Before I asked Jeff to the wedding, Simon was my number one choice, but I worried he’d read something more into it, so I refrained. Now I feel like a complete idiot. I can’t help but wonder, if I did actually risk something, might there be a lifetime to gain?
“Are you really here for an appointment?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. Emma peeks around the door. “Morgan’s on the phone again.”
“I have to go, Simon.” I pick up the phone, pulling my hair behind my back. “Hi, Morgan. Sorry about hanging up on you.” I shove yet another piece of chocolate in my mouth.
“Do you mind if we invite Jacob to meet you at the spa? He’s down there for business. He grew up in Aptos. Isn’t that right next to Santa Cruz? I’m telling you, Poppy, he’s perfect for you.”
I look at Simon and his sorrowful gaze at being ignored, and I vow to stand strong with Morgan. Whether Jacob is perfect for me or not is a moot point. Simon’s expression is my first concern. I can’t stand to see someone hurt, and my most loyal customer is certainly not one I wish to upset. “Yes, I do mind, actually. I found a respectable date. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
“Oh—you were serious about that. All right, I’ll make other arrangements.”
“What would be the point?” I ask her.
“The point is that maybe Jacob is the one for you. He loves to run and scuba dive, and all those adventurous, outdoorsy things you like.”
There’s something about being forced into something that automatically makes you retreat. I mean, if he were so wonderful, he would be taken by now. Of course, he probably could say the same thing about me.
“I’m not feeling him, Morgan.”
“Didn’t you feel there was going to be a major earthquake last year on the San Andreas and the Hayward faults too?” Morgan asks with a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
I shake my head, even though she can’t see me. “I just got the wrong signal that time. My emotions were off from too much work and not enough running.”
“Jacob really wants to meet you, Poppy. He’s a hippy, Christian, fitness boy. You have to at least meet him. I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t at least introduce you two. What if he’s the one?”
“You make him sound so attractive. Will he bring a gift of yogurt when he comes?” I see Simon move towards the door. “Simon, wait!”
“You’re not listening to me,” Morgan pouts. “I want you to have what Lilly and I do, Poppy.”
“I want that too,” I say, gazing at Simon.
He gives me one of his trademark grins. There’s a cloud over his usual demeanor, and I look to the phone wondering if he heard or cared about the wedding. As Simon heads towards the door, I realize all the constants in my life are going away. Simon is only following suit, like Lilly and Morgan.
I grab his arm before he walks out the door. “Wait,” I repeat.
I don’t remember ever standing this close to Simon, and if energy were measurable right now, I think we’d have our own Richter Scale.
“Why?” He strides out of my office, as I listen to Morgan ramble about her impressive guest list and how her father’s sins seem forgotten by her wedding responses.
Why, indeed?
“Morgan, I have to go. I have patients backing up.” I hand the phone back to Emma absently, and just as I’m about to catch Simon, the door closes.
“Poppy, you’ve got patients,” Emma reminds me. I pause at the door, but I turn around like a good girl should. One of my toughest patients awaits me, and right now, I relish the challenge. Need it.
As I was saying about natural medicine, it’s a much slower process, and hence in this corporate, dog-eat-dog world where time is money, the patient loses. The symptoms are easier and far more profitable to treat.
It’s not that natural medicine is more costly, it’s that the time involved will never interest the insurance companies. It’s a much slower process, made for my methodical mind, and it’s like playing my own game of CSI: Cupertino with each patient. Discovering is about listening, about hearing what the patient is undergoing, and trying to find out where the symptom starts. With each treatment, each answer, you get closer to the cure. That’s the beauty, and unfortunately what is so difficult for medical doctors. Maybe it was too many Scooby Doo mysteries as a child, but I was a meddling kid and I wanted to rip the mask off the symptoms.
Working for a doctor and filing insurance bills didn’t help my disdain. All the free stuff sent to the doctor with the name of a pharmaceutical didn’t help me. I’d seen what the “cure” had done to my mother, and no way was I going to be involved in that kind of business.
“Hey, Doc,” Leslie, one of my first Chinese medicine clients, says as she bounces into my office. “You’re not going to believe this. I’m getting married!”
“Married?” I give her a great big hug, but I’m really thinking, Oh please don’t invite me, so I have to get a date. I already ran six miles today and I’m so very tired.
“We’re getting married in Mexico this fall.”
“Fabulous!” I squeal. “What’s he like?”
Leslie herself is very masculine in nature. She’s built like a linebacker and has blonde locks that I swear are never without black roots. I don’t know when she actually dyes it, because I’ve never seen it fresh, or all blonde. Which of course makes me wonder why she bothers rather than keep it natural.
“Well,” Leslie says. “He’s a software engineer and really kind and good looking and gentle. We both love bird watching out on the Baylands and communing with nature. We’re going to Mexico to rescue sea turtles, and then we’re getting married afterwards on the beach!” Leslie squeals the last part.
Admittedly, my thoughts are with Simon walking out the door. I would never hurt him on purpose, but I can’t have him be my only patient either. No matter what type of future he promises for my Hawaiian spa. Usually, men just promise marriage. Not Simon; he puts his money where his spine is.
I focus back on Leslie. “Why haven’t you talked about him before?” I ask. Leslie is here every week, and she is the picture of health now that I’ve treated her for a litany of liver-related dysfunction. She’s purified herself of the damage, and she’ll look like the gleaming bride she’s meant to be.
“Well . . .” She looks hurt. “. . . I just met him two weeks ago, Doc. I didn’t know it was going to come to this.”
“Oh,” I say, trying to hide my shock. The way she talked about their love of the Baylands, it sounded like they’d been together for an eternity. “You’re getting married?” I try to feign my joy. But it’s obvious I’ve just nullified a bit of her joy. Two weeks! What is this world coming to?
“I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but both our grandparents were married within a month of meeting ‘the one’ and we just know. So what’s the wait for?”
Security.
The knowledge he’s lacking mental illness.
The time to check his credit report and wedding history.
Peace of mind.
“Well, I wish you every happiness.”
Leslie has the glow of a woman in love. And really, they’ve got bird watching in common. What more is necessary?
“We are already happy. We moved in together last week.”
Lord have mercy. I am living in the wrong era.
“Well, let’s get your spine set up strong for the wedding, shall we? We don’t want you slouching the day of your nuptials.”
Slouching while saving turtles and marrying men you barely know is definitely not a good idea.
chapter 11
Spa Del Mar sits nestled in Central California, away from the coast but within breathing distance of the moist, salty air off the Pacific. With the stand of eucalyptus that surrounds the spa, one can just imagine the legend of Zorro come to life. It’s California as it should be: pure and untouched by long expanses of concrete. This place is the antonym of Silicon Valley’s hectic pace and forces me to slow down and for
get the race I must complete. It reminds me that the tortoise got there eventually.
I suppose these days are coming to a close. With Lilly married and Morgan on her way to the altar, I know my Zen days will be fewer, which will be good for my spiritual life (I’ll be in church more!) but bad for my workaholic side (how much easier to spend a little more time in the office!). Sure, there’s something perilous about being the last one left standing. But while all my best friends have husbands to take care of, and new lives to forge, I am happy with my old one.
I stay the same.
Why can’t everything else?
Morgan and Lilly enter the hotel room first with their myriad of suitcases. Apparently, Lilly is working on the wedding designs over the weekend, and Morgan . . . Well, Morgan is just a clothes horse. I bring my scrappy carpetbag that Lilly always makes fun of and drop it on the floor. Admittedly, I enjoy her reaction each time she sees the bag. It’s sort of a mixture of curiosity and disgust, all rolled into one magic Elvis-lip smirk.
Plunking their things on a shared bed, my Spa Girls clear a path for me to the other one—my own private bed. In their not-so-subtle way, they’re reminding me it’s my turn for it. I’m the pathetic one, so have at it. It used to be a privilege to get your own bed at the Spa. Reserved for the one whose life currently sucked the most. I guess we have our answer.
“What?” Morgan asks in all innocence, noticing that I drop my suitcase with a little too much force.
“I get the bed?” I want them to tell me, Yes, your life is the most screwed up. “I thought you’d want it with all the wedding stress, Morgan. Or you, Lilly,” I say, looking directly at her bulbous belly.
“What wedding stress? You think this is more stressful than my father going to jail? And almost taking me down with him?” she asks. “It’s planning a party. I did that every week of my life. I could do this in my sleep.”
“It’s not like I still have any girth,” Lilly comments on her oh-so-meager size.
Their sense of calm bugs me. I’m the calm one. Don’t they know that? I’m telling you, the world has turned upside down.
“Fine, I’ll take the bed.” I toss my bag on the bed while Lilly opens the balcony doors and lets the smell of sulfur into our room from the steaming redwood hot tub below.
“You don’t have to take the bed,” Lilly yells over her shoulder. “We were trying to be nice. What’s with you? Since when are you wound so tight?”
“Since you’ve both been trying so desperately to get me a date to the wedding. Since you think I need to move back home and fix some unknown issue. Since you’re just not being honest with me and you suddenly think I can be fixed with the right clothes.”
They both sigh like two balloons flying across the room.
“I’ve always thought you could be fixed with the right clothes,” Lilly says with a shrug.
“So what, is this like an intervention?”
Morgan and Lilly look to one another and then back at me. “It’s just that the running, the exercising, the natural food intake—it’s all become a little overwhelming over the last year. You used to be the most caring person I knew, Poppy,” Morgan says, with a hint of a tear in her eye. “Now, it’s like you’re so obsessed with the health stuff. I miss the crazy Poppy who made me laugh and didn’t care what people thought. Now, it’s become—well, it’s almost become your religion and you’re trying to convert everyone.”
“I’ve got news for you,” Lilly says. “Doritos aren’t going away. They’ll be like cockroaches, around long after us. Face it: preservatives taste good.”
“I still don’t care what people think.” I unzip my duffle, pulling out my running gear. “And I haven’t changed.”
Lilly says. “You’re different now. It used to be cute how you bucked the norm and danced to your own tune, but now it’s sort of a defiance. Not sweet and appealing like it used to be.”
“Maybe I’m just getting older. Maybe I’m just not sweet and cute anymore. Maybe I’m entering middle age and bitter. Did you think of that?”
The two of them laugh out loud and Lilly shoves me on the bed. “Thirty is not middle-aged, especially with 15-percent body fat.”
“Fourteen,” I correct her.
“See, that’s what I mean. Do I walk around telling everyone my weight? Where did that come from, Poppy? You didn’t have a prideful bone in your body, and all of a sudden we’re getting regular updates on your body-fat ratio. What if the girl with the most hair was fabulous?” Lilly asks. “What if I came to you and told you what my head count was on a daily basis? Little strange?”
“So my body fat is the reason you want to set me up for the wedding?”
“No, that would be the intestinal talk,” Morgan clarifies. “When Lilly wanted to date Colin Whatshisname in college, didn’t you fix that?”
“You helped,” I say. “He was only after one thing.”
Morgan continues, “When my father was not acting in my best interest, didn’t you scout me out and find me? I believe you even went to my church and my gym and interrogated people. Double-O Poppy, I called you.”
“You were being an idiot,” I remind her.
“So we’re returning the favor, Poppy. When friends don’t see things clearly, their best friends tell them the truth. We’re telling you the truth, even though you don’t want to hear it.”
“Meaning what?”
“That you’re getting a little odd. We think you’ve been inhaling too many herbs. We just want you to know up front that your fat ratio and people’s organs are not wedding conversation,” Morgan purrs with an up-voice at the end, as though she hasn’t just been completely rude.
“And you’re going to dress in the gown I’ve designed for you. If you stay at that weight, it’s going to fit perfectly. So quit running, or eat some chocolate. I did thirty-two measurements, if you’ll remember, and I don’t want to do them again!”
“You’re like a fashion Hitler, Lilly.”
Okay, so I’m a weirdo. I’d like to say this acknowledgment bothers me, but it really doesn’t. I’ve always been a weirdo, meaning different from the norm. My parents taught me to embrace it, and I do. But for my best friends who’ve seen me through the worst of life, I can keep it at bay. For one weekend, anyway.
“All right. You want me to fall in, I will.”
I’m having the yin-yang balancing facial this weekend, just because I liked the sound of it. It lacks conventional wisdom, and if my friends won’t let me be my true weird self, my aesthetician will. For a price.
“Very good,” Morgan says. “That’s all we ask. We want our friend back.”
I take out my energy bar, and unwrap it, holding it up. “Want some?”
Judging by their looks, no.
I will be the perfect friend at this wedding. I will be Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink. This weekend, I want to enjoy a massage and a clear head. I’m going to try and not run every time I get nervous, and I’m going to forget there’s a small exercise room downstairs. This weekend is to reconnect with my friends and God. I brought my Bible, and I’m going to forget the urge to fix everyone else’s life for the next two days. This weekend is mine. I will be a selfish pig, just like any good hedonist should be at a spa. With a dash of Christian on top.
I can’t stop Americans from downing Big Gulps, brimming with excess sugar the body can’t tolerate or create enough insulin for. The pancreas! Oh, my agony for the pancreases of America. I can’t keep people from clogging their arteries with processed foods containing hydrogenated oils. I can’t even stop Lilly from sneaking Diet Pepsi and truffles into the hotel room. (She gave up pickles when she got married and pregnant. For that, I suppose I should be thankful. With all that salt, her ankles would have been the size of tree trunks. Even her emaciated, little ankles.)
“Morgan told me you had a nice aubergine-colored skirt you wore on your date,” Lilly says, starting a new conversation.
“It wasn’t really a date,” I clarify.
“My next-door business neighbor was hoping I’d be moving my practice.”
“Well, your business meeting, then. My point is why is that skirt back here?” Lilly looks at what I’m wearing—one of my mother’s skirts—and wrinkles her nose. “You know, they make soft cotton clothes that are available in one color. Why is it you have to wear them all at the same time? You’re like a Persian rug over there.”
I cross my arms at her. “Why do you two care so much what I wear?”
“Because we all wish we had your body, Poppy, and you waste it. Why run like that if you’re not going to take advantage of it?”
“I’m modest. That’s a good thing. You want me hanging out of my shirt like Kayla Havens?” I ask, referring to a college coed who, we believe, spent more time in the men’s dorm than classes.
“The Bible says nothing about modesty including ugly,” Lilly says. “We don’t want to tempt men, but must we completely discourage them? I mean, grab a burka, Poppy. You do want to get married someday, don’t you?”
I set my chin forward. “The man I marry will have no problem with my fashion choices. I don’t want to marry a man who cares what I wear. That’s the first step. Next thing, you’re in Dr. Jeff’s plastic surgery office getting a nip here and a tuck there.”
“All women say they want that kind of man, but you know you don’t have to completely put them to the test, do you? Even God says not to put Him to the test.”
“Except in the arena of tithes. He says He’ll open the floodgates of heaven for that,” Morgan says.
“Thank you, Billy Graham. You know what I’d like to see,” Lilly continues. “I’d like to see the man who would make you buy Prada.”
“I would never buy Prada. Unlike you, I don’t care if something is stitched well and I could probably feed Mongolia for the price of a purse.”
Calm, Cool, and Adjusted Page 13
