thrilled to be racking up some extra mileage instead of standing around shivering. Even though I was still a mess in many ways, at least I’d evolved into a mess that genuinely liked to walk. I was becoming the kind of person who would rather walk than pull the covers over her head for the rest of her life. It was the kind of progress you could actually measure step by step.
Brightly colored leaves twirled through the air in the distance and skittered across the track right in front of my feet. A dog trainer was working with a group of dogs and their owners over in the parking lot in front of the school. I wondered if the dogs were more challenging than the owners, or if the dogs were the easy part and basically did as well as they could, given the owners they had to work with. I wondered if I’d ever have the guts to commit to a four-legged someone whose entire life hinged on my ability to take good care of it. At least with humans, it was easier for them to cut and run when you screwed up.
A clump of people walked toward the front door, maybe heading to a Fresh Horizons small group meeting. I cringed as I remembered once again that I’d never emailed the video of my teaching tryout. Maybe at this point my best bet was to set up another one. I’d just act like I’d never called before and do the whole thing all over again. I was pretty sure I could get away with it. If the same woman answered the phone, she definitely wouldn’t remember me, and even if she did, she wouldn’t care. Plus, back when I’d done the first tryout, the adorable Brock had looked right through me like I was invisible. But then again, if nobody cared, did I really want to work for a company with such low standards? Although then again again, if I did another tryout, maybe I could find another client like Joel. I had to admit, he’d fallen into my lap pretty painlessly.
I scrunched my eyes shut at the image of Joel actually falling into my lap. The whole Joel almost-kiss incident was probably some health coaching twist on falling in love with your therapist. I’d have to get in touch with the certification team to find out if it was an actual thing. If so, I’d suggest that they add a mention of it to the curriculum, because it sure would have been nice to have a heads up. Unless it wasn’t really a thing, but some kind of one-off that only happened to someone like me. That might be useful information to have as well.
I hoped things wouldn’t feel too awkward between Joel and me today. I’d make a point of being extra friendly, but not too friendly, telegraphing clear limits with absolutely no mixed-messaging. And one day we’d laugh about how we almost kissed. Well, maybe not laugh, but by then he’d be in such good shape, and I’d be helping him train for a marathon after having Googled everything I needed to know about marathons to get up to speed. And as often as I’d tell him he was ready to graduate, that he didn’t really need me anymore, he’d tell me I wasn’t getting rid of my favorite client that easily. And even though I had a waiting list a mile long at that point, Joel was right. He was my favorite.
Another group, this one all male, walked toward the front door of the school, maybe to sneak into the senior center for a Switch tennis tournament. I squinted to see if one of them was Rick, not that I expected the universe to throw us into each other’s orbit again so easily. I wondered if Alison had told Rick about the Noreens yet. Maybe once Rosie and Tess and I tracked down the three missing statues, I’d drive them over to him by myself. Although first I’d drop off the original Noreen at my house. Because the first Noreen was a gift from Rick’s heart, and even if he was over me, I was keeping her. So there.
There’s a point in a good walk when you lose track of time. It feels so natural to keep putting one foot in front of the other, again and again, while your mind flits around for a while and then soars. Your flagging spirits lift, and those blessed endorphins just keep coming. It feels so much more natural to continue walking than it would be to stop. It feels like you could walk forever.
And then you check the time on your Fitbit. And find out that your only client should have showed up an hour ago.
As soon as I realized how late Joel was, I ran back to my car to grab my phone so I could text him.
J—
Did you forget our session? I’m still at the track.
—N
I waited for him to text back, maybe apologizing for sleeping in or forgetting what day it was or telling me about some little fender bender he’d gotten into on the way to meet me.
Nothing. What was it about guys not answering my texts? Was there something about me that brought that out in them, like maybe a big fat L for loser on my forehead?
I knew I should just wait for him to reply, because anybody who knows anything about texting knows that double-texting is a total faux pas. But I couldn’t believe Joel wasn’t answering. So I scrolled past the smiley faces on my phone’s emoji menu and gave him another nudge by texting him a picture of a man walking. Maybe the man was really running. Even with my reading glasses on I wasn’t sure, but it was close enough.
I waited. Still nothing.
So I texted him a picture of a sneaker. If I were designing the emojis, I would have used a more cutting-edge sneaker, but it got the point across.
Nothing again. I thought for a moment, then texted him a fall leaf, a pumpkin, clapping hands.
Maybe Joel was embarrassed about our almost kiss. Or hurt. Or whatever. Apparently, I was going to have to be the grownup here and actually call him to smooth things over.
His phone rang four times and went to voicemail. “No one checks voicemail anymore,” Joel’s voice said. “Send me a text. Or just move on.”
I took a moment to consider whether I was the kind of health coach that kept the money and just moved on. I decided I wasn’t, partly because I genuinely liked Joel and partly because I needed to have at least one client to keep my wobbly self-esteem relatively intact.
I started my car, pulled up Joel’s health coaching contract, typed his address into the Waze app on my phone. Fifteen minutes later, Waze sent up a checkered destination flag, and I pulled into a parking space in front of a townhouse.
I reached for my water bottle, looked around. Joel’s townhouse complex had a kind of noncustodial divorced dad vibe. Temporary living edged in sadness and dirty socks. Video game all-nighters and kids visiting every other weekend. I wondered if Rick had lived in a place like this after he got divorced, before he bought his little beach bungalow. I wondered if I’d ever get a chance to ask him.
I flashed back to the slightly hipper, more urban townhouse I’d owned before I bought my house on Wildwater Way. I’d liked that townhouse. I liked hearing the occasional rumble of voices on the other side of my walls, which made me feel not quite so alone when I was between boyfriends. I liked the anonymity of having neighbors that I could chat with at the community mailbox on weekends, but didn’t have to interact with beyond that. My HOA fee meant that every week someone came by and mowed my postage stamp lawn and blew leaves or snow off the narrow driveway. It was easy living.
I’d basically bought my house because climbing to the next rung on the real estate ladder seemed like the kind of aspirational thing people just did. I guess I’d thought that maybe if I bought the house, the life would somehow follow. And before I knew it, I’d be hanging multiple stockings on the fireplace mantel every Christmas. Not that I’d ever hung a single stocking.
Maybe Joel had bought a house, too, with his girlfriend, and his girlfriend lived there now. Maybe a townhouse was like that old childhood game of Chutes & Ladders. You could end up in one on the ladder up to a house or on the chute down from one. Maybe I’d end up back in a townhouse again on the way to my double wide tent.
I realized I was still sitting in my car, staring at the townhouse. I got rid of Waze and texted Joel again:
Do you have a minute to talk? I’m right outside your place.
While I waited for Joel to come out, I looked for an emoji of a mole to text him as an ice-breaker. I wasn’t an expert in mole-identification, but I was pretty sure my phone didn’t have one. I bypassed the squirrel and the parrot emojis, spent too much time debating between the raccoon and the porcupine. Ultimately, I went with the porcupine, even though I wasn’t sure it would make Joel laugh the way a mole would have.
No response, so I texted the porcupine. And then the squirrel. And two parrots. And a pink flamingo.
I tried calling Joel’s phone again, left a message even though his voicemail told me not to, because he had no right to tell me what to do. And then I waited some more.
Out of an abundance of persistence, I got out of my car. The front of each townhouse had a tall fenced enclosure made out of horizontal slats of dark-stained cedar with a hinged gate right in the center.
I reached for the latch.
The three Noreens were sitting in a semi-circle on the brick courtyard, facing me.
I heard myself gasp. It was a different kind of gasp than back when I’d discovered Rick had mass-produced me. This gasp was pure shock. The shock segued quickly into fear. My heart began beating a mile a minute as my body went into fight or flight mode,
I was pretty sure flight was going to win. My hand was still on the latch and all I had to do was take a step backward, slam the gate, turn and run back to my car.
I held one finger up to my lips, gave the Noreens a silent shh. Their eyes were pleading and their mouths were covered in strips of duct tape. Even I could tell their foliage needed a good watering if it was going to survive this terrifying ordeal. I was able to pick out the original Noreen right away, sitting between the other two statues. Maybe it was the particular shade of rust the ferns in her hair were turning, or the way the sea glass sparkled in her cement.
I realized Joel was singing softly. I caught that line about every time I think of you, I always catch my breath from “Missing You.” John Waite? Tina Turner did a version, too, come to think of it, but Joel’s voice sounded more like John’s than Tina’s. Joel was singing the part about not missing you no matter what my friends say.
He sounded more sad than dangerous. But his back was facing me, so it was hard to be sure. He was sitting in a low beach chair across from the statues. His jacket was on the ground beside him, and the smallest cast iron hibachi I’d ever seen was throwing off a surprising amount of heat from the center of the circle.
“I was hot,” Joel said without turning around, “so I took off my jacket. And then I got cold, so I lit the hibachi. First time. It’s the kind of thing you buy and never use.” As if that explained everything.
If the Noreens were lighter, I would have simply taken my statues and gone home. Clearly, this situation was above my health coach pay grade.
I considered my options. “Is that duct tape on their mouths?” I said.
Joel nodded. “I took a picture and texted a ransom note to my ex.”
I gave Joel a wide berth as I walked over to the Noreens and gently peeled the duct tape off their mouths. Sorry, I mouthed.
When I turned around, Joel was taking a marshmallow from the bag beside him and threading it onto a bamboo skewer. He held it out in my direction.
“Thanks,” I said. I stayed arm’s distance away when I took it, then sat cross-legged on the ground, squeezing myself in between the original Noreen and one of the others. I was on high alert, ready to run if I had to.
I held my skewered marshmallow just over the tiny hibachi. Joel threaded another marshmallow on a skewer and did the same.
“So,” I said, launching into my long, slow health coach nod. “You took a picture of the statues and texted a ransom note to your ex.”
Joel nodded, circled his marshmallow around over the coals. “It’s always going to be her, you know?”
I nodded, turned my marshmallow over to make sure it toasted evenly. I wondered if it would be off-topic to ask Joel if he had graham crackers and chocolate. I was dying for a s’more, which might have been just a new twist on stress eating, but still.
“Sorry I wanted to kiss you,” he said. “I always think that if I move on to someone else, it’ll be better. But I don’t really want to do that. No offense.”
“None taken,” I said. I mean, I totally got that. Those early days, when a relationship could be everything you’ve ever imagined, were so compelling.
If the Noreens could have nodded their agreement, I was pretty sure they would have. We were so connected. Even in my dreams, I’d known they needed my help. Maybe I knew more than I thought I did. Maybe we always do.
“Can I ask you a question?” I said.
Joel nodded, turned his marshmallow over again. The crisp, barely burned smell of roasted marshmallows on a crisp fall day filled the air.
“Sorry I didn’t show up at the track today,” he said. “I threw my back out trying to get the statues out of my trunk. They’re a lot heavier than they look. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I could look you in the eyes after stealing them from you.”
“Why did you take them?”
He shrugged. “It was ill-considered and impetuous. And it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
I did another slow health coach nod. “So, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“You said something about hoping the universe would find a way to get them out of your front yard. So you could say it was my way of being one with the universe.”
I resisted the urge to say Seriously? I was getting a little bit dizzy from all this nodding, but I kept it up while I waited to see if he had anything more to say.
“Yeah, that and I knew my ex would want them. Which meant that she’d show up. And then I’d get to talk to her.”
His brown button eyes met mine. “Can I write you a check for them?” he said.
Behind Joel’s head, the gate latch creaked.
Alison poked her head in.
It was like being rescued by a superhero. Alison strode into the courtyard and struck a power pose, legs hip-width apart, hands on her hips. She was wearing a pair of one-snap-unsnapped overalls and kick-ass work boots. She had three seagull feathers stuck into her messy bun, and I even liked her yes tattoo now. I’d never been so happy to see anyone in my life.
“I missed you,” Joel said. “You’re not mad, are you?”
Alison looked at me and then at Joel. She pulled a feather out, stabbed it into her bun again. “Joel, read the room.”
It took my brain a moment to catch up enough to realize that Alison was the ex.
“Hi,” I said. “I guess I should be more surprised to see you, but the thing about small towns is that everybody is somehow connected to everybody else. It’s like we’re all living in the same overlap on a Venn diagram.”
“I know, right?” Alison said. “As soon as Joel texted me the ransom note, obviously I knew it was a picture of more Noreens. And because you’d mentioned some of them were missing, it didn’t take much to put two and two together.”
“Sorry,” Joel said. He held out his fully toasted marshmallow in Alison’s direction. “Marshmallow?”
Alison took the skewer, blew on the marshmallow to cool it off. “You’re always sorry, Joel. You say sorry so much it’s lost all meaning.”
“I have to believe,” Joel said, “it might just be that I need an occasional realignment to reality. I think the walking is really starting to help though.” His eyes met mine. “Don’t you?”
I was starting to feel like a one-trick pony, but I went into my long, slow health coach nod anyway. “So, you think the walking is really starting to help.”
Joel matched his nod to mine. “As soon as my back feels better, I’ll jump right back in.” He smiled. “I ordered the mat and dumbbells last night.”
“Speaking of dumbbells,” Alison said. “What the hell were you thinking, Joel?”
“I deserved that,” Joel said. “Although for future reference, I respond better to positive reinforcement.”
Alison shook her head, pulled a stringy piece off her marshmallow. I was still holding mine, so I dug in, too. My marshmallow had swollen to perfection and was just beginning to shrink down now, so I’d caught it just in the nick of time. It was simply amazing that burnt whatever it was could taste so good. Crispy and caramelized on the outside, soft and gooey inside.
“The Egyptians,” Joel said, “started making marshmallows from the sap of the marshmallow plant in 2000 BC. These early marshmallows were a delicacy reserved for the gods and the pharaohs. Today’s marshmallows are made by beating together sugary syrup and gelatin. The air bubbles become trapped, so they’re mostly air. Which is what makes Peeps dance before they explode in the microwave.”
“Did you get graham crackers and chocolate?” Alison said. “I could really go for a s’more right now.”
“Sorry,” Joel said.
“See,” Alison said. “You did it again.”
“Is there any world where you can imagine us getting back together?” Joel said.
“Don’t hold your breath,” Alison said. “You’re irredeemable.”
“Not necessarily,” Joel said. “And I’m highly motivated.”
Alison clanked the top down on the little hibachi. “Why don’t you channel some of that motivation and help us get those statues loaded into my truck.”
Traffic was light on the way to my house. Alison followed me in her truck, and we were pulling into my driveway before I knew it.
We stood for a minute, looking at the pumpkin on my front stoop. A part of me felt like it really belonged to Alison. But I knew I’d never get around to buying another pumpkin, so I didn’t offer it to her. My life might be a mess, but I had a pumpkin.
I sighed. I was simply not the kind of woman who could keep another woman’s pumpkin.
I bent my knees, hoisted it up and held it out to Alison. “I think Joel meant this for you.”
“Keep it,” she said. “It’s the least he could do for you.”
I put the pumpkin down again.
“So,” I said. “Is Joel going to be all right?”
Even rolling her eyes, Alison managed to look exotic. “Joel is always going to be all right. It’s everyone else that I worry about. Me, you, the rest of the world. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, but he’s such a spectacular mess. When we’re together, I think I can’t take it for one more minute. And then when we’re apart, I think, well, at least with Joel there’s never a dull moment.”
I helped her slide a long ramp out of the bed of her truck. We both jumped up and wiggled the original Noreen onto the dolly, then I jumped down again, so I could help her guide the statue along the ramp.
“Well done,” Alison said once the statue was safely at ground level. “Let me know if you ever want a part-time job. The pay is pathetic, but the boss is awesome and you get a discount on garden statues. Oh, wait, you already have statue connections.”
I laughed, rolled the dolly along my walkway to the front stoop, turned it around so I could bump the original Noreen up the stairs to join the pumpkin.
“You’re a natural,” Alison said. “I’m not kidding. You have no idea how many people can’t get the hang of this.”
“Great,” I said. “I just spent all this time and money becoming a certified health coach, and now I find out that my true talent is moving garden statues.”
“You could always just do it while you’re building your clientele,” Alison said. “Why don’t you leave me some business cards. I’ll put them out on the counter for you.”
“Business cards,” I said. I could distinctly remember not wanting to jinx myself by ordering them too early. And then I’d never ordered them at all.
“Wait,” Alison said. She grabbed the bottom of the dolly with both hands and we lifted it up the stairs and maneuvered the statue into place next to the big orange pumpkin.
“Teamwork is the dreamwork,” I said.
Alison smiled. “It is indeed.”
“You know,” I said, “I might just take you up on that offer one of these days. As long as you don’t mind me trying to poach some new health clients from your customer base.”
“Poach away,” Alison said. “Shopping and hiring a health coach aren’t mutually exclusive. You know, it’s not like people only do one or the other.”
“Thanks.” I bumped the dolly down the stairs. “I’ll follow you to the gallery so we can unload the other two.”
“Are you sure?” Alison said, but I was already heading toward my car.
The tree-lined streets were blazing with color, from burgundy to candy-corn yellow and orange. Once we got to Gone Coastal, Alison backed her truck right up to the loading dock, so we didn’t even need to pull out the ramp again.
Joel got out of his car.
After he’d helped load up the statues at his place, we’d left him moaning softly and holding his back. Apparently, he’d reconsidered.
I rolled down my window as I passed him. “Good move,” I said.
I found a place to park and climbed up the steps to the loading dock. I helped Alison and Joel wiggle one of the statues onto the dolly. We rolled it to the back door. Alison punched in a number on the keypad, opened the door. Joel rolled the statue right in.
We got the Noreens settled in with the other Noreens, and then Alison went off to relieve her part-time employee so she could go home.
“Wow,” Joel said. “My back actually feels better after that. You don’t have time for a quick walk, do you? I’d be happy to pay extra.”
“I absolutely do have time for a walk,” I said. “Why don’t you keep an eye on the gallery, and Alison and I will be back before you know it.”
“Well-played,” Alison said.
“Karma is a boomerang,” I said. “And he totally owed us both.”
“I can’t believe I’m taking a walk on the beach,” Alison said. “I have a part-time employee helping out three times a week so I can get things done, and that obviously didn’t happen today. Which means I have like eight squidillion things I should be doing right now.”
“Me, too,” I said. “But it’s such a nice day, and I never get to walk this beach.”
We matched our steps together right away, which didn’t happen with just anyone. Even though it was my third walk of the day, feeling the sand under my sneakers never got old. My calves were a little bit tight from this morning’s walk, but they loosened up right away.
We swung our arms and picked up our pace. The ocean was calm and the sky was cloud-free and baby blue. Sunlight reflected on the water, creating patches of sun glitter everywhere. The air smelled like seaweed and low tide, better than perfume.
I’d once read about a study saying that extroverts were beach people and introverts were mountain people. The theory being that beaches had more activities to participate in and more people to hang out with, while mountains were more secluded and solitary.
But the study missed the point. Beaches have different personalities depending on what time of day you walk them. Early in the morning, before sunrise, when only a few brave people venture out, the beach was an introvert’s best friend.
On an unseasonably warm afternoon in October, the beach was a whole different animal. Young children dug in the sand with brightly colored shovels while their mothers communed with their cellphones. Joggers jogged, walkers walked, couples held hands. A few surfers in wetsuits bobbed up and down as they waited for a good wave.
“This is crazy,” I said. “I can’t believe how many people are here at this time of day. I’m used to having the beach almost to myself.”
We circled around a woman about our age flying a huge red cardinal kite, smiling as we passed her.
“According to Native American lore,” Alison said, “when you see a cardinal, you’ll have good luck within twelve days.”
“Maybe she’s trying to make her own luck,” I said.
“Could be,” Alison said. “Let’s hope cardinal kites count.”
We watched the cardinal kite fly higher and higher, so realistic you’d swear it was an actual bird. Even wearing sunglasses, I had to hold one hand against my forehead like a visor to block out the sun enough that I could follow it.
“I always mean to walk,” Alison said when we started walking again, “but I never seem to get around to it. You don’t happen to know a good health coach I could hire, do you?”
“I might be able to offer you and Joel a couples’ rate,” I said.
“Cute,” Alison said. “Listen, I’m sorry you got caught up in all that.”
“You have no idea how happy I was to see your face,” I said. “I knew I was completely in over my head.”
“I can vouch for the fact that Joel’s not dangerous, in case you’re wondering whether or not you should keep working with him.” Alison bent to pick up a seagull feather, tucked it into the pocket of her overalls. “He just has a flair for drama. And a good eye for statues, so there’s that.”
“It was kind of romantic that he stole them to impress you,” I said.
Alison swung her arms harder. “Ha. More like juvenile and histrionic.”
A piece of sea glass sparkled up at me. I bent down to pick it up, fell into step again.
I held it up to the sunlight to get a good look. “Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen lavender sea glass before.”
“It’s really rare,” Alison said. “Between 1880 and 1915, clear glass bottles were made using manganese from Germany as a decolorant. The manganese reacted with the sun’s ultraviolet rays and turned the glass from clear to light purple over the years. After World War I broke out, the manganese was no longer available to bottle makers here, so there’s hardly any sun-colored lavender glass around anymore, bottles or sea glass. It’s a real find.”
“Sun-colored lavender,” I said. “I love it. And you sound exactly like Joel, by the way.”
“One of our first connections was that we both love to nerd out over factoids. And we used to go on these great coddiwomples together. You know, a coddiwomple is when you just jump in the car and travel in a purposeful manner toward a vague destination.”
“Sure, I knew that,” I said.
Alison laughed.
“Do you think you two will get back together?” I said.
Alison picked up another feather. “Who knows. It’s like he’s the kite and I’m the string, and that can get really old.”
I nodded, resisted the urge to jump in with my own story. Whatever that was. Was I the kite? And Rick used to be the string until he let go? Or maybe we were both kites, flying in different directions.
“In a nutshell,” Allison said, “Joel can’t figure out who he is without his job. He has big dreams, big plans, and then he doesn’t do any of it and stays up all night binge shopping online. And meanwhile, I could really use his help at the gallery.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
Alison laughed. “Anyway, yada yada etcetera. So he’s crashing at a friend’s empty place while we both try to figure out what we want.”
“I took a corporate buyout almost eighteen months ago,” I said. “It definitely took me a while to get it together.” Together might have been a slight exaggeration, but I was pretty sure I was in the neighborhood of heading in the right direction. At least some of the time.
We walked around a huge sand sculpture of a pumpkin with a big crooked smile. I’d never even considered a pumpkin sand sculpture as a possibility. The world was such an endlessly fascinating place.
“My dad,” Alison said, “is from Jamaica. One of his favorite sayings is ‘the older the moon, the brighter it shines.’ It sounds better with a Jamaican accent, but basically it means the older you are, the wiser you get. I guess I’m hoping that if we hang in there long enough, Joel and I will get wise enough to figure things out.”
“That’s a great saying,” I said. “And I hope you and Joel figure things out.”
“Thanks,” Alison said. “Can I ask you how all the Noreens ended up in your front yard? I tried to get it out of Rick, but he just told me they were no longer available.”
I scrunched my eyes shut. “I accused Rick of mass-producing me.”
Alison burst out laughing. “You have no idea how much better that makes me feel. I thought you were like this perfect little health coach that did everything right.” She laughed some more, wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands.
“It’s not that funny,” I finally said.
“Of course, it is. I mean, all of Rick’s stuff is fantastic. But the Noreens are beyond. Anybody looking at them can see how much he loves you.”
I shook my head. “He’s made it pretty clear he’s over me.”
“No way,” Alison said.
“Way,” I said.
Alison turned to look at me, looked straight ahead again. “Okay, so one of the messed-up things I do is that every time Joel and I break up, I look around. You know, maybe there’s someone in my orbit I could connect with that wouldn’t be so much work. I have a feeling Joel does the same thing, so I don’t even feel guilty about it anymore.”
I flashed back to my almost-kiss with Joel. Had I been looking for someone who wouldn’t be as much work? Did Rick do that, too? Did everybody?
“Anyway,” Alison said. “Rick made it clear that his heart is otherwise occupied.”
“With me?” I said.
She laughed. “We’re all our own worst enemies, aren’t we?”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I’m just this perfect little health coach that does everything right.”
We walked as far as the beach would let us go at high tide, turned around and walked back to the same beach entrance, followed the sidewalk to the gallery.
“Thanks,” Alison said when Gone Coastal came into sight. “I needed that. Do you want to come in for a while? We could send Joel on a character-building run for sandwiches.”
“I should go,” I said. “But tell him I’ll see him at the track on Monday. And don’t be late.”
The whole way back to my house, I chanted the older the moon, the brighter it shines, like a spell. Partly because I didn’t want to forget it. And also because I really wanted it to be true.
After I pulled my car into the garage, I sat on my front steps with the original Noreen and the pumpkin. Then I opened a text and addressed it to Rick. I scrolled through all the emojis, looking for the perfect one to say what I needed to say. Happy faces, sad faces, smiling faces with heart eyes, puppies, kittens, eye rolls, keys and hearts and a roll of the dice.
I briefly considered sending Rick a fext, aka a fake text, pouring out my feelings about him in a text to someone else and then accidentally on purpose sending it to Rick. Upon further consideration, I had to admit that the things that might work in middle school don’t really hold up in adulthood.
Finally I just typed: Have just spent way too long trying to find the right emoticon to express how I feel. Would you be willing to talk?
It seemed kind of forced and flat, so I added a fingers-crossed emoji at the end of it. Then I added the dove emoji after that, since I’d read somewhere that doves not only represent peace and love, but also hope and reconciliation.
It appeared that I might be replacing tussie-mussies with emoji-laden texts. It was hard to say whether or not that was a step up.
I reread the text, replaced talk with the talk emoji—a speech bubble with three dots inside—so it wouldn’t feel quite so pathetic. And then I pushed the Send arrow.
When I looked at the text again, just so I could second-guess myself when it was too late to change anything, I realized I’d hit the hamburger emoji instead of the talk emoji.
Have just spent way too long trying to find the right emoticon to express how I feel. Fingers crossed. Dove. Would you be willing to hamburger?
“Great,” I said to the original Noreen and the pumpkin. “I am so going back to tussie-mussies.”