The Wildwater Walking Club

by Claire Cook

I looked at Rosie. “Is she mad at us?”

  Rosie shrugged. “She’ll get over it. Every day can’t be perfect.”

  Rosie and I went into my garage and stretched on the mats. Then I started walking Rosie back to the path, the way I always did.

  Rosie stopped at my lavender patch and bent down to check the plants. Some of the little blooms were going by already. It was sad, if you thought about it, how soon the good things were over. I’d been pinching the dead flower spikes off, just like Rosie had shown me, so each plant would put its energy into becoming a stronger plant for next year, instead of trying to keep a flower alive when it was on its way out. It seemed like there might be a big message for me in there somewhere.

  “I don’t quite know how to say this,” Rosie said. She was still looking at my garden.

  “What?” I said.

  “It’s just that my father hasn’t been a widower very long, and well, he hasn’t dated since my mother died, and I just want to make sure…”

  “Oh,” I said. “Don’t worry. My mother’s a really nice person. And she hasn’t dated since my father died either, at least I don’t think she has. Plus, it’s probably not even real dating. It’s more about companionship at their age, isn’t it?”

  Rosie stood up. We both looked at my clothesline, where my mother’s racy underwear dangled like a Siren’s call.

  “Oh, boy,” I said.

  “Maybe we should just stay out of it,” Rosie said. “Or maybe we should sit them down and have the condom talk.”

  I was still looking at my clothesline. “Hard to tell,” I said.

  IT WAS PROBABLY morbid curiosity that propelled me to my Friday small-group coaching session. That and the fact that I really needed to get out of my house. My mother was purging and rearranging my kitchen cabinets. She was also singing to herself and driving me crazy. I left just before I drowned in “Moon River.”

  When I got to Fresh Horizons South, I sat in the parking lot, the air-conditioning in my car blasting, and planned my entrance carefully. Too early and I might have to have an awkward conversation with Rick. Too late and the whole class would look at me when I walked in, and I wasn’t sure I was up to the scrutiny today. My headache was gone, and I’d taken the time to blow-dry my hair and put on some makeup and a decent outfit, but I was still a little bit shaky in the self-esteem department.

  With four minutes to go, I locked my car and headed for the small-group coaching classroom. Even though I’d tried to put him out of my mind, the kiddie-size lockers in the hallway made me think about Michael again. I mean, if he had the social skills of an eighth grader, he could have at least had one of his friends call me to break up for him. And to think I’d thought all that retro stuff was cute. Maybe it was a fine line between retro and regression. It seemed to me that, as we got older, maybe we all started thinking about our childhoods more and more. And that was probably okay. What I needed to watch out for were the men who became children again.

  I held my head high and opened the Fresh Horizons South classroom door. Rick looked away as soon as he saw me. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to get right in his face and yell, Oh, grow up.

  I sat in a chair on the other side of the semicircle. I stared out the window, not really seeing anything, until Brock walked in and set up his video camera.

  Brock shut his eyes and let out three quick puffs of air. He opened his eyes again, tilted his chin up, and threw his shoulders back. “Welcome,” he said. “Welcome to all of you, and make that welcome back if you’ve been here before. My name is Brock, and I’ll be your Fresh Horizons certified small-group career coach…”

  “…for the next ninety minutes,” half the class said right along with him.

  “Let’s begin with a question,” Brock said. He was wearing my favorite pale pink shirt and a pair of gray pinstriped pants I hadn’t seen before, and he looked extra adorable. Since I seemed to be attracting children instead of men into my life, maybe I should set my sights on a boy toy like Brock. At least he still had all his hair and his testosterone.

  I crossed my legs and flashed Brock a big smile.

  He looked right through me as if I didn’t even exist. If we were standing on a corner, he’d probably offer to help me cross the street.

  Brock clapped his hands. “What’s your biggest investment?”

  “The house my ex-wife got?” the scruffy guy named Mark said.

  “Our small-group coaching sessions?” one of the women said in a flirty voice. Clearly I was not the only one having Brock fantasies.

  Brock clapped his hands three times. “When you make,” he said, “a serious, fully conscious decision to invest in yourself, it will be the biggest investment you ever make.”

  It hit me like a ton of bricks. I closed my eyes and repeated it to myself. I’d never really thought about it that way. For all the hours I’d logged in on my career, it really wasn’t the same as putting the work into myself. I was pretty sure I’d never, ever made a decision like that.

  Brock moved on to the video part. Fortunately he didn’t get around to calling on me, because I’d checked out of the classroom to take a stroll down memory lane. I retraced every bit of my life that I could remember. My first stacking game, the one where you were supposed to put the brightly colored plastic rings on the post in order of decreasing size, and which I hurled across the room on a regular basis. The time my brothers got real Adidas sneakers and my sister and I got fakes with one less stripe, and as outraged as I was, I never even fought for our right to equal footwear. My short fingers and their disastrous piano lessons. The horseback riding lessons I started when tennis got too hard. The year I sort of ran for class treasurer. My college application essays. My career. My relationships.

  I didn’t think I’d ever given anything my all. I wasn’t sure why—fear of failure, fear of success, or maybe I was constitutionally a slacker—did it really matter? Whatever the cause, what it all boiled down to was that if I didn’t start believing I deserved a better life, then I sure as hell didn’t have half a chance of getting one.

  I jumped out of my chair as soon as the session was over. I was several steps down the hallway before I changed my mind and turned around.

  Rick was just coming out of the classroom. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I said.

  He looked around for an escape route. “Actually,” he said, “I’ve got a tennis match scheduled….”

  “Actually,” I said, “this will only take a minute. Maybe even less.”

  “Uh-oh,” one of the other scruffy guys said as he walked by us.

  “Oh, grow up,” I said.

  “Here’s the thing,” I said when Rick and I were alone. “You had your chance. You could have called me Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.”

  He wrinkled up his forehead. “I really meant to,” he said. “Time just got away from me.”

  “Even this morning. But you didn’t.”

  I looked at my power watch, then up again. “I don’t have time for this,” I said. “I’m working really hard at moving forward in my life, and I think part of that is surrounding myself with the right people.”

  I tried to look Rick in the eyes as I said it, but it takes two sets of eyes for that.

  “I’m sorry. It’s not you,” he said finally. His green cat eyes made contact for a second, then darted away. “It’s just that I can’t seem to get my act together lately.”

  “So I just want to make it perfectly clear,” I finished, “that the offer has expired.”

  “Okay, then,” Rick said.

  “Okay, then,” I said.

  I turned and walked away.

  Day 20

  14,111 steps

  ROSIE WAS ALREADY STANDING OUT BY MY LAVENDER PATCH when I got there.

  “Morning,” I said. “Feels like it’s going to be a hot one.”

  She looked up at my kitchen window. “The weather’s not the only thing that’s hot, from what I hear.” She lowered her voice to a
whisper. “Date. Tonight. Dinner and dancing.”

  “Really?”

  Rosie was still whispering. “Just act surprised when she tells you, okay? I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “What,” I said, “you mean like grounded?”

  We started walking around to the front to meet Tess. Rosie stopped to pull a weed that was tall enough to be leaning up against my house. “It’s weird, isn’t it, how it all turns around? It’s like the roles sort of reverse, but not completely, so in a way it feels like you’re the parent now, but you’re also still the kid.”

  I’d almost pulled the exact same weed yesterday, but at the last minute I’d doubted myself and started wondering whether it might really be a good plant, after all.

  “Yeah, it’s totally strange,” I said. “But at least you have some parenting experience.”

  “That’s a good point,” Rosie said. “Not that most of parenting isn’t just a crapshoot. What’s that old saying? Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

  Tess must have been looking out her screen door, because she opened it as soon as we got to my driveway. She was wearing a white terry cloth bathrobe.

  “Not today,” she yelled. “I’ve been up all night.”

  The door slammed shut. “What do we do?” I asked.

  “Same thing we did that day you faked sick,” Rosie said. “We walk, and then we show up at her house later and make sure she’s okay.”

  Tess’s door opened again. “And don’t come back and bug me later,” she yelled. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “So much for that theory,” Rosie said.

  Nothing against Tess, but it turned out to be much easier for two people to walk together than three. No moving forward and back in the little fairness dance we’d created, no changing partners so the same person wasn’t stuck up front doing a solo for too long. The conversational logistics were less complicated, too: simply wait till the other person stopped talking and dive right in.

  “This is really selfish,” Rosie was saying, “but I spent the whole night tossing and turning and wondering what would happen if things worked out between your mother and my dad. I mean, there’s room downstairs and we could probably add a little kitchenette, but I don’t think I could handle living with one more person. Both my kids have friends over all the time, plus my husband’s crew is always in and out. My personal space is practically nonexistent already.”

  “Well, they’re certainly not moving in with me,” I said. “My social life is nonexistent enough without a handicap like that. Maybe we could ship them off to my mother’s place in Florida.”

  We walked for a while, considering. “I guess that could work,” Rosie said, “but I’ve kind of gotten used to having him around. And here’s the thing: I turned my life upside down, uprooted my husband and kids, so my father didn’t have to move out of his house. If he moves to Florida with your mother, then what the hell are we doing there?”

  I stepped in front of Rosie to go through the opening in the seawall. We stopped at the top of the beach just long enough to take in the view. Sailboats were zigging and zagging all over the place, and closer to shore swimmers were already venturing in. The beach day began earlier and ended later on the weekends.

  We started walking again. I had a sudden vision of my mother careening off a cliff. “Is your father a good driver?” I asked.

  “A little bit of a lead foot, but his reactions are still pretty good. Why, do you think we should have your mother drive instead?”

  A piece of sea glass twinkled up at me, and I bent down and picked it up. “Probably not,” I said. “My father did most of the driving.”

  Rosie took a little catch-up hop. “Okay,” she said. “How about my dad drives, and we wait and see how their second date goes before we worry about living arrangements?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. I blew out a puff of air. “Well, now that we’ve prematurely worked out our parents’ relationship…”

  “No kidding,” Rosie said. “If we spent even a quarter of the time focusing on ourselves that we do worrying about everyone else’s lives…”

  “Why do you think that is?” I asked. I really wanted to know.

  Rosie bent down and picked up a small dried-up starfish, each orange-brown leg stretched out in a different direction. “I like to think it’s because I’m such a kind, loving, unselfish person.” She laughed. “But if I’m really honest with myself, I think I spend a lot of time hiding behind the never-ending needs of my family. It keeps me from having to think about what I want out of my own life.”

  MY MOTHER FINISHED making my breakfast as soon as I came in the door from walking with Rosie. This part I could get used to.

  I sat down across from my mother at the kitchen table. “Thanks,” I said. “I haven’t had soft-boiled eggs and toast triangles in years. I completely forgot about the egg cups you sent me that time. Easter, wasn’t it?”

  My mother nodded. “It was your favorite breakfast when you were a little girl. The yolks had to be just right, so you could dip the corners of your toast in.”

  I dipped. “Yum,” I said. “Perfect. Not too hard and not too gooey.”

  My mother sipped her tea and watched me eat. She was wearing white capris and a bright purple sleeveless top with matching purple flip-flops. Her freshly dyed dark hair was tucked behind her ears, and pink and purple parrot earrings dangled from her earlobes. I tried to make myself say something nice about the earrings, but I couldn’t quite get there.

  I took a deep breath. “Mom, was I always a little bit lost? I mean, was the writing on the wall from, I don’t know, like, birth?”

  “Where did that come from?” my mother asked.

  I shrugged and took another bite of my perfectly cooked egg. There are parts of yourself you don’t really want to revisit. But, if you have to, it’s better to have your mother do the reality check than, say, your first boyfriend, or the kid you punched out on the playground when you were five.

  My mother took a sip of her tea. She was probably trying to think of the best way to break it to me that I’d always shown signs of being not only a late bloomer, but a nonbloomer. Maybe she’d even known when she was pregnant that the baby growing inside her wasn’t quite like her other three. I suddenly really wanted to know. How had my sister and brothers managed to thrive, while I’d floundered and floundered some more, and how soon had she been able to feel it in her all-knowing mother bones?

  “You know, honey, your father and I never played favorites. We loved all four of you the same.”

  I guess that was supposed to make me feel better, but I wondered if it might have cost me some pity points along the way. I stirred a toast point around in my egg yolk.

  “But you were always the spunky one. Nothing ever got in your way for too long. You just backed right up and came at it again, full steam ahead. Your father used to tell everyone you were going to be the first female astronaut.”

  “Ha,” I said.

  My mother looked around my kitchen. “Look at all you’ve accomplished. A big job, a house of your own, and in a nice neighborhood.”

  “Don’t forget the livestock issues,” I said.

  She smiled. “I was seventy-one before I learned how to pay the bills. Your father always did it. I was barely twenty when we were married. I’d never killed a bug I couldn’t coax out of the house. I’d just lock it in a room until your father got home from work and took care of it. I’d never cleaned a clogged drain, washed the car, lived alone.”

  I pushed my egg away and took a sip of my coffee. “It’s a blast, isn’t it?”

  My mother shrugged. “It takes some getting used to.” She lifted up her mug and used her other hand to square her place mat with the edge of the table. “Honey, your whole life you were fine as long as you knew what you wanted. Sometimes it took you a while to decide, that’s all. You were good at almost everything you tried. Choice is a wonderful thing, but it can also be confusing. Things were differ
ent when I was your age.”

  “When you were my age, you were already a grandmother.” It was a slight exaggeration, but it was practically true.

  “Oh, stop,” my mother said. “Youth lasts a lot longer these days.”

  “Sometimes forever,” I said. I was thinking of Michael, Rick, possibly all men. Maybe even me.

  I closed my eyes and blew out three quick puffs of air. “Mom, I’m not working. I took a buyout from my company.” My eyes teared up. “And I don’t know what I’m going to do next.”

  My mother reached out and put her hand over mine. “You’ll figure it out, honey. Do you need a little loan to tide you over?”

  “No, no, I’m fine. They’re giving me my full base salary for eighteen months.”

  “Well, then it would be silly to work if they’re giving away all that free money, now wouldn’t it?” She patted my hand a few times. “Something will come up the minute you stop worrying. My mother always used to tell me a watched pot never boils.”

  This didn’t quite seem like a brilliant job hunting strategy, but I let it go. Just to clear the air, I said, “Mom, remember what I said about my boyfriend being away on business? Well, he’s not. I don’t actually have a boyfriend right now.”

  “Don’t worry, sweetie,” my mother said. “A friend in my complex has a single nephew who lives in Boston. I could give her a call.”

  I slid my hand out from under my mother’s and started patting hers. “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “I’ll let you know.”

  “HAVE A GOOD time,” I yelled from my doorway as I waved at my mother and her date backing out of my driveway. Boyohboy, talk about a role reversal. How many times had my parents waved at me this way?

  I pulled the door shut behind me and started walking down Wildwater Way by myself to finish the rest of the day’s mileage. I was thinking about my father. He’d died suddenly, a massive heart attack in the middle of a golf game. What a way to go, we all said, even though we were devastated. I mean, if you have to die, better to be fine one minute, doing what you love to do, and gone the next. With luck, he never felt a thing.