Running from Love: A Story for Runners and Lovers (23 page)

She opened her briefcase to review her samples and pulled out a bottle of hydrating eye drops. Leaning back in her seat, she squirted a few drops in each eye. Immediately she felt refreshed. If only there was some sort of similar product for her heart. She’d sprinkle on some rewetting drops and
voilà!
Immediately, it would be fresh and ready for love again.

A voice came over the P.A. system instructing passengers to fasten their seatbelts in preparation for landing. Farrah laughed at the vision of heart rewetting drops, tucked the briefcase under the seat in front of her and prayed for a predictable workday ahead of her. She needed one to save her energy for the unpredictableness of what was happening in her personal life.

Susan Choi, M.D. was even more petite than Farrah, with brisk businesslike eyes, short black hair, and a no-nonsense handshake. But as she turned to lead Farrah into her office, Farrah couldn’t help but notice the gorgeous high-heeled gray and black open-toed pumps she wore. Undoubtedly designer. Breathtakingly feminine. Apparently, Dr. Choi wasn’t all business all the time.

“I only have five minutes so let’s make this brief,” Dr. Choi began, pointing to a chair for Farrah in front of a large dark wood desk in the office she’d ushered her into.

“Fine. Let me get straight to the point,” Farrah said, noticing the way Dr. Choi eyeballed the leather tassel on her slim, walnut brown leather briefcase as she lay it carefully on the desk. “I got the briefcase at the Prada sample sale in Manhattan last August, and I love your shoes.”

For the first time, the doctor looked directly at Farrah. Then, she leaned back in her chair and laughed. “Jimmy Choo’s. Comfortable, too.”

“They look way too good to be comfortable.”

“They start bothering me by the end of the day, but I drive home, so it doesn’t matter,” Dr. Choi told her. She motioned to Farrah’s briefcase. “Do you know when the next sample sale is at Prada?”

“I’ll tell you if you stock FreshEyes and give every one of your patients a free sample at their first follow up appointment post-procedure.”

“I already have rewetting drops from another manufacturer.”

“If you use FreshEyes, I guarantee you your patients will be happier. They keep eyes moist hours after other brands stop working.”

“That’s exactly what the rep from the other company told me last week.”

“This briefcase comes in black and cherry red. I could see you with the cherry red one.”

The doctor’s eyes gleamed. “I like red.”

“I can tell.” The doctor’s scarlet red lipstick further reinforced Farrah’s hunch that a vibrant fashion sense was part of Dr. Choi’s skill set. “How about if I e-mail you the link to the next invitation-only Prada sample sale?”

Dr. Choi shrugged. “Why don’t you leave some samples here? I’ve got to go now.” She stood up and walked toward the door.

Quickly, Farrah pulled out a red and gold box containing a large-size container of FreshEyes and held it out to the doctor. “Red is a very lucky color for your practice, too.” She had picked up the box at an Asian gift store in the Bronx, knowing Dr. Choi was Chinese-American.

“Why’s that?” The doctor looked at her skeptically, but took the box Farrah held out.

“It reflects who you are. Bold, vibrant. Am I right?” Dr. Choi said nothing, but the flash of her eyes told Farrah she was pleased.

I’ve got an order form here for three months worth of FreshEyes for you to offer your patients on follow-up visits,” Farrah continued, praying she wasn’t coming on too strong.

The doctor sighed. “Have our office manager process it.”

“I’d like to visit again in three months’ time, so you can tell me how your practice is taking off.”

“Send me the link to the sample sale.”

“You’ve got it, doctor.” Farrah made way for the woman to exit the room. Behind her, she laughed to herself. She’d known the doctor had been bluffing when she’d expressed disinterest at her offer to send her the link to the sample sale.

By half past four, Farrah was in the back of a cab on her way to the airport. Her second appointment had also gone well. She’d talked baseball with two male doctors in a brand new practice who were Philly fans. After forty-five minutes she had succeeded in filling another order.

The third appointment had gotten off to a rocky start. The doctor with whom she was to meet had cancelled but she’d dropped by the office and chatted with his assistant, leaving samples behind.

Marianne had been a tough nut to crack, surly and dumpy with bold, black eyeglass frames that didn’t advertise well for the eyesight correction business she was in. She hadn’t been receptive to any of Farrah’s overtures. Fashion talk was clearly out and sports banter—as with most female clients—was a point of interest to neither.

She eyeballed the stocky assistant. She wasn’t a decision-maker for the practice, so with nothing to lose, Farrah decided to go out on a limb. The day was wrapping up, she’d had two successful meetings already, and she was feeling playful. Endorphins from her race the morning before still lingered in her adrenal system.

“Could I ask you something?” she asked the assistant.

“Like what?” the woman eyeballed her distrustfully. She looked to be in her late thirties, no wedding band or engagement ring.

“It has nothing to do with why I’m here,” Farrah went on, watching carefully for her reaction.

“So what do you want to know?” The woman perked up at Farrah’s comment, more interested to talk now that it looked like they were going off-topic.

Farrah took a deep breath. Maybe she was crazy to continue. But the woman didn’t like her already, so what did it matter?

“I got dumped by my ex-boyfriend about three years ago, over the phone. He said he felt some sort of disconnect he couldn’t explain. I had no idea what he was talking about. I still don’t. Did anything like that ever happen to you?”

Marianne’s eyes widened, then crinkled at the corners. She smiled for the first time.

“Want to go outside for a cigarette?” she asked.

“Sure.” Farrah didn’t smoke, but she knew from hanging out at her mother’s hair salon in Queens that cigarette breaks provided the backdrop for important information exchanges. It would be another forty-five minutes before she needed to hail a cab to the airport. She picked up her briefcase and followed Marianne to the elevator banks. The woman looked more perky already. Now that she’d cracked a smile, Farrah could see she wasn’t all that plain.

Outside the building, she took in Market Street as Marianne lit a Marlboro Light. The day was crisp, a cloudless blue sky overhead. Farrah was itching to run, but it would have to wait until the following day’s track workout.

“Want one?” Marianne offered.

“No thanks,” Farrah smiled. She might not be a smoker, but she understood the give and take of the smoker’s break. You didn’t rush things. You just let whoever you were with puff away and quietly held your breath when they exhaled. While the conversation unfolded you didn’t wave the second-hand cigarette smoke away with your hand or make comments like, “why are you killing yourself with those things?” The result was you learned some juicy stuff that you’d never have found out if you’d been a Girl Scout and stayed in your office.

Marianne took a long drag, then slowly exhaled. “So you want to know if something like getting dumped over the phone with no explanation ever happened to me?”

“Yes.” Farrah waited expectantly.

“Yeah, it happened.” Marianne gave her a level look. “It happens to everyone at least once.”

“How do you close the book on something like that? I’m trying to work my way through it, but I’ve got nothing to go on.” Farrah shrugged. It wasn’t the total truth, but she wanted Marianne to really sink her teeth into the topic.

“You ever hear a phrase “It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you handle it?”

“Yes.” Her heart bounced, remembering her mother’s brisk but warm tone whenever she’d delivered that piece of advice. It had been often.

“It’s the most important thing you’ll ever learn.” Marianne’s decisiveness made her more attractive than she’d been back in the office. Farrah could imagine her telling a guy off in a bar—and making him fall in love with her at the same time.

“You’re probably right, but get back to what happened to you,” she redirected.

“Oh yeah. Well, to begin with, when a guy does that, you’ve got to understand there’s a real reason why he’s pulling the plug that he’s not telling you.”

“He said there was some sort of disconnect when we talked.”

“That’s bullshit. There was some other reason. Did this guy have a money problem?”

“No. I don’t think so. I mean, he didn’t have a lot of money, but he wasn’t broke.”

“And what about his family?”

“Oh, they were well off. I mean, he’d gone to boarding school. His father had made it big in real estate, but he died when Will was fifteen.”

“Will? That’s such a pansy name.”

Farrah was beginning to like Marianne more by the minute. “You’re right. It is. Except, he isn’t—I mean, wasn’t.”

Marianne gave her a careful look. “What did he do professionally?”

“He wrote ballet scores.”

“He what?” The woman looked at her quizzically as if she’d just spoken in Chinese.

“He was a composer who wrote for ballet.”

Marianne’s look remained blank.

“He wrote music for ballet theater,” Farrah spelled out.

“And you’re telling me he wasn’t a fairy?”

“Definitely not.”

“So with a job like that, I’ll bet he didn’t make any money.”

Farrah stared at Marianne. It was true. He’d worked as a piano tuner when they’d dated. Not exactly a big income producer. But she’d always thought of him as a composer. It had never occurred to her that composing ballet scores might not have paid the rent. He’d won prestigious music awards, hadn’t he?

“It wasn’t an issue between us.”

“No. It was an issue between him and his father.”

“But his father was dead.”

“Just because people are dead doesn’t mean we can’t still have issues with them.”

Marianne was no dummy.

“He probably needed to marry up,” she continued.

“To what?”

“Look. I don’t know anything about you, but your boyfriend probably wasn’t doing as well financially as his father had, and he felt bad about it. So he needed to marry up, and you weren’t the ticket.”

“How do you know that?” Farrah was riled. Was it possible Marianne was getting at the real reason Will had disappeared?

“I’m just riffing here. Do you know what happened to him?”

“Like you said. He married up.” Alexandra Dingle had come from money if she’d read between the lines of
The New York Times
wedding announcement with any discernment.

“What did I tell you?” Marianne flicked her cigarette to the ground and stomped on it with one brown, high-heeled loafer.

“But what about
your
story?” Farrah wanted to get off the topic of Will as soon as possible. Marianne had given her so much to think about she’d need the entire trip home to digest it.

“Same story, different circumstances.”

“Come on. It was your story. Tell me some of it anyway.”

“Okay. I went out with this guy Matt for about two years.”

“Definitely not a pansy name.”

“You’re not kidding.” Marianne rolled her eyes at Farrah. “He was a stockbroker. A salesman.”

“Like me.” Farrah wasn’t going to dodge being called a salesperson. She was one, after all.

“No. Not like you. Usually I can spot a salesperson 100 yards away. You don’t have that smug, bullshitty quality.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe you should find something else to do.”

“Let’s get back to the story.” Marianne was beginning to rock her boat. Deep down, Farrah missed teaching. It had given lasting skills to her students and genuine satisfaction to her. But the gap between her bills and her paycheck had been unreal. Now that she was in sales, she wasn’t so sure that what she was selling people was something they really needed. The only real satisfaction she took in her job was in getting a real paycheck.

“So we went out for about two years. We’d started making plans to move in together. And then all of a sudden, one Sunday evening, we’re on the phone and blam! He says, “Maybe we should take a breather for a few months.” Marianne’s face looked ashen, as if the conversation had taken place the night before.

“What did he say when you asked him why?” Farrah cried.

“He said “Nothing special. I just think it’d be good for both of us to step back for awhile.”

“What??!”

“Exactly what I said. He went on to talk about his basketball league game, the friends we’d gone out with the night before, blah, blah this and that. And then he said, ‘let’s call it a night.’”

Marianne lit a second cigarette, shifting her body as if an old ache or pain had resurfaced. “I asked him, ‘Are you still thinking we should back off for a few months?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I think it’d be a good idea.’ Then he hung up.”

“And??”

“And I never heard from him again.”

“Just like that??” It was unbelievable. Yet, it had happened to her, too. How could life be so strange?

“Just like that.”

Oh my God.” Farrah fell silent. She and Marianne were warrior sisters, survivors of similar bloodbaths of the heart. She looked down at the sidewalk, then up to the sky. Finally, she looked at Marianne. The woman she’d thought so plain and unremarkable had burst into color—hazel eyes blazing, spitting with spirit. She didn’t look defeated at all.

“That is so completely, utterly, and insanely bogus,” Farrah finally said. It felt good to put a name to the bewildering pain they’d both shared.

“Right. And it was. I got the real story a few months later.”

“What was it?”

“His ex-girlfriend had shown up again.”

“How do you know?”

“I found out through a mutual friend.”

“Had she left him for someone else?”

“Yes. Then that guy left her, and she came running back.”

“Why did he take her back?”

“Let me ask you something. If Ballet Boy resurfaced, would you take him back?”