Chapter 5
“Please, Celeste, stop doing my dishes.” Celeste’s best friend, Maria, reclined on her couch and covered a yawn with her fist as her newborn baby dozed slack-jawed on her lap.
With a burp cloth over one shoulder and black curls tumbling from her messy bun, Maria radiated the multifaceted frenzied state of early parenthood—contentment, amazement, terror, and fatigue—that Celeste still remembered even after almost eighteen years.
“Not a chance.” Celeste turned back to the sink, raising her voice to be heard over the running water. “There are two kinds of people in this world. The kind who show up after you have a baby and pretend that holding and cooing at it is somehow helpful, and the kind who put themselves to use. I’m the latter.”
“Ahh, yes, Celeste the ever-helpful.” Maria cocked her head. “Available for dishwashing, bird-watching, and even pretend dating.”
Celeste snorted and scrubbed at a crusty plate. She’d given Maria a summary of her morning with John a few days before, and her friend had simply listened, then asked Celeste to repeat herself, twice.
“I’m not going to make a habit of fake dating,” Celeste argued. “This just happened to be the perfect scenario. I help out a nice guy, stick around to solve a problem I basically created, and have a new experience all at once.”
Maria’s lips quivered and her eyes closed. From the look on her face, it wasn’t clear which made Maria more exhausted—being a new mom or being Celeste’s best friend. “I see what’s happening here. This is turning into another step in your self-help journey.”
“It’s not a—” Celeste stirred the chicken soup she’d started on the stove when she’d arrived. “Okay, yes, it is a journey. Though it’s less about help and more about—” She waved the spoon in the air. “Discovery. And yes, this thing with John fits in quite nicely.”
Maria chuckled. “How so?”
She turned to lean against the edge of the sink, her hands gripping the countertop. “Be brave, Try everything once, and Go with the flow.”
“Ah, the bathroom Bible strikes again.” Maria didn’t bother hiding her eye roll. She had no qualms about letting Celeste know how cheesy she found her Post-it collection, and Celeste actually loved the ribbing, being by now well aware that Maria saved her biggest attitude for the people she loved most.
The “bathroom Bible” had started simply enough—Celeste had heard someone on a home renovation show say, “It’s always important to chase your joy.” At the time, she’d been six months into her divorce and losing track of why she’d thrown her life and family into chaos. But the simple statement by some stranger on her TV had been so affirming that she’d scribbled Chase joy on a neon green Post-it and stuck it on her bathroom mirror.
From there, the collection of notes had grown, sourced from the tags of tea bags, pages of novels, or the passing wisdom of a grocery store clerk. They helped her focus when she woke in the morning and didn’t know how to take her first step in the day. Some were specific, actionable items—Take a walk, Drink some water, Learn something new. Others were more abstract—Say yes, Be brave, Blossom on your own. But all of them gave her a little something to go on, grounding her when the big questions—Who am I? What do I want? What now?—echoed so loudly in her brain that she couldn’t think straight.
“I just hate Peter for making you feel like you need wisdom from People magazine on your mirror to get up in the morning,” Maria grumbled. “What a dipshit.”
He certainly could be, but it hadn’t always been that way. In college, Peter had been drawn to Celeste’s silly chaos and willingness to try anything at least once. She was fun. And Celeste had thought he shared her sense of adventure. But by the time she’d moved with him for law school, then his first job, the things Peter had once loved about her became the qualities he urged her to tone down. She was too loud at law firm parties, too enthusiastic about Morgan’s bedroom murals, too intense about her students’ success. By the time Morgan was six, Celeste had developed armor against the word too—but her once-shiny edges had already dulled under Peter’s small but constant judgment.
Then Morgan was eight, and then twelve, and Celeste and Peter carried on. The long hours of Peter’s early lawyer days never slowed, and their family moved again and again, Peter always promising that the next stop would be the one to give him breathing room. Celeste devoted herself to helping Morgan adjust to new places and new friends, and tried to convince herself that she should be grateful to have a husband who was home for dinner most nights and asked their daughter about her day.
And she adjusted, toning herself down in anticipation of Peter’s tensed shoulders, resigning herself to a life of midyear moves and half-established friendships, always hoping the next town would bring something different.
But one crisp spring morning when Morgan was fourteen, two years after they settled in Tucson, Peter mentioned a get-together with colleagues that evening. When Celeste asked what time they’d be leaving, Peter coughed, then told her there was no need for her to come. “Maybe,” he’d said neutrally, “you could just stay home with Morgan.”
Celeste just blinked at Peter a few times and propelled herself outside for a walk, unable in the moment to let his dismissal slide off her back. A true-crime podcast droned in her ears, only half the words registering, when her foot almost came down on a yellow flower growing across her path. Emerging from a shaded crack between the sidewalk and the red brick of a neighbor’s wall, its thin stem stretched and bent, seeking the sun.
She crouched, brushing her fingers over the stubby yellow petals, feeling a kinship with this small living thing that simply wanted light, even if it meant contorting its little cells to find a way out of the shadow.
Later, she tried talking to Peter about it. Really talking, laying herself as bare as she felt, sobbing as she told him about the flower, desperate to know why her husband never seemed to want her to bloom.
“A flower, Celeste?” was all he managed to say. “You’re doing all of this over a flower?”
Six months later, she filed for divorce.
And now, almost three years and a lot of dark nights after that fateful walk, she was determined to stand fully in the sun.
“You know I love you, hon.” Maria’s voice, devoid of its typical snark, jolted Celeste back into the room and the steaming soup that had certainly been properly stirred by now. “And your hobby-hopping is entertaining as hell. I just worry you’re chasing something because you’re afraid to stand still.”
“Standing still is overrated.” She put a lid on the soup and turned to Maria with triumph. “Though I did stand still for about two minutes while I saw my first bird with John.”
Maria gave a silent golf clap over her sleeping baby. “I’m so proud. These birders won’t know what hit them. This John guy is lucky, getting you as a partner and a girlfriend.”
Celeste smiled as she shook off the insinuation. “It’s just when we’re around his ex and the other birding people.” She didn’t love the deception, but she couldn’t deny that it was kind of fun, especially when it clearly annoyed John’s ex to see him receiving the attention of another woman.
She just needed to forget Linda’s joke about how thorough John could be in a private setting, and definitely had to stop hearing his hushed voice in her head, talking her through seeing the bird.
“I guess people have been worried about him, so this can get them off his back.”
From her short interaction with Linda at the park, Celeste assessed that John’s love life was of great concern to his birding community. She could sympathize. It was impossible to have a simple coffee break in the teachers’ lounge without the faculty gossip Andrea asking about her dating status. Celeste had heard about Andrea’s single cousin more times than she could count.
Celeste’s foot started a quick tap on Maria’s linoleum floor.
“Oh no.” More curls escaped Maria’s bun as she shook her head. “I know that look. You’re coming up with another one of your harebrained plans.”
Celeste held up her hand like a stop sign, grinning. “My plans are not harebrained.”
“You will recall I am the person who picked you up halfway to Mexico because you got up in the morning wondering how far you could walk in a day.”
“It was so beautiful that morning, I didn’t want to—” Celeste refused to let Maria distract her from her excellent, brilliant, totally un-harebrained plan. “It’s perfect. I am so sick of everybody either trying to set me up or giving me those poor-divorced-Celeste doe eyes. What’s the harm in bringing John along to a few things and letting people think I’m dating someone like they’ve all wanted? Then later when I tell them we broke it off, they’ll accept that I tried, and leave me in peace like I want.”
Maria brushed a pile of laundry off part of the couch, making space for Celeste next to her. “I see your logic, as convoluted as it is. But”—her face softened—“do you think you might be jumping at the opportunity to have something fake to make sure there’s no room in your life for something real?”
Celeste settled on the couch and twisted her fingers into the patch of dark hair on Xavier’s baby head. Maria meant well, but she didn’t get it. “I had something real, for a long time.” She sped on before Maria could interrupt. “And I know you’ll tell me I could have something better. But I let myself get lost in my marriage, and I’m not risking that again. I want just what I have now. Myself. And Morgan, while she’s still here.”
If finding herself after Peter had been hard, she had no idea who she’d be without the scratch of Morgan’s pencil in her sketchbook on quiet evenings in their kitchen.
Through all the moves and aborted friendships, and the starts and stops of her own plans for her career, there had been Morgan. It was Morgan to whom she had crooned while packing up boxes, telling her babbling daughter about their next adventure, convincing herself out loud that she was living the life she’d always wanted—seeing new things, challenging herself, growing.
But Morgan was her own person now—not Celeste’s faithful pal but a young woman in her own right with her own life. She’d be off to college soon, and life was moving on. Wasn’t that what Celeste had been longing for? Time and space to know who she really was?
“I’m going to be alone for the first time, ever.” She kept her voice cheerful. “I need that space.”
Maria opened her mouth, but seemed to think better of whatever argument she was going to try next, and merely shrugged. “You always do what you want, so I won’t bother trying to stop you. But if you’re going to ask this guy to be your fake boyfriend for people we know, I need a sneak preview. So dish. Is he cute?”
If Maria caught a whiff of Celeste’s first impressions of John—broad shoulders and soft flannel, callused hands and wire-rimmed readers—she’d never support the fake aspect of her new relationship. “He’s… fine-looking. You know, kind of a librarian-meets-lumberjack vibe.”
And cinnamon and sugar sprinkled in his beard, inviting a touch. All with a gentleness that radiated softness and safety. Maria gave one strong tap to Celeste’s thigh, drawing her out of her thoughts.
She threw her hands in the air. “Fine, he’s good-looking. He looks like the kind of guy who would come inside from chopping wood to nestle on the couch and rub your feet while he wears reading glasses and does a crossword puzzle.” Wow, that was detailed. Celeste shook the image from her brain. “And you know what? I can be honest about that because there’s no interest there. I established right away that all dating was strictly fake, and he is in full agreement.”
“A lumberjack librarian? Tell me you’ll bring him to David’s party. I need to see this for myself.”
The costume party Maria threw for her partner’s birthday every year was a hit with all their coworkers. She had insisted on attempting to pull it off this year despite having a newborn.
Xavier mewled and squirmed in Maria’s arms before a squelching sound in his diaper drew laughs from both women.
“Ah-ha!” Celeste jumped to her feet. “Useful friend to the rescue.”
She swooped Xavier out of Maria’s arms, cradling his still-tender neck and head, cooing to him as she held him. It seemed only yesterday she’d been looking down at Morgan, bald and wrinkly against her chest.
Celeste pressed her nose softly to Xavier’s pudgy one. “Are you the sweetest little baby, Xavi? Auntie Celeste will get you all cleaned up.” She turned to Maria. “Where do you keep your diaper stuff?”
Maria sighed, her smile tight, sweeping an arm around the room. Burp cloths and stray items of clothing adorned every piece of furniture. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Undeterred, Celeste spotted a diaper on top of the TV and a pack of wipes half-hidden under the couch. She cleared a space on the floor for Xavi and was wiping his teeny baby butt when she heard a quiet sniff from the couch.
“Maria.” She waited until her friend looked at her. “You are doing great. Seriously, great. Look at this baby, he’s perfect.”
“Celeste, who are we kidding? Look around.” Maria waved her arms in the air, her eyes wet. “Look at me!” She motioned to her pajamas, still on at 4 p.m., and stained with spit-up.
Celeste finished cleaning Xavier and adorned him with a new diaper before any errant pee could hit her in the face. “Honey, you had a baby six weeks ago.” She scooted on her knees to Maria and placed her hands on her friend’s thighs. “You are in a huge transition, and you are literally fucking amazing.” She lifted Xavier from the floor, handing him back to Maria. He was squirming and mewling again, nuzzling his nose into his mother’s chest.
Celeste rubbed at Maria’s knee. “You know what I tell my students. We’re all—”
“Works in progress.” The women spoke together as Maria swiped a tear off her cheek, laughing.
Celeste smiled. “Exactly. That means facing changes sometimes, but you’re growing. You’ve got this.”
Maria sniffed and pulled her pajama top down to feed her baby. “And you can tell me this every day, right?”
“Yes.” Celeste nodded, reaching for the laundry on the floor and folding it into neat piles. “Every hour if you need it.”
Maria watched her baby nursing, her body relaxing into the couch. After a moment she looked back at Celeste. “Thank you. I’m lucky I have a veteran mom helping me out. Is Morgan excited about going up to NAU next year?”
Celeste folded a washcloth and added it to the clean pile. “She doesn’t talk about it much. I’ve been trying to get her to go through the paperwork, send everything in to confirm, but she keeps putting it off. She’s been a little cagey lately.”
Celeste knew it was normal for teenagers to withhold information from their parents, even though she and Morgan had long had the kind of easy rapport that didn’t always come naturally between parents and their kids. But walking the line between maintaining their relationship and giving Morgan space continued to be a challenge, especially since Morgan spent half of her time at her dad’s.
“Is she dating anyone?”
Celeste dropped the onesie in her hands. “Who? Morgan?”
“Yes, Morgan,” Maria sighed. “You’ve sworn off dating, but she hasn’t, right?”
“Oh, no.” Celeste waved off the idea, standing up to stack the laundry on Maria’s dining table nearby. “No, I’d know if she was dating anyone.”
Maria snickered. “Right. Because teenagers are known for their transparency.”
Celeste paused, absentmindedly stroking a towel. Could Morgan be dating someone without telling Celeste? And did Peter know? And who would it be, and what were they doing? And was it time for another speech about safe sex and—
“Celeste.” Maria’s free arm was in the air, fingers snapping. “Don’t panic. We were all seventeen once, and we survived. If she’s with anybody, she’ll tell you eventually.”
“Right.” Celeste fingered the edge of a T-shirt as she folded. “She’ll tell me eventually.”
Maria patted the space on the couch beside her. “It’s going to be fine. Let’s start planning your couple’s costume for my party. This year’s theme is heroes and villains, and I think you could actually look really hot as Harley Quinn. How would John look in spandex?”