On the Rocks(10)
“I haven’t forgotten, but it’s time you get over it. You’re not the first person on earth to have her engagement broken off.”
I stared at the sidewalk and let my shoulders slump forward. “I don’t know how,” I whispered. “I don’t know how to pull myself out of this.”
It’s funny: you don’t realize that you’re losing yourself until the day you wake up and look in the mirror and don’t recognize the person staring back at you. If you didn’t even realize it was happening, how can you possibly know how to stop it?
She removed her hands from her pockets and firmly grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to face her. “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but it’s time you at least tried. You can’t beat yourself up like this anymore. I love you too much to let you do this to yourself.”
“And how do you propose I do that? Are you going to try to put me in an ice cream eaters anonymous meeting? I already looked online. Oddly enough, I couldn’t find one in the greater Boston area.” I was getting really tired of people just telling me to pull it together, to move on, to get over it. What the hell did they know? Last time I checked, these people weren’t attacked by social media in a bridal salon. I was pretty sure if I asked people on the streets of Boston for a show of hands for who had been through a similar experience, I’d be the only one with my hand up. It was fitting, really. I was living one of the nursery rhymes I sang to the kids in my class every year.
The cheese stands alone.
“Funny you should ask. I have a proposition for you,” Grace said.
“I’m listening,” I said. And I was. I was planning to listen to whatever she had to say, politely say no, and go home to my Pretty in Pink DVD and a canister of Pringles.
“Hear me out before you answer,” she ordered, rubbing my shoulders before she released them and put her hands back in her pockets. She looked at me with so much pity, it was all I could do to not run for home. I would have, but the extra pounds on my ass had me running slower than I used to, so she’d have had no problem catching me. At this point, it was a safe bet Roseanne Barr would have no problem catching me.
“I’m scared,” I said, well aware that nothing good ever follows that sentence.
“A paralegal I work with was supposed to go down to Newport for the summer, but two of her friends backed out and now she can’t afford to do it.”
“My sympathies to the paralegal.”
“Very funny.”
“Chubby girls usually are.”
“Would you stop it?”
“I assume there’s a point to this story about a paralegal with no friends and no money, because if this is your way of illustrating that everyone has problems, it’s not working.”
“Not exactly. Apparently, it’s too late to get her deposit back, so she offered it to me for half-price. I saw it online, and it’s this super-cute beach cottage with a deck, and it’s walking distance to all the bars in town, and I think we’d be nuts not to take it. It makes complete sense for you: teachers don’t work in the summer anyway. You can spend three months relaxing and figuring out how to resurrect the old Abby, the one who didn’t live in elastic pants and find toothbrushing optional.”
“You just pointed out that when I’m not at work I live in sweats, and then suggested I do a summer house where normal attire is a bathing suit? Your sales pitch needs works. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Abby, I’m not taking no for an answer. You need this.”
“Let’s just assume for a nanosecond that I’d be interested. Do I really need to point out the fact that I’m not exactly rolling in cash at the moment? And what will I do out there by myself all summer? Your solution for snapping me out of my depression is to sequester me at the beach in Rhode Island for three months? How does that make sense?” Minor details like my complete and total isolation apparently were not as important as Grace’s quest for the perfect tan. Still, I knew she wasn’t going to drop it. Grace had a way of pushing until the craziest things seemed to make sense. It’s one of the things that made her such a good attorney.
“You can afford it. It’s only three thousand dollars for each of us for the entire summer. That’s completely reasonable.”
“What are you talking about, I can afford it? You’re a lawyer, I’m sure you can afford it. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m a kindergarten teacher. I don’t have three thousand dollars to randomly rent a house in Newport. Three thousand dollars is like, a lot of sessions with a shrink. If I was going to spend that kind of money on anything, therapy would be a better option. No way. I don’t want to do it. I’ll be perfectly happy sitting in my apartment alone all summer, thank you very much.”
“That’s a great idea. Sweat to death in your apartment. You don’t even have air-conditioning.”
“I’ll stick my head in the freezer if I have to,” I said. I realized that if it did actually come to that, I’d have to move some of the ice cream containers in order to accommodate my head, but I figured if I had to I’d just eat them all in one sitting or something.
Not that I’ve ever done that before.
“Do you think Ben is sitting around self-destructing like this? Do you?” she asked.
I thought about him again, for maybe the millionth time, and at least the tenth since I’d woken up this morning. I was still so angry about what happened. I was so angry I could barely see straight, and for that I blamed the obvious culprit. Facebook.