Chapter 31
I don’t know what is worse. Being friend-zoned by Mike Benedick. Or seeing all his friends and fellow actors genuinely love and respect him at the after-party a few weeks ago.
“He was a complete gentleman,” I tell my mother when she calls before our lunch date. "Everyone thought we were a couple—"
“So you have chemistry.” She’s shuffling papers or something on her end of the call. “He’s Michael Benedick. He has chemistry with everyone. The boy could kiss a wall and sell tickets.”
“Who are you? What have you done with my mother?”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I can’t have lunch today. I have to cancel.”
“Why?”
“Because now Adam isn’t returning my calls.”
“Mom.”
She sounds slightly hysterical. “I don’t understand what is going on with you two.
Portia and Julie have no problems whatsoever telling me if they will or won’t be home for Thanksgiving, which is only two weeks away, but your brother has turned into a ghost. One minute, I hear he’s having brunch with a pretty little blonde.
The next, he’s canceling our tennis date and moping around La Jolla. ”
“He’s in La Jolla?”
“Something about an escape room above one of those restaurants that puts glitter on everything.” Mom sighs. “He’s allegedly there right now.”
Of course. “You want me to talk to him, don’t you?”
“Can’t you walk a dog by there and just check in on him? He won’t talk to me, and you both are so dramatic when it comes to your personal lives.”
“Sure, Mom. I’ll go talk to him.”
“Excellent. We can reschedule our lunch for after Thanksgiving. I’ve got more legal briefs for you to read.”
I text my brother and tell him I’m bringing lunch or dinner, his choice. “Don’t tell me you are too busy to skip both.”
I arrive after my last evening FroggoDoggo engagement with two bags of takeaway at the address Adam texted.
My brother is on a ladder wiring a video camera. “Hey, Bea.”
“I hope you’re hungry.”
“I will be just as soon as I get this up and running.” He fiddles with more wires and other things before climbing down the ladder. “How you been?”
I snort. “I feel like time is running out to live the life that I want to live.”
“Let’s try again.” Adam opens up the box of tacos. “How you been?”
“If life is a highway, then I feel like my car has crashed over the barrier, landed in the bay, and is taking on water. I’m trying to roll the windows down and get out before I drown.”
Adam bites into a taco. “That is a very specific and disturbing metaphor.” He pauses before taking another bite. “Are you still having nightmares about tsunamis?”
“Adam, focus. What am I going to do?”
“What are you going to do? What am I going to do? I’m in love with a woman who wants nothing to do with me outside of cosplay.” Adam inspects the other box of takeout and smiles widely when he sees the Korean fried chicken. “Heat level?”
“Fry your brain,” I say before grabbing a wing.
“You mean thaw your cold, lonely heart?”
I do not appreciate the dig. “So what’s up with your girlfriend?”
Adam groans. “I wish she was my girlfriend.”
How does he do it? He’s so open and honest. More importantly, how does he know what he wants? I’m tail-spinning trying to make any choice about career, home, hobby, yoga classes, organic or nonorganic mini bell peppers. Which, apart from this fried chicken, have become my favorite snack as of late.
“She’s…” Adam drums his fingers on the counter. “She’s like a Viennese Sachertorte.”
I stare, nonplussed. I can’t help it. How am I even supposed to respond to that, particularly since I don’t know what a Sachertorte is?
“A very fancy, layered chocolate cake,” Adam explains.
“I’m going to stop you there and change the subject before I throw up. How did you know you wanted to do this?” I gesture to the room around us.
“Tacos and Korean fried chicken for dinner?” Adam deadpans.
“Ditch law school. Run your own business.”
“Because… It’s what I wanted to do.”
“But how did you know what you wanted to do?”
“Bea… You’re getting too meta for me. It was simple. I saw how law school sucked the life out of you. It transformed you into a—”
“Don’t say it.”
“—cactus.” Adam grabs another taco. “A sedentary, prickly, often sickly hued, and dehydrated human.”
“But Portia and Juliet didn’t become cacti.”
“Portia has always been a shark, and Juliet believes she’s truly helping people. They like the game for their own reasons.” Adam stretches his arms up and behind him. “You know what you don’t want your life to look like, right?”
My mind jumps to golf on Saturdays with Mom and Dad, carpooling to the office while my 1977 Porsche, the one splurge I allowed myself when I got hired, sat under a dustcover in the driveway. Worse still were the days I stayed late.
It was no big deal, Mom would say, always so happy to come pick Dad up, and I’d drive home in the dark all alone. Trudge up the stairs with a Diet Coke and pack of Peanut M&M’s, spritz my cactus collection, and read Tolstoy until I fell asleep.
Adam unpacks a second box of tacos. “What do you want your life to look like?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Sure you do.”
“I thought… It’s stupid.”
“Put it out there. Ideas are sticky things, but once you get the dumb ones out of the way, the good ones start to flow.” Adam inhales another taco. “Go on. Try it.”
“I thought I’d have better clothes. But my closet is stuffed with pantsuits and sweats.”
“You’re right. That’s stupid.”
I laugh. “I thought I would have friends who keep in touch, and not just when they want free legal advice.”
“Ouch,” Adam says.
Exactly. “I thought I’d be happier. I thought I’d know what I value. What I like. What I find meaningful. I thought that I’d be playing on a winning team. But instead, all I feel is time is slipping away. Who even knows if I’ll be able to…”
“What?” Adam asks.
“Make a difference in this world.”
“Look at that,” Adam says. “Bea wants to make the world a better place.”
I laugh. “One happy FroggoDoggo at a time.” But maybe there’s something here for me to sift through later. “So what’s up with this girl? Your Catstrike, I take it?”
“Her name is Sarah Miller, but yes, she’s my Catstrike. Have you met her?”
“Not yet. Stacey always has me working the front when I pick up shifts. But I’ve seen pictures.”
“She’s a distance runner, a business major at SDSU, and works the most awesome, caring underground preschool at the Fit Gym 24.”
“An underground preschool?”
“She has an entire curriculum for every single kid whose frazzled parent drops them off at the gym for ninety minutes. And she knows her comics, but that’s sorta a sore spot.
Cosplay wasn’t all fun and games, and…” Adam groans.
“I think I spooked her, and then I got defensive and worried that she was using me.”
“Was she?” I watch him carefully.
Adam laughs. “No. She actually thought I was a player.”
I snort. “You?” I rummage through the takeaway bags for the drinks. “You can totally turn that around.” My mouth is on fire from these chicken wings.
“I’m trying, but it’s a delicate situation.”
“Women are not spun-sugar flowers.” I toss Adam a ginger ale before opening one for myself. “Or chocolate cakes. Have you talked it out?”
“I’m going to talk to her at Homecoming this weekend.”
“Attaboy.” I clink my bottle of ginger ale to Adam’s and take a sip. It really is a fantastic drink. “Let me know how it goes. And throw Mom a bone. She’s having a fit about whether or not you are bringing a plus-one to Thanksgiving.”
“Yeah, well, you aren’t exactly in the clear with her either.”
“Believe me. I know.”
“You work things out with your landlord?”
“You stinker. And yes, we’re friends.” I rise.
Adam does too. He gives me a hug. “Thanks for the tacos and wings.”
“Anytime.”