Going in Circles (27 page)

“Do it, Broke-Broke! You have to hit me. Everybody on
this track knows the risks. Including you. Are you mad at the girl who broke your tailbone?”

“No. Nobody did it. I fell when I was celebrating.”

“Well, that is hilarious. Now hit me.”

I bump into her. Not a hit. A bump.

“Are you kidding me?” She jams her mouth guard in and growls around it. “Hit me like you mean it. Like I called you fat. Like I called you ugly.”

I go at her, but she sidesteps around me. I miss, and fall.

“Get up,” she says.

I get my feet under me and push toward her. I skate up the incline so that I can use the momentum down the track to plow harder into her arm. I go at her, but she picks up her pace. I miss, sliding right into the infield, crashing on my knees.

I hear her from the other side of the oval, taunting me. “Are you mad yet, Broke-Broke? Get mad. Get mean!” She rounds the bend, coming toward me. She points at herself. “I'm not your friend up here. I'm Petra. I'm Matthew. I'm the dick who cut in front of you at the grocery store. I'm—”

I sidestep into her, hitting her hip with mine. She goes down quickly, her chatter quickly halted. She looks up at me with surprise. “Whoa.”

“You okay?”

“Broke-Broke. That hurt!”

“I'm sorry!”

“Don't say ‘sorry!' ” she yells. Then a huge smile breaks out on her face. “I'm so glad you're on my team! We're
so
going to win!”

We spend the rest of the hour chasing each other around the track, slamming into each other. Each time we call out
another thing we're hitting instead of each other. Whatever it is that gets us furious.

“I'm not hitting you, I'm hitting my mother!”

“This time you're the babysitter I had when I was ten!”

“Hit me, I'm Elmo!”

“Take
that,
soy milk!”

We are in hysterics by the time the other girls show up for practice.

During the last jam of the last scrimmage, Francesca plays Jammer for the opposite team. As she tries to pass me, I step in and slam her, not just her shoulder, but as if I were hitting her
through
her shoulder. She leaves the ground, shooting up and spinning as she falls backward. Terrified that I've just killed her, I turn around and skate back to her.

“Jesus, are you okay?”

She's flat on her back, eyes closed. Her tongue pushes out her mouth guard and it bounces onto the track near her neck as she whispers, “Holy fuck, Broke-Broke. You're a killer. That was awesome.”

That night I buy the beer, and Francesca makes me a certificate of completion on a cocktail napkin. My favorite one so far:
CHARLOTTE GOODMAN GOT ANGRY.

W
hen Petra calls my name from the door of my office, it makes both Jonathan and me jump right out of our chairs.

“Jesus, Petra,” Jonathan says. “When it's quiet because we are working, I would think you'd like that.”

It's also that quiet because Jonathan and I don't talk to each other much anymore, and I'm starting to miss his company. He's on the phone with Cassandra half the day now, her pregnancy having taken over both of their lives. I like listening to his half of the conversation, though, to hear how concerned he is for her comfort, for the safety of the baby. He thinks it's going to be a girl, but Cassandra is hoping for a boy. One day when Jonathan thought I had music playing through my headphones, I heard him tell Cassandra to put her cell phone to her stomach. He sang the baby an impromptu song about how fetuses shouldn't make their mommies want to puke every day. Then he freaked out when he realized how dangerous it might be for his wife to press a cell phone against her womb.

“I need to talk to you,” Petra says to me. “Conference room?”

As I walk down the hall, I quickly go over the past few weeks in my head, trying to determine what I've done wrong. I can't think of anything, but whatever it is, it can't be that bad. This job is just a job, nothing more. The more I've started to enjoy my real life, the less of a hold this place has on me. It's no longer my solace but once again a place I feel like I just have to endure.

On nights off from the track, I've been playing around with making miniatures. At first I was just seeing what came out of fiddling with a few pieces of wood, but I had all these empty boxes from my closet, and an idea started to take shape.

I'm making a series that re-creates the places I've lived in over the years. Each box is transformed into a diorama of the layout. My childhood home, my dorm apartment, my first tiny studio all by myself, and lastly, my house with Matthew. That one has been more difficult, and I find I get stalled around the bedroom, the front porch where I was once carried over the threshold, the bathroom where I shared a shower with my husband, the back porch where I planted lilies . . . Even in tiny form they are still filled with powerful memories. Going back to places where I lived in high school and college was much easier. The thoughts that emerged during that time were mostly warm ones, filled with silly nights amped up on too much caffeine when Andy and our friends and I laughed way more than we studied.

Even though it's been a long time since I've worked on anything, I'm impressed with the changed direction my art has taken. There's a mood in my miniatures now that I think was missing before. I'm not so worried about getting the re-creations exactly right, but more concerned that they carry
an emotion in them. The rooms feel like they've been lived in. They aren't just dioramas or models; they are snapshots of my life.

Petra is already seated at the table when I enter the conference room; it seems like she'd have to have teleported herself there for that to be possible.

“Sit down, Charlotte,” she says, because apparently she assumes I might choose to drop to the floor or crawl up onto the overhead projector and perch like a monkey.

I take the chair across from her, opting to place as much table between us as possible.

“Is something wrong?” I ask, trying to smile.

She's changed her hair. It's red, and she's attempting to pull off a headband, but her forehead is too exposed, her skin dry and flaking around her eyebrows. She must have just applied lipstick, but she did it hastily and it doesn't cover her upper lip. In the harsh lighting of the conference room, it glares orange. She says, “This is awkward, but I'm wondering if you've decided what you're going to do about Matthew.”

“Is this why you called me in here? Is this the meeting?”

“You know, he's seeing someone. Someone he . . . well, I'm not supposed to tell you these things.”

“Then don't.”

“Look, I've watched you destroy yourself over the past year—”

“I'm doing better now,” I say, hoping she will take the hint and start minding her own business.

“Really?” she asks. “Because fun time with Goth Girl seems to be taking away a lot of time from work. You had to take time off because you hurt yourself roller-skating? Aren't you thirty?”

“Petra.”

“Do you know Matthew spends most of his time at our place? Neither of you want that house. It's making it so that my life is affected now. Not just yours. Pete and I aren't on the plan anymore.”

“The plan?”

“We were going to buy a house, start a family. But ever since you and Matthew split up, Pete's worried that we're not going to make it, and all he talks about is whether or not we'll ever get a divorce. And if this keeps up, we will get one, and I don't really want to end up like you and Matthew.”

Now that I hear someone else talk about how frustrating it is to deviate from a personal plan, I realize what Francesca's been trying to tell me all this time; my daily plan wasn't just ridiculous, it was futile. That's what sets people up for disappointment. It's not the promises that let you down; it's the plans. You can't predict your day any more than you can predict the next thing a person's going to say.

“I quit.”

Like that. That's what I've said, and I couldn't have predicted it.

Petra taps her pen on her bottom teeth. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“I quit this job.” My brain is racing through my bank account. If I don't spend any money on anything I don't truly need, that doesn't feed or house me, I can make it for a few months.

“That's not necessary.”

“I think it is.” I stand up. “By the way, you've been an incredibly shitty friend.”

I practically float back to my office.

“Hey, guess what, I just quit,” I tell Jonathan as I head
straight to my desk and open a drawer. I drop pens and Post-It notes into my purse.

Jonathan's quickly on his feet. “What? No! If this is about me and the car, I promise it's never going to—”

“Don't. It's okay.” I open the filing cabinet and hand him all my untossed paper wads. “I can't stay here anymore. I hate the job, Petra hates me, and all this personal stuff is wrapped up in my private stuff. Things with you got weird and sad. I just need something else.”

Jonathan looks devastated. “What made you do this?”

I toss one last wad of paper at Jonathan's head. He doesn't even flinch as it bounces off his forehead.

“I got angry,” I say. “Keep in touch.”

Francesca meets me in the hall, breathless. “I just heard. We have to celebrate.”

“We sure do. Where do you want to go?”

She smiles. “Do you have a passport?”

I
t's rather remarkable how quickly you can be on a flight to Mexico.

“God damn,” Francesca says as she kicks off her shoes. I've never seen someone so happy sitting in the middle seat. “I knew we'd run away together someday.” She beams.

It's not a long flight, and it's not for a very long time. I'm unemployed, so theoretically I could stay in Mexico for as long as I wanted, but Francesca only had four vacation days left. We used our combined miles to buy our tickets, and the resort is some kind of hookup through Jacob. Basically, we're only paying for food and suntan lotion, which means we can afford about three days total. Besides, we both have Rumble practice next week that we can't miss. This is just an escape, not a solution.

Francesca hands me a piece of paper. “This is your next certificate,” she says. “But to earn this one, there's a time limit.”

It says:
MAKE A DECISION.

“I just did that,” I say.

“Not that one.
The
decision. You have from now until we leave Mexico.”

As the plane takes off, I think about how she's right. This
needs to be done, and it can't wait any longer. It's going to hurt if I decide right now, and I know it'll still hurt whether I decide in ten minutes or ten years.

But for now I'm going to stare out the window and watch the world from a safe distance as it continues to shrink behind me.

•   •   •

By the afternoon we are both flattened on our lawn chairs, having been silent for hours. Francesca stretches her arms up high. Through the space between her bony wrists, the sun is piercing. It gives her a glow, like she's all-powerful, summoning the spirit of the sun. She looks like an angel, a hero.

She turns to me, glowing in a fuzzy ring of sun, and declares, “We need more margaritas.”

My hero.

During our stay in Cabo San Lucas, Francesca's in charge of the important things, like ordering food, reapplying sunscreen, and buying more magazines. Any questions asked by the staff are directed toward her. I am simply here to be as small as possible, a human in hibernation. I am to sleep, drink, eat, and reset my internal clock.

A funny thing has happened. Since setting foot on this land, taking my first sip of ice-cold beer that cost roughly the change in my pocket, and feeling the warmth of the sun on my eyelids—I haven't felt like moping. I can still feel the sting of a million teardrops just under my skin, but I can't seem to get this smile off my face.

The margaritas arrive. Francesca pulls herself over onto her elbows to sip from her oversize green straw. Her sunglasses are almost as big as her face, and I see myself reflected in them.
I'm distorted in her lenses—all giant knees and tiny head. But I can still make out my little smile.

“Hola, señorita,”
Francesca says, almost a whisper. “You were asleep there for a while. You might want to smear on some more sunscreen.”

I drop white goop along my shins as I look out toward the endless blue water before me. I can hear music piped in from somewhere near the swim-up bar. Harmless adult contemporary. Back home this music would be irritating, but here it's the perfect melody to accompany the show just to my left: a small group of sunburned and smiling guests engaging in water aerobics. They bob and smile, bob and smile, far away from their own problems, enjoying the easiest exercise on the planet.

“Francesca, guess what?”

“What?”

I hold up the bottle. “Sunscreen. Petra's party. My wish collage came true.”

She nods, pursing her lips. “And my heart and lungs appear to still be doing their jobs. Maybe we shouldn't have been such jerks. Let's call Petra and apologize.”

“We should wish-collage a bag of money.”

Later we wander down to the shore, walking past the remnants of a Zen garden in the sand. There's an empty bed on the beach, the white sheets of its canopy flapping in the wind. Every vision is like a dream. I hear nothing but the surf, the breeze, and the occasional strains of adult contemporary, which is quickly becoming my favorite sound in the world.

Francesca fiddles with her tiny digital camera. “Stand in the water,” she says. “You look like you're on the edge of the earth.”