This Close to Okay(49)
“You’re my friend now, you know that? I like you. We’ve shared heart energy so we can never be true strangers again,” she said against his ear.
“Good. I’m glad to hear it. And I like you, too,” he said against hers.
*
Tallie had put on jeans and a comfy oversize black turtleneck sweater after she showered. She’d done her three-minute face of makeup, pulled half her hair up in a messy-on-purpose bun, and left the rest loose to curl and kink in the humid autumn air. When she came out of the bathroom, she found Emmett scrolling through his phone on the couch with her cats purring beside him.
“They’re going to miss you when you leave tomorrow,” she said.
He put his phone in his pocket, stood. “They’re my buddies,” he said, leaning over to pet them one more time.
Tallie expounded on her knowledge of therapy pets, going over to stand in front of the cats, getting on her knees before them, petting their heads, scratching the base of their tails.
“Might be something to think about. There’s been so much scientific research done on therapy animals if you want to read up about it. They’ve started using dogs in courtrooms to soothe anxious people on the stand. Did you have pets growing up?” she asked.
“I had an orange cat named Ginny, after my grandmother. And a big, sweet mutt named Moe.”
She suggested they go for a walk through Fox Commons to one of the restaurants for lunch before they got ready for the Halloween party. Tallie put on her wellies and rain slicker. Emmett picked up his flannel shirt from the couch, and as she watched him slip his arms inside, she wondered if their kitchen hug had lasted too long.
*
Tallie pointed to one of the golf carts as it made its way up the street.
“I have one of those. Oh, you saw it in the garage. Lionel bought it for me when I moved in, but I prefer to walk most of the time,” she said.
She’d tried to talk Lionel out of it, telling him she’d buy one for herself later, but he’d insisted, assuring her it was the way to travel around the posh neighborhood. Her golf cart was myrtle green with cream vinyl and a canopy. She enjoyed driving it and would occasionally scoot herself to the farmer’s market or the bakery in it. Or to the coffee shop to read or poke around on her laptop and scroll through beauty blogs and pin recipes, fashion, and home decorating ideas to her Pinterest boards. In the summer, she and Aisha would drive it to the gelato shop and to the amphitheater to watch the sun set over the lake or to hear free live music on Wednesday nights. Lionel had gotten TLC detailed on the side in leaning white cursive. She liked how the wind felt on her face, how it blew her hair back when she was driving it. But at times she’d felt lonely in it, not having a husband anymore or a boyfriend or a child to fill the passenger seat. It annoyed her that the positive sisters are doin’ it for themselves articles and girl power anthems she read and listened to so often didn’t reach out and touch every shadowy, thorny corner of her anxieties and insecurities.
“I’ll tell you what…on Thursday, I didn’t picture myself walking around this fancy neighborhood, hanging out with a woman. I feel like I’m living someone else’s life,” Emmett said.
“That’s depersonalizing. It’s not someone else’s life, it’s yours. And I’m glad you’re here,” Tallie said, touching his arm.
“I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the winter,” he said after they’d walked a bit more.
“I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the winter, either. No one does. None of us know what’s going to happen one day to the next in this life. We just…keep going,” she said, surprising herself by being so bare with him. She could’ve tried to pretend like the winter would be no problem for her, that she was translucently optimistic about her future. She’d gotten used to pretending with people who didn’t know her well—and her family, too, when she didn’t feel like discussing it. It was easier to act like she’d always be fine, but she knew better. Even people without a history of mental illness had to go to great lengths to protect their mental health.
Taking Friday off from appointments was one of the self-care boxes Tallie checked. In the past few months, there had been a rising energy to Tallie’s diligence about her own mind and feelings. She’d sometimes write the letters m and h on her hand in black ink, a reminder to recognize the need for protecting her mental health. She thought of her good and bad days as Morse code messages—every little bit recorded in her bones—wanting to honor the time and energy it took for them to be translated and transcribed.
“Everyone needs someone to trust, someone to talk to. It sounds like you’ve been doing all this emotional work on your own, which is so hard it can feel impossible. I could help you find a therapist if you’d give it a try. You can look at it as adding tools to your toolbox. We all have a toolbox,” she said.
“Ah, a toolbox. So there’s a hardware store down here somewhere?” he asked, looking around.
“You’re—”
“Oh, yeah? I’m what?”
“Wow,” she said, smiling and shaking her head.
Another golf cart passed them, the sound zipping over the wet road like a record needle on vinyl. Tallie waved, and the man in the cart waved back, a neighbor she recognized but had never actually spoken to.