Driving Lessons

by Zoe Fishman

“So what do you guys want to do today?” I asked, immediately feeling guilty about being such a jerk. Poor Nate had no idea why I was here. As far as he knew, I was just on a fun trip to see my girlfriend. Maybe part of the reason I disliked him was because he was so clueless, and really, that wasn’t even his fault, it was Mona’s, and Mona was very sick and confused and scared. I vowed to be nicer to both of them.

  “I thought we’d all go check out my acupuncturist,” replied Nate. He pointed south. “He has an office in Chinatown.”

  I wrinkled my brow. “Do what?” I looked at Mona. She hadn’t mentioned anything about acupuncture on the phone. She looked puzzled as well.

  “Yeah, Nate, do what?”

  “Mona, you’re always so cynical about alternative medicine. I wanted you to see what it was all about, and I thought maybe having Sarah here to experience it with you might take down some of your guard.” The sun peeked out from behind the clouds and he loosened his scarf.

  “Nate, what do I need acupuncture for?” She faced him with her hands on her hips. I took a sip of my now-cold coffee.

  “For your fatigue! I thought it would be a great way to rejuvenate yourself. I know that it helps me quite a bit, so I figured why not. You’ve just been so tired lately, you know? Unless, of course, you’re not tired at all and just making excuses not to hang out.” He waited for her to smile, and when she did not, he laughed awkwardly.

  “Hey, Mona, why not?” I stepped up and took her arm in mine. “It might be fun.” I did not in any way, shape, or form think that it would be fun, but as far as Mona’s health went, who knew? It certainly couldn’t hurt.

  “Jesus, why are you looking at me like that?” She tugged on my arm playfully. “Fine, two against one. Why not. But it better not hurt, Nate.”

  “Just a little prick, I promise.”

  I’m just very tired all the time,” Mona explained, squirming a bit under the acupuncturist’s gaze.

  “You work hard?” he asked, tilting his head and taking her in.

  “Not any harder than any other New Yorker. Hustle, hustle, hustle!”

  His stoic gaze did not waver. “You drink too much?”

  “No.” Pause. “Yes.”

  “Okay, you come with me.”

  Nate and I watched her shuffle off and I worried about my upcoming turn. Should I tell him that I might be pregnant? The idea of uttering those words out loud was more than mildly terrifying.

  I snuck a sideways glance at Nate. What if he was in love with Mona and wanted her to have his kids? True, there wasn’t a biological clock ticktocking ominously over his head, but what if he was one of those rare men who actually had a timeline? On second thought, he was a thirty-eight-year-old part-time comedian. I wasn’t sure he knew what a timeline was.

  “So, you come here a lot?” I asked him as we waited for our turns.

  “Not a lot, really. More like once every three months. I try out all of my new material on this guy.”

  “Isn’t the language thing kind of a barrier?”

  “Sarah, I’m kidding! Sheesh.”

  “Sorry, I’m a bit slow today.” I looked around, taking in the giant fish tank that glowed green, the scratched linoleum floor and wood-paneled walls.

  “I know it’s not exactly the Ritz, but this guy has really helped me through a lot.”

  “Really? Is your back a wreck or something?”

  “Not exactly. I have a lot of anxiety issues, actually. The yoga helps, but not entirely. I tried antidepressants for a while, but I hated how they made me feel like a zombie. Plus, my penis was as limp as an udon noodle.” I looked at him with alarm. “Sorry, TMI. My bad. There’s no need for you to know about that. That’s some new material, actually.”

  “It’s part of your act?”

  “I was thinking it could be. What, it’s too much?”

  “Well, maybe not. I guess in context it could be funny for a bunch of strangers. For your girlfriend’s best friend, maybe not so much.”

  “Right. Thanks for the feedback, Sarah. At any rate, a buddy of mine recommended this place, and sure enough, it works like a charm for me. Who knows if it’s psychosomatic or what, but it works. That’s all I care about.”

  “I think it’s really great that you’ve found such solace through something so—so organic.”

  “Thanks. I’m pretty proud of myself too. Never met a drug I didn’t like back in the day, let me tell you. I also never would have thought I’d turn out to be this yoga-cum-homeopathic enthusiast or a thirty-eight-year-old struggling comedian paralegal either, but here I am.” He laughed nervously. “Just so you know, I’m working on that angle.” I made a Who, me? expression. “Come on, Sarah, cut the crap. Something would be wrong with you if you didn’t think I needed to get my shit together.”

  “Listen, I’m a lost soul myself. I work at a costume-jewelry store in a town called Farmwood, for crying out loud. I have no right to judge.”

  “Yeah, but you have a career to fall back on and a solid marriage.”

  “Well, yeah, but I don’t exactly live on Planet Care Bear or anything.”

  “Planet Care Bear?” Nate threw his head back and laughed. “Oh shit, I better keep it down. That’s rich though, Planet Care Bear. Anyway, I really care about Mona, and she’s somebody who does have her shit together. No question about it. I don’t want to lose her, but I also know that she deserves someone that’s her equal. I’m working on that.”

  “That’s great, Nate.”

  “And I’m not just saying that, either. It’s looking like I’m going to go back to school to get my master’s in education. I’ll have loans to pay off forever of course, but I’m feeling good about it.”

  “Nate, I’m impressed.”

  “Thanks, Sarah. That means a lot, coming from Monie’s best friend.” The couch creaked beneath him as he shifted. “Speaking of, do me a favor and don’t tell Mona about this. I want to surprise her with my letter of acceptance. I mean, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I think my chances of getting in somewhere local are pretty good. I sent in my applications a week or so ago.”

  “No problem.” I smiled at him. So they both have secrets.

  The acupuncturist shuffled out in his plastic slippers and motioned to me to come.

  “Well, see ya later, Nate.”

  “See ya.”

  Inspired by Nate, I explained to the acupuncturist that I was suffering from anxiety, which wasn’t entirely untrue. He nodded sagely and inserted the needles into my skin, their penetration was barely detectable. As he hovered over my midsection, I waved him away, just to be safe.

  “You okay? Hurt?” the acupuncturist asked, a needle poised over my sternum.

  “Oh, I’m fine. Sorry.” He nodded, and in moments, I drifted off, my body desperate for rest.

  “Okay, turn and I be back,” the acupuncturist said loudly, pulling me out of my shallow sleep. I opened my eyes but he wasn’t in my room. He was just a voice.

  Was he talking to me? I sat up a bit and took stock of the porcupine quills traveling up and down my most of me. Really? I asked myself. He wants me to turn over onto these? Is this the dark side of acupuncture that no one talks about? I looked around nervously. Okay, one, two, three, Sarah. I leaned awkwardly on my forearm and swung onto my stomach with the grace of a sea lion.

  Ow, ow, ow, I whispered as a few of the needles began to plunge in. This can’t be right, can it? Will this hurt the baby if there is, in fact, a baby in there? I did my best to channel Zen thoughts as I examined the ribbed pattern of the gauzy white curtain separating my cot from that of the patient next door. A shadow passed behind it and his voice returned.

  “Okay, look good. Ten more minute.”

  Oh my God, what an asshole you are, I said to myself as I made the connection. He had been speaking to another patient. I wasn’t the one who was supposed to turn, she was. Hoping to avoid the further mortification of allowing him to witness my idiocy, I flipped back over, working up a swe
at in the process.

  Moments later, my own curtains parted and he strode in purposefully. I closed my eyes and pretended to be deep in a meditative trance.

  “What you do here?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What you do here? You roll over? You bleeding.”

  “Oh no, I didn’t roll over,” I lied. “I’m bleeding?”

  He looked at me curiously. I shrugged my shoulders, grazing my chin with a few of the needles in the process. He sighed loudly and mumbled something in Chinese under his breath as he began extracting them. When he was finished, he hovered over my face.

  “Thank you,” I said. He nodded and left the room. I sat up and gathered my things as quickly as possible. Only me. Outside, I rejoined Mona, who was sitting in the center of the couch and staring into the depths of the giant fish tank.

  “Remember when fish tanks were the thing?” she asked. I sat down next to her.

  “Yeah, like in elementary school?”

  “The eighties, man.”

  “Seriously.” We watched a small school of angelfish dart into a plastic castle. “How was your session?” I asked.

  “He knew,” she replied quietly.

  “He knew what?”

  “About the cancer. He knew.” She continued to stare into the tank.

  “He did?” I put my hand over hers. “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘You sick. In uterus, you sick.’ ”

  I gasped. “Shut up.”

  “You shut up.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I cried, of course.”

  “Was he sympathetic?”

  “He patted my shoulder and then jabbed my pelvis with about thirty thousand needles.” She wiped her cheek. “Maybe he cured me.”

  “He could have.”

  She turned to face me and rolled her eyes. “Sarah, I think I’ll continue with the surgery. You know, just in case.”

  “I turned over like an asshole,” I said. He hadn’t said anything to me about being pregnant. I was surprised to feel deflated.

  “What do you mean?” Mona asked.

  “I rolled over onto my needles.”

  “Oh my God, why would you do that?”

  “I thought he was telling me to turn over, but it turned out he was talking to a client on the other side of the curtain.”

  Mona put her hand to her mouth. “Poor Sarah. Did it hurt?”

  “Hell yes, it hurt. Thankfully, I realized that he had not, in fact, been addressing me, about ten seconds in.”

  “Did he know? When he came back?”

  “Yes. He asked me if I had turned over, so I lied and told him no. I was mortified. He was kind enough not to press the issue, but I think I heard him murmur ‘What an idiot’ under his breath in Chinese.”

  “You know Chinese?”

  “No, but what else would he be saying? ‘This girl should be in Mensa’?”

  Mona giggled. “Pretty classic move, Sar.”

  “Tell me about it. Remind me again why you won’t tell Nate about what’s happening?”

  “Why does he need to know?”

  “Mona, come on. He’s crazy about you. He’s going to be really upset, and rightfully so, when he finds out that you didn’t tell him about something as major as this.”

  “I didn’t realize that you were so concerned about Nate’s best interest,” she replied drily.

  “I’m looking out for your best interest!” My voice rose.

  “Shhhh,” Mona warned. “You can hear a pin drop in here.”

  “No pun intended.”

  “Hardy har har, Sarah.” She smiled before continuing. “Like I told you, I don’t want anyone giving me a pity party, and I don’t want advice. I just want to go in and get it over with. Maybe I’ll tell him afterward.”

  “Have you talked about kids or anything?”

  “Oh God, no. We’ve only been hanging out for what, two months? I haven’t even pooped with him in the vicinity.”

  “Josh likes to leave the door open when he poops,” I replied. “It’s awful.”

  “That is awful. Why?”

  “ ‘Why not?’ is what he would say. ‘What’s the big deal?’ ”

  “Ugh, so much about that is a big deal.”

  “I miss him.”

  “What’s he doing down there without you?”

  “Not too much. Pining for me twenty-four/seven.”

  “Naturally. And taking open-door craps with abandon.”

  “And watching porn.”

  “Pining, Porn, and Poops: The Josh Simon Story.”

  “Are men really that simple?” I asked.

  Just then, Nate emerged from the back. As soon as he noticed Mona on the couch, he smiled broadly. My breath caught a little watching it happen. I snuck a glance at Mona, whose cheeks were now rosy with delight, and smiled.

  “Yes, but thank goodness,” she whispered back.

  15

  If your accelerator becomes stuck, you should shift back to neutral, apply the brakes, and look for an alternate route.

  Today is Mona day,” I announced, strolling into her bedroom with the bagel I had just procured for her on a tray. Her favorite, pumpernickel with veggie cream cheese and tomato, lay open-faced on a white plate, a mug of coffee steaming beside it.

  “Ergh,” she moaned from underneath her gray-and-white-striped comforter.

  “Breakfast in bed, my friend.”

  She sat up, her mass of dark hair falling like curtains on both sides of her face. “Well, well, well. You don’t see this every day.”

  “No you do not.” I set the tray down in front of her proudly.

  “My favorite!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands and beaming up at me gratefully. “But where’s yours?”

  “In the kitchen. I didn’t want to crowd the tray.”

  “Look at you, Little Miss Homemaker!”

  “Let me go grab my bagel and we can eat together.” I dashed into the kitchen.

  “So what do you want to do today?” I asked, returning with my mouth half full. Mona finished chewing.

  “On this, my last day with my uterus?” She looked down. “Uterus, what would you like to do today? What’s that?” She cocked her head and held her ear as close to her lower abdomen as she could. “Uterus would like to go to Barneys, please.”

  “Done,” I replied. As far as my own uterus went, I had just bought a pregnancy test on my way back from the bagel shop. With trembling hands, I had placed it on the drugstore counter, along with a Twix and a box of Tic Tacs as a hopeful means of distraction. Now it burned a hole in my purse, which I had carefully placed upright in the corner of the living room, as though tilting it would affect the test’s eventual accuracy. Mona took a sip of her coffee.

  “And oh, I want to go to Jane’s and read the paper.” Jane’s was our favorite coffee shop. Quaint and homey, it smelled of books and cinnamon.

  “Okay. I’ll bring my laptop. Do some soul searching.” And not think about the pregnancy test.

  “Career-wise, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s that coming?”

  I shrugged. “I’m making some headway.”

  “That’s terrific! Want to tell me about it?”

  “Not yet. Besides, I don’t want to bore your uterus on her special day.”

  “She wouldn’t be bored, but I understand. And this is the last I’ll speak about it until you’re ready to unveil your plan, but I was thinking that you’re completely dismissing your own arsenal of talent by jumping out of the marketing game altogether. You were in that business for what, ten years?”

  “Great minds think alike.”

  “Oh yeah?” She smiled broadly. “Cool.”

  “Did I tell you that I ran into Emily on the street the other day?”

  “Emily?”

  “The chip chewer?”

  “Oh God, her?” Mona made a face. “What did she have to say for herself? Or rather, what did she
ask you and then answer herself?”

  “She told me that Meghan still hasn’t hired anyone to replace me.”

  “Get out.”

  “It’s true. Weird, right?”

  “Not really. I always told you that Meghan liked you more than you thought she did.”

  “That you did. Maybe I’ll e-mail her. Ask her to lunch or something.”

  “Good idea. You can pick her brain.”

  “As long as you’re okay, though. My nursing duties come first.”

  “Right. Now, let’s get back to my uterus, shall we?” asked Mona. “She says that she would like to buy me an overpriced cashmere cardigan as her parting gift.”

  I swung my legs like a little kid as I perched on a stool overlooking the Brooklyn street. A Tuesday in Brooklyn, and you would never know it. The percentage of freelancers-cum-writers-cum-sculptors-cum-whatevers in this borough was incredibly high, and they were all loping lackadaisically somewhere, looking more important than they were.

  My laptop glowed beside me as I judged everyone who strolled past. Mona was curled up in an armchair toward the back of the shop, reading her paper with a look of utter contentment on her bespectacled face. The longer I stayed in New York, the less I missed it, which was a good thing. A Been here, done this feeling overrode most of my experience here now. I pulled my phone out of my purse and texted Josh just that.

  I swiveled to face my laptop and checked my e-mail. Ray! I immediately panicked, thinking that I had forgotten to pay him.

  Hey Sarah,

  How’s it going in the big city? Miss you on the road here. Done any driving up there? Remember to check those blind spots.

  Listen, the promotional ideas you had were awesome. Looks like me and That Pet Place are a match. I’d love more advice. Can you help me, oh marketing guru?

  Of course I would pay you for your time. Not New York money, but not Farmwood money either. Just a good rate. Did that make sense? I was trying to be funny, but Vanessa says that whenever I do that I end up being not funny.

  Anyway, let me know what you think.

  Best,

  Ray

  I smiled. Sweet Ray. “Best.”

  I took a sip of my now-lukewarm coffee. The timing here was uncanny. Of course I would help Ray. I e-mailed him back, asking for specifics. With each question, my confidence grew. Maybe this consulting thing did have legs.