8
Friday
(Twenty-Six Days Left)
I have spent the last few nights completely consumed with the task of finding Finn on social media. I’ve learned techniques from some of the best fictional FBI technical analysts in the business, from both my books and my proclivity for procedural crime shows, and if Finn were out there, he’d have nowhere to hide. All I came up with was one photo of him in a recreational soccer league, which, when cropped, was enough to use for a reverse Google image search that yielded zero results. Even though I couldn’t find him, his lack of online presence alone gave me valuable insight.
I saw this as an opportunity to connect with Finn, and I took it.
“I’m so over my phone, especially social media,” I had lied to him on Wednesday, while we jointly monitored the monkey bars to ensure only one kid went at a time.
He nodded vigorously in agreement. “I’ve been so much happier since I deleted all my socials last year.” I knew it. He’s completely off the grid. Hot.
Very hot.
While reaching an arm up to rest on one of the bars, he revealed a sliver of tan skin between the bottom of his T-shirt and the waist of his jeans. I averted my eyes quickly, feeling uneasy about the warm feeling taking place in my lower abdomen while on monkey bar duty.
“Why live in Southern California if you’re just going to spend all day glued to a screen?” he added.
“Exactly,” I agreed with my entire chest, knowing full well that I’d spent hundreds of hours this summer watching Law & Order: SVU, only getting up from the couch to pee and make the same pasta salad for lunch every day.
Still overwhelmed by the lingering feelings brought on by the sliver of Finn’s midriff, I left him to man the station alone while I cooled myself down with a drink of ice water.
On Thursday, not wanting to come on too strong with two consecutive playground interactions, I sent Cheryl over to the swing set, where Finn stood with his hands in his pockets, drawing shapes in the wood chips with his left checkered Van.
“You have one job,” I had told Cheryl. “To find out if he’s seeing anyone. Don’t mention my name. Don’t even look in my direction.”
Cheryl had never let me down before, but this was new territory for us.
“In fact”—I gripped her shoulders and looked directly into her eyes —“you’ve never met me before.”
“Believe it or not, Phoebe, I was quite the wingwoman in my day,” she said with a reassuring smile and a wistful look in her eyes.
“Just don’t make it seem like you’re only over there to find out if he’s single. This isn’t even wingwomaning,” I clarify. “I don’t exist. You’re just a friendly colleague trying to get to know the new guy, and if the subject of his relationship status comes up, it comes up.”
She nodded and began her journey across the playground to the swings. I wondered if I should remove myself entirely while I sent Cheryl to do my dirty work, but I feared that would make things seem even more suspicious. I settled on digging a hole in the sandbox with Morgan, one of my kids from last year, only looking over once with a pit in my stomach when I thought I saw Cheryl pointing directly at me. She was only swatting at a bee.
“Good news,” Cheryl said when we reconnected by the sandbox ten minutes later. “He’s single. And I’m pretty sure he thinks I was hitting on him.”
My exhale of relief was so pronounced I was worried Finn would pick up on it from across the playground.
“Now will you please go ask him to hang out before you drive both of us crazy?”
I gave her hand an inconspicuous squeeze, worried that the hug I wanted to give her would blow my cover, and rejoined Morgan in the sandbox.
“Teacher Phoebe, this is my new pet.” She held up a small pebble.
“Hello, new pet!” I gave him a tiny fake handshake. “What’s his name?”
“Johnny.” Johnny. My mind immediately drifted to Sydney’s comment on Jonathan’s latest Instagram. Looking hot, Johnny. I could have thrown up into the sandbox.
—
With week one of the new school year successfully completed, it’s time to attend to the one errand I’ve been dreading: getting my dress altered. I’m five minutes away from picking Nora up, trying and failing not to think about Looking hot, Johnny, when a particularly unpleasant thought about Sydney pops into my brain: What if she feels threatened by my relationship with Jonathan and he starts to pull away because of it? Or worse, what if she doesn’t feel threatened at all? I push away the notion and replace it with thoughts about Finn.
The way he says my name. His smile. The sliver of skin.
Every time a thought about Jonathan’s dating life has popped into my head this week, I’ve countered it with at least three mental images of Finn. So far, it’s worked.
I park outside Nora’s apartment, but I need a minute alone in the car before I send her an “I’m here” text. Thoughts of Jonathan’s possible relationship have been an unwelcome distraction from my goals relating to Finn and the list, but I’ve also been dealing with another diversion that’s not entirely unpleasant. I pull my phone out of my tote bag and open my messages with Matthew, finally letting myself read his text that I’ve been waiting to open until now.
Matthew:
Wordle 1,211 4/6
You’re gonna get it in three guesses, I can feel it
How was school today? Any good stories?
Phoebe:
Wordle 1,211 3/6
You know me so well
School was great, the kids
are really getting comfortable
Maybe a little too comfortable though
Danny leaned over to me
during silent snack and
whispered in my ear that I
should check myself for breast cancer.
Matthew:
Please start wearing a GoPro to work
He’s right though, you can never be too careful
Phoebe:
Totally
Quick- guess how long it
took me to solve the Monday crossword
Matthew:
I’ve actually come up with an equation for this
Phoebe’s crossword time is
equal to Matthew’s
crossword time divided by
2.5. So that would make
your time today just short of seven minutes
Phoebe:
Whoa
It was 6:45
And you say I’m the smart one
Matthew:
Is it sad that swapping
scores with you is the best part of my day
I can’t wait to play in person
In person.
There’s not enough air in the car.
I consider reaching over to the passenger’s side to rifle through the glove compartment, where I keep a stash of barf bags I’ve collected from various flights over the years. In case of emergency, I always have one in my car and at least one in my tote bag. But this is not an emergency, I remind myself.
Even though my body may react like it, I am not being chased by a bear, or about to be pushed out of a plane. I am safe, and I can get through this without needing to empty my lunch into a paper bag.
In through your nose, out through your mouth; my internal monologue takes on Sandy’s voice.
I blast the AC, which, unfortunately, does nothing but recycle hot stale air from outside into my Jetta. With a cold sweat spreading from my palms to my fingertips, I grab my insulated water bottle, twist off the top, and plunge my fist inside, grabbing as many ice cubes as I can. Clutching them until they melt, I count all the way to sixty, and then I text Nora that I’m here, leaving Matthew’s text unanswered.
—
“It’s perfect!” I tell the seamstress, Cindy, hoping she can’t tell that I’m holding my breath. One wrong move and the freshly sewn seam of the black satin dress could burst, but it technically fits, which is more than I can say about the first two alteration attempts.
Cindy smiles, proud of the work she’s done on my dress, and I decide in that moment that it fits well enough.
“Thank you so much, Cindy,” I tell her while stepping away from the mirror and attempting to go to the changing room.
“Not so fast,” Nora asserts from the corner of the room with her hands on her hips. “You’re turning blue,” she adds dryly.
Cindy steps toward me and fiddles with the straps. “It’s too tight?”
I look at my reflection in the mirror, Cindy tinkering with the left strap of my dress and Nora with the right, a devil and angel on my shoulder,
respectively.
“It’s too tight,” Nora confirms.
I bite my lip to keep from arguing with her, because she’s right. It’s too tight.
Cindy takes her measuring tape and wraps it around my chest.
“You’re a lucky girl,” she tells me.
Nora nods in agreement.
“She has the best tits,” she tells Cindy with a casual familiarity that only Nora could pull off. I wince. “If she would only show them off once in a while….” Nora teases, and I take a second to admire my reflection.
I know why Jamie picked out this dress for me; it shows off all the features I usually try my best to camouflage with an oversized tee: the satin hugs my hips and the low neck accentuates my cleavage in a way that I’m not entirely hating. I try to imagine how I’ll look with my hair straightened, a request from Jamie that I begrudgingly accepted. The coarse texture of my curls makes my hair impossible to style in an appropriate amount of time, and only for Jamie would I subject myself to the particular type of torture that straightening my hair requires: two hours in a salon chair under fluorescent lighting. Although, looking at myself in this dress, I can’t help but anxiously anticipate how I’ll look with my frizz tamed. I turn around and throw my chin over my right shoulder to get a better look at the back of the dress.
With an eyebrow raised and my eyes locked on my ass, I ask Nora, “Has that always been there?”
Nora steps behind me and arranges us so we’re both looking into the mirror head-on.
“Phoebe,” she starts. “It should be illegal for you to wear your T-shirts and baggy jean shorts with this kind of body.”
With one last look in the mirror, I try to visualize a scenario where it’d be appropriate to wear this dress to work. I’d like Finn to see me in it.
“I need an hour,” Cindy tells us.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “I can come back on Monday.”
Nora pulls me toward the dressing room. “That’s perfect. Thanks, Cindy!
See you in an hour.”
—
With time to kill, Nora and I walk to the coffee shop down the street. I buy her an iced Americano and a blueberry muffin to thank her for this afternoon, and we sip our drinks while people-watching from the bench outside the café.
We’re on a busy street, with a constant stream of film bros and girls with patchwork tattoos coming in and out of shops and hustling past us on the sidewalk. Nora picks at her muffin while I focus on smiling at any man who looks to be around my age, hoping that one might stop to talk and give me a chance to practice my flirting.
Nora reaches down and slips off her black platform sandals.
“My feet are killing me,” she whines as she massages her freshly pedicured foot. “The new manager makes us wear heels for our shifts.” Nora has been working as a server at a few different bars and restaurants ever since we graduated. It started out as a temporary gig while she looked for something more compatible with her sociology degree and has gradually become her full-time job.
“Ouch.” I give her a sympathetic grimace. “What ever happened to the
therapy practice you applied—”
“I didn’t get it.”
“What about the addiction treatment center—”
“Nope,” she sighs. “No one in the field takes me seriously.”
“I don’t get it.” I shake my head. “Any potential employer lucky enough to spend five minutes with you should be able to tell how great of an advocate you are. I mean, if it weren’t for you, I’d probably pass out at the altar next week due to lack of oxygen from a dress that’s too tight.”
She shrugs, continuing to massage her foot. “So, how’s everything going with Finn?”
I can tell she doesn’t want to keep talking about work, so I let her change the subject.
“Good. There was a moment on Wednesday where we really connected over our mutual dislike of screen time and social media,” I tell her. “Nothing brings two people together more than hating the same thing.”
“Phoebe…” Nora starts, dropping a blueberry onto the ground. “You’re addicted to your phone. And you binged fourteen seasons of SVU this
summer.”
“It wasn’t a binge,” I argue. “There are twenty-five seasons total; I barely watched half of them.”
“But there’s no need to pretend to be someone you’re not,” Nora says.
“Plus, the only surefire way to get a guy to ask you out is to make it seem like you’re not interested.”
“That would be me pretending to be someone I’m very much not.”
“You don’t have to change the way you interact with him,” she explains.
“Just make him think you’re interested in someone else. Is there another guy at school you can flirt with?”
I think about reaching out to tickle Teacher Rob again, but this time in front of Finn. Would that make him jealous?
Lost in the thought of Finn burning with envy, I barely notice the goldendoodle sniffing around Nora’s muffin crumbs at my feet.
“Hello!” I say as I reach down to pet the dog. I give it a good scratch between the ears, and it plops down on the ground, belly up, in response.
“Aren’t you a good dog,” I say, completely oblivious to the fact that the dog even has an owner until I hear his voice coming from above me.
“She’s very friendly,” he says. I look up toward the voice and am delighted to find a cute twentysomething with dark hair and deep brown eyes shielding me from the sun with his height. Pet a dog with a cute owner. The universe is on my side today. Without taking even one step out of my way, I’ve found myself in the middle of checking off one of the tasks from my list.
Maybe there’s a higher force at play that sent me Finn, and now this guy, as a peace offering after cursing me for so many years. I open my mouth to make conversation, but Nora beats me to it.
“She sure is,” Nora responds. “And very cute.” She eyes the owner up and down. “She must get that from her dad.”
I shoot daggers at her, a silent plea to let me have this one, but she’s too focused on Dog Dad to pay me any mind. I watch as she stares at him with her big brown eyes, biting her lip and absentmindedly playing with the ends of her long dirty-blond hair.
“You’re too kind,” he says, giving Nora and her low-cut tank top a full once-over. They take a second to stare at each other in silence, and I realize that a bus could roll over the curb and take me out and the only one to notice would be the dog.
“You know…” He sits down next to Nora on the other side of the bench, and she pivots her entire body toward him, her back now facing me. “I’ve been looking for a stepmom for her, if you’d have any interest in applying for the position.”
Oh, Jesus Christ. The entire interaction sounds like it was written by AI. I take a sudden interest in reading the movie titles on the marquee of the 1950s-themed theater on the other side of the street.
Maybe I’ll do the 4:30 showing of Godzilla and let Nora walk the four miles home.
“I’d be interested in a preliminary interview. Over drinks, of course,”
Nora responds, and I can practically hear the flutter of her eyelashes as she bats them. “Where are you taking me?” she asks.
“How’s Harriett’s?” he asks. “Tomorrow at seven?” They exchange numbers.
Finn and I haven’t even done that yet, I realize.
I give the dog one last belly rub before her dad takes her away without so much as a nod toward me, and I turn to Nora, my fists involuntarily clenched.
She sips on her coffee casually, as if nothing just happened.
“Are you kidding me?” I ask her. I’m seeing red.
“I know, cute, right?” She’s still fiddling with the ends of her hair and is completely oblivious to the shift in my mood.
“No, I mean are you kidding me? That was supposed to be an opportunity for me to check something off my list, and you ruined it.”
I try to take a deep breath so I don’t say something I’ll regret.
“You’re still doing that list thing?”
List thing.
The verbal punch to the gut knocks the wind out of me and renders me speechless.
Nora continues. “You’ve been nonstop about how ‘Finn is the one’ and you’re mad that I talked to a random guy on the street?” She looks genuinely confused, which does nothing but pique my anger.
I feel my hands start to shake, frustrated that someone so close to me could misunderstand the situation so deeply.
“Finn is part of the list! The list isn’t just a thing—it’s everything to me right now.” I put my head in my hands, embarrassed by how many times I’ve cried this week alone. “The list could be what fixes me. Couldn’t you just…not? Just this once.”
“ ‘Just this once’?” Nora echoes. “What do you mean ‘just this once’?”
I lift my head from my hands. “I mean that—”
Nora cuts me off. “You think I’ll sleep with any guy I meet on the street?” I watch as the muscles in her jaw tense.
“What? No!” I protest. “I just mean that you could have let me try and talk to this guy.”
She crosses her arms and leans back on the bench, looking forward, toward the movie theater, instead of at me.
“You’ve always judged me, Phoebe.” It comes out in a whisper as she shakes her head. “Always.”
“What?” I ask, completely shocked by her admission. “I’ve never once judged you.”
“Yes, you have. You sit there with your perfectly organized life and your perfect job and your lists and your”—she pauses while looking for the right word—“innocence.” She takes a deep breath and looks back at me. “And you judge me for not having my shit together. Not everyone has their whole life mapped out and color coded.”
“Nora, I’m not judging you, I’m envious of you. I would kill to be able to do what you just did. And what you’ll probably be doing tomorrow night.”
She rolls her eyes playfully, and I can feel my anger begin to subside. I reach out and grab her hand. “I’m serious, Nora. I wish I could be more like you.”
“You shouldn’t,” she says, finally turning toward me. “I have no idea what I’m doing with my life. I can’t find a job in the field that I want, and
I’m no closer to having a boyfriend than you are, no matter how many dates I go on or how much sex I’m having.”
I think about that for a second. Could we really be in the same boat?
I’m not sure about that.
But even if we’re in different boats, I can tell Nora feels just as lost at sea as I do. Maybe it makes me a bad friend, but it brings me a little bit of comfort to think of her floating out there with me. It makes me feel less alone.
“And for what it’s worth”—she squeezes my hand—“I wish I was more like you, too.”
I put my head on her shoulder and let out a sigh.
I picture the two of us frantically trying to paddle to shore and smile despite myself.
