Up & Out - Ariella Papa [92]
“Was that okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. He seems very confused about what to do next.
“Do you want to…come and sleep with me?”
“Um, no, I think I should go to my own bed.”
“Okay,” he says, and touches my cheek.
More questions, fewer answers.
I get up at ten. Tommy is already gone, thankfully. I don’t feel as hungover as I anticipated. I sit on the couch, having flashbacks of last night. It all just kind of happened before I could consider if I was being stupid or not. We were doing so well at being friends and then I went and fucked it up again.
I feel pretty selfish and I have no idea how Tommy feels. I wish he could just communicate with me. No, it’s me—I send him mixed signals.
I decide the best thing to do to take my mind off it is to go for a run. It’s only about eighty degrees today, which is quite cool for August. By the time I get to the river, I am sweating profusely, but I appreciate the breeze. Okay, I match my steps and my breath and clear my mind of everything but this minute, the traffic on one side of me, the Hudson and Jersey on the other. There can only be this now, my feet beneath me. I run until I feel like I absolutely must turn around, and when I do, I find some more energy. If there is a Zen of running I experience it and it brings me peace.
When I get home, I look at the clock. I’ve been out forty-five minutes. It’s my longest run ever. If I can run that long, I may actually be able to do the 10-K. I can’t believe it.
I call Lauryn who, to my delight, is home. I tell her about my long run and then I casually mention that I slept with Tommy.
“Did somebody say ex-sex?” she says.
“I know. Am I awful? I was doing so well.”
“Rebecca, you moved back in with him,” she scolds. “It’s not like you were doing that well to begin with.”
“Well, I was trying.”
“Did somebody say denial?”
“I know,” I whine. “It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Maybe I should start living my life minute to minute.”
“Is that like paycheck to paycheck?”
“Sort of.”
“But you’re unemployed.”
“Planning Kathy’s bachelorette dinner is going to be a full-time job for the week.” I don’t appreciate the reminder of my employment status, so I catch a bit of an attitude, then I change my tune. “You’re coming down for it, right?”
“This sounds vaguely like a conversation we had five times yesterday.”
“Come on, I need you. Her sister put her trust in me and I hate when people do that. I got to get a place for this. And Beth’s no help.”
“Restaurants are your thing.”
“I know,” I admit. “So has anything else changed in the past twenty-four hours?”
“Actually, I got lucky, too.” I gasp.
“With the coed?”
“The very same.”
“That was fast. Was it satisfying?”
“Why, yes it was.”
“Cool.”
“I guess so.” She sounds a little sad.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just that it kind of showed me how empty sex can be when you don’t really know or care for the person that much.”
“I rest my case,” I say to excuse my behavior but then remember about her medicine. “But are you okay?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, hang in. It’s only a week and a half until you come down.”
“Okay, bye.”
Tommy calls to say that he and Jordan are going to hang out tonight. I think he wants to let me know his plans so that I won’t think he is just avoiding me. But, I think he’s avoiding me, anyway.
I make a salad out of the cod I bought. I use new potatoes and tomatoes and lots of oil and fresh lemon juice. There is no good TV on in the summer—even the digital cable kind of sucks.
I decide to read Zagats from cover to cover and find a place to have Kathy’s bachelorette dinner. It’s got to be sort of cool and New York enough for the people who are coming in from out of town, but it also can’t be one of those places that rushes you out, since we have a big group.
There is a lot to consider when planning a dinner for so many. You have to take into account that not everyone is an adventurous eater, which rules out a bunch of places. Also, some people don’t make a distinction between