Chapter 8
EIGHT
Claudia
“You could retrain as a teacher,” Anna said. “I’ve always thought that would be a rewarding career.”
“I don’t want to retrain as a teacher.” Claudia was in the back of the car, staring out the window as they left Anna’s house and neighborhood behind.
She was trying not to remember the look Anna and Pete had shared as they’d kissed each other goodbye.
“And anyway, I’m too old to rethink my whole life and start again. ”
Or maybe she wasn’t ready for a rethink. She was still adjusting to the fact that she didn’t want to cook. There had never been a time in her life when she hadn’t wanted to cook. It was like losing a part of herself. Remembering how food used to excite her, she felt bereft.
“You’re never too old to rethink your life.” Erica was driving, but that didn’t stop her joining in the conversation. “And don’t give me drama while I’m driving.”
Anna glanced at her. “Are you okay? You seem a little tense this morning. Didn’t you sleep?”
“I slept well, thank you.”
“Was it the work call you took at breakfast? You usually have a no-work-calls rule when we’re away.”
“This was an exception, but no, that’s not the reason. And I’m not tense, I’m focused.”
Claudia shifted to try to get comfortable, but it was impossible. It felt as if they were back in college. The only difference was that they were in Erica’s sleek sports car and not Anna’s ancient Ford Mustang, donated by her parents and maintained by Pete.
Still, Claudia was crammed in the back as always with her legs pushed up to her chin, or so it felt.
Next to her was the luggage that hadn’t fit into the trunk, and a stack of gifts.
Anna’s were hand wrapped, neatly tied with string and decorated with greenery from her garden.
Erica’s were store wrapped in shiny expensive paper folded with geometric perfection and secured with elaborate bows.
Looking at the expensive wrapping on Erica’s gifts, Claudia worried that she hadn’t spent enough.
She dismissed the thought. Their friendship had never been about money, and it never would be.
She’d made her gifts and that, she told herself, made them priceless.
She restacked the gifts to give herself more room. “I have a question. Given that you’re not financially challenged, Erica, why didn’t you buy a bigger car?”
“I don’t need a bigger car.”
Claudia tried to find a position that wasn’t going to cut off the blood supply to her lower limbs. “Trust me. From where I’m sitting, you need a bigger car.”
“Why? Usually it’s just me, and occasionally one other.” Erica flashed a wicked smile at the mirror and Claudia laughed.
It was good to be back with her friends. Just being with them made her feel better. They made her feel more confident. Happier. Lighter.
But it was also true that she felt a little envious of them. How could she not? There was Erica in her beautiful clothes, so confident and sure of herself and so obviously happy with her life. She was financially secure and was doing what she loved.
And then there was Anna. Anna, with her shiny dark hair and her kindness.
She wore her life like a favorite dress that fit perfectly and made her feel good.
And why wouldn’t she? She had everything she’d always wanted.
Pete, the twins and a beautiful home. Anna’s home was like another member of their family, sheltering them and holding all their memories.
It represented security, both literally and figuratively. A place where they could all gather.
Claudia was genuinely happy for her friends, but that didn’t stop her from wishing she was as settled in her life as they were. A year ago she’d been settled. She’d had no inkling that everything she’d built was going to fall apart.
She’d been with John for ten years, and yet when he’d walked out and moved in with someone else, she hadn’t seen it coming.
How was it possible to be with a person that long and not see that coming?
What was wrong with her? It was something she thought about constantly.
It nagged at her in the middle of the night when she should have been sleeping.
She’d lost everything and was basically starting again at the age of forty.
Her friends were exchanging banter in the front of the car and Claudia listened, soothed by the familiar teasing.
Not everything had changed. Whatever she might have lost, she still had her friends. They were the glue that held her life together. The cushion that softened the blows.
She gazed out the window, pondering her options. “If you’ve spent your whole adult life training to be something, is it a waste to throw that away?”
Erica glanced in the mirror. “I assume we’re talking specifically about you, not generally?”
“Yes. I spent so many years training to be a chef. It feels wrong to walk away from that.”
Erica shrugged. “It depends why you’re walking away.
If you’re doing it because you’re upset that you were laid off then yes, it’s a waste.
You’d be punishing yourself for no reason.
But if this really is about cooking and not about your last job, of course you should walk away.
Life is too short to slog at something you’re not enjoying. ”
“Even if I’ve done it for most of my life?”
“Of course. You don’t keep doing something if you’re hating it. And whoever said you have to do the same thing forever? People retrain all the time.”
She made it sound so simple, but Claudia knew it wasn’t simple.
“Do you ever wonder if you made all the wrong choices? I’ve been wondering that a lot lately.”
Anna was silent.
It was Erica who answered. “Never,” she said. “And we are not doing this. We are not spending the four-hour drive looking back on our lives and deciding we made all the wrong decisions. What is the point? This is a vacation. The whole point of a vacation is to leave your troubles behind.”
Maybe that depended on the size of your troubles, Claudia thought. It was hard to leave hers behind because she needed to make some decisions, and she needed to make them quickly. If she was going to give up being a chef, then she needed to find something else to do.
Anna turned to look at Erica. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m totally fine.”
Anna studied her. “And there really is nothing you’d change if you could have your time again?”
“Apart from maybe persuading you both to hold our book club in the Caribbean? No. Nothing.” Erica gripped the wheel.
“If we must have this conversation about regrets, then let’s postpone it until we’re ninety.
Right now we have everything to play for.
If there is something you want, then go for it. ”
Claudia had no idea what she wanted. She wished her thinking were as clear as Erica’s.
Anna didn’t seem inclined to drop the subject. “You wouldn’t change a single thing?”
“No.” Erica sounded exasperated. “I don’t think like that. I don’t ask myself those questions. It’s not helpful. So what if you decide you made the wrong call about something five years ago? Nothing you can do about it now. Learn from it and move on.”
“I ask myself those questions all the time.” Claudia relaxed against the seat, lulled by the movement of the car and the changing scenery beyond the window. “Mostly at three in the morning when I’m lying awake staring at my ceiling.”
“That’s your problem right there.” Erica turned off the main highway and they took a road that led through a forested area.
The road stretched ahead of them, clear of traffic.
“Everyone knows you never pay attention to thoughts that arrive in your brain at three in the morning. They are intruders to be shut out. You don’t listen to them. ”
“What if those intruders have loud voices?”
“Life always seems at its worst at three in the morning,” Anna said.
“It happens to me, too. I think I keep so busy the rest of the time, it’s only in the middle of the night that I have time to think about something other than the next thing on my to-do list.” She glanced at Erica.
“You don’t find your mind wandering if you’re awake at three in the morning? ”
“There’s only ever one reason I’m awake in the night,” Erica said, and Anna rolled her eyes.
“And just like that we’re back to sexy Jack.”
“Could we stop calling him sexy Jack?”
“I don’t think so.” Anna stretched out her legs. “Remember all those nights in college where we used to lie awake talking about what we were going to do with our lives?”
“We were idealistic,” Claudia said. “We didn’t have a clue.”
“We were ambitious and bold,” Erica said. “And if you can’t be ambitious and bold when you’re twenty, when can you be?”
“I think what none of us realized,” Anna said slowly, “is that you can plan all you like, but sometimes life just happens. It’s unpredictable.”
Erica turned her head and flashed her a half smile. “You mean like you and Pete forgetting to use a condom? That was entirely predictable.”
Claudia laughed and Anna smiled, too.
It was no secret that her pregnancy had been a happy accident.
“I don’t know why you’d worry at three in the morning,” Claudia said to Anna. “Your life is perfect. Your marriage is perfect.”
Anna was silent for a moment. “No one’s life is perfect.”
Claudia felt a flicker of alarm. If there was something wrong with Anna’s perfect life then that was her faith in the world and humankind destroyed forever.
Was something wrong between Anna and Pete?
No. It couldn’t be anything to do with Pete.
He and Anna had a rock-solid relationship.
Acknowledging that made her realize she hadn’t totally lost her faith in humanity.
John had cheated, but she wasn’t taking that to mean that good relationships didn’t exist. She did not believe that.
For the first time since John had moved out and she’d lost her job, she felt something that might have been hope.