“It will still be there in the fall,” Weslee said.
“I hope so. There’s a lot of competition out there. I hope you think about this really long and hard before you make a big mistake.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“I’m sure you think you do.”
Another silence.
“I’d miss you if you left. I mean, you’re a great friend for a guy to have around,” he said awkwardly.
Just a great friend?
“Well, you could look me up if you’re ever anywhere near Chicago this summer.”
“Sure. Just promise me you’ll think about this some more,” he said before they said good-bye.
Chapter 30
It seemed like so long ago that the tiny apartment on Commonwealth Avenue had been filled with boxes waiting to be unpacked. Back then Weslee could never have anticipated that a year later she would have fallen in love again and gotten her heart broken, have a tumultuous friendship with an alcoholic, and lose a friend to AIDS. But, she thought as she waited for the movers to take the boxes away, it had not been all bad. She had made a new best friend, Sherry, a keeper. She had managed to almost salvage her finances without having to drop out of school. And her training clients made her feel that she was the best thing since Billy Blanks. It hadn’t been all bad, she thought as she looked at herself in her full-length mirror. Yes, she was wearing a Yohji top and D&G jeans, brands she had never heard of before she came to Boston. She was a different person. Different better.
The doorbell rang, interrupting her thoughts. She buzzed up the woman who would be subletting her apartment for the summer.
“Hi, Beth,” Weslee said to the smiling, freckled, dreadlocked woman at the door. Finding Beth Worthy had been a stroke of luck. She was the sister of a friend of a classmate who would be spending the summer in Boston as a law firm intern. She had been highly recommended. Weslee had liked her the first day she saw her. They hugged each other. Weslee was still getting used to Beth’s California friendliness.
They made small talk as Weslee took her around the small apartment again, reiterating that she should be extra-careful with the furniture that would be left behind. Weslee prayed that this quiet-looking-and-acting woman did not have a wild streak that would result in any harm to the meager furnishings in the apartment.
Before Beth left, Weslee handed her a card with her parents’ address and all the numbers where she could be reached in Chicago. When she handed over the spare set of keys to the apartment, she felt like a parent entrusting a teenager with the keys to a fast car.
“I know you’re responsible, so I’m not going to worry,” Weslee told the law student, trying not to sound threatening.
“Oh, don’t worry, Weslee.” Beth smiled.
Alone again, doubt crept up on Weslee as the reality of leaving Boston set in. She did have that view from the living room window of a tiny sliver of the Charles River that she would miss peeking out at in the mornings. And she would miss running by the Charles, eating breakfast at Mike’s, going to the MFA, and doing the restaurants with Lana and with Sherry. And of course she would miss her clients. She worried that they would not follow her advice to stay active during the summer. Most had gone to their vacation homes on Cape Cod and the Vineyard, and she suspected that once summer malaise set in, exercise would be the last thing on their minds. She sighed.
She had to say it out loud to convince herself. “I’m doing the right thing. I need to be away from here.”
“Hey, your front door’s open.” It was Sherry.
“Hey, girl. The sublet girl was just here, I must have forgotten.”
“Weslee, I’m going to miss you so much.” Sherry pouted.
“I’ll only be a few hundred miles away. Don’t make me feel worse than I already feel, OK?”
Sherry shook her head. “I know why you say you’re doing this. But what are you going to do in Chicago all summer long? You don’t have a job there. And you’re gonna be living with your parents. You’re gonna hate it!”
Weslee sighed. She had heard all of this before.
“OK.” Sherry raised her arms in surrender. “I’m done talking.”
“Where are we going for dinner?” Weslee asked.
“Chez Henri,” Sherry replied.
“Ooooh. Cuban sandwich.” Weslee licked her lips.
“You always order that. Try something else.”
“I don’t want anything else. I want a Cuban sandwich,” Weslee said in her best Chicano accent.
“Is Lana meeting us?”
“She’s supposed to after her AA meeting.”
“How is she?” Sherry asked.
“OK. Sherry, are you going to be OK with Lana tonight?”
Sherry put her hands on her hips, cocked her head to the side, and rolled her eyes at Weslee. “Now, girl, you think I’m going to be mean to a sister who’s just been through an accident? What kind of person do you think I am?”
“I know. I was just saying, you know.”
“No, I don’t know, Wes. I really don’t know about you sometimes.”
“Sorry,” Weslee said weakly.
“Sorry I’m late, girls,” Lana said as she walked slowly to their table at the crowded restaurant. She had only been off the crutches for three weeks. “Gosh, it is so hard to find a parking space in Harvard Square on a Friday night.”
“We’re just glad you made it,” Sherry said.
Weslee was relieved that there was no measurable tension at the table. She wasn’t sure that Lana and Sherry could ever be friends. But this was her going away dinner, so they were obliged to be civil to each other. Maybe someday they could be more than that, she silently hoped.
Weslee felt the nagging doubt about her move creep up on her again as they talked easily about the heat, the humidity, and how it wreaked havoc on their hair and skin. How could she leave her two best friends behind? Who would she hang out with in Chicago? Her sister? Her married friends? She shrugged those questions off as the waiter approached.
“How was the meeting?” Weslee wanted to know. AA had turned out to be Lana’s new passion. She wrapped herself up in it the way she used to wrap herself in one of her prized pashminas. Once she got to talking about addiction and recovery, it was hard to stop her.
“It was great. I think I might actually work up the courage to share next time.”
“Really? You’re ready for that?”
“I’m definitely ready. My therapist says I’m making a lot of progress. Plus, there are so many people in those meetings who are so much more messed up than I am. But I’m not judging.” She winked.
Weslee was happy for her. Sherry was still getting used to Lana’s issues. For one thing, she didn’t really believe that anything but Jesus could cure whatever it was that had made Lana a mess. But Sherry had also learned not to force her opinions on other people.
“Lana, girl, you really need to come to my church,” Sherry said. Well, she was trying.
“Maybe I will.”
They ate their dinner. Weslee had her Cuban sandwich—the best in New England, she would tell anyone who asked.
“So, guess what, Weslee?” Lana had perked up. “I’ve got some gossip for you.”
Weslee leaned in. “Who, what, where?”
Sherry cleared her throat. Weslee and Lana ignored her.
“A certain ex-boyfriend of yours seems to be having some trouble committing to setting a wedding date with a certain fiancée who is getting more and more impatient with said ex-boyfriend.”
Weslee groaned loudly and put her hands over her ears. “Lana!”
“What? I thought that would make you happy.” Lana looked embarrassed.
“No, it’s OK. I just don’t want to hear anything about him. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry.”
Weslee was taken aback by the apology. It was so rare to see Lana contrite about anything. “It’s OK. Really. I’m glad you told me. I do feel better. That jerk.” She smiled
. Then they both laughed.
“He is a jerk,” Lana echoed.
Sherry just shook her head at the both of them.
Since that ugly incident on the phone, Weslee had not heard from or seen Duncan, and she didn’t want to. After the test results had given her peace of mind, all she wanted was to forget he had ever entered her life, her mind, or her body. She’d vowed to herself that she’d never let any man get her so hooked on his aura that she’d lose her mind like that again. Sherry called it a learning experience, but to Weslee, Duncan had been a huge, life-threatening mistake that she would give anything not to have ever made. But she believed that she was succeeding in moving forward. No need to live in the past, she told herself.
“Anybody getting dessert?” Weslee asked as she eyed the dessert menu.
“Not me,” Sherry said.
“Definitely me,” Lana piped up. She was making up for living on liquids for two weeks straight after her accident. She was probably the only woman who actually wanted to gain weight, and was doing a good job of steadily eating her way back to a size 4.
“Uh-oh,” Weslee said. “Lana, Jeffrey’s here.”
“Where?” Lana almost jumped out of her chair.
“At the bar.” Weslee nodded her head toward where Jeffrey Knight and a friend were sitting. They had not seen Lana.
“Do you want to leave?” she asked Lana.
“No,” Lana said, not looking up from the dessert menu.
Sherry and Weslee exchanged glances.
Once she had been released from the hospital Lana had finally opened up to Weslee about her accident.
Jeffrey had found out about her fling with Mark Bronner and had broken things off with her. She had started drinking at home and drank all the way to Jeffrey’s place in Cambridge to confront him. His longtime girlfriend had answered the door.
The tree came out of nowhere, Lana had said. She was crying and drinking as she drove down Memorial Drive that early morning. All she remembered was seeing the tree and then waking up in the hospital.
Weslee could tell that Lana wasn’t ready to face Jeffrey yet in her fragile emotional state. And she didn’t want her to get upset.
“Do you want to leave?” she repeated.
“Leave? Why would I want to do that? I’m having a great time, Weslee. I’m not leaving until I get my chocolate cake.” Lana looked up from the menu and smiled.
They gave the waiter their dessert orders.
“Lana, I’m so proud of you.” Weslee meant it with all her heart. The old Lana would have gotten up and given Jeffrey a piece of her mind.
Their attention turned to other things as Sherry sipped coffee and envied the other two as they savored their cake.
But Lana kept stealing glances to where Jeffrey was sitting at the bar, until he left. Weslee noticed but did not say anything. She hoped Lana would be OK on her own once she left.
The night air was warm and heavy as they stood outside the restaurant laughing at another of Sherry’s jokes.
“I’m gonna miss you guys so much,” Weslee said, blinking hard.
“Oh, geez, don’t do this!” Sherry wailed. “No tearful good-byes, please!”
“Yeah,” Lana piped in. “I’ve been doing enough crying lately.”
Weslee cleared her throat. “I just wanted to tell you guys that I’m so glad I met both of you. It’s only been a year, but I feel like you guys have always been a part of my life. I’ll really, really miss you this summer.” She bit her lip.
Sherry stepped forward and opened her arms, squeezing her in a bear hug. “Aww. Girl!”
Lana looked on, amused. “Wes, why don’t you reconsider coming to the Caribbean with my mom and me?”
“ ’Cause I can’t afford to,” Weslee laughed.
“But it’s summer! The off-season. Everything’s cheaper,” Lana protested.
“And I’ll really miss the way you keep forgetting that I’m just a poor black girl from the wrong side of the tracks,” Weslee joked.
Lana looked embarrassed.
“Relax, girl.” Weslee hit Lana playfully on the shoulder. “Relax.”
No tears, she told herself later as she lay in bed remembering the night. It had been a long time since she’d been able to allow herself to cherish a friendship. Now she had two. No, this move to Boston had not been a mistake, she thought.
Chapter 31
Coming home felt strange. She did not feel drenched in relief when she saw her father waiting for her at the airport. Instead she felt small, like a child again. He seemed older and tired.
“You look so sophisticated now,” Milton Dunster told his daughter as they drove from O’Hare Airport, heading south to Hyde Park.
“Yeah, I had a little makeover, I guess.” Weslee smiled.
“It suits you,” he said.
They made small talk as the traffic crawled down I-94. Milton Dunster loved talking about politics, and it wasn’t too long before he had Weslee headlocked into a conversation about the aftermath of the war in Iraq.
“I’m telling you, they need to send more troops over there and finish the job. All these guys that are walking around Tikrit and Najaf need to be locked up. They’re all terrorists.”
Weslee was trying not to argue with her father. They shared a lot of views on politics, but he was miles further to the right than she. He knew where she stood on the issues, and one of his biggest joys in life was to get his daughter all riled up about his ultraconservative political stance. It was all harmless fun for him.
“Daddy, how would you like it if, say, Russia invaded Chicago and decided to lock up all the men over age sixteen because they could be terrorists?”
“Well, see, little girl, that could never happen. Russia doesn’t have the guts or the capability to invade Chicago, and neither do any of those crumb-snatching little countries that are out there protesting against our attempts to make the world a safer place.”
“I knew I should have asked Mom to pick me up,” Weslee groaned.
Her father laughed out loud. “See, you can’t take it. That’s truth, little girl. The truth will get you every time.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, too.
Weslee and her father had always been close. They were both suckers for details and numbers. He, himself an accountant, had pushed her into studying business and finance. “People are always going to want other people to keep track of their money for them,” he would say. When she landed her job as a mutual funds research analyst, he was so proud. “She tells me where to invest my money,” he told all his friends at his lodge.
As they pulled up in the driveway of the neat three-bedroom ranch house, Weslee realized how small it was. That had never bothered her before. She mentally made the comparison. It was only half the size of one of Lana’s family’s summer homes, she realized.
Her mother came running out the front door.
“Look at you! Look at you!” Clara Dunster squealed and hugged her daughter tightly. “You look even more sophisticated than you did at Christmas,” she said, standing back to take in the sight of her daughter.
“Mom, you look great, too. You’ve lost weight.”
“Yeah. I’ve started mall-walking with some of the girls from church.”
Mall-walking?
Weslee chatted with her parents, happily basking in their attention. Boston was starting to seem farther and farther away. Once she walked into her old house, she really felt that she was home. All the doubts she had felt about leaving Boston for the summer dissipated. She knew she had done the right thing.
“Well, are you gonna help me with dinner? We’ve got Terry and them coming in a couple hours,” her mother said.
Weslee got busy with her mother in the kitchen as her father settled into his recliner to watch the news in the den.
Dinner was noisy and chaotic. Terry’s twins were talking now, and they would not shut up. It did not help that the toys Weslee had brought them made them even more boisterous. Terry coul
d barely get a forkful of food into her mouth without having to turn her attention to one of them.
“Aren’t you glad you don’t have to deal with all this mess?” Weslee’s brother-in-law asked her as Terry chased one of the children away from the stove.
“I sure am,” she laughed.
Weslee hadn’t felt this happy, this safe, this warm in a long time.
The next morning, Weslee ate a big breakfast, vowing to herself to brave the heat and go for a run by the lakefront in the evening. She obliged her mother’s nostalgic request that they go shopping at the Gurnee Mills outlet.
Clara Dunster was happy to have her daughter back in her home. She fussed over her as if she were a little girl again, suggesting things that they did when Weslee was a young girl who spent way too much time with her parents instead of hanging out with girlfriends as other teenagers did.
Weslee had to constantly remind her: “Mom, stop treating me like I’m twelve.”
Her father, on the other hand, was more pragmatic. “I’m glad to have you home, but I agree with your friends. You basically left money on the table when you left all those clients behind. I can’t believe people will pay you to make them exercise, anyway.”
All she wanted was peace, and she knew she wasn’t about to get it from her father on that subject. She gladly accepted her mother’s invitation to go shopping to get away from his questions.
She ran down the stairs of the Hyde Park home the same way she had all through her childhood.
“Lord, it’s hot,” her mother said as she turned her key in the ignition of her Ford Taurus station wagon.
“Yeah, I hope this summer’s not going to be another killer heat wave,” Weslee laughed. “This is the only place in the Western world where when the temperature goes above ninety old people start dropping like flies.”
“Wait till you’re old, you won’t be making jokes like that,” her mother scolded.
Her mother drove slowly through their neighborhood, which really hadn’t changed much over the years. It was still respectably close enough to the good part of Hyde Park, where the University of Chicago elite lived, its diversity and grit-lite assuaging their liberal guilt, and its charm and academic feel making it still nice enough that their friends from Winnetka would not be afraid to come down for dinner every once in a while.
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