Lost Along the Way(66)
“I get it. You’re a good guy, Nick.”
“I don’t know. At the time I really believed that I was doing the right thing, but now that I’m trying to convince you of it, I’m not entirely sure.”
“I think it’s really sweet,” Jane said. “It makes me feel better, too. I won’t say anything to her.”
Just then she heard a cork pop and Cara call out, “Dinner’s ready!”
“You promise you won’t say anything? If you tell her she’s going to question my motives for hanging out with her, and the reality is, I’d be doing it anyway. It makes me feel better to know that I’m giving Steve some peace of mind in the process. Plus, she’s an awesome cook and I’d be heartbroken if she stopped having me over for dinner,” he joked. “We will keep this between us?”
“I promise, I won’t say a word.”
“Thanks, Jane.”
Nick put the album back on the shelf and linked his arm through Jane’s, and together they walked into the kitchen.
twenty-two
Are you going to give up? Are you going to let the fact that you’re tired and sore get the better of you? No, you’re not! You’re going to keep pushing because it’s your time and it’s your body and you’re going to give it one hundred and ten percent!” The spin instructor screamed into her headset from her bike at the center of the room as the class spun furiously on the stationary bikes surrounding her. Meg listened to the music blare from the speakers, pop tunes that the college kids probably knew all the words to and she only marginally recognized. Just another sign that she was getting old. Was it OneRepublic, then 50 Cent? Or 50 Republic and then One Cent? She had no idea. All she knew was that her shirt was sticking to her and sweat was dripping from her forehead, and she had no idea how she was going to last another twenty minutes without keeling over. She looked at Cara, who had a puddle of sweat on the floor beneath her bike and was pedaling so fast she was starting to turn purple. Meg smiled. It was nice to see that side of her again.
Meg loved her Sunday-morning spin class, not only because it kept her body in shape but because she found it helped to clear her mind. Today she kept thinking back to a day she hadn’t thought of in ages, and despite the screaming instructor and the loud music, she could hear the entire conversation in her head.
December 1997
“There are too many candles on this cake,” Meg said at dinner on the night of her twenty-first birthday. Meg’s birthday was right after Christmas, which was really annoying because people either forgot about it in the midst of the holiday chaos or tried to lump it in with Christmas, thereby reducing her number of gifts. In college, however, the fact that her birthday coincided with winter break ended up coming in handy because it meant she was able to celebrate it with her friends at home. She’d treated herself to a manicure and wore the new earrings her parents had given her earlier in the day, and had felt pretty as they’d sat through dinner. But even though she’d been adamant that she didn’t want a birthday spectacle in the restaurant, she found herself staring at a birthday cake Cara had picked up from the bakery in town. She’d had the hostess stash it in the kitchen, covered in candles, a giant wax 21 dripping all over the fudge frosting. “You should not have done this!” Meg said to Cara, blushing as everyone in the restaurant turned to stare at them while Jane and Cara sang and clapped as if they were the only people in the room. “I’m too old for cake.”
“Stop being stupid. You’re never too old for cake!” Cara said. “Jeez, Capricorns. You guys are never happy. Besides it’s about time you turned twenty-one. That’s worth celebrating.”
“Seriously!” Jane added. “It took you long enough!”
Meg laughed. Cara and Jane never missed the opportunity to remind her that she was the youngest person in their class, almost a full year younger than both of them.
“You’ll be jealous when you guys turn forty and I’m barely thirty-nine!” Meg joked. She caught a group of middle-aged women sitting at the table next to them rolling their eyes as they listened to them discuss how old they were. In fact, the women had been listening to their conversation the entire night, and if they were trying to be discreet they were failing badly. They’d scoffed at Meg when she’d proudly produced her driver’s license to prove she was finally able to drink legally—in public! They rolled their eyes as the girls talked about who had better grades (Cara), who had a better boyfriend (Meg), who had managed to avoid college weight gain for yet another semester (Jane), and whose parents were more annoying and out of touch with reality (three-way tie). The women didn’t try to hide their disdain of the table of girls with their parents’ credit cards and their whole lives in front of them, complaining about such stupid things.
“Do you have any big birthday plans with Steve once you get back to school?” Cara asked in between bites of cake. “Is he going to take you somewhere special or what?”
“Yeah, what are you two going to do? One of the perks of having a boyfriend is that you should at least get a really good dinner and a nice bracelet or something from the deal. Otherwise what’s the point?”
“I have something planned, actually,” Meg said slyly.
“You’re planning your own birthday present?” Jane asked, oddly impressed by Meg’s taking the initiative. “Good idea. The last thing you want is to end up with something heinous that you’re forced to wear so you don’t hurt his feelings. What are you going to get?”