Fashionably Late

by Beth Kendrick

  “Maybe I can just stay on the ground and drop Ecstasy?” I suggested.

  He laughed. “I’ve done this hundreds of times. Believe me, you’ll love it.”

  “Hundreds of times?”

  He nodded. “High-altitude drops, low-altitude drops, you name it, I’ve done it.”

  “Just don’t tell her about the base jumping,” Snake muttered as he walked by.

  My eyebrows shot up. “Base jumping? What’s that?”

  “Nothing,” he said a little too quickly. “Anyway, stop worrying and start getting excited. Snake will take good care of you. And great news—since we’re old buddies and you’re obviously such a natural, he’s agreed to let you do your first jump solo.”

  I blanched. “As in, all by myself? Without a handy, dandy instructor strapped to my back to make sure I don’t freak out and forget to pull the rip cord?”

  He seemed totally unconcerned. “You won’t forget. I’m telling you, you’re making this out to be much scarier than it is. The free fall is actually very quiet and peaceful.”

  Scenes from the Your Parachute Won’t Open…Now What? video flashed through my mind. “I want to trust you.”

  “Then do. This is going to change your whole life. You won’t regret it—I swear.” And he looked into my eyes, meeting my fear and self-doubt with such confidence and pride that I decided to show him that he was right to believe in me.

  “Okay, what the hell.” I grabbed the combat boots and red bodysuit I was supposed to wear on the jump. “Into the wild blue yonder.”

  Snake, blue-eyed, grizzled, and balding, grinned maniacally at me as the little propeller plane took off with me, Connor, and two other veteran jumpers in the cargo hold. We had to yell over the noise of the engines and the wind, which roared through the open side door.

  “You look scared.” Snake seemed highly amused by my pinched little face under my helmet.

  I forced a smile, all the while thinking about small aircraft crash statistics.

  “She looks scared!” he shouted over to Connor, who squeezed my hand and mouthed something to me I couldn’t understand.

  “What?” I mouthed back, but he just shook his head and grinned.

  We reached our designated jumping altitude all too quickly.

  “Keep your hands on the rip cords,” Snake hollered at us.

  Yeah. Like I’d forget. Like anything short of a crowbar could pry my fingers from their death grip on my only link to survival.

  We’d been lined up in order of weight, heaviest to lightest, which meant that Connor went first and I went last, with two thrill-seeking frat boys between us.

  The man who had, not twelve hours ago, explored every inch of my body with utmost patience and passion, hunkered down in the doorway and prepared to leap out into the void.

  “One, two, three…GO!” Snake yelled.

  Connor hurled himself out into the vast sea of blue and white without a second’s hesitation. Though I couldn’t watch his fall from the back of the line, I pictured him plummeting toward earth, glorying in the temporary escape from sound and time and gravity. He liked to think of himself as above the laws of nature, but when I visualized his body falling, a fragile bundle of heart and blood and bones picking up speed with every passing second…

  “Oog,” I moaned as Frat Boy #1 leapt into thin air.

  “Urg,” I added as Frat Boy #2 bailed out with a whoop.

  I inched toward the doorway, making eye contact with Snake as I’d been taught in the prep session, trying not to look down. Or up. Or left. Or right. The wind whipped against my cheeks and plastered my helmet straps against my neck.

  “Ready?” Snake gave me a thumbs-up.

  That’s when I looked down. If I had been snug in the window seat of a 747, I would’ve thought, Oh, we’re flying so low, we’ll be landing any second, but seeing as I was sans seatbelt, sans tray table, and sans window, my perspective was quite different. From here, the earth looked awfully hard, not to mention far away.

  “You have to go now or we’ll miss the drop zone,” Snake cried. “Ready?”

  No doubt about it. I was going to die.

  I maintained eye contact with Snake and nodded.

  “Great. One, two, three…GO!”

  I was still making eye contact with Snake.

  “GO!”

  My hand refused to release the solid metal doorframe. It wasn’t even optional—my nervous system had ceased operations.

  “Last chance! GO!”

  19

  So you didn’t jump?” Aimee poured me yet another glass of wine (Trader Joe’s price tag still adorning the label). We had made ourselves comfy in her apartment’s tiny living room, high heels and purses and other uncomfortable accoutrements cast aside as we ordered pizza and prepared for a girls’ night in.

  “Not ‘didn’t,’ ” I corrected. “Couldn’t. I wanted to, but my survival instincts took over.”

  “But Connor jumped.”

  “Like he was escaping a burning building.” I took a sip of the finest discount Chardonnay. “He thought he had enough enthusiasm for both of us, but he thought wrong. I practically kissed the runway when the plane finally landed.”

  “You realize, of course, that the odds of dying while skydiving are infinitesimal.”

  “So I’m told.”

  “I mean, it’s a recreational hobby.”

  “For adrenaline junkies with a death wish.” I shuddered at the mere memory. “Look, the bottom line is there are two kinds of people in this world: those who will voluntarily fling themselves out of an airplane and those who won’t.”

  “Well, at least you’ll never have to stay up nights wondering which type you are.” She toasted me with her wineglass.

  “That’s the problem. I don’t want to be an ultraconservative little priss like Meena. I want be the bright new future of his love life. I want to be the kind of girl who can match his appetite for adventure.”

  “So you keep the adventures on land, big deal.” She perused the pizza place magnets on the fridge. “And anyway, why do you care so much what he thinks?”

  “Maybe because I had sex with him less than twenty-four hours ago?”

  “That’s my point.” She nodded. “He should be worrying about whether he’s good enough for you.”

  I picked at the dish of chocolate-covered cranberries she’d brought out with the wine. “He was pretty quiet on the drive back from Riverside. I think he’s disappointed in me.”

  “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

  “No, honestly. I think he’s worried that I’m going to be like all the other ex-girlfriends who tried to change him and rein him in and blah blah blah.”

  “Men.” She snorted in disgust. “They should all be broken down and reprogrammed at age eighteen.”

  “Who would do the reprogramming?” I wondered.

  “Martha Stewart, Vera Wang, and that ‘Hints from Heloise’ chick,” she decided. “So they could bake delicious blueberry muffins, get excited about getting married, and remove ink stains from our white shirts. Do you want mushrooms or sun-dried tomatoes on the pizza?”

  “Tomatoes. I’ll probably never hear from him again, and it’s too bad because I really like him.”

  “But not enough to risk ending up a paratrooper pancake. I think he’ll understand.”

  I slouched back into the sofa cushion. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not ready to start dating again.”

  “Yeah, let the specter of your dorky ex-fiancé ruin the rest of your twenties. That’s the spirit.” She picked up the cordless phone and dialed. “Hi, I’d like to order a large pizza, please. Half sun-dried tomato, half anchovy.”

  “Anchovies?” I repeated after she hung up the phone. “I didn’t see you as the anchovy type. Grilled zucchini and basil-almond pesto, maybe, but anchovies?”

  “I hate them, actually. I hate most seafood, but I’m supposed to eat it for my new diet.”

  “Aimee,” I said firmly. “We
have discussed this. You are a size-two shadow of a woman. No matter what any of those casting directors say, you do not need to lose weight.”

  “Oh, I know.” But even as she said this, she reached for her ever-present pack of Marlboro “diet in a stick” Lights and lit up, waving smoke toward the direction of the open balcony doors. “It’s not about weight, really, so much as nutrition. Energy. Looking younger.”

  “You’re twenty-six.”

  “Exactly. Practically Diane Keaton territory. Only without all the Oscars and snazzy suits. And this diet is guaranteed to make me look and feel ten years younger after only eight weeks.”

  “So you’re aiming for sixteen? You want to relive your junior year of high school?”

  “Don’t mock it till you’ve tried it. My acting coach raved about it. She’s in week five and her skin is positively glowing.”

  “Let me guess: Atkins?”

  “Oh, please.” She seemed insulted. “Like I’d ever be so banal.”

  “Zone?”

  “Zodiac.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She scurried off to her bedroom, returning with a plastic-bound sheaf of paper that looked fresh off the Xerox machine at Kinko’s. “The Zodiac Diet. It’s so new and hip, it hasn’t even officially hit bookstores yet. But my acting coach let me make a copy of her advance galley.”

  I thumbed through the manuscript—which had clearly been self-published, probably in a carport in the Valley—and tried not to scoff openly. “Give me the condensed version.”

  “Well, I mean, obviously the science is very complicated, but the gist of it is that all the signs in the Zodiac fall into one of four categories—earth, fire, water, and air—and by identifying your sign’s element and eating accordingly, you’re working with your body and spirit instead of against them. Like, I’m a Leo. That’s a fire sign. So I need to eat things from the ocean to counterbalance my fiery tendencies.”

  “Like anchovies?”

  “Bingo. Seafood, kelp, anything water-based, really. Lots of ice and soup. And I’m supposed to avoid stuff that fuels the fire—peppers, spices, that sort of thing.”

  “Got it,” I said. “Well, I’m a Cancer…”

  She consulted the manuscript. “That’s a water sign. So you should be piling on the spice. Next time, get red peppers and pepperoni on your pizza.”

  “But I don’t like red peppers or pepperoni.”

  “That’s just years of bad nutritional conditioning talking. Your poor body.” She puffed away on her cigarette. “Now. Back to the skydiving fiasco. What’s your plan?”

  “No plan.” I shrugged one shoulder. “I’ll just have to wait and see if he calls. And if he doesn’t…”

  “That’s it? You’re handing all the power over to him on a big silver platter?”

  “No, but I’m not going to beg him to—”

  “What happened to the gutsy femme fatale who called me from his bathroom yesterday?”

  “She went AWOL right about the time my knees gave out at five thousand feet.”

  She assessed me with a cool, calculating stare. “You’re just scared.”

  “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m also out of practice when it comes to dating.”

  “Oh, just call him and feel him out.” She tossed the cordless phone over, hitting me square in the shin. “Don’t be so stubborn. You know you can’t live without his heinous pickup lines. Plus, he’s good in bed. Plus, now you’re addicted to life on the edge.”

  I nudged the phone back toward her with my toes. “I’ve got a better idea. As soon as we finish the pizza I’m going to grab a cab and go pick up someone who puts Connor to shame in the life-on-the-edge department.”

  “I’m glad you called,” Claire said, cramming a french fry into her mouth. “But how sad that neither of us has anything better to do on a Sunday night.”

  “What could be more important than spending a little quality time with my sister?” Since we were now equally broke and declassé, we had agreed to meet for a late-night snack at a McDonald’s in Studio City. (Claire’s suggestion. Apparently, becoming pregnant had freed her from the dietary chains that had bound her to tofu and brown rice all these years.)

  “How’s the job going?”

  I thought about Fiona tossing my shirt sample into the corner. “Awful. How’s your marriage?”

  “Awful.”

  “L.A. really worked out well for us, huh?”

  She glowered. “Here’s the latest: Andrew King is a delusional sadist getting more delusional by the day. When he’s not lecturing me about how I should be delighted to eat red beans and rice every single night, he’s trying to convince our landlord to accept a tiny down payment—I am talking, like, the price of this Extra Value Meal—on our crappy new apartment. He said we had to buy now before our credit rating is completely annihilated. So we could be stuck making payments on that hell-hole for the next thirty years.”

  “You can do this, Claire. I know you can. You grew up middle class, remember? In Phoenix, for heaven’s sake. If Paris Hilton can survive backwoods Arkansas, you can hack Van Nuys. Besides, I hear red beans and rice are really nutritious. Between that and your prenatal vitamins, you’re totally covered. Speaking of which, how are my nieces- or nephews-to-be?”

  “Starving.” She helped herself to more fries. “Am I going to hell if I get another order of these?”

  “No. But good lord, woman—I can’t remember ever seeing you eat fries. I didn’t even know you liked them.”

  “I don’t. The babies like them. And I’m trying this new eating plan, the Zodiac Diet, and—”

  “Oh no. You’re doing that, too?”

  “Of course. Everyone is. Anyway, I’m a Gemini, which is an air sign, so I’m supposed to eat lots of vegetables and tubers because—”

  “Because they grow in the ground so it grounds you?”

  “Bingo. And I’ve never felt better.” She took a huge bite of her burger.

  “And the Big Mac?”

  She shrugged. “Cows eat grass. And grass grows in the ground.”

  “Please don’t tell me you actually believe all that hooey?”

  “Don’t be so negative. All my friends from yoga started doing it.”

  “Do they look any different now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” She attacked her fries with renewed vigor. “They don’t return my calls anymore. Not since we were stigmatized with an eight-one-eight area code.”

  “No offense, but your friends are bitches.”

  “They’re just practical.” She looked strained and sallow under the bright fluorescent lights. The faint lines at the corners of her eyes had gotten noticeably deeper over the past few weeks. “I knew it would happen. And I have work to fill my day now, so I don’t have time for all the lunches and shopping trips. I wouldn’t want them to ever see me like this, anyway.”

  “Like what?”

  “Exiled from Eden.”

  “Claire…”

  “We have no savings. We have no AC. No washing machine, no long-distance carrier, no car insurance—which, yes, is illegal—and no reason to think that any of this is going to change anytime soon. All we have are two people and two more on the way crammed into the square footage of a shoe-box.”

  “You’ll rebuild.” I tried to radiate confidence. “You and Andrew are a team now; you can build a new future…”

  “I don’t want to build.” She put down her french fries, looking drained. “I want security.”

  “Money isn’t the only source of security.”

  “It’s the only kind that’s going to furnish a nursery for my kids. When I asked Andrew where the babies were going to sleep, he said, and I quote, ‘We’ll just put some blankets in a drawer for the first few months.’ ”

  I laughed. “Didn’t Popeye’s son have to sleep in a drawer? Swee’pea?”

  “Swee’pea was his nephew, not his son,” Claire corrected, and I caught a glimpse of the bossy, impatient older sister she�
��d been before the wedding. “And it’s not funny. I don’t know how we’re going to manage. I couldn’t have picked a worse time to get pregnant.” She closed her eyes. “But now that I am…”

  “You can’t wait to have the babies,” I finished softly.

  “Exactly. Is that unforgivably selfish of me?” She reached across the table and gripped my hand so tightly I winced. “Am I a horrible mother if I keep them?”

  “Hang on. Since when is keeping them even an option?”

  “Since we lost all our money and our long-term health and dental coverage. I don’t know what to do. My heart and my brain are pulling in different directions…can you keep a secret?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think I want to know this secret.”

  “One of my friends adopted a baby girl last year and I got the name of her lawyer. I have an appointment to meet with him next week, and I want you to come with me.”

  After several seconds of silence, she let go of my hand and pulled away.

  “An adoption lawyer? Are you serious?” I tried not to sound as shocked as I felt.

  “Well, what else can I do? You tell me. I don’t know how we’re going to be able to take care of them once they get here. We can’t afford daycare, but I won’t be able to afford to stay home with them, our marriage is falling apart, and I just…” Her eyes teared up. “I know I won’t be able to give them any of the things children should have. A happy family. A yard to play in. Summer camp, college, a basic sense of security.”

  “Hey.” I tried for a stern, take-charge tone. “I don’t know if this is depression or pregnancy hormones or what, but you have to stop this.”

  “I already love them so much,” she continued as if I had never interrupted. “Is it horrible of me to want to keep them for myself when there are so many other families who could give them everything we can’t?”

  “Stop talking like that! These problems with Andrew? They’re temporary. You guys will get back on your feet, and if things really get bad, you can go live with Mom and Dad for a while. You can stay in my old room.”