Outside Mug + Shot, I lean against the sun-warmed window, the trees lining the lane rustling in a gentle breeze that heightens the smell of espresso in the air.
Another message comes in. A page from the Bigfoot Christmas book, featuring a particularly egregious use of decking the halls, as well as a reference to a sex move called the Voracious Yeti, which doesn’t sound remotely anatomically possible.
Libby walks into my periphery. “Already done with the Wi-Fi?”
“Thoroughly unplugged,” I reply. “Have you ever heard of the Voracious Yeti?”
“That a children’s book?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll have to look it up.”
My phone vibrates with another message: I find the Voracious Yeti highly implausible.
I find myself smiling, possibly with knives. So disappointing. Really pulls the reader out of an otherwise stunning work of realism.
12
I SIT UP, GASPING, cold, panicked.
Libby.
Where is Libby?
My eyes zigzag across the room, searching for something grounding. The first rays of sunlight streaming through a window. The sound of pots and pans clanking. The smell of brewing coffee drifting through the door.
I’m in the cottage.
It’s okay. She’s here. She’s okay.
At home, when I’m anxious, I cycle. When I need a boost of energy, I cycle. When I need to knock myself out, I cycle. When I can’t focus, I cycle.
Here, running is my only option.
I dress quietly, pull on my muddy sneakers, and creep down the stairs to sneak out into the cool morning. I shiver as I cross the foggy meadow, picking up my pace at the woods.
I leap over a gnarled root, then thunder across the footbridge that arcs over the creek.
My throat starts to burn, but the fear is still chasing me. Maybe it’s being here, feeling so far away from Mom, or maybe it’s spending so much time with Libby, but something is bringing me back to all those things I try not to think about.
It feels like there’s poison inside of me. No matter how hard I run, I can’t burn through it. For once, I wish I could cry, but I can’t. I haven’t since the morning of the funeral.
I pick up my pace.
* * *
“I’ve found him!” Libby squeals, running into the bathroom as I’m trying to coax my curtain bangs into submission, against the express wishes of the unrelenting humidity.
She thrusts her phone toward me, and I squint at a headshot of an attractive man with short, chocolaty hair and gray eyes. He’s wearing a down vest over a plaid shirt and gazing across a foggy lake. Over his picture is BLAKE, 36.
“Libby!” I shriek, realization dawning. “Why the hell are you on a dating app?”
“I’m not,” she says. “You are.”
“I am definitely not,” I say.
“I made an account for you,” she says. “It’s a new app. Very marriage minded. I mean, it’s called Marriage of Minds.”
“MOM?” I say. “The acronym for the app is MOM? Sometimes I worry about the severe lack of warning bells in your brain, Libby.”
“Blake’s an avid fisherman who’s unsure if he wants kids,” she says. “He’s a teacher, and a night owl—like you—and extremely physically active.”
I snatch the phone and read for myself. “Libby. It says here he’s looking for a down-to-earth woman who doesn’t mind spending her Saturdays cheering on the Tar Heels.”
“You don’t need someone exactly like you, Sissy,” Libby says gently. “You need someone who appreciates you. I mean, you obviously don’t need anyone, period, but you deserve someone who understands how special you are! Or at least someone who can give you a low-pressure night out.”
She’s looking at me now with that hopeful Libby look of hers. It’s halfway between the expression of a cat who’s dropped a mouse at a person’s feet and that of a kid handing over a Mother’s Day drawing, blissfully unaware that Mommy’s “snow hat” looks only and exactly like a giant penis.
Blake is the penis hat in this scenario.
“Couldn’t we just have a low-pressure night out together?” I ask.
She glances away with an apologetic grimace. “Blake already thinks he’s meeting you at Poppa Squat’s for karaoke night.”
“Nearly every part of that sentence is concerning.”
She wilts. “I thought you wanted to switch things up, not be so . . .”
Nadine Winters, a voice in my mind says. It takes me a second to recognize it as the husky, teasing timbre of Charlie. I suppress a groan of resignation.
It’s one night, and Libby’s gone to a lot of trouble for this very weird gift.
“I guess I should google what a Tar Heel is beforehand,” I say.
A grin breaks across her face. If Mom’s smile was springtime, Libby’s is full summer. She says, “No way. That’s what we call a conversation starter.”
* * *
Libby (acting as me) didn’t tell Blake where we were staying, and instead suggested I (secretly we) meet him at Poppa Squat’s around seven. In her flowy wrap dress with her hair perfectly tousled and pink gloss smudged across her lips, you’d think she had something better to do than nurse a soda and lime while watching me from across the bar, but she seems perfectly excited for the underwhelming night ahead.
Normally, I’d arrive to a date early, but we’re operating on Libby’s timeline and thus arrive ten minutes late. Outside the front doors, she stops me by the elbow. “We should go in separately. So he doesn’t know we’re together.”
“Right,” I say. “That will make it easier to knock him out and empty his pockets. What should our signal be?”
She rolls her eyes. “I will go in first. I’ll scope him out and make sure he’s not carrying a sword, or wearing a pin-striped vest, or doing close-up magic for strangers.”
“Basically that he’s none of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”
“I’ll text you when it’s safe to come in.”
Forty seconds after she slips inside, she sends me a thumbs-up, and I follow.
It’s hotter in Poppa Squat’s than it is outside, probably because it’s packed.
The crowd is drunkenly singing “Sweet Home Alabama” around and on the karaoke stage at the back of the room, and the whole place smells like sweat and spilled beer.