Relatively normal, p.15
Relatively Normal, page 15
Then Sam turned to me and said, “Kitty Cat, we need to talk.”
I turned my face up to stare at him and positively melted into those blue eyes of his. I could look at them forever. I responded, “What would you like to talk about? The perfection of this day or our amazing future?”
His face grew serious and he sat up, disconnecting himself from me. “Cat, remember that scholarship offer I got from Northwestern?”
I smiled obliviously. “Sure, but you turned it down, so we could go to the U of I together.”
He shook his head slowly. “No, I didn’t.”
“Didn’t what? Turn it down?” He nodded his head in affirmation. I managed to say, “I don’t understand.” And I didn’t. Our whole lives were plotted out and his going to a different school from me was not in our plan.
Reaching out to take my hands in his, he explained, “I want to go there, Cat. I want to get out of the middle of this state and stretch my wings. There’s a big world out there and I want to see what it has to offer.”
As my life hit the toilet, I bolted upright and pathetically replied, “But I didn’t apply there. There’s no chance I can get in this fall.”
“I know,” he says regretfully.
I was crazy hurt, but offered, “Maybe I can transfer sophomore year. We can still see each other most weekends. I guess if that’s where you want to go, we’ll just have to find a way to make it work.”
Sam reached for both of my hands and squeezed them like he was sending me a message in Morse code. “Cat, I think we should both go to college, unencumbered, and see what the future has in store for us.”
And then, like a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning at the same time, I understood what he was saying. “You’re breaking up with me. Now? Before the summer even starts?”
He made a strangled sound deep in his throat. “I’m leaving next week.”
“What?!”
“I’m going to physics camp at MIT. I’ll be gone most of the summer.”
That’s when I realized he’d been planning this for a long time. I never knew about camp, and I sure as hell never knew about Northwestern. He’d let me blather on all senior year about our future and never once thought to correct me or inform me of the program change. It was like being stabbed in the heart.
“I love you, Cat. I really, truly do. I just want to go off and experience college fresh. I want to meet new people and have new adventures. I just don’t want . . .”
I interrupted him. “Me around. You just don’t want me around.” And while that may not have been the way he wanted to say it, it’s exactly what he meant.
“We still have a week before I go.”
That’s when I positively flipped my biscuit. “For what? You can’t possibly think I want to see you again before you leave. In fact, Sam Hawking, I never want to see you again. Forget you know me. Forget where I live. Go have your wonderful new life with all those exciting, new people. Just get the hell out of my sight!”
And he did. He walked out of my life and I made sure I never saw him again. I had a great college experience. I made friends and joined a sorority and did all the things I was supposed to do. I even spent a semester at the University of Edinburgh, but I did all of those things without Sam.
The Spoiled Apple
At some point in my recollections, I get up and raid Jazz’s refrigerator. While she has actual foodstuffs in there, I ignore them in favor of a jar of maraschino cherries, a can of spray whipped cream, and a container of blue cheese-stuffed Spanish olives. Stressful times always require my own special salty/sweet therapy. I’m sure Ethan never approved, although he wisely kept his opinions to himself.
I’ve had a lot of fun in New York. In fact, there have been way more good times than bad. It’s just that during a rough period, like breaking up with your fiancé, the positive adventures aren’t the ones that jump to the forefront of your mind.
In deference to the good times, I’ve had experiences here I never would have had otherwise, like planning parties for celebrities and going to movie openings. We have a client who hosts an amazing Halloween blowout every year at whatever night club is the place to be seen, and he always invites us as guests, along with his friends Eddie Vedder and Adele.
There have been perks, like the diamond earrings from Tiffany’s. Another regular client loaned us his yacht for a week, along with his crew. We took it to Barbados. I would have never been privy to adventures like these had I not lived here.
I continue to sift through the rubble of my thoughts while eating nine olives and six cherries. I’m currently spraying whipped cream directly into my mouth when my phone pings with a new text. I look down and it says, I know I said I wouldn’t call, but you never got back to me to let me know you got to NYC safely. X Sam
I text him back, Safe.
The phone doesn’t beep again. Instead, two minutes later, it rings. When I see the 217-area code, I know it must be him. So, I answer, “What?”
“That’s it? You know, in civilized countries most people find a greeting a more appropriate way to start a conversation.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Would you want to talk to me if I had news about Nan?”
He has my full interest. “Fine. Hello, Sam. How are you? Do you have news about my grandmother you’d like to share?”
He chuckles. “Hello to you too, Kitty Cat. I’m doing great. Thank you for the courtesy of asking after my well-being. I thought I’d call and let you know Nan is being released to the nursing home tomorrow morning. We don’t anticipate she’ll be there for longer than a week.”
I’m so relieved I feel like I could float to the ceiling. I reply very sincerely, “Thank you for calling to tell me.”
“Anytime, Cat.” He continues, “I’m amazed by how well she’s doing. She appears to be making a full recovery. I haven’t heard her swear once. Although she did tell her surgeon that he had the yummiest butt she’d seen in a coon’s age and she asked him out on a date when she was recovered.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “She didn’t! What did her doctor say?”
“He said if she’s well enough to leave the care facility by the fifteenth, he’d invite her to the holiday party he hosts at his house. I think Nan has sufficient motivation to get better, fast.”
Leave it to my grandmother. I love that old woman so much it hurts. I want to spend as much time as I can with her before she checks out of this life for good.
Before I hang up with Sam, I assure him, “I’ll let you know when I get home for Christmas.”
“Will Ethan be joining you?” he tentatively asks.
“He will not.” I don’t say anything more on the topic. I just hang up.
In that moment, I wonder what I’m doing sitting here on Jazz and Dylan’s couch devouring their condiments. I no longer have an apartment or a fiancé. I have no interest in working. I pick up my phone and text Jazz:
I want you to buy me out.
She writes back immediately.
What are you talking about? Did you fall and hit your head? We’ve been building this business for years!
I quickly respond.
I want to go home.
Her only response is:
We’ll talk more tonight.
When I put my phone down, I realize how true that really is. I built a life in New York. It was exciting and adventurous on a business level and often disappointing on a personal one. My job doesn’t define me. The people I love define me. And if Nan’s aneurysm taught me one thing, it’s that those people are getting older, and their lives are getting shorter. I don’t want to be a full day’s journey away from them. I want to make the most of our time together and enjoy the absolute crap out of them while I have the chance.
I spend the afternoon taking my boxed-up life to the post office and shipping it back to my parents’ house. All that I have left is a carry-on bag with my essentials for the next few days. I don’t know where I’ll live or what I’ll do, I just know I took my bite out of the Big Apple and now it’s time to spit it out. I’m ready for this chapter to end. If only the new one wasn’t filled with such uncertainty.
Gathering Stones
When I tell her I’ve already shipped my stuff home, Jazz screeches, “You can’t make a decision like this on the fly! You certainly can’t do it in the middle of an emotional shit-storm.”
I pick up my margarita and take a sip. “I feel calmer and surer about this than I have about anything in a very long time.”
She draws a frowny face in the condensation on her mineral water bottle. “But what about us?” she begs.
“Jazzy, I’m not breaking up with you, I’m just moving home.”
She shakes her head like she’s playing a maraca. “No, no, no, no, no. You are breaking up with me. You want me to buy you out, so you’ll never work with me again.”
I shrug. “Yes, I’d like you to buy me out, but that doesn’t mean we won’t still be besties. I just don’t want to live in New York anymore. I promise it has nothing to do with you. Nan’s aneurysm really shook me up. It made me realize my parents are going to be next, and I don’t know, I need to spend more time with them.”
She sighs mightily. “I thought they drove you crazy. I thought you couldn’t wait to get away from them.”
“I thought so, too. But things are different now. I feel driven to do this, Jazz. I need to do it.”
“Fine, go. Stay as long as you want, but I’m not buying your half of the business for six months. I’ll keep depositing your share of the profits into your bank account, but I won’t make it final until I know you’re serious about this and it’s not just some knee-jerk reaction to breaking up with Rain Man.”
“Rain Man? Oh, my God, you can see how mentally unsound my decisions have been living here. Clearly, I need to get out and figure out where I went wrong.”
She still looks concerned. “Are you going back for Sam?”
“No! I just told you, I’m going back to spend time with my parents and Nan. Be forewarned, I’ll be practicing the shuck and chuck every night, so when you come to visit, I’m going to take back the crown back.”
Jazz doesn’t believe me. “I think part of you is going back for Sam.”
I shake my head, “I don’t even know if I’ve forgiven him for breaking up with me.”
“But if he didn’t break up with you, you would have never moved to New York and we would have never met,” she points out.
I really think about what she says. “I suppose when you put it that way, I have to forgive him. Just know that if I do spend time with Sam, I’m going to take it slow. I haven’t really known him for fourteen years.” How in the world has so much time passed?
Then my best friend bursts into tears. It’s the full-blown ugly cry. She’s sobbing and hiccuping and falling to pieces. “Jazzy, what’s wrong?”
She’s more strung out than I’ve ever seen her. “Cat, I’m pregnant. I just finished my first trimester. I didn’t tell you before because of the two miscarriages. I figured if I waited until the pregnancy was safe, we wouldn’t both have to go through another loss if it didn’t take.”
My heart hits my feet. Jazz and Dylan are having a baby. It’s the best news! I throw my arms around my friend’s neck and tease, “Of course, you’re going to name her Cat, and I’ll be her godmother, and I’ll spoil her absolutely stinking rotten, and I’ll visit her all the time.”
She sniffles in response. “But it won’t be the same. I won’t see you every day. You won’t be here with me through my pregnancy. You won’t be around to babysit and change dirty diapers.”
“Call me the very second your water breaks and I’m on the next plane. I’ll be there, Jazz. You can drop her off at my house every summer and I’ll watch her while you and Dylan vacation in Europe. We’ll call it Cat Camp!”
“Last night I laid in bed reliving all of our best memories. You’re the sister I never had, Cat. You mean the world to me,” she sobs.
“Jazzy, I’m distraught to be leaving you, especially now that you’re pregnant. But you’re a rock star and you’re going to do great. I’ve had one foot on a banana peel for too long in New York. It’s time to say goodbye.”
That verse from Ecclesiastes comes to mind:
For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to reap; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather your stones together.
That verse is so universally relatable. It’s the whole human journey wrapped up into one gigantic run-on sentence. I feel like I’ve lived it all in the last week, except for the last part. That’s why I’m going home. It’s time to gather my stones together.
Releasing
After breakfast, Jazz and I walk to our office like we’ve done a hundred times before. I feel like I’m floating above myself, like I’m a puppet and some force, other than my own, is propelling me forward.
Our new VP, Jennifer, greets us when we walk in. “Thank God you’re here! I’ve been on the phone with Mrs. Cleave three times already this morning. She wants to fire the caterer and cancel the tulip order. There’s no way we’ll get other flowers in time for her daughter’s wedding!”
Jazz waves her hand dismissively. “Do whatever you have to do. Just deal with it.”
Jen looks like she’s going to vomit. This is a situation one of us would have normally scooped up and run with in the past. And by “in the past,” I mean yesterday.
Our employee reacts like a chicken with its head cut off. There’s some jerky circular movement before she finds traction and goes. I kind of feel sorry for her, but I also know trial by fire is the best way to gather valuable experience.
When we get to the oversized office we share, my friend and I quietly sit on the couch side-by-side. Words aren’t necessary. Our communication runs deeper than that. Five minutes pass, then ten, before Jazz says, “Thank you, for everything, Cat.”
We sit hand in hand with tears streaming down our faces. “Thank you, Jazzy. All my best adult memories have you in them. You’re my best friend and no amount of distance can change that.”
“We’ll talk on the phone every day.”
“I’m coming back for the birth of my goddaughter,” I promise.
“You’d better!” Then she adds, “If Gelson isn’t everything you expect it be, you always have a home with me.”
Oh, my God, we’re turning into the sappiest movie ever made. I can count on one hand the number of moments that have changed the course of my life and three of them have occurred in the last week. This is one of them.
“Are you going straight to the airport from here?” she asks.
I shake my head, “I have one last spot to visit first.”
She knows where I’m going. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“I’m good, thanks. I’d rather say goodbye to you right here, at the little empire we’ve built.”
My friend nods her head and stands up. “Okay then, give me a hug and get out of here. One of us needs to keep this ship afloat.”
Jazz is such an Amazon, especially in her heels, she nearly lifts me right off the ground. “I love you. I’ll call as soon as I get settled.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” she exclaims. “You’ll call as soon the plane’s wheels touch down, then you’ll call as soon as you rent your car, and you’ll call again, as soon as you drive into that blip of a town you call home.”
I promise her. “Okay, you’re on. But you have to promise me that you’ll call every time you throw up, the very minute you feel little Cat move for the first time, and the second you go into labor. I don’t want to miss any part of your pregnancy.”
I know Jazz wants to yell at me to stay, but she seems to finally understand how important this next part of my journey is to me. She responds, “I’ll report every hemorrhoid, cramp, and craving I get. You just go home and take care of yourself.”
We continue to hold each other for a few more moments until I can compose myself enough to walk away.
My last stop in New York is the same as my first, eleven years ago. I take the subway downtown to Battery Park and walk to the ferry. When I first moved to Manhattan, I took the guided four-hour tour of the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island. It’s the place where all my ancestors first stepped foot in their new country.
Nan and her family arrived on February 4, 1942. Pearl Harbor had been bombed fewer than two months earlier and World War II was in full swing. Italians, Germans and Japanese were no longer allowed to immigrate to the US. But no such restrictions were placed on the Scottish.
My grandmother was only three years old when she came to America. I get a thrill thinking of her as a little girl staring up at Lady Liberty. I haven’t been there in years, but it somehow feels like the appropriate place to go to say goodbye to this part of my life.
I don’t have time for the full tour. In fact, I only have time to take the ferry out and back. I won’t even get off. As the boat pulls away from the dock, I stare ahead. The air is freezing cold, but it’s also invigorating. It’s the perfect day to end this chapter in my life.
I feel the same way I felt when I first saw the Statue of Liberty from this vantage point, totally in love. Eleven years ago, I was so young and eager and ready to grow up I could hardly stand it. I just knew New York would change my life, that wonderful adventure awaited me here. All of that was true. This town scared, nurtured, and pushed me into adulthood.
In New York I discovered I was a strong woman. I learned I was more capable than I thought possible. Unstoppable. In the fifteen minutes it takes to get to Ellis Island, I remember it all.
My first apartment was no bigger than a walk-in closet, and not a large one, either. The building was full of the sketchiest human element you could imagine, but still, I met interesting people there. Sure, I had to do my laundry while carrying a baseball bat for protection, but that kind of excitement builds backbone. It creates confidence.
