Eighteen
SORA
Who does marriage really benefit anyway? Men. All the studies show that men live longer and healthier if they’re married. Women, however, live the same amount of time, with or without a man. So why do we think we need one so badly?
—SOLO FEBRUARY CHALLENGE
I’m not sure what’s worse: that Marley and Lululemon will have a baby and get married, or that I care. I should be far, far and away done with Marley—who even cares what he does with his life? But, I realize, I do. I do care. Because he stood up before a hundred strangers at city hall and told me he’d legally be my husband. Never mind that it had been a pregnancy that got him there. I hate, too, that I don’t get to call Jack about it, because I’m respecting his desire to steer clear of me until I can get a little bit of my shit together.
My next Solo February post is dark and dire.
I got the worst news—my ex-husband is getting remarried. And his fiancée is pregnant. And they look stupidly happy. And, confession time, I had a miscarriage that I’ve never really gotten over. There, I said it. This has dredged up all kinds of feelings in me, all kinds of bad feelings, when I was trying so hard to be positive. To work on myself. But now, I wonder if, no matter what I do, I’m just always going to end up sad and alone.
Is there any point to anything?
The darkness that came over me after the miscarriage feels as if it’s edging closer to me again, that pitch-black nothingness. It feels suffocating.
Then, my laptop pings with the first comment to my new article. And then another. And another.
Hang in there, sister.
We all got dark days.
Just like you told us … Keep on doing this for you!
The comments pile up, one after another, the Soloists jumping to my aid. I’m touched, and I tear up. I can barely read the comments, they’re coming so fast.
You got this.
It’s bad now, but it’ll get better.
Been there. Done that. Have the T-shirt. Hang in there.
Don’t give up. We believe in you.
This community, this amazing community, makes me feel not alone. And I love it. I love them. All of them.
And don’t forget what you told us: take care of yourself. Self-care!
They’re right. I have to snap out of it. As much as I want to drown my sorrows in bacon grease, I won’t. The specter of Dad is real. He never really took care of himself, always carried extra weight, and scoffed at salads, calling them “rabbit food.” He also died of a heart attack at age fifty-nine. Despite what Nami might think, I don’t, actually, want to follow him down that road.
Maybe I’ll … make a salad. For once. Larry sniffs around the kitchen as I cut up greens. I try to feed him a cucumber, but he sniffs at it and looks at me like I’ve gone crazy. Maybe I have.
“If nobody is ever going to take care of me, I’ll have to start,” I tell Larry, who whines. Then he heads to the door but hits the foyer table, again. He needs to go out. I drag myself away from my healthy lunch, stuff my feet into my worn Uggs, grab my parka, in dire need of a wash, and lumber out to the frigid, subzero cold snap, the cold wind blasting me so hard I can’t breathe for a second or two. That’s brisk, baby. Larry whines, heads to his favorite patch of snow-covered grass, and does his business quickly, eager to get back inside to the warmth of our apartment. Overnight, we got a dusting of snow, just enough to wet the toes of my boots.
I trudge inside, Larry on my heels. As I stomp the snow off my boots, I realize it’s nearly noon, and I feel how this Saturday is stretching empty and terrible in front of me. Tonight is Jack’s big award ceremony. I wish I were going with him. That’s the truth of it. I’m wallowing in pity, when I get a text from Mom.
I’m coming over. Be there in five minutes.
What? Mom, I’m
But before I can finish the text, I hear my buzzer sound. I rush to my dining room window and look down, seeing Mom, bundled in her ankle-length, puffy white down coat that makes her look like the Michelin Man. She hits the buzzer again, impatient, and looks up at me, her hood falling back. She points to the door.
Reluctantly, I buzz her up. She clomps upstairs to my apartment and lets herself in. She doesn’t even have her coat off before she launches into a tirade.
“What happened with your sister?” she demands, full guns cocked and ready to blaze. So, Nami went and tattled. Figures. She’s been doing that since we were toddling around in Pull-Ups.
“Uh, well … the bridesmaid dress didn’t fit.” I brace myself to hear the lecture about how I should be doing FlyFit with her more often, about how we should’ve been double-dieting, like she’d wanted to do all along.
But she waves off that fault with a dismissive flip of her hand. She doesn’t seem to care that I gained weight. Interesting.
“She told me you said something mean about Mitch?” Mom plops down on my couch as she takes off her scarf and hat. Well, just make yourself comfortable. Larry comes over to give her a sniff hello about six inches off from her knee. She gives her grand-dog a perfunctory pat on the head.
I sigh. “Yeah.”
“What was it?” She sounds ready to ground me, except she can’t anymore, I remind myself. I’m a fully functioning, independent adult.
“I told her she could do so much better than a guy with zero ambition who keeps bragging about a gaming channel that he’ll never create because you have to actually do work for it and he’s the laziest person I’ve ever met.”
Mom falls silent and pensive, as she laces her fingers together in her lap. I brace myself for the coming lecture about how I need to be a better sister, and think about my sister’s feelings, and realize the importance of a wedding day, and make it the special once-in-a-lifetime occasion she deserves, and blah, blah, blah. Nami’s the favorite anyway and …
Instead, Mom lets out a long breath of air. “Oh, thank God,” she reveals in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. “I thought I was the only one.”
Hold everything.
“Wait … what?” I don’t understand what’s happening. “I thought you loved Mitch.”
“Oh, God no. Whenever I visit, he just drinks beer and plays those darn games where he runs around shooting aliens.” She rolls her eyes in disdain. “He’s not only swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool, it’s actually an inflatable toddler pool from Walmart.”
“Mom!”
“You think you’re the only one who’s sassy in the family? Think again.” I have a sudden new and profound respect for my mom. “I’ve been wondering if dullness can be passed to my grandchildren. He makes couch potatoes look dynamic.”
“I can’t believe this,” I say, sinking down into the couch next to her. “You realize we could’ve been making fun of Mitch behind his back for years? So much wasted time. How come you didn’t say anything before now?”
“Why didn’t you?” Mom counters.
I send her a sharp glance. “Seriously? You think I wanted to be the nail that gets hammered down? No way. I wasn’t going to speak up.”
“I guess I deserve that.” Mom sighs, shaking her head.
“Did you ever think about talking to Nami?”
“To Nami?” Mom looks at me, dark eyes wide in disbelief. “She’d explode. You know she doesn’t do well with criticism. That temper…”
“Dad’s.”
“Don’t I know it,” Mom agrees. “Nobody in this family does well with conflict.”
“Tell me about it. Anytime there was a fight, Dad would just start yelling to get everyone else to stop yelling.” I remember Dad’s explosive bursts of temper at the dinner table. In the car. On family vacations. Everywhere we were, pretty much.
Mom laughs a little at the memory. She sighs again. “That’s why I always said ‘the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.’” She covers her hand with mine. “I was just trying to protect you. From Dad’s temper. He was always overworked and under-slept, and he had a short fuse to begin with. I thought if we all just sat still and quiet, then it would pass, and we’d all be okay.” Mom glances at me.
“Is that why you always warned us about being hammered down?” I blink, astonished. “Because of Dad?”
“Yes. Why else would I say it?”
“I don’t know…” I rub my neck. “I thought you just didn’t want us to take risks in general or share what we really thought about anything. I mean, that’s why I never spoke up about Mitch.”
Mom blinks, shocked. “Why would you think I didn’t care what you thought! Of course I wanted to know what you thought!”
This is news to me. “Yeah, but when we’d talk back to Dad, you told us ‘don’t be the nail.’ So I thought it was just bad to speak up.”
Mom sighs and pinches her nose. “I was just trying to protect you from Dad. The more you talked back, the angrier he’d get, and I just … I just didn’t think it was worth it. But maybe I made a mistake there. Maybe we all should’ve just shouted and screamed and gotten all our anger out. I never meant that you should censor yourself like you do, Sora. I never meant for you to feel like your feelings weren’t as important as everybody else’s. And for that, I’m sorry.”
It hits me then all at once: an epiphany. Nami handled Dad’s temper by fueling her own. I handled Dad’s temper by staying inert, quiet, and not making any sudden moves. It explains a lot about me. Like how I get stuck. Like how being stuck sometimes feels safe and warm and comfortable, even when I know it’s not. Like after the miscarriage.
“I am sorry he was so short-tempered,” she says, sounding a little sad. “He didn’t mean to take it out on you kids. It wasn’t your fault, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” I say, even though right up until this moment, I’m not sure I did.
She puts her head on my shoulder. “I love you, Sora. So very much. You know, you always were the wise one.”
“Me? Pffft.” Still, I beam at the compliment. “So, I’m your favorite. Not Nami?”
“I don’t play favorites!” Mom protests, but I know she means me.
I glance at Mom. “Did you hear the news about Marley?”
“Is he moving to Siberia?” Mom asks, hopeful. Mom is no fan of Marley.
“No. He knocked up his girlfriend.” Saying this out loud makes this stupidly real. “They’re getting married.”
“Lord! Has that man ever heard of a condom?” Mom clucks her tongue in disapproval. Then she reaches out to grab my hand.
“When I told Marley that I was pregnant, he yelled and shouted at me that I’d tricked him and then stormed out of our apartment.” I hate that memory. “It wasn’t an Instagram moment.” I show her the photo of Marley and Lululemon. They were considerate enough to make it public so a quick search brings it up every time. She frowns.
“You don’t know that this is, either,” Mom says, handing my phone back to me. “You don’t really know he’s changed. Who knows what happened a day before this photo?”
“True.” Two months after I peed on that stick, we got married. Nearly three months after that, I lived through that horrible day at the doctor’s office. The damn worried look on the ultrasound tech’s face. Something’s wrong, isn’t it? I’d asked her.
“You’re better off without him. You know that.”
“I know. I just want him to be miserable without me.”
“Oh, he is. He’s always been miserable. Miserable excuse for a man.”
This makes me laugh. Ah, Mom. We don’t have a perfect relationship, but when things get really tough, I can always count on her to be in my corner. Always. Mom releases my hand. “You know, I know you’re going solo for February or for however long you want. But eventually, I know that you’ll find someone meant for you.”
I think of Jack and wonder if I already have. “I actually met someone, Mom. I broke my #GoSolo vow.” The confession comes out in a torrent. “And he’s got this big event tonight, and I should be there, but now I think I’ve scared him off. And I made a promise to Arial, to my readers…”
“Why not just write about it?” Mom asks, simply. “Why not just admit the struggle you’re going through? Just admit that you broke your vow. Level with your readers. Once you do that, you can show up for Jack tonight, with a free conscience. Just admit what’s going on.”
“That’ll make me the nail, though.”
“We should all be the nail sometimes,” she says, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “That’s the only way anything ever gets built.”
I’ve got a real secret confession to make.… I haven’t been entirely honest about going solo. I start typing, the words flying off my keyboard. I feel nervous energy in my fingers as I type. I’m finally coming clean to all the Soloists. I have no idea how they’re going to take it, but I at least have to try to level with them.
I met someone. Actually, I just reconnected with an old friend, a wonderful friend, someone I used to know in kindergarten. I told him I vowed to go solo, and he told me he’d wait. But he’s got a big-deal awards thing for work tonight, and I don’t think it’s right for me to leave him alone because I’ve set an arbitrary time to work on myself. Solo February has been amazing, and I’m so, so glad it’s helped so many of you. It’s helped me, too. Helped me to take care of myself a little more. To make smarter decisions (about who I date and what I eat), and to just take care of myself a little bit better than I have been.
But the real joy of it was meeting all of you. You’ve been so wonderful, so supportive.
So, I’m leaving the Solo February challenge a little early. I know a few of you might be upset by this, but hear me out. Sometimes, the universe works in surprising ways. Sometimes, when you stop looking, you just might find the perfect match.
It’s not something I ever in a million years imagined would happen. But it did.
And I owe it to myself to see where this will lead.
Wish me the best.
I send the article to Arial before I can change my mind, even though I know she probably won’t even read it until Sunday. Then I call Jack.
“Hey, I don’t know if it’s too late, but I’d love to be your plus-one,” I tell his voicemail. “I want to be there for you on this really important night. I think … I think…”
I want to say: I’m falling in love with you, too. But I pause too long, and the voicemail beeps. “If you’re happy with your message, press one…”
Crap. I delete my message. I try again.
“Hey, uh, I want to be your plus-one tonight. I’ve decided—”
Ack, delete that.
“Yo! I wanna go to the Oscars of Baking!”
Delete.
“Hey! Race you to the Oscars of Baking?”
Delete again. Delete all.
Ugh.
Then I write and delete about a dozen texts. I’m running out of time. I need to just decide on one.
Hey. I quit the #GoSolo challenge and want to be your plus-one tonight. If you’ll have me!
I get an auto response from Jack’s phone: I’m driving right now and unable to answer my texts. I’ll get back to you when it’s safe!
I glance at my watch. He’s on his way to the awards already. It’s nearly time!
My phone rings, and I perk up, hoping it’s Jack. Instead, it’s Arial.
“Hey, Sora? I got your article?” Her voice sounds a little tense. A little less upbeat. She doesn’t like the article. “And uh, I don’t know how this is going to go? Are you really ending Solo February early?”
“Yes. I didn’t want to lie anymore.”
“Okay, but I’m not sure our readers will like this? They really, really dig the idea of Solo February. And you’re kind of like, saying, uh … never mind? Like, uh, forget it?”
The old Sora would cave right now. The old Sora would agree and offer to change the article. But the new Sora …
“I see why you might feel that way,” I begin. “But that’s not the point of the article. The point is everyone has to choose the path that’s right for them.”
“Yes, but the readers have chosen to go solo? And they might hate it if you duck out early? I’m just warning you?”
I have that old familiar fear about sticking my neck out. Then I think about the fact that being quiet hasn’t gotten me anywhere, either. If I’d spoken up when Marley hadn’t paid his share of household expenses, or when Dan hadn’t been around on weekends, maybe I would’ve ended those bad relationships earlier.
“I know I’m being the nail. But I’ve just got to do it.”
“Uh, the nail?” Arial asks.
“Never mind. Long story, I just mean I’ve got to stick to my guns on this one.”
“Okay, but if the readers revolt, I don’t know?” I know she means that if this goes south, she doesn’t know if the full-time job offer still stands. I get it.
“I understand it’s a risk.”
“If you’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Now, all I have to do is get dressed and head to the Golden Chef Awards, which start in less than an hour.
I take Jack’s ticket with me in my tiny black clutch bag, as I take a rideshare to the Hancock Tower on the Magnificent Mile. I’ve glued on my lashes, and poured myself into double Spanx and my old standby, a flattering-for-all A-line black dress. I’m wearing my long dark hair wavy and loose, and I’ve got Grandma’s pearls on. I like to think I look like an Asian Audrey Hepburn, and I try to avoid mirrors to keep reality at bay. I’ve got red stilettos on my feet because … why not? They match my wool coat. Who cares if the weather lady predicts a blizzard later? I need to look good now and I refuse to wear snow boots because that would be like admitting defeat to winter. Not this Midwestern girl.
I’m cursing Saturday-night traffic, because I’m even later than I feared I’d be. I rush inside Hancock Tower, past the giant round reflecting pool in the center of the lobby. It’s empty. The ceremony is being held at the swanky Signature Room on the ninety-fifth floor, and signs point to roped-off areas near the elevators for Golden Chef Awards ticket holders. That’s technically me. I don’t see Jack. The ceremony, I realize with a cold sweat, is already underway. I show my ticket to the elevator guard, and he waves me forward, into a super-fast car. My ears instantly pop as I ride the fastest elevator in North America, speeding from the first floor to the ninety-fifth in thirty-eight seconds. Then the doors open to a glittering, gorgeous, golden-hued restaurant with 360 degrees of floor-to-ceiling windows. I suck in a breath as I see the city of Chicago, lights twinkling to one side, and the large, dark expanse of the lake to the other, a big silver half moon reflected in its calm waves.
“Wow,” I manage.
Forget the Sears Tower. Or Willis Tower. Or whatever they’re calling it these days. This is the best view in Chicago. Very well-dressed people pack the restaurant with the amazingly high ceilings and the golden, flattering low light that washes over the dining room. Beautifully decorated tables dot the huge dining room, all carrying expensive bottles of Signature Room–label champagne in buckets. The Golden Chef hat logo seems to be everywhere, and it’s all gorgeously decorated. It’s the perfect spot, I think, for a grand romantic gesture.
Awards are being handed out from a small stage near the windows, and I hope and pray that I haven’t missed Jack’s event. I glance around the room, looking for Jack. Where is he? The restaurant is low-lit, and there are so many dark-haired men in tuxedos, I can’t find him. Utensils clink as people dig into their appetizers from the prix fixe menu, and others sip champagne from crystal flutes. I realize I recognize many of these people. They’re famous chefs from all over the country. Actually, the world. Some are reality TV stars. There are a few other celebrities as well, from Chicago-area shows, and a few from Hollywood. It’s a big deal to be nominated, clearly, and I’m so proud of Jack.
“Can I take your coat, miss?” a man in a tie asks, and I realize I’m near the coat check.
“Oh, sure. Thank you.” He takes my red wool coat and hands me a ticket. I keep scanning the crowd. On the stage, a woman accepts an award for Best Sous Chef, thanking her family.
Where’s Jack?
And then, I see him on the other side of the room. He’s sitting at a large, round table of ten, the chair next to him empty. He looks fantastic in his tuxedo, his fuller beard looking clipped and coifed, and in short, like the sexiest superspy baker I’ve ever seen. His eyes widen in surprise as he sees me. Please let him not be thinking that I clean up well. Men tend to refer to me like I’m a crab fisherman—shocked when I roll into a restaurant without plastic overalls and galoshes and not smelling like dead fish.
I wave at him, and he waves back, but he still looks stunned. Did he not get my message? I hesitate. Is this big, grand romantic gesture a mistake? Then I see a woman walking to Jack’s table, wearing a thin, shimmery gold gown, and carrying a matching clutch. She’s wearing her golden hair in finger waves, so she looks like a star from glamorous old Hollywood. I recognize her immediately.
Mal.
Jack’s ex-fiancée.
She sits right down next to him. In his plus-one seat. And drapes her arm around his shoulders.