Chapter 9
9
After Dave’s visit, the office settled back into its usual rhythms, until it could almost be forgotten that Santiago had defecated on Tonya’s keyboard. Tonya, however, was gone for good, and the next week, she was replaced by Simon. My old suitor had returned to haunt me, though I wasn’t surprised, as I’d sent him a referral link after our coffee date, exulting in a generosity I now regretted. I locked eyes with the worm-faced man as he emerged from Christa’s office. He nodded to me in a dignified manner and settled into Tonya’s old terminal in the interior row.
At lunch, Simon claimed a seat at the break room table with me and Karina, though we hadn’t invited him to joinus.
“Hey, Linda,” he said, while staring at Karina. He introduced himself to her, extending his hand, which Karina shook coolly.
“You’re in Porn?” I asked him.
“Hell yeah, I’m in Porn.”
“I’m sure you have lots of experience in that area,” Karina said.
Simon grinned, as if choosing to interpret her insult as a flirtatious overture. “You ladies want to get out of here? I thought I’d hit up the sushi place for lunch.”
“We only go there on Thursday nights,” I said. Karina glared at me, and I realized I should not have revealed our ritual to Simon, as he might try to intrude on it.
“Okay, whatever,” Simon said. “Nice meeting you, Karina.”
He left, and Karina shook her head. “I can’t believe you went out with that guy,” she said. “He looks like he’s in high school.”
“I thought he was a pilot,” I reminded her.
Karina seemed grumpy. She snapped the lid off a Tupperware of kale salad. “How’s it been going with the apps?” she asked.
“I haven’t really been using them.”
“That’s good,” Karina said, stabbing her fork into the salad. “Love is a scam.”
I was shocked she would say this. She sighed and told me she feared Anthony was cheating on her. She’d looked at his phone while he was in the shower and found incriminating Instagram messages between Anthony and his coworker, who went by Baewatch1998. She showed me a screenshot she’d taken and sent to herself. Baewatch1998 had written, you looked cute in your apron today ;), to which Anthony replied, lmao .
“It appears Baewatch1998 has a crush on him,” I said. “But what fault is that of Anthony’s?”
“That’s his coworker Beatrice. The same girl I caught him messaging with before.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“No. I would seem crazy.” Karina ate her kale sadly. I felt grateful not to engage in romance with people, given their capacity for deceit.
“Maybe your next vision board will right the ship,” I said. Sunday was April 1, the official start to quarter two, and I hadn’t received an evite. I’d begun to fear I had been excised from the VBB’s roster.
“I dunno,” Karina said. “I’m kind of over the vision boards. They might have pressured Anthony to commit before he was ready.”
My agitation increased, as I suspected she was evading discussion of the VBB. If I was being rejected, I wanted to know. “So you’re skipping the VBB this quarter?” I asked.
“No, I’ll be there. Are you going?”
“I wasn’t invited.”
“Of course you’re invited. Aren’t you in the group chat?”
Karina added me to the WhatsApp group. Welcome, Linda! she wrote, alerting the others to my presence. I was relieved to discover my exclusion had been the result of incompetence rather than a deliberate snubbing. The other women chimed in to greet me, which sparked a recap of VBB logistics for my benefit, along with a fresh round of planning. The event was set for Sunday, at Esme’s condo in Glen Park. Judy asked if she should bring cupcakes or was there enough dessert already. Esme assured her no additional food was needed. If anything, she could bring a bottle of sparkling water or something else nonalcoholic, as she’d stocked up on booze as though the apocalypse were nigh! Nikki asked if they’d nailed down a time, and debate ensued as to whether the brunch should commence at eleven-thirty or twelve. I was honored to be privy to the women’s strategizing. I’d been out in the cold, and now I was drawn into the candlelight of the generals’ tent. I restrained myself from saying too much in the group chat, as I didn’t want to betray any weirdness that might compel them to splinter off into a smaller thread in which they would question why Karina wanted to include me in their ritual again. All that mattered was that I’d secured an invitation.
I’d planned to take my monthly flight on Friday, but I hadn’t bought my ticket yet, and I decided to put off flying until the following week, so that I could take to the sky with my new vision in place. On Saturday, I ventured to the CVS on Nineteenth Avenue, near a French immersion high school. Some sandy-haired adolescents with skateboards chattered in basic French near the entrance to the drugstore. I felt harassed, though they didn’t obstruct my passage or even seem to notice me. I imagined Guillaume Faury lecturing them in his native language, demonstrating the extent to which the teens were mangling it, after which they’d greet me politely, having been humbled by life. At CVS, I bought a fresh posterboard, along with issues of Real Simple and Women’s Health, plus a Wall Street Journal for cerebral ballast. I bought a new glue stick, too, though my old tube still held half its purple glue.
Next, I went to the copy store and printed fresh images of planes I’d compiled on a thumb drive. On a whim, I also printed Dave Kinney’s LinkedIn photo, which I would place on the board to represent advancement at Acuity. Perhaps, with the universe’s coaxing, Dave would secure the pay raise I’d requested.
Back in my cube, I set to work constructing my board. I’d learned to buffer my desires with mundane imagery, items I wouldn’t mind manifesting, but which wouldn’t distract the universe from my true goals. Houseplants and a pot of honey. A photo of two smartly dressed women shaking hands, along with a graph of the stock market and an image of stacks of hundred-dollar bills in a pile of ludicrous abundance. Swimming among these images were the tail numbers of doomed aircraft, as well as of my first love, N92823, letters and digits cut out individually with their original order maintained. I hoped the universe would divine my meaning—I wanted a plane to choose me, as N92823 almost had that day. I snuck in a few juicy photos of 737s, along with a palm tree and a pina colada, which would help me pass off the plane imagery as a general enthusiasm for travel.
I texted Kevin, asking him to come to my cube. He arrived after a few minutes, wearing Adidas track pants and a white T-shirt. His eyes were red, suggesting he’d just woken from a nap.
“Hey, Linda,” he said. “What’s up?”
I gathered he felt harassed, as I had earlier by the French-speaking teens. “I’ve made a new vision board,” I said, gesturing to where it lay on my bed, “and I wondered if you could tell me your honest opinion of it.”
Kevin examined the board. “It looks like you want to travel,” he said, “and invest in the stock market?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“You should max out your Roth every year.”
“For sure,” I said, though I had no idea what this meant.
“Who’s that guy?” he asked, indicating Dave.
“He’s my boss, sort of.”
“You want his job? Or you want to date him?” Kevin’s tone was rather harsh.
“I’d like to advance in my career and be paid more.”
“Weren’t you trying to date a pilot or something?”
“Not anymore.” I regretted having told everyone I knew that this was my dream. “Do you think the universe will mind that my intentions have changed?”
“I dunno. I don’t think the universe cares. Especially about you. No offense.”
I thanked Kevin for his input and was glad when he left.
—
The next morning, I dressed in the same jeans as before but a different top, this time a striped T-shirt with a red cardigan layered over it. I stepped into my knee-high brown boots, and after appraising myself in the closet mirror, I added a chunky yellow scarf, which warmed my neck and provided a whimsical effect. I rolled up my board and headed out to catch the L Taraval, from which I transferred at Forest Hill to the 44 bus, which deposited me in Glen Park.
Esme lived in a condo on Chenery Street with her husband, a lawyer named Ian, who did not appear throughout the VBB, though he was rumored to be working in the bedroom. From the doorway, I spotted Karina sitting in an armchair, and we waved to each other.
“Good to see you again, Linda!” Esme said, drawing me in for a hug. Her neck smelled of an orange-scented lotion my mother used. The condo had an open floor plan, its gleaming silver kitchen ceding to an airy living room. The couches and chairs were upholstered in sumptuous white leather, and from their buttery skin I knew Esme was rich. Along with Karina, the VBB’s other core members—Morgan, Stacy, and Judy—were already present, draped across the furniture and holding mason jars of a red drink with chunks of fruit floating in it. An additional woman, the previously absent Nikki, arrived just after me, a human infant strapped to her chest. I was the first to greet her, as I was still standing by the door.
“I’m Linda,” I said.
“Hey, Linda,” she said with an air of distraction. “Nice to meet you. This is Sean.” I regarded the baby’s clenched, sleeping face, and was reminded of my niece, Claudette, who’d been born last June. I’d met Claudette at Christmas and felt intimidated by the blank slate of her consciousness, and her proximity to the realm of nonexistence, from which she had so recently emerged. I now felt similarly about Sean and was glad when the other women swarmed around him, cooing and exclaiming over his cuteness.
“Sorry I couldn’t join last time,” Nikki said. “This little guy got in the way.”
The women laughed affectionately. “We’re so happy to get to meet him,” Judy said.
Esme offered us beverages. Nikki declined the sangria, as she was breastfeeding, but I took a jar of the concoction and stood at the fringe of the group as they questioned Nikki about the experience of birthing her child. I perused the food offerings spread across the marble countertop, which were notably sparer and less pastry-oriented than Karina’s had been. There were cubes of fruit pierced with skewers, as if to be roasted on a spit. There were canapés of smoked salmon folded into a flower shape, with the tiny roe of another fish piled on top, which seemed like a cruel joke at the expense of both animals. Karina sidled up next to me.
“Those look disgusting, don’t they?” she whispered. I gave a slight nod. I’d thought the same thing, but I didn’t want Esme to perceive us as disparaging her snacks.
After a few minutes, the women’s curiosity about Sean was satisfied, and everyone settled back into their positions in the living room. I perched on an ottoman beside Karina’s armchair, as if I were her lapdog.
“Esme, is that a new sideboard?” Nikki asked, her eyes trained on a rectangular gray object beneath the flat-screenTV.
“It’s from Restoration Hardware,” Esme said. She slid open the front hatch. Inside it there was nothing.
“This is leather?” Morgan said, running her hand over the surface.
Esme nodded. “Shagreen-embossed. It’s supposed to look like stingray hide.”
This revelation, in addition to the grotesque fish canapés, made me wonder what grudge Esme held against the ocean’s creatures.
“The texture is exquisite,” Morgan said. The other women, aside from myself and Karina, went over to fondle the sideboard. I glanced at Karina, and she raised her eyebrows.
“Do you know where the bathroom is?” I whispered to her.
“I dunno. I’ve never been here.” She sat up and addressed Esme, loudly. “Hey, Esme, where’s your bathroom?”
The other women, still gathered around the sideboard, fell silent, affronted by Karina’s tone. “Down the hall, to the left,” Esme said.
I stood. “I’m the one who needs to use it,” I announced.
“Right down the hall,” Esme said, gesturing.
I emptied my bladder into Esme’s chic black toilet. The dimmer switch was turned low. A cone of incense burned on a ceramic plate set on the toilet’s tank. Beneath the sink sat a metal wastebasket the size of a juice glass, within which lay a single, seemingly unsoiled cotton ball. The sight of the tiny trash can filled me with self-loathing. Compared to the women of the VBB, I felt like a soiled tissue deposited in a seatback pocket. The universe had shone favorably upon them, bestowing them gifts like this condo and Nikki’s robust infant. I hoped the secretions of their success would ooze onto me.
When I returned to the living room, the women had taken their seats, and I sensed the main event was about to begin, as if my request to use the bathroom had reawakened the group to the fact of our corporeal existence, our finite and fleeting time on earth. Morgan went first. Her board contained images of rainforest foliage, scarlet macaws, waterfalls, and the naked back of a woman receiving a hot stone massage. “We’re headed to Costa Rica in June,” she reminded us. “I’m so excited!”
The other women inquired politely about the accommodations Morgan’s family had booked. She described a thermal spa at the base of a volcano.
“The resort is carbon neutral. That was important to us,” she said.
“So you’ve already booked your flight and hotel?” Karina asked from the armchair.
“Of course,” Morgan said with a tight smile. “Months ago. This resort books up fast.”
“Then do you really need to manifest it, if you already have it?” Karina said with the smug look of a prosecutor who’d laid a trap for a witness. “Or do you just want to brag about your vacation?”
I shifted on the ottoman, embarrassed by Karina’s behavior. Morgan’s freckled face reddened to nearly the shade of her hair. “I’m not bragging. I’m setting an intention for the experience.”
“I think that’s so smart,” Stacy said. “It’s all about your attitude going into it. You could be in a tropical paradise and still be miserable.” She paused. “Not that you’re miserable, Morgan! I’m talking about myself, mostly.”
“So true,” Esme said. “My business coach has been having me send her gratitude lists every morning. The perspective shift has been a total game changer.”
“We should do that in the group chat!” Judy said.
Karina’s sour comment was forgotten for the moment, though I sensed her conflict with Morgan remained unresolved.
Judy, Stacy, and Nikki moved through their boards, which repeated similar themes from the last VBB. I noted they didn’t directly ask for higher salaries—overt material requests must have been considered gauche. Instead, their boards featured items like the satisfaction of helping younger coworkers, learning from their mentors, or, in Nikki’s case, revamping her business website. All of these seemed like tasks that could be accomplished without the collaboration of an infinitely powerful universe. It seemed Karina had a point.
When it was Esme’s turn, she unfurled her board with a shy smile. Once again, she’d sectioned her board into quadrants. The upper left quadrant contained an image of a pregnancy test with two lines across its window.
“Esme! How long have you known?” Judy said from the counter, where she was refilling her jar of sangria.
“About two months,” Esme said. “I wanted to wait to tell you all, just to be safe.”
The other women gushed over Esme’s pregnancy. Karina’s face was set in a tense expression I could not interpret.
Esme briefly toured us through the other quadrants, then returned to the couch, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “Thank you all for the support. It means so much to have such a solid crew of women in my life.”
“Aww, we love you!” Stacy said, leaning over to hug Esme.
Nikki stood next to the couch, fussing with Sean in his sling. “Looks like it’s down to you two,” she said to Karina and me, seated on the armchair and its ottoman, respectively.
“That’ll be a hard act to follow,” Karina said with a laugh. “I’ll go. Might as well get it over with.”
Karina stood and revealed an uncannily familiar board. Again, it featured photos of weddings and babies. Morgan was the first to react, from her seat on the divan near the sliding door to the balcony. “Is this the exact same board from last quarter?” she said.
“No, I added some stuff,” Karina said, gesturing to the label from a bottle of Bertolli olive oil and a photo of a young woman’s face with x ’s over her eyes in Sharpie. “I want to cook more at home,” she said, pointing to the oil label.
“Who’s the girl with x-ed out eyes?” Stacy said.
“That’s Beatrice,” Karina said. “She’s always flirting with Anthony, so I hope she gets what’s coming to her this quarter.”
“I don’t think you can use the boards like that,” Esme said. “It isn’t voodoo.”
“What about work, Karina?” Judy said. “Don’t you want to set any intentions there?”
“Not really,” Karina said, growing prickly. “Like I told you all last time. I’m perfectly happy where I am.”
“Are you, though?” Nikki asked. “You really want to be an internet janitor your whole life?”
“Acuity isn’t so bad,” I said. “We’re promoting virtual hygiene. It’s important work.”
“Linda’s right,” Karina said. “Someone has to do it, so it might as well be me.”
“That’s bullshit,” Nikki said. “You have options, Karina. You’re not a martyr.” Sean began burbling at her chest, as if he, too, were disturbed by Karina’s board.
“Is this really all you want out of life?” Morgan said. “Marrying some guy and having a kid?”
Karina rolled up her board. “Why not?” she said. “Isn’t that what you did?”
Morgan flushed again. “I’m very lucky that Luke can support us for a few years so I can spend time with the kids. I know not everyone has that privilege.”
Judy put her arm around Karina’s shoulders. “We’ve been worried about you,” she said. “You hardly say anything in the group chat anymore.”
Karina shrugged Judy off. “You mean the group chat no one talks in anymore, because you’re probably on a different chat talking shit about me?”
Esme and Judy exchanged a quick guilty glance that seemed to confirm Karina’s suspicions. I felt outraged on Karina’s behalf. I’d expected them to gossip about me, but Karina didn’t deserve such treatment.
“That’s not very nice,” I said, rather artlessly.
Karina gave me a withering look that conveyed I should stay out of it.
“We haven’t been ‘talking shit,’?” Stacy said. “You’re our friend. We want to help you.”
“Well, I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine,” Karina said. She returned to the armchair. “Linda, you’re up.”
Once again, Karina had released me as chum for these women, already gorged on fish and fruit, to feed upon, thus allowing her to swim to safety. I didn’t see how my own board could fare more poorly than Karina’s had, and so I boldly stepped up and displayed it for the women. They studied it quietly for a moment.
“It looks like investing’s in your future,” Esme said.
“I’m planning to max out my Roth,” I said, remembering Kevin’s advice.
“That’s great,” Esme said. “You should put any extra savings you won’t need for the next three to five years in index funds. I can help you get set up, if you want.”
Karina laughed bitterly. “You realize we only make twenty dollars an hour, right?”
The other women ignored her. “I see love is still on the menu,” Judy said, pointing to Dave’s photo.
Karina leaned forward. “Is that Dave Kinney?”
“Someone you know?” Judy asked.
“He works for the company that contracts our services,” Karina said. “We met with him a few weeks ago, when he came for a site inspection. I didn’t know you had a thing for him, Linda.”
“I don’t,” I said, my face warming at the suggestion. “I included him as a symbol of professional success.” It seemed too crass to admit I’d simply wanted to manifest a pay raise.
Karina scoffed. “Dave isn’t successful. He’s a loser.”
“Karina, can we cool it with the cynicism?” Esme said. “The boards are meant to be an exercise in positive thinking.”
Karina lifted her hands in surrender. “You’re right. Sorry, Linda. I’m in a shitty mood.” She excused herself to the balcony, sliding the door shut behind her.
The atmosphere lightened in her absence. My strategy of interspersing plane content among photos of ordinary objects seemed to have proven effective. The women didn’t even mention the planes, aside from remarking that travel seemed to be a theme of my board.
Then Morgan asked, “What’s up with the numbers?”
Emboldened by the group’s acceptance, I dared to push further. “They spell out the tail numbers of planes that are special to me,” I said. “For instance, N92823 is a plane I flew in with my family when I was thirteen. It was an experience I’ve never forgotten.”
“So you want to fly on that plane again?” Stacy said. I was startled by how closely she guessed at the true meaning of my board.
“Sadly, that’s impossible,” I said. “N92823 was decommissioned years ago, after a maintenance issue.”
The women seemed confused. “What was so special about that flight?” Esme asked.
Of course, I couldn’t truthfully describe the experience. I’d revealed too much already. “It was the last time my family went on a trip together,” I said. “Soon after, everything changed.”
This was not the reason the flight had made such an impression on me, but it was true that the trip to Chicago marked a turning point in our family. My dad had also been fascinated by our experience on board N92823, but for different reasons. One night at dinner, he told us about research he’d done on the phenomenon of clear-air turbulence. As he described wind shear and the air pockets that can occur around jet streams, I felt increasingly agitated. I wasn’t interested in a scientific explanation, as I knew a more mysterious force was at work. N92823 loved me and wanted to be with me forever.
“I don’t want to hear any more about planes,” I’d said, interrupting him.
“Me, either,” my mom said, spooning more green beans onto her plate.
“Seriously,” Al said. “Who gives a shit?”
We were used to my mom’s and Al’s disdain for our shared passion, but it was the first time I’d ever uttered a harsh word to my dad. He was still smiling, as though he hoped I’d apologize and say I was joking. “I thought you loved planes, Linda,” he said.
“Not anymore,” I said. I fled to my room and burst into tears. I felt awful to have hurt my dad’s feelings, but I couldn’t continue discussing planes with him now that my obsession had taken on a sexual component.
In the months after, my dad became scarcer by increments, until he was coming home only to sleep. Al and I later learned he’d been having an affair with a waitress who worked at a restaurant near the marina where Wendy was docked. I blamed myself for his drift away from us. I’d rejected him, and he’d been forced to find connection elsewhere, his relationship with my mom having long ago grown threadbare.
Now, in Esme’s living room, I found the women staring at me, waiting for me to elaborate. “My parents got divorced,” I said simply, and they all nodded and cooed sympathetically.
“Girl, so did mine,” Stacy said, putting her arm aroundme.
“Mine, too,” Esme said.
“Mine didn’t, but they should have,” Judy said.
They gathered me up in a group hug. I’d never felt so accepted. When they released me, I fetched Karina from the balcony, and we all joined hands to recite the manifestation mantra, sealing our intentions for the quarter, to marinate like tofu in a ziplock bag.
—
As we emerged onto Chenery Street, Karina proposed we go to Dolores Park. It was a nice day, and she wasn’t ready to go home. I felt honored that Karina wanted to spend more time with me. I’d planned to return to my cube and book my tickets for next weekend, having refreshed my plea to the universe, but I could do that later.
We drove to the Mission, purchased burritos at a taqueria on Valencia, and took them to the park. Karina brought a blanket from the trunk of her car, and we laid it on the grassy incline of the park’s southern section. Above us, the sky was clear at the center, a fringe of clouds pushed to the edges, like a bald man with hair around his ears. A jet moved in a northeasterly direction at around six thousand feet, his engines singing their wistful song. I itched to check my flight-tracking app to see who this fine gentleman was and where he was bound, but I wanted to give Karina my full attention. She hadn’t explained her strange behavior at the VBB, and I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject.
“Esme’s condo was nice,” I said, as we unwrapped our burritos.
“Yeah, of course it is. She’s loaded. They all are.” Karina picked chicken out of her burrito with a plastic fork. “I have a feeling I might not get invited to the next VBB. I know I was out of line today.”
I chewed a mouthful of beans and tortilla, apprehensive at the prospect of Karina’s expulsion from the group. I knew Karina and I were a package deal, and I feared missing out on future VBBs, cutting off the clearest line I had to the universe. “I’m sure they’ll forgive you,” I said. “Aren’t they your best friends?”
Karina laughed. “Are you kidding? No way. Judy’s my friend. The rest of them are her friends. Judy and I went to high school together, but her family’s rich. She went to Stanford, which was where she met all those women. They’re who she should’ve been friends with all along.”
My initial impression of the group had been all wrong. It was not Karina’s inner circle, but rather a set of women she was tangentially connected to, among whom she felt like an outsider. I wondered if Karina had invited me to the VBB, in part, to stake her own claim on the ceremony.
“Is everything okay, Karina?” I asked gently.
She sighed. “Anthony and I got in a fight this morning,” she said.
“What about?” I took another bite of burrito. A pinto bean fell on my thigh, and I brushed it off quickly, as if it were a loathsome bug.
“There’s a show at 1015 Folsom next Friday that he’s going to sell shirts at,” Karina said, her eyes resting on a pair of young women doing a hula hoop routine nearby. “I assumed he wanted me to go with him, but this morning he said maybe it would be better if I didn’t come. He thinks I’m too negative about the T-shirts. That I kill his vibe. But I wondered if the real reason had to do with him wanting to flirt with other girls. I was even imagining he’d made plans to go with Beatrice. I knew that would sound crazy, so I just said I was hurt we never do fun things together like we used to, and it spiraled from there. By the end it had flipped around, and he was begging me to come with him, saying he needs me to handle the money.”
She stood her half-eaten burrito upright in the grass, like a cigarette butt. “I probably am too negative about the shirts,” she said. “I feel like Esme got in my head last VBB. Remember how she said the novelty T-shirt market was saturated?”
“Esme doesn’t work in that industry, does she?”
“No, but she’s usually right about things.”
“You seemed sad when she said she was pregnant.”
“Oh, god,” Karina said. “I did?”
“A little bit.”
“Well, I’m happy for her, of course. Maybe I’m a little jealous. I feel like everyone’s moving on in their lives, and I’m stuck in the same place.”
“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit,” I said. “You were the first person who made me feel welcome at Acuity. You always look amazing. You keep your terminal sparkling clean.” I paused, sensing this was sufficient, though I could have listed more qualities. “You’re my best friend,” I added impulsively.
“Aw. That’s sweet, Linda.”
We lay back on the blanket. The clouds had moved to cover more of the sky, just as additional people had crowded around us on the grass, smoking cannabis and drinking beer. Nearby, a stereo played rap music, through which I could just make out the hum of a plane above us, his form hidden behind the clouds.
“Maybe you could come with me and Anthony to the club,” Karina said.
“Friday night?” I said, with a sinking feeling. I’d been planning to fly then, having already delayed my March flight by a week. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun!”
I’d never been to a club, but I’d gone to a music festival once, with Brenda and Roxy, my brother’s old roommates, at a man-made lake near Bakersfield. I’d just come to live with Al, and his roommates were still being nice to me, as they thought I would be sleeping on the couch for only a week, rather than the two years I ultimately stayed. I shuddered at the memory of that night at the lake, which had proceeded by its own hazy logic. A man wearing clown makeup nuzzled my ear. At some point, I lost a shoe.
“I’m not really a club person,” I told Karina.
“Neither am I,” Karina said. “But I do love to dance. Dancing and swimming—those are two things I’ll never pass up. I figure when I’m old, I’ll look back on my life and be glad that I enjoyed my body while I could.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. I felt the same way about flying, the sole activity that gave my life meaning.
“It’s a plan, then,” Karina said. “Friday night. We’ll pick you up.”
I hadn’t actually agreed to go, but Karina’s will seemed impossible to resist. I accepted that this was the consequence of getting close to someone and calling her my best friend: she would want to do things with me.