I smiled. “Yep, very good. This could be a huge step forward in my career.”
Andie patted my head. “Glad to hear it. You certainly deserve some good fortune.”
“Thanks, honey,” I said.
“Hey, speaking of honey, have you done anything with those greeting cards yet?” McKenna said. After breaking my ankle, I’d finally decided to bite the bullet and let her and Andie read my Honey Notes. To my delight, they both thought the idea was fantastic.
“Still coming up with ideas nearly every day. Want to hear one I wrote after some kid helped me on the bus and made me feel like a total grandma?”
“Shoot,” Andie said.
“Okay, the front of the card says: Ever wish you were a teenager again?”
They both nodded.
“And when you open it, it says: Honey, apparently you’ve never suffered from an unfortunate outbreak of adult acne.”
Andie laughed. “Classic. Remember that summer when you had that acne on your back?”
“Uh, you mean my bacne? Don’t remind me,” I said, making a face.
She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Oh, I’ll keep reminding you, my dear. That’s one thing you can count on.”
Two hours later we were on the way home, winding through the cobblestone streets of Mill Valley, perhaps the cutest town in Northern California. It was full of quaint restaurants, coffee shops, art galleries, and boutiques. And the weather was always perfect. The three of us had spent countless weekend afternoons in the main plaza, drinking coffee and people-watching and fantasizing about actually being able to afford a house there.
“Hey, did you guys hear that Hillary Weston is pregnant?” McKenna said.
“Again?” I said. “Is that three?”
McKenna nodded. Hillary had been the first one of our college friends to get married. We were only 23 at the time. It was like one minute she was opening beer bottles in the door jamb of our dorm room, and the next she was picking out china patterns. It had scared me to death.
“I’m never having kids,” Andie said. “People who have kids are way too annoying. I don’t want to be that annoying.”
I laughed and turned to McKenna. “What about you? Do you still want to have kids?”
She nodded and smiled. “Someday, yeah.”
“And you definitely don’t?” I said to Andie.
Andie shook her head. “No way.”
“What about you, Wave? Still not sure?” McKenna said.
I nodded. I wondered how they could be so sure about what they wanted when I was the one who’d nearly gotten married—and I still didn’t know.
“All those girls from college are all so grown up now,” I said. “But look at me, still heating frozen dinners in the microwave.”
Andie laughed. “I love your cooking allergy. It’s like my commitment allergy. You know, the other day my mom told me that she feels like a failure because apparently she didn’t teach me how to land a man.”
“Land a man?” McKenna said. “Are you kidding me?”
Andie shook her head. “No joke. Her exact words were land a man.”
“Wow,” I said. “What did you tell her?”
“I asked her if she wanted another martini with her breakfast.”
I looked out the window. “Is that so scary that I nearly got married without knowing if I even want kids?” I said.
“Life is scary,” McKenna said.
I looked at her. “That sounded like avoiding the question to me.”
She laughed. “So you said your ankle’s feeling better?”
Andie laughed too.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “No wonder Aaron didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with me. Seriously, you guys, look at me. I need at least nine hours of sleep. I can’t cook. I make fun of people who drive minivans. I have thirty-five pairs of black shoes. How am I cut out for breast-feeding and bake sales and PTA meetings?”
“I have forty-five pairs of black shoes,” Andie said.
“I’m a mess,” I said.
“Oh, be quiet,” McKenna said. “You’re not a mess, you’re just getting to know yourself better. That’s a good thing.”
“But what if all I’m learning is that I’ll never be ready to grow up?” I said. “It seems like everyone I know has grown up and knows what they want out of life, and I’m still eating cereal for dinner.”
“You’re plenty grown up,” McKenna said. “Look what you’ve done with your life after a pretty rocky childhood. Getting an academic scholarship to college isn’t easy, Waverly. You need to give yourself a little credit.”
I sighed. “Yeah, but I can’t blame everything on my dad, you know. If I hadn’t come along, he might have had a real shot at a baseball career. But look at him now, bitter and wondering what could have been, stuck with a daughter who throws like a girl.”
McKenna squeezed my arm. “It was his choice to become a father, Wave. And it’s not your fault that your mom got sick. You need to stop feeling guilty about being born.”
Her words made me think of what Jake had said when I met him. Did I really feel guilty about being born?
“What did Aaron think about that?” Andie said.
“About my dad?” I said.
“About your mom, your dad, everything.”
I shook my head. “We didn’t talk about it that much. I didn’t want him to feel sorry for me.”
McKenna took a deep breath. “Seriously, Wave, you’ve got to start trusting people to believe in you.”
I looked down and bit my lip. “I trust you guys,” I said softly.
“We don’t count,” Andie said. “We didn’t almost marry you.”
I looked at both of them. “You two are always so logical about everything. Why am I the one who is always freaking out?”
“There’s one in every group,” Andie said. “Keeps things interesting.”
I leaned forward and turned on the radio to find a U2 song. “Okay, that’s enough out of you two.” I paid the toll at the Golden Gate Bridge and drove back into the city. We wound our way through the streets of the perfectly manicured Marina district, past the grassy parkway of the Marina Green field and the adjacent yacht harbor. The area was still full of joggers, kite flyers, and volleyball players trying to make the most of the weekend before the sun set and Monday reared its ugly head again.
After I dropped off my friends, I parked my car and walked up to my building. Once inside, I put on my pajamas and slippers and pulled my hair back into a low ponytail. Then I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and walked into my office. When Whitney had moved out, I didn’t have much to put in there at first, but eventually I’d bought a nice oak desk, a chair, and a bookcase. To add a bit of personality to the room, I’d recently sprung for a heavy mustard-colored wooden chest, a thick rust-colored area rug, and a series of framed black-and-white pictures of random people posing for some random photographer from the 1940s. Mainly I used the office for paying bills, surfing the Internet, and writing the occasional letter, birthday card, or thank-you note. And now that I worked at home once in a while, the five-second commute was pretty sweet.
I booted up my computer and added a few more Honey Notes to my growing list.
Front: Afraid that your childhood will haunt you forever?
Inside: Honey, it will. Now get over it.
Front: Dreading sitting at the singles table?
Inside: Honey, as far as anyone knows, your boyfriend is performing heart surgery and thus unfortunately could not attend. Or, if there are hot guys there, you are totally available. Work it as you see fit.
Front: Wondering if the whole white picket fence thing is for you?
Inside: Honey, not everyone has to be June Cleaver. Now go get yourself a facial.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A week later, I was on a plane bound for New York. The official reason for my trip was to attend some meetings at our Manhattan office, but of course I was really there fo
r Cynthia’s wedding. And I was crutch-free! My cast had been replaced by a walking cast, which to the untrained eye looked exactly the same, but it was much lighter. The biggest difference was that my new cast came with a little bootlike contraption around my foot that allowed me to walk. The doctor had told me how important it was to try to walk normally to avoid overcompensation injuries, but for the time being I couldn’t do it. No matter how hard I tried, I walked with a noticeable limp, and the people at the office had taken to calling me the Hunchback of K.A. Marketing. Just what a girl loves to hear.
I flew out of San Francisco early that Tuesday afternoon. Everything seemed like business as usual at the airport, but when I got to the front of the check-in line, a miracle happened.
“Uh oh,” the agent said. “It looks like coach is overbooked.”
She typed five hundred words a minute into her keyboard and stared at her computer screen.
“What does that mean?” I said.
She continued the breakneck pace. What could she possibly be typing?
“Well, let’s see”—click click click—“you have a full-fare economy ticket”—clack clack clack—“fully refundable”—click click click—“so it looks like”—clack clack clack—“we’ll have to upgrade you to first class.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”
She handed me my boarding pass and smiled. “Really. Enjoy your flight.”
I grabbed the pass and bolted away before she could take it back. Actually, I was moving more like a snail on a plate of honey, but it worked.
Thirty minutes later, I leaned back in my spacious leather seat and looked at the empty one next to me. “Are you expecting anyone to sit here?” I said to the flight attendant.
“Not today, Ms. Bryson. It’s all yours.”
Aaah. This was definitely my lucky day. Chatting with someone across the aisle is fine, but seriously, who wants to sit smack next to a random for a cross-country flight? My friend Whitney had met her husband on a plane, and he had even proposed during a flight by hiding the ring in the snack pack. But usually it was some lady who shared way too much information about her gout.
The extra leg room was perfect for my ankle, and once we were airborne, the flight attendants brought me a special ottoman to prop it up. They also brought me a Diet Coke and a bowl of mixed nuts. As I picked through the nuts and ate the cashews first (a habit I will probably take to my grave), I looked over the menu of gourmet lunch selections, thrilled that I would actually be fed on a plane without having to pay for it. Then I opened the in-flight magazine to see what free movies I could watch on my private screen. I looked at my watch. The scheduled flight time was about five hours, and already I didn’t want to land.
I looked back at the curtain dividing first class and business class on the huge plane, and I thought of the curtain dividing business class and coach even farther back. I’d only been upgraded a few times in my life, but each time I was invariably seized by an irrational sense of superiority over the passengers in coach. It was like an evil part of me that only reared its ugly head at thirty-five thousand feet. It was horrible, and I knew it, but I couldn’t help it. When I was in coach, I didn’t have a problem with anyone, but put me in business or first class, and immediately I was a closet snob with an attitude. I hoped no one noticed.
I must have drifted off to sleep as I was contemplating this Lord of the Flies side of my personality, because I was suddenly being awakened by a flight attendant.
“Excuse me, Ms. Bryson?”
“Huh? What?” I sat up and shook my head. I knew it. They were booting me back to coach.
“It’s nothing major, just a little motion sickness up in row three. Would you mind if we moved a passenger next to you to give the woman who is ill a little space?”
“Huh? Oh, sure, of course.” I picked up my purse from the empty seat next to me.
“Thanks, Ms. Bryson.”
“No problem.” Hey, at least I was still in first class. I started flipping through the channels on my personal movie screen, and a few moments later I felt my new seatmate sit down next to me.
“Excuse me, do you have the time?” she said.
I looked down at my watch. “California time or New York time?”
“Oops, good question. Um, New York time.”
I moved my watch ahead three hours. “It’s just about five thirty. I think we’ll land around ten o’clock.”
“Thanks. And I’m so sorry to take this seat. I know it’s always nice to have the extra space.”
“No problem. I was upgraded anyway, so who am I to complain?”
I looked over at her with a smile and froze.
I was looking at Kristina Santana, Shane Kennedy’s wife.
“Oh, Jesus,” I blurted. Nice composure.
“Are you okay?” she said.
I pushed my hair behind my ear. “Um, yeah, fine. I just didn’t realize who you were. I’m a big fan, um, I mean of your skating career. I saw you in the Olympics.” God, so lame.
She smiled and flashed the whitest teeth I had ever seen. “Thanks. What’s your name?”
“Waverly, Waverly Bryson.”
“Waverly? Like the—”
I smiled and cut her off. “Yes, just like the cracker from way back when.”
She laughed. “You must get that a lot. It’s nice to meet you.” She reached over to shake my hand.
“Actually, I did some work with your husband a few months ago,” I said. “I work for JAG.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Did he behave himself?”
I nodded. “He was great. In fact, he was a real sweetheart. In my line of work I have to deal with some prima donnas, and he definitely broke the mold. He even fetched me coffee a couple of times.”
She laughed again. “That’s not surprising. I wouldn’t have married Shane if he had an attitude. Hell, I probably wouldn’t even have dated him.” She took a sip of her sparkling water. “I’ve met my share of cocky athletes too, and believe me, I got tired of that years ago.”
“I’ll drink to that.” I picked up my Diet Coke. “I once had to arrange a press tour for a baseball player who was representing a line of catcher’s gloves. God, he was a piece of work, totally full of himself and crazy rude to everyone around him when the cameras weren’t running. Anyhow, he was so conceited that he nearly walked out of an on-field interview on the Today show when he found out the reporter had never heard of him.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “And get this. After the interview, when the player was gone, the reporter laughed and said he of course knew who the guy was but wanted to mess with him.”
“That’s brilliant,” she said.
I smiled. “I know, isn’t it? I told him I’d wished I’d thought of that one myself. After that press tour, I never had to talk to that horrible ballplayer again, but the reporter and I are still good friends.” Good ol’ Scotty Ryan.
Kristina and I ended up talking nearly the entire flight, starting with how I had hurt my ankle, and then moving on to work, family, and, of course, Olympic medals (hers, of course). She and Shane had met six years before at a charity event in Chicago, where they had both grown up. She was juggling medical school and competitive skating at the time, and he was a young NBA star. Apparently, it was love at first sight, and within a few months they were engaged. Talk about the perfect couple.
She took a bite of her chocolate truffle cake. “So what about you? How’s the romance in San Francisco?”
I looked at her and raised my eyebrows. “Hmm, where should I start? Would you rather hear about how my ex-fiancé just got married or how I haven’t had sex in about eleven years?”
She nearly choked on her dessert. “Oh my God, you’re hilarious.”
“Okay, I’m exaggerating,” I said. “But let’s just say I’m in a bit of a dry spell at the moment.”
“Ahhh, I hate dry spells. Don’t worry though, it sounds like you’re due,” she said, digging through her purs
e. She pulled out a lipstick, reapplied it, and tossed the purse between us. “Breaking a dry spell was always my favorite part about being single.”
I laughed and leaned back in my seat. “I sure hope you’re right, because breaking open a carton of ice cream for dinner is currently my favorite part about being single, and my jeans are not exactly thrilled with me for it.”
A few hours later, we were outside baggage claim in New York. I picked up my suitcase and handed her my business card. “This has my work and cell numbers, so please get in touch if you’re ever in San Francisco, okay? And please tell Shane I said hi. It was so nice to meet you.”
“Will do. It was great to meet you, too. Bye, Waverly.”
“Bye.”
I hobbled into a cab to head for the brightly lit streets of midtown Manhattan. A few miles later, as we entered the city, I looked up and saw Kristina’s face smiling down at me from a billboard for Whisper perfume.
At 11 p.m. I checked into my hotel, then went upstairs to my room and opened my suitcase. I pulled out the wrinkleables and hung them up in my closet. If at all possible, I wanted to avoid having to bust out the iron. I hate ironing. Hate it hate it hate it. I make a point of almost exclusively buying clothes that were perfectly wearable if fluffed up in the dryer, so the sight of me with an iron is about as common as the sight of Sean Penn at a Republican convention. But there are no clothes dryers in hotel rooms, and sometimes the cutest clothes have to be ironed, so then I cave. But I still hate it hate it hate it.
I put on my pajamas, then pulled my hair into a ponytail and ordered a ham and cheese sandwich and a green salad from room service. As best I could with my cast, I sat crossed-legged on the bed and turned on the TV.
“Room service.” A knock on the door alerted me to the arrival of my late-night dinner. Like Pavlov’s dog, immediately I was starving. I carefully got up off the bed and limped over to the door. The bellman wheeled in the tray. “Can I get you anything else?” he said.
“How about a boyfriend and a new ankle?”
Perfect on Paper: The (Mis)Adventures of Waverly Bryson Page 14