I kiss him on the cheek. “See you next week.”
On the drive over to meet Lynne, I think about what Lawrence said about not wanting to hear about your faults from other people. Because the more I’m getting out in the world, doing new things, meeting new people, the more I’m ashamed of how long I’ve been hiding from my own life. I look at Teresa and Gio and their crazy, sprawling family, at my mom and Claire and their girlfriends and volunteering and theater subscriptions, Marcy and her amazing wide circle of friends, with all their late-night adventures, and think that all of those things might have been mine. The years alone with no lover, no arms around me, no kisses, no hands on my skin. And what stopped me? Exactly what Lawrence said. Because deep down, I always sort of believed that I didn’t bring much to the table.
Even back in high school, Lynne was the leader, Teresa was the social coordinator, and I went along for the ride and felt lucky to have them. I kept my circle equally small in college, and as soon as I went to France, I ghosted on them too. When I think back on my relationship with Bernard, I wonder if I really loved him as much as I thought I did, or if I just loved that he didn’t seem to see the many flaws in me that I saw. I never stopped to wonder if he didn’t see them because he was such a narcissist that he never saw much of anything past himself. And I let him break me so completely; it was a validation of all the worst thoughts I had about myself.
I think about what Mrs. O’Connor said to me when I came back to school after my surgery, with the full knowledge that my athletic career was over.
“You know what is amazing about women like us, Miss Eloise? We have so much magic in us, we contain multitudes. Did you ever know I was a dancer?”
“No, what kind of dance?”
“Ballet. And I was good, too. Thought a lot about trying to do it professionally.”
“What happened?”
“I kept growing. Up and up and taller and taller and my shoulders and hips filled out, and my bosom decided to make an appearance and I stopped having the kind of body that you need to have in ballet.”
“That is so unfair.”
“True. But you can’t ask some five-foot-nine ballet boy to hoist all of this fabulousness over his head like a feather. The audience would bust out laughing,” she said, waving her arm over the length of her body.
I laughed. “I suppose not.”
She reached out and took my chin in her hand. “You are so much more than one thing. You have so much more to give and be than just what you were. When I realized I couldn’t be a dancer, I found out I could teach dance, and I did that to put myself through college. And I loved teaching so much that I thought maybe I could teach other things, and it turned out that one of my other passions, reading, could be something I could share with students. What is your other passion, the thing you like most to do?”
I thought about this. “I really love to cook. I read old cooking magazines and cookbooks and I love food writing, and I really just love playing in the kitchen.”
“So perhaps you should see if maybe there is a way to let that passion take center stage for you, now that you will have time to explore it more fully. The hours you’ve just gotten back that you won’t be spending in the gym, the days you won’t be going to meets and practices, maybe that is time you can spend cooking and determine if that might be a new direction to go.”
“I never thought about that.” I always thought I would take the athletics as far as I could and then probably coach. As much as I loved cooking, I’d never thought of it being more than a hobby. But suddenly anything felt possible, because Mrs. O’Connor believed in me.
“You can be anything because you are everything,” she said. “Don’t you let anyone tell you otherwise.”
In that moment I felt invincible. I felt powerful and possible. How was it that I let that feeling get so diminished in me?
I pull up in front of my house and go in to grab Simca. She gives me her special corgi smile and hops about excitedly.
“You love me despite all my many flaws, don’t you, pupper?”
Simca yips joyfully and does a spin.
“Well, girl, I’m working on loving me too.”
? ? ?
They say that March comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb, and that is almost always true in Chicago. The sun is shining in a very springlike way, but it is just in the upper forties, and the wind still bites. I’m bundled in a parka and scarf, looking like the abominable snowperson, at the dog park. But when I look up, Lynne, naturally, is in a sleek black shearling, with tall riding boots and a gray angora infinity scarf, looking like some movie star in Aspen.
“Oh my God, he’s enormous,” I say, as Ellison leaps up at me. He has more than doubled in size since the last time I saw him.
“I know,” she says, leaning down to scratch between Simca’s ears before joining me on the bench. “He’s a monster. You have no idea how many times I’ve put him in the car to drive by Paws and make a drop-off.”
She laughs, but the joke lands flat. I know how many people buy dogs with no preparation and don’t commit to training and then just hand them off to a shelter when it gets annoying.
“You can’t give him up now, Simca would miss him.” The two of them are playing happily and have found a Saint Bernard to join in the fun. The three dogs look like a Disney movie could break out at any moment.
“Well, then, for Simca’s sake, I suppose I’ll have to put up with him.”
“Indeed. So it looks like Teresa has the party well in hand!”
“Leave it to T to just get it all organized,” Lynne says. We got e-mails this morning saying that she booked the private room at Stella Barra on Halsted for our joint birthday party for the Saturday night of our birthday weekend. She sent us the menus so that we can start thinking about what we want to order.
“Well, I’m happy to let her handle it, aren’t you?”
“For sure.”
“Have you done your list yet?”
“Yep. Angelique, and my assistant. A couple other people from work. Theaster and another person from the DuSable board. I’m inviting some of my West Coast girls, but I have no idea if they’ll want to make the trip in. What about you?”
“Mine is pretty easy and small. Marcy, Lawrence, Mom, Claire, Glenn, the Farbers, Shawn.”
Lynne narrows her eyes at me. “Seriously? Shawn?”
“Well, yeah, of course, I mean . . .”
“You mean, what, exactly? That the most fun way for me to celebrate my fortieth birthday will be to watch my ex-husband paw you?”
“Come on, Lynne, he isn’t going to paw me, he’s not that kind of guy, but you can’t really expect me to not invite my boyfriend to my fortieth birthday party. How is that fair? You’ll be in a room of, like, forty people—it isn’t like some small dinner party—you can just avoid each other.”