5 – Lost in Caramel Bananas
Casey
“Beautiful work today, ladies! I hope you’re feeling as relaxed and refreshed as I am after that!” I declare to my Wednesday Mom’s class. Nods and sighs fill the room, each of my clients having a relaxed smile on their face that makes me feel happy. Satisfied with a sense of achievement that I’ve been the person to bring these hard working and tired moms a bit of peace on a Wednesday.
This one is my favorite of the week. The women relax as we enjoy a slow stretch meant for de-stressing, flexibility, and relaxation. “Join me for a few still moments of seated meditation to bring us back before we enter our chaotic day. Close your eyes and breathe deeply through your nose.” I love this part. Everyone becomes still. The room is quiet, as my older sister, Grace, and I ensured each of the studio rooms were properly sound proofed at construction. Expensive or not, we wanted to make sure our clients get the best experience possible. The only way for them to really get the best out of their yoga and meditation is to do so in the perfect setting. That meant not hearing the hustle and bustle of New York City.
I peek my eyes open just to make sure everyone is deeply within their meditation as I walk them through the exercise. Satisfied that I have successfully lulled my class into a trance, I close my eyes again and let myself just be. I go to my happy place. This is usually somewhere light; there are flowers and books, coffee, and comfy couches. Never a bra, always sweats. There is a slight breeze and I sit back in a deep-set couch breathing in the fresh air, the scent of sandalwood, a scruffy beard that tickles my neck… woah.
My eyes snap open and I quickly analyze the room and check that no one saw inside my mind and the traitorous direction my brain went just now. Grumpy lumberjacks will not be invading my happy place. No siree.
After ten minutes–and a few failed attempts at securing the proper happy place–I finish up the class and we pack away our mats. Elle, one of my staff who attends this class, comes over as the rest of the clients leave. “Hey, Case! I’m so excited for Saturday. Who else is going?”
“So far everyone has RSVP’d! It should be such a good night. You’ll love JJ’s, super vibey.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been.” She tilts her head.
“Oh, you need to go! It’s a Bookshop Café! Next time you go, ask for a Turkish Delight, extra cream, caramel, and chocolate on top. Thank me later.” I wink at her, and she laughs as she leaves the room. I pull out my phone and see I’ve missed a FaceTime with my parents, so I make a note to call them back. Since they retired, they have been busy traveling the world. At the moment, they’re still in the US, but doing the country tour around Arizona, so I am sure they just wanted to brag about all that they have seen. I get a text pop up from my group chat with Rosie and Addy, and every time I see the group name Rosie gave us when we moved into the apartment together, I swear I’m going to change it.
23A Sluts
I mean, I don’t know if perfect is the word I’d use, a sports bar in the middle of the day isn’t exactly what I want, but it is chilly outside, and Pucks is warm in the bistro area so, it’ll do. Plus, the girls love it there, so I don’t mind going for them.
I check the time quickly. I don’t have another class until 4pm, which means most of the day is all mine. I wave to the other staff on my way out and head in the direction of Pucks, a short fifteen-minute walk from the studio on the Upper West Side.
On my way, I walk past a drugstore, so I pop in quickly, then get distracted at a bookstore and find Rosie’s recent edit, so I grab that, too. I manage to walk straight past the flower shop without picking up a bunch of marigolds–which is extremely hard. I do, however, get sucked into the thrift store, and it is like the universe rewards me. There is a gorgeous Vintage Chanel jade green clutch for fifty dollars that I needed to get my hands on, because I know exactly who this would look perfect on. The same person who would never buy herself such a thing.
I finally manage to make it to Pucks with arms full, immediately spotting the girls. Rosie is hard to miss with a head of tight dark curls that sit just above the caramel skin of her shoulders. Her go-to style of jeans, tank, and purple blazer, paired perfectly with ankle breaking Jimmy-Choo’s. She calls it ‘Rosie-casual’, which I think is Rosie for, ‘I wear what I want, and I dare someone to tell me otherwise’. Addison wears her Bozzelli’s shirt, jeans, and Converse, like every other day she works in the bar, her long blonde hair pulled back into a tight pony sitting primly on top of her head.
They notice me as I get closer, and both look at me as if they expected nothing less.
“No wonder you were late. You buy up the whole strip between the studio and here?” Rosie accuses analyzing my full arms.
“No, I just happened to have a run of luck. I got another copy of that book! Can you please sign this one? I want to make sure I’m rich when it’s vintage.” I push the book in Rosie’s face as I drop into my chair.
“You know I was on an editing team… I didn’t actually write the thing.”
“Doesn’t matter. Still proud.” I shrug while grabbing the drug store bag and giving it to Addison.
“What’s this?” she asks.
“Cranberry tablets,” I respond while I grab the other amazing find. “I also got you this!” I practically squeal as I hand Addy the vintage purse.
“Oh my GOD! Casey, is that Chanel!?” Rosie screeches, and I nod enthusiastically.
“Yes! The thrift shop had no idea the value of the item they held, and I just couldn’t leave this baby in there all alone. Unsafe. Unloved.” Rosie nods, completely understanding.
“But… why? Why give it to me? You should have it!” Addison says, while holding on tightly.
“Because you have that gala thing with Noah this weekend, and I thought it would go amazing with that black dress and shoes. Compliments your eyes.” Addison looks like she is going to cry, hyper-emotional that she is, and I laugh at her.
“You’re incredible, Case. I love you.” She hugs me and I return the embrace. “Wait, how’d you know I needed cranberry tablets?” she whispers.
“Because you went to the bathroom like ten times last night,” I whisper back. But then my eyes widen and I look at Rosie for a split second before we both look at Addison and say at the same time. “Oh my God, are you PREGNANT?!”
“Shhh! And NO! My god. What is wrong with you women? Your original assumption was correct… I’m just a little uncomfortable, think it might be a UTI.”
“All that dirty Greek sex you’re having.” Rosie wags her eyebrows at Addison, who just rolls her eyes and sips her drink.
We eat lunch and have a quick farewell, checking home arrival times when Addy informs me she is at Noah’s tonight and Rosie has an adult sleepover, so she’ll sneak back in at the early hours–depending on how good or bad her date is. The girls dart back off to their jobs and I catch an Uber home. The walk would have been nice, but maybe in the warmer months. When I make it back, I immediately dump my bag and head straight for the best place in the house: the kitchen.
It seems cliché for a woman to love being in the kitchen, but I do truly love cooking. I like to keep an array of hobbies; crafting and rebinding classic books is a favorite. Hobbies mean keeping busy, keeping busy means never needing to stop, never having time to waste over-analyzing things. Outside of meditating, the kitchen is the only real time I feel peace.
Baking, experimenting, the lot. The even better part is the compliments. When you try something new, or finally master a skill, and everyone loves it. It is my all-time favorite thing to do. I bake when I’m sad, I cook when I’m inspired, I try something new when I’m feeling stuck. No matter where I’m at, being in the kitchen helps.
Today, it feels awfully close to that time of the month. Not that time, but the scheduled time. Where I take a day to process emotions. All the busyness in the world can’t hide the craziness of life and the way it all inevitably builds up. Sometimes, life is just… hard. It’s challenging, people are complicated–or just plain rude. Sometimes I miss my parents, or being a kid with no responsibilities, sometimes I get sad and dwell on my strained relationship with my sister, her inability to connect with me, or lack of desire to, I suppose. And sometimes I miss having a person. Of course, Rosie and Addison are always there for me, but Connor was, for a time, my person. The person I could be a mess with, let my hair down and go crazy with. He wasn’t that for at least the last twelve months of our relationship, and I guess, lately, I have really missed that.
Seeing the overripe bananas on the counter, I decide I’ll make a dessert for after dinner: banana caramel self-saucing pudding. Yum. I grab all the ingredients out and set up the oven and mixer, walking to the Bluetooth speaker and setting up my baking playlist.
This is like an alternate version of my meditation sessions. It pulls me from my head, my mind wrapped up in the therapeutic nature of creating something with my hands. You combine a bunch of things that are ordinary, or even boring, on their own, and together they create something delicious and amazing. It’s magic.
I get lost in the kitchen. I am Woman by Emmy Meli plays in the background when my phone rings. It startles me and pulls me back into the space, reminding me there is a world outside this place. Quickly stopping the mixer and turning down the music, I grab the phone and answer before even checking who it is.
“Hello?”
“Ahh...” A cough and some shuffling in the background before the man on the other side continues. I pull the phone away quickly and realize who called. “I didn’t expect you to answer so quickly.” My stomach does a dip at the sound of his voice over the phone and the fact he called at all.
“Hey, Jay! What’s up?” I skip over to the couch and plant myself down, staring out at the gloomy view or New York.
“Ahh, well… I was thinking of a way to mend the bridge with Rosie. You know… for being such a dick to Addison. I thought you could give me some ideas.” I giggle into the phone at the memory of this grump being as soft as butter under all that angst.
“Well, what did you have in mind?”
“Originally, I thought I’d build her a bookshelf. But that felt too… weird. So, I am currently looking around the shelves at the café. I was thinking instead a good book would work. She likes reading, I like reading. It could be something that bridges that gap.” I hum into the phone and consider. He isn’t wrong. You buy Rosie a book and you have a friend for life.
“If you’re buying a book for Rosie, it’ll need to be a dirty one. They’re her favorite, and if you’re apologizing, I feel like that’s all she’ll accept. Especially because it’d give her immense satisfaction at how uncomfortable it’d make you to buy her a smut book.” I hear him grumble over the phone and it makes me laugh again. Jessie is a reader, but he is a reader of classics, painfully emotional or mentally challenging general-fiction, or even non-fiction and biographies. There was a time we bonded over our mutual love for classics, but I gravitate to the profound romantic style as opposed to the tortured life-lesson type. “Just make sure it isn’t a book her publisher printed, because she likely already has them.”
“Right. Well, thanks. I appreciate the… information.” He sounds anything but thankful and it makes me laugh at him again. Such a grump.
“Why’d you call me, anyway? Why didn’t you just ask Addy?” Biting my thumbnail–a dirty habit I’ve had since college–I stand and walk over to the window, needing to fidget at the turn in the conversation I took us on, the anticipation for him to speak making my stomach flip. There is a pointed silence from the other side, and I feel like I can see him clearly, see him rubbing his hand down his face, scratching at the scruff he refuses to shave and pressing his brows into that concentrated furrow he has practiced so much.
“You said...” I can hear him swear under his breath, and it’s all I can do not to laugh out loud at his forced friendliness. Not laugh at him. Of course not, I’m all for grumpy lumberjacks finally connecting with their emotions. But I do laugh at the image of him stomping his foot and scowling so deep he forms permanent marks in his forehead. “You said you would be my person,” he all but mumbles, and I bite down on my lip, not wanting to laugh and stop him from continuing. He is silent for another moment, but I say nothing, hope gripping my throat. “Do you think… Well, will you… you know, be that?” His tone is set with defeat, and it makes me squeeze my eyes shut and do a little happy dance in a circle. Maybe my eternal sunshine–as Addison calls it–has finally warmed up JJ’s icy heart.
I let a little giggle go before I respond. “I can be your person if you want, Jessie.” He is silent and I hear him release a breath before he just grunts something that I think meant he agreed. Perhaps wanting to say yes, without admitting he’d like me to be his friend. I can’t help but bite down on my thumbnail again, still trying to suffocate the laugh wanting to escape me. Those earlier emotions that felt like they were brimming to the surface seemed to have dissipated. Between JJ thawing and getting lost in bananas and caramel, my chest feels much, much lighter this afternoon.
“Well, anyway. Thank you for the recommendation. I’ll see if I can find an Elle Kennedy. Those squealing Book Club girls don’t shut up about her,” he grumbles. “I’ll see you… I guess.” He stumbles his goodbye and hangs up before letting me also say goodbye.
I lock my phone and turn and skip back to the kitchen, changing the song. I do a little dance on the spot and whisper to myself as Free by Florence + the Machine plays through the kitchen. “Yes!”