Closer Than They Appear (6 page)

Three small children hung like monkeys on the cart; one was crying, another was red-faced and screaming, and while he watched, the third (and smallest) pulled away from her hand and took off running toward the vitamins and supplements, a look of unbridled, somewhat demented glee on her adorable face.

She’s got kids?
He’d watched the entire spectacle with a spoonful of peas in-hand, and only snapped out of his trance when an older man waiting impatiently behind him actually reached over to take the spoon from his hand.

He finished his story and popped the final bite of an egg roll into his mouth. “And that, children, is the true meaning of Christmas.”

Cindy clucked her tongue. “Well, I am glad you’re at least
thinking
of dating again. The longer you wait, the harder it’ll be to wash the bachelor stink off.”

He frowned.

“Anyway, you’re missing a crucial thing to consider,” Cindy added. “What if she’s divorced? Would you date a single mom with three kids?”

“I guess it depends on the person and the situation.”

“Did you see a ring?”

He had not seen a ring, now that she mentioned it. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t married. Cindy didn’t wear her wedding and engagement rings for weeks when she was pregnant because her fingers were too bloated. He began to feel hopeful again, but if his optimism had started as a plump, Mylar balloon bopping around the ceiling, it was now at a crinkly waist-level, drifting languidly from corner to corner.

What would he do the next morning he saw her on the corner of Franklin and Elm?

Harper

AFTER SHE DROPPED
the kids back at Natalie’s, Harper returned to Pick ’n Save alone later that afternoon to buy the ingredients she still needed to make a batch of loaded miso soup (requested by Dick and Sally Westfield). Her phone rang while she was filling a plastic bag with shiitake mushrooms. Natalie.

“I wanted to thank you again for taking the kids for me this morning. You are a saint, the best friend ever, and you can borrow my second-hand Coach bag any time you go somewhere fancy. Also, I hope they haven’t scared you away, because I might need you to do it again next week. Brian has a job interview Thursday morning, and I’m going to a job fair thingy with my new-fangled resume. In return, I’ll help you move the next time you need help. Well, Brian will help you move, and I’ll roll glasses in bubble wrap and gossip and call for pizza.”

Harper smiled and twisted a green tie around the bag of mushrooms before placing them in her basket. “Of course I’ll watch them. But we might just hang at your house while you’re gone.”

“Yes! I will leave you with a bowl of homemade Chex Mix and a stack of Dora videos.”

“I almost forgot! Did I tell you what Brandon said to me?”

“Oh God, I hope it was things like, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘Why don’t
you
win Candyland for a change?’”

Harper laughed. “No, he said, ‘What’s squishier, your boobs or your tummy?’”

Natalie groaned. “This is one of those parenting moments where I should feel embarrassed, but it’s too funny. Remember last week when I finally got my hair cut after like, nine months? And he said, ‘Mommy, I love you. Especially now that you got your hair cut.’”

“I should never have taken them to IHOP for breakfast. I had no idea a four-year-old could eat that many pancakes!”

“Yeah, my kids are a little like the Gremlins. Never feed them after midnight, and never give them a fourth pancake at IHOP.” She chuckled. “Now you know why Brian and I never take all three of them together in public when we’re alone.”

The produce misters came on, and Harper stepped back from the drifting spray. “You don’t?”

“No way! Sasha’s basically a portable tornado, so if Brian takes Quinn and Brandon, I’ll take her, or vice versa. Tag team effort.”

“Remember when IHOP had big blue roofs and called itself the ‘International House of Pancakes?’ I hope that in ten years things start to cater to our nostalgia a bit more.”

“Oh my God, yes! And remember Bob’s Big Boy?”

“I think Michigan got them all in the divorce.”

“Huh. Well, it makes you wonder. Like, will Red Robin still be around when my kids are older? And what about the Golden Corral?”

“I hope so,” Harper said. “Places like that are the reason I have so many clients.”

“You’re awful sometimes. It makes you much more tolerable.”

The next morning Harper was running late for class and saw the Tubes and Hoses truck turning right as she pulled up to the stoplight on the corner of Franklin and Elm.

What if I follow him? Just for a block or two.

Even the
thought
felt inappropriate. But once the idea had formed, it was hard to resist. She pulled into the right lane. Her heartbeat was thrumming in her ears, her palms sweaty. There were two cars between them—a beige Buick LeSabre with a box of tissues in the back window and a greenish Subaru plastered in bumper stickers. She wondered if he’d glance in the rearview mirror and see her, so she slowed down a bit and let a blue Prius, blinker tick-tocking, in front of her. After a few more blocks he pulled into a Kwik Trip; he cruised past the gas pumps, parked near the front doors, and went inside. She stealthily followed suit, being sure to park farther away. Her heart thundered in her chest, and she slunk down in her seat, trying to figure out what to do next.

Go inside
.

Before she knew it, she was opening the car door and walking on rubbery legs to the busy entrance. Luckily, there were so many people coming and going that it felt like Terminal 1 at Heathrow International Airport, which she’d been to once in college. Every other person leaving the store was carrying a bunch of bananas or a package of jerky. She slipped inside after a tall, slender woman in a power suit and orange Crocs. The check-out line stretched into the chip aisle. She didn’t see him and began to panic—what if he spotted her first? As her eyes adjusted to the chaos she finally saw him, with his back to her, at the self-serve coffee station. She circled around, against the wall of cooler doors, for a better look. Oh, he was handsome—he wasn’t tall, exactly, but he didn’t need to be. He was wearing navy work pants and a light blue pin-striped work shirt with an iron-on name decal on the chest. It was the kind of shirt that some guys wore during their hipster phase a few years ago. She couldn’t read the name decal. He wore no funny hats today, but he
was
wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

He wore glasses?

She couldn’t remember ever feeling butterflies in her stomach like this—she must have, because she’d had crushes before—but these weren’t nervous butterflies, they were
joyful
ones. Reciprocated ones. If she were handed some Crayons and asked to draw them, they’d be pink and purple and neon green, glow-in-the-dark with beautiful, lacy wings, every last one smiling, and they’d be wearing jaunty white hats and gloves.

He turned slightly, and she realized he could nearly see her, so she back-tracked and opened a frosty cooler door. She stood in the gentle wash of cold air and pretended to check out the bevy of flavored iced teas before her. “Come Sail Away” by Styx was playing on the overhead speakers—a song much better suited for passing out on the couch with your hand in your pants and chip crumbs on your chest than meeting the attractive person you’ve been daydreaming about for weeks.

He pressed a plastic lid on his coffee cup and got in line to pay the cashier. She lingered near the cooler doors, clammy and nervous, but deliciously so. He reached the front of the line and paid for his coffee, then prepared to leave. Should she approach and say something? Make it look like a random bump-into? And he was opening the doors, returning to the sunny parking lot. She moved quickly to catch up to him, terrific excitement pulsing through her body, but as he exited through one door an elderly woman walked in the other, soaked to the bone and covered in suds, furious. “Nobody told me I had to roll up my windows!” she ranted, blocking the path to both doors. “You should have posted a sign!” She was dripping all over the floor. The clerks behind the counter stared at her, frozen, unsure what to do or what, exactly, was going on. The rest of the customers also stared, bottles of Gatorade and candy bars temporarily forgotten. “Your car wash is defective!” the woman continued, shaking water droplets over the tiled floor.

One of the clerks snapped out of it and rushed toward her with a roll of paper towels, apologizing profusely. “Are you hurt? Where’s your car?”

“Still in the car wash,” she said. “Stuck!”

An employee jogged out the back to check the drive-thru car wash, and another joined the fray with more towels—real cotton ones. At this point the agitated, soapy woman spotted Harper and recognized her. “Harper, oh my goodness! Will you just look at this mess?”

The woman was a former client who’d been a huge fan of Harper’s cream of asparagus soup. Harper shook her head to clear it. “Mrs. Bauman, what happened?”

“It’s terrible, terrible—this is the most confusing car wash. My car got stuck, and they don’t post signs telling you what to do!” The Kwik Trip employees continued to solicitously blot her arms, and one began to lead her toward the bathrooms, suggesting she stand under the hand dryers. Another employee arrived on the scene with a mop and a bright orange pop-up
Wet Floor
sign. As Mrs. Bauman shuffled to the back, still muttering angrily, Harper stepped over the puddle near the main doors. She pushed one open; it
bing-bonged
as she stepped into the parking lot. She shielded her eyes from the sun and glanced around, her pulse a hopeful, nervous staccato, but his truck was already gone.

Zach

HE WAS STILL
feeling despondent about seeing his mystery girl with three young children when another rejection for his novel rolled in, this time with no accompanying post-script from his agent. Just an “FYI,” which felt clinical and depressing and made him pine for a paternal, “chin up, kid!” Almost immediately, he funneled his frustration into registering to take the Graduate Record Exam. He also composed an email to his agent:

From:
Zach McCarty

To:
Jeff Baxter

Sent:
Thursday, April 24, 9:31 AM

Subject:
RE: update

Hi Jeff,

I can’t remember if you have
Last Summer
out with any more editors, but I’m thinking I want to throw in the towel. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me. I’m applying to grad school to complete my MFA, and I’ll definitely drop you a line when I have another project ready for you. It might be a while, though.

Thanks, Zach

He paused before hitting “Enter.” But really, no matter how many times people tried to reassure him by saying things like, “Harry Potter was rejected, like a hundred times! I bet J.K. Rowling is glad she never gave up” or “Didn’t
The Help
get a butt-ton of rejections, too?” it never made him feel better, because he knew he didn’t have the next
Harry Potter
or
The Help
or
Water for Elephants
or
Confederacy of Dunces
on his hands. He’d written a scrappy, bright little novel, but it was too quiet, too self-indulgent even. And he didn’t look at it as quitting—it was more like shelving a bad product (say, Sylvester Stallone Pudding, or Colgate Kitchen Entrees) and going back to the drawing board.

He wished yet again that he’d gone to school for something meaningful, something that would have directed him to a promising career he enjoyed. He wished he didn’t feel compelled to write. But if wishes were Kestrels, Lance Armstrong would ride.

Just then, Josh came barging into the apartment with a package. “Hey, your four moms sent us something!” He flipped out a pocket-knife, drew it through the clear shipping tape, and opened the box. Nestled beneath a blanket of packing peanuts was a pair of fluted, non-stick aluminum shell pans, along with a booklet called
101 Things to Do with a Tortilla.

“Great timing,” Josh said, picking it up and heading to the bathroom. “I needed something to read in the shitter.”

Harper

ON WEDNESDAY HARPER
was deflated to find she’d missed him again; she was right on time, but he wasn’t at their intersection. She braked for a squirrel and drove on to class. Later, a mild cloud of disappointment followed her around campus—a tiny poof of listlessness, something you could shake after a good run or belly laugh, but disconcerting and distracting nonetheless. She decided to eat lunch at the student union, thoughtfully chewing a grilled veggie sandwich at a corner table near a bank of windows while she watched the younger students parade past in their lounge pants and backpacks. At twenty-eight, she was what the university euphemistically called a “non-traditional” student—she hadn’t known what she wanted to do with her life when she’d gone to college right after high school, so she majored in psychology and hoped for the best. She’d fallen into a job working the front desk at the administration building for a local public school district, and she loved the people she worked with—but it didn’t feed her soul, as she made the mistake of telling her mother once. “Feed your soul?” her mother had replied, wrinkling her nose as if she suddenly smelled a fart, “Harper, everybody hates their job. Is this an Oprah thing?” Harper could only frown, disappointed in her mother’s reaction but not terribly surprised.

Really, it boiled down to this: life was short, and she wanted to do something meaningful with hers. Something she enjoyed doing. After Sam left, she went on a health kick, reading books by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser and Marion Nestle, watching documentaries like
Forks over Knives
and
Vegucated
. Well, first she went on a junk food kick, not so much feeding her soul as feeding her back fat and that stubborn, paunchy spot below her belly button. But when she got tired of feeling tired and bloated and sad, she decided to go cold turkey on the cold turkey. You can’t control other people, you can’t stop someone from breaking your heart, but you can control how you react to it. You can definitely control how you treat yourself, and how quickly you put one foot ahead of the other.