Breakfast, Solo
The next morning I came downstairs for my typical breakfast with Forrest.
There was a second note on the counter for me. This one was in Forrest’s handwriting.
Went for a Bik Ride. I dee frosted a bagle for u.
I was accustomed to his terrible spelling, but the disappointment I felt in reading his words caught me off guard.
One nice thing: A small bunch of flowers lay on the napkin at my place—marigolds from the pot by the door. Nobody had ever given me flowers before.
When Forrest finally came home after his training session that afternoon, he looked different. Knowing the look of him as well as I did and the way he acted—and maintaining the consuming interest I had in every aspect of his life—I tried to figure out what it was that had changed.
The only comparison that came to mind was to my father during the one period in which he’d told us he’d stopped drinking.
A couple of weeks after that, he had entered our apartment through the back stairs—the place we set the garbage—and set a box there that he covered up with an old comforter.
You didn’t have to move the comforter to know there was a case of vodka underneath.
You didn’t even need to smell it on his breath.
He had this look on his face. You knew he’d gone off the wagon.
That was Forrest when he came back from what he told us was his five-hour bike ride.
He asked me if I’d slept well the night before—the kind of question people ask when they just feel a need to ask you a question. He wanted to know if I’d found the bagel he’d left out for me.
“The Van Burens are throwing a party this weekend, if I’m not mistaken,” he said. “Should be a blast.”
Parties at the club were never a blast. Forrest knew this. Nothing he was saying sounded like his real self.
“Regina did my toenails,” I told him. I pointed to my foot, still in sandals. It turned out she’d been right. The opalescent pearl she’d picked out had been a good choice.
“That’s great,” he said. But he didn’t look down.
The next morning he was gone again when I got up. Another note was waiting for me. Briefer this time.
Gon 4 bike ride. Help self to serial. (His spelling.)
The surprise was seeing Regina at the counter, up even before I was this time—Regina, who seldom got out of bed before ten, and sometimes not until noon. She was wearing her bathrobe, her hair a tangle. She looked as though she hadn’t slept. For once she had not typed up any lists for us.
“So it’s started,” she said.