Confidential(7)

The twentysomethings on the next couch glanced over at us; they were holding their eye rolls until we looked away. So I kept staring at them challengingly, and they had to yield, dropping back into their own conversation.

But they weren’t really my problem; they were a delaying tactic. My problem was, I had no Tinder account.

“After Chicken Guy, I’m taking a break,” I said.

“Don’t let him scare you off,” Nat said. “There are lots of great men out there. I mean, there have to be, right?” She looked to Jeanie for confirmation.

“Of course! Just put yourselves in my capable hands. I know how to spot a douche a mile away. It was a lot of trial and error before I got to my husband.” Jeanie turned to me. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Let me swipe for you.”

“That sounds really racy!” I joked.

“Come on!” she said again. She was tenacious, another reason she was the number one salesperson.

Nat was watching me, too. I had a feeling I totally hated: that I was being a buzzkill. But I couldn’t help it. There was no way I was going to come clean now, not when I was so close to being able to introduce them to Michael.

I had an inspiration: “After Chicken Guy, I temporarily deleted my account.”

They went back to their drinks, and my mind went to Michael. Since he was taking so long, I could probably start laying the groundwork. Funny thing, I’d tell Jeanie and Nat at our next happy hour, I met someone, and he’s actually a psychologist in Rockridge; he probably even knows my old couples therapist, wouldn’t that be crazy?

Or, I ran into my old couples therapist right in the neighborhood, and we just hit it off . . .

Or, I called him to go back into therapy and we acknowledged that there’d always been a hint of mutual attraction, so . . .

I had to think this through more and talk to Michael. Get our stories straight. It might be harder than it seemed, given how borderline suspicious Nat was acting. One thing I knew was that Tales from Tinder was ending tonight. Like I told them, I needed a break.

Michael’s ears must have been burning because a text came in. It wasn’t his name, of course, just his initials: M.B.

What are you wearing?

I turned the phone over.

“Is that him, Chicken Guy?” Nat said.

“Rookie mistake,” I said. “I shouldn’t have given him my number. He should have to message me through the app.”

“Well, you were hopeful,” Jeanie said. “That makes sense. He took you to Zuni.”

Nat agreed. “How could you have known?”

“Sometimes,” I said, “they blindside you.”





CHAPTER 6





LUCINDA


“Are you sitting down?” Mom asked.

I was in publishing, which meant I was always sitting down.

I was also in a cubicle, in a largely silent room. Usually I could hear other people on the phone or talking to one another, or a stream from Pandora, some ambient noise, yet right then, it was only keystrokes. It was a converted warehouse, the drafty kind with walls that looked like aluminum rather than one with hip architectural details. Sound carried.

“Could I call you when I get home?” I said in a low voice.

“This can’t wait.”

“I’ll call you back in a minute.”

I grabbed my purse and walked outside. Verdant Publishing was housed in an industrial part of Berkeley that was rapidly developing. When I’d started a few years ago, we were the only inhabitants of the block and I had to bring my own lunch. Now we were being overrun by live-work lofts, and there were four restaurants within a couple of blocks (though they all closed by three p.m. The neighborhood was gentrifying, but nightlife still fell outside its parameters.). So at four thirty, with everyone inside living and working, the block had gone still.

Again, I would have preferred some ambient noise, but there were no benches or trees. No camouflage.

Fortunately, there were also no windows in the aluminum-sided warehouse, so none of my colleagues could see me, not unless they took a smoke break, and since it’s a boutique publisher in health-conscious, eco-conscious, formerly-hippie-and-now-mostly-just-hip Berkeley, no one smoked—or at least, no one wanted to be seen smoking. When the college kids in town vaped, it was organic and vegan.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was one of them. Never as carefree as some, but it had been a liberation of sorts. Though it was only a few hours from where I grew up along the river in Guerneville, I treated it like a trek through the Himalayas. Mom missed me, but she’d stopped pressing. She must have known, on some level, that I needed space and time. Light and air. She just didn’t know why.

She never called me at work. Full of dread, I rang her back, and she said, again, “Are you sitting down?”

“Yes,” I lied. I leaned against the building, since it was the closest approximation.

“I didn’t want to worry you before there was anything to worry about, but it’s Adam. It’s cancer.”

I should say something. What kind of cancer? I’m sorry? But before I could come up with it, she added quietly, “Pancreatic. Stage four.”

Stage four meant dying. I mean, we’re all dying, but stage four meant soon. My stepfather wasn’t even fifty years old yet, and he probably never would be.