Keep Calm and Carry a Big Drink

by Kim Gruenenfelder

  Hey, you up?

  I shake my head. “And not even an ‘MFVodka.’ That bastard and his booty call.”

  “Wha—? No. That’s not the problem. Look at the time.”

  I read. “He wrote it at ten thirty in the morning,” I say, confused about her outrage.

  “I know!” Leilani spits out. “What the hell kind of booty call starts at ten thirty in the morning?! What, do I have to feed you bagels first?”

  Jeff and I look at each other. “Would you like to break it to her?” I ask him.

  Jeff shakes his head. “Probably won’t do any good, but, Leilani, sweetie.” Jeff puts one hand on each of her shoulders and looks deep into her eyes. “Sharks are a real problem. Men propositioning you in bathrooms can be a real problem.”

  “Can be?” I ask.

  Jeff turns to me and jokes, “So many of them end up being senators. Gross.” Then he turns back to look into Leilani’s eyes and enunciate every word. “Men texting you at ten thirty in the morning is not a real problem.”

  Leilani’s jaw drops. “You take that back.”

  “If you want to talk to a woman with real problems, Mel just found out her guy is married. So let’s dial it back a notch.”

  Leilani’s eyes widen. “Oh my God. Should I get the bat?”

  Jeff rolls his eyes.

  I blink a few times. “For what exactly?”

  She shrugs, looks at me as if the answer were obvious. “We tell his wife, give her the bat, and point to his car.”

  “Ummm … while that is very sweet of you, let’s keep that in our back pocket for now.”

  “Okay. But I have your back. You’re Jeff’s ohana, you’re my ohana. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I say, surprisingly verklempt at the sentiment.

  Leilani looks at the phone one more time, sighs, and puts it in her purse. “I should have never MFVed.” She heads back to the storeroom to restock the red and white wine just as Ashley comes charging in.

  “I’m sorry I’m late. I had to swerve to avoid missing a—”

  “Stop,” Jeff says. “Please, darling, do not say deer, chicken, or goat to me one more time.”

  “Doughnut shop,” Ashley says, smiling and holding up a big pink cardboard box. “I just had that psychic feeling that one of us was grappling with a problem and would need doughnuts today.”

  I decide to be touched that Ashley would be so attuned to my soul, rather than think the obvious—there are three women here today. Of course one of us would need a doughnut.

  FIFTY-ONE

  I spend Tuesday night ever so slightly out of my comfort zone. Which is perfect.

  I think most of us are happiest when we’re ever so slightly out of our comfort zone. Being out of your comfort zone means you’re experiencing something new, and we don’t often get that as adults.

  When we’re children, we experience newness all the time: the first time we walk, the first time we see a balloon, the moment we finally master riding a two-wheeler. All of it is new to us, and each experience brings with it a fresh wave of happiness. And sometimes optimism too. The first time a baby talks in full words and gets his or her point across to Mommy or Daddy, what a feeling of joy that must create. How much more power and control did we all suddenly have in our world at that moment. Can an adult even imagine that feeling? Maybe that’s why children laugh so much more than adults do, appear so much more gleeful all the time—they’re still experiencing all of these firsts.

  And we still have a few firsts as teenagers, not as many, but they’re there. I vividly remember the happiness I felt after I passed my driver’s test, and the drive to the grocery store that night, all by myself, to pick up a pound of butter and some baking potatoes for my mom. I felt alive. Anything was possible.

  And I remember the butterflies I felt my first day teaching, being secretly terrified of the students, writing my name on the board, giving my first lecture. By fifth period, I was floating on a cloud as I happily paced around the room, perfectly explaining my first lesson, and giving the kids a math riddle about dots versus lines.

  Of course, every girl remembers the first time she made out with a boy she really liked. The first kiss might not have gone as planned (braces can be deadly), and I’ve yet to hear a good story about the loss of someone’s virginity. But the first time that guy whom you’ve been dreaming about—soooo cute, too cute to ever possibly like you back—does like you, then kisses you for the first time … Ah, if I close my eyes, I can still sort of remember that feeling.

  It’s no wonder women spend most of their twenties chasing men, dieting for men, dressing for men, undressing for men. We spend those years chasing the high of that first kiss.

  How often do we get those moments by the time we’re in our thirties? The bike riding, the driving test, the first dream job, the first dream boy? It’s hard to keep finding firsts. Maybe one of the reasons these newlyweds come in here so happy is simply because they’ve never been married before. The beautiful girl sipping her champagne cocktail gets to use the word husband for the first time in her life. That is pretty damn exciting. And it’s one of the last firsts she may get in her life.

  And now, completely despite myself, I have stumbled upon a new first. I won’t say that tonight I mastered the Micros computer, with all its buttons and drinks, but I am definitely on the way to making it my bitch. And I have quickly become a pro at shaking up the cocktails, pouring the wine in the right glasses, and chatting with the customers. (It didn’t hurt that I taped cheat sheets throughout the bar to remind me which cocktails contain rum versus vodka, or that you have to tilt the glass slightly when you pour a beer from the tap.)

  Even cleanup was fun. Jeff has janitors who come in and do the real scut work, but we still need to bus tables, wash out glasses, and disinfect sinks. During that hour, Leilani hooked up her iPod to Jeff’s portable speaker system, and played every happy, silly dancing song from KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Boogie Shoes” to Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop.” Whistling while you work is good; polishing glasses while rapping to the eighties is golden.

  By the time I crawled into bed at three in the morning, I was exhausted and a little sore.

  It was glorious.

  I don’t remember the last time I slept so soundly.

  FIFTY-TWO

  The following morning, I sleep in until almost eleven. When I wake up, I check my phone, and as I listen to a voice mail, everything in my life suddenly becomes clear.

  I climb out of bed, then do my usual run, followed by a trip to the local bakery. I stare at the glass cases of delectable pastries for ten minutes before finally selecting a lilikoi Danish for Jeff and a boule for me. Then I go to the market and buy bacon.

  I figure the question I have for Jeff requires that I butter him up with bacon grease and a buttery Danish.

  I get home, cook him breakfast, then, carrying a tray piled with bacon, Danish, and coffee, I knock on his door. “Wakie wakie!” I say in a clear, loud voice.

  “Is it time for cakie?” Jeff jokes.

  I open the door. “No, but it is time for bacon,” I tell him, smiling.

  Jeff turns his head slightly, eyeing me suspiciously. “You cooked? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing’s going on,” I assure him as I bring the tray to his bed and place it over his lap. “I figure you should still rest your foot for another day or two. Plus, bacon goes very well with pain meds.”

  “Okay, seriously, what’s up? Did Ben text you last night? Did you sneak off this morning to see him?”

  “No,” I say, repressing the urge to be insulted and cheerfully unfolding Jeff’s napkin and handing it to him. “Why would you assume this has anything to do with a guy?”

  “Because you have that weird look on your face that you get when you’re hiding something.”

  “What look?”

  “You know the look.”

  “There’s no look.”

  “Fine, there’s no look,” Jeff repeats dubio
usly. “So what then? You’re getting depressed about being thirty-three, and you’d like me to be your sperm donor if neither of us finds—”

  “Why would you go there?” I ask, exasperated.

  “Honey, you’d be surprised how many female friends have my sperm on hold for their thirty-seventh birthdays.”

  “I actually would not, you’re a genetic catch. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about.” I take a deep breath, then give him my news. “The apartment manager called me this morning. I got the studio. I’m signing the lease today.”

  Jeff looks stunned. I take his silence as an invitation to continue. “It’s small, but it’s really beautiful. There’s a view of the ocean from my living-room-slash-bedroom. Nothing as spectacular as yours, but it’s pretty amazing. And there’s a pool in the complex with a Jacuzzi, and the beach is only a few blocks away. It’s perfect.”

  Jeff shakes his head. “Mel—”

  I put out my hand. “Stop. I have played in my head everything you can possibly say. Everything Nic and Seema and my mom could say: ‘This is insane.’ ‘You’re confusing vacation with reality.’ ‘You don’t know anybody here.’”

  Jeff gives me another one: “You don’t change your life based on three days.”

  “Why not? The first time I saw UCLA was on a college tour. I was there for less than three hours. And yet I went, and it was the best decision of my life. And do you know why I went?”

  Jeff shakes his head.

  “I felt like I belonged. After only three hours I knew that was where I was supposed to be. And I went. And I met you and Seema and Nic and you were my family, and everything I have ever loved in my grown-up life in some way came from that decision. And now, you’re right, I haven’t been here long. But I have that same feeling in my gut. This is where I’m supposed to be right now. This is where I belong.”

  Jeff watches me in silence. I wait for a response. Finally he takes a bite of bacon, nods, and quietly says, “Okay.”

  “Seriously?” I say, suspicious. “No lectures about how I haven’t thought this through? No gentle guidance, explaining to me all of the logical reasons why I shouldn’t do this? No sermons about actions having consequences?”

  Jeff shrugs. “I was never the sermon type.”

  I immediately pull Jeff into a hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I say, relieved. “You have no idea how much I love you right now.”

  “You do know you could just stay here though, right? I mean, the guest room is empty.”

  “I know. And I love you for that too. But I’ve never lived by myself before. I think I need to do that right now. I do have one minor favor to ask you though.”

  “Anything.”

  “I want to work for you,” I say quickly. Then I speak a mile a minute so I can get my whole argument out before Jeff says no. “I loved bartending. I had the best time Saturday night, and then again yesterday. It was the most fun I’ve had working in years. I loved talking to people about their weddings! It was invigorating! It was hopeful! I’m telling you, I felt eighteen again.”

  Jeff looks mildly horrified. “Would you want to be eighteen again? Wait, weren’t you dating me when you were eighteen?”

  “Okay, fine. Twenty-one, then. The thing is, I want to take a sabbatical from teaching for a year. Just for a year. I want to learn how to make Kipona Alohas properly. I want to say Kipona Aloha in my everyday life. And kipa hou mai and pomaika’i and mahalo and that fish with the ridiculously long name.”

  “HOO-moo-HOO-moo-NOO-koo-NOO-koo-AH-poo-AH-ah.”

  “HOO-moo-HOO-moo-NOO-koo-NOO-koo-AH-poo-AH-ah,” I repeat effortlessly.

  Jeff nods approvingly.

  I pantomime raising the roof, proud of myself.

  Jeff shakes his head, so I stop.

  “You can’t work for the next few days anyway, right?”

  “Um … well, it’s going to be tricky.”

  “Then let me be your bartender this week. If you hate me, I’ll quit. If I hate it, I’ll quit. Otherwise, I can replace that bartender who left.”

  Jeff appears to be considering the idea. I put the palms of my hands together as if I were about to pray. Then I give him my big puppy eyes and beg, “Please, please, please…”

  He seems worried about me. “Are you sure you’re not doing this because of a dude?”

  “No! That’s the best part. For the first time in years, maybe since I went to a different college than my high school boyfriend, it’s not about a guy! Ben may know where his Christmas tree is going, and I might secretly be tempted to see it, but I now know where my Christmas tree is going. And I can’t wait to say Mele Kalikimaka on my own!” I tell Jeff proudly.

  Jeff furrows his brow. “I have no idea what that means.”

  “It means ‘Merry Christmas.’”

  “No, I know that part. I mean, I don’t understand what you’re talking about with the Christmas trees—”

  “You don’t have to,” I interrupt. “In my head, it makes perfect sense. My point is, I don’t need a man. I need to be excited to get up in the morning.” I put my hands back together and beg once again. “Just please let me do this. It may be an incredibly stupid idea, and I might fall on my ass. But at least I’m not going to be doing it because I think it’s going to put me on a path that will one day make me happy. I’m doing it because it will make me happy right now.”

  Jeff inhales a deep breath. “Okay.”

  “Really?” I say, surprised. “But I have a whole speech planned out.”

  “Of course you do. You’re you. The truth is, I’d love to have you here. I like having someone around who is excited to go to the dry cleaner’s.”

  “Yay!” I say, practically pouncing on him again. I begin kissing him on the cheek over and over. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  “Just promise me one thing?”

  “Anything.”

  “Don’t tell Seema or Nic about this until you’re absolutely sure. I don’t want to be seen as the Pied Piper.”

  “You got it!”

  I bounced around Jeff’s house until around three, when I got a text from Ben:

  You left your charm bracelet here. Can I stop by and drop it off sometime?

  Sigh. Of course I did. Why wouldn’t I have?

  Or, more concisely, shitdamnfuckhellsonofabitch.

  FIFTY-THREE

  I decide not to answer Ben’s text for at least twenty-four hours.

  Which probably means I’ll be lucky if I get through to the morning, but it’s a start. Progress—not perfection. The old Mel would have jumped in a car to retrieve the bracelet tout suite, then probably lost control and slept with a married guy. The new Mel has decided that, while I do need to get my bracelet back, I have lots of options here on how to do it: everything from sending Jeff to retrieve it to sending Leilani and her bat. Or I could ambush Ben at work and demand it back in a place where I can threaten to cause a scene if he doesn’t hand it over immediately and let me walk out of his life forever.

  Therefore, I decide to take a day, or maybe even two, before I write back.

  Jeff is staying home for one last night of recovery, which allows Leilani, Ashley, and me to see how we work as a team on a weeknight. As we prep for the night—unpacking and polishing souvenir glasses for people to take home, wiping down tables, restocking liquor of all sorts—we discuss the married-man problem.

  “You gotta cut bait,” Leilani declares. “Men don’t leave their wives.”

  “I disagree,” Ashley counters. “He’s already said they’re separated, the rest is just semantics.”

  “I don’t think he ever actually said they were separated,” I admit.

  I get a victorious “Hah!” from Leilani, just as Ashley mutters, “Rats.”

  “Although he did say she has a boyfriend in New York,” I continue.

  Ashley points to Leilani and yells, “Hah!”—as Leilani asserts, “He’s lying.”

  “How do you know he’s lying
?” I ask.

  “Were his lips moving?” Leilani asks as she wipes down a table.

  Ashley shakes her head. “So he has to go through some paperwork. All men have a changing of the guard. None of them like to be alone. If they did, they’d be women.”

  Leilani stops and stares at her, then looks to me. I shrug, then say to Ashley, “Okay, we give up. What’s a changing of the guard?”

  “You know how at Buckingham Palace the queen has these uniformed guards who have to frown all the time?”

  “Um … I guess.”

  “Well, at eleven A.M. every morning, there’s this whole ceremony where the New Guard marches over to the palace to replace the Old Guard. There’s music, and the captains of both the New Guard and the Old Guard exchange the palace keys, and, like, both guards make a show of arms. You know, what’s interesting is they’re all actual soldiers, many having served overseas—”

  Leilani makes a show of yawning. “Yeah, 177. We get it, you finished college early, and you know a lot of trivia. Get to the point.”

  “The point is, every morning at Buckingham Palace there is a certain amount of time when both guards are there at the same time. Ben is your palace. You are the New Guard. You just need to get the keys from his wife.”

  “You mean steal the keys,” Leilani retorts.

  Ashley brings a box of small drink menus framed in black metal stands to Leilani. “You know what your problem is? You think men are supposed to live up to some romanticized ideal, and if they can’t live up to it, they should be thrown away. That’s fine when you’re twenty-four and look the way you do. But what about when you’re thirty-three and—”

  “Please don’t finish that thought,” I beg insistently.

  Ashley places the box down at Leilani’s table, then heads back to me. “My point is, older men have more baggage, but less drama. Give him a chance.”

  Leilani begins placing the framed drink-menu stands on each table. “You do not know what you’re talking about. He’s a loser who’s best left lost.”