Up Close & Personal

Chapter One Jo

Chapter One

Jo

I ’m getting bangs.”

Across the small wooden table, Serena’s and Amber’s eyes widen. The melodic bellowing of Sinead O’Connor fills the air while my closest friends survey my face. It’s as if I told them I was moving, or quitting my job, or adopting a litter of puppies.

All of which I’ve considered in the last few months. I settled on bangs.

I drain the last of my Manhattan, reveling in the familiar burn of the whiskey as its warmth spreads through my chest. It’s cold, the bar’s AC already on full blast despite New York City’s tumultuous late spring temperature swings. My sweat-drenched hair, slicked back into a high ponytail, has kept me unnaturally cold throughout our weekly drink session.

“Bangs, Jo? Really?” Serena asks after a beat. One perfect light brown brow is arched.

“Yes, really,” I scoff. It’s just hair, after all. But it’s a change—a drastic one, which is exactly what I’m after.

“How are you going to manage that with work?” Amber asks, her dark eyes sweeping over the planes of my face. “Do you really want to pin them back every day?”

I shrug. “I’ll make it work.”

“You’ll have to buy a lot of headbands,” Serena says with a quick glance at Amber.

“I have a drawer full of headbands and bobby pins,” I counter.

Amber knocks back the last of her drink and sucks an ice cube between her lips. Her cheeks pucker as she rolls it around in her mouth, her head cocked slightly to the side as she stares at my face. As if my hairline were a bug to fix. Amber is a software engineer at a tech company; she tells us that she spends most of her time solving problems, but I’d be lying if I said I actually understood what she does for a living. And while her preference for flowy tops and long braids often causes people to assume Amber is an artist, I’ve always appreciated that she embraces her femininity in an industry where men who unironically wear Crocs and cargo shorts outnumber women by a ridiculous percentage.

It’s Serena who speaks first, as always when it comes to the three of us. “What is this really about, Jo?” She narrows her eyes. “Your hair is kind of your thing .”

Her words sting. Yes, my hair has kind of become what I’m known for, whether I like it or not. Arguably my best feature, one that I’ve paid a lot of money to maintain. My hair has been seen in thousands of homes across the country courtesy of my job as an instructor for the biggest fitness company in North America. I work with it down; to start, at least. Once it becomes so sweaty and thick it’s nearly dangerous, I pull those dense ropes of hair into a ponytail or a bun until my classes are finished. I’ve been told there’s an Instagram account dedicated to it: @havenhairqueen.

Not that I’ve looked.

Sighing, I lean back into the rickety wooden chair and throw my hands up in frustration. “I’m bored, you guys. I need a change. Bangs are a compromise.”

“A compromise?” Amber asks. “What were your other choices?”

I freeze, knowing that I can’t tell them what’s been bubbling under the surface for months. That the career I fell into, the lifelong dreams I realized, no longer fulfill me like they once did. This is just our Thursday catch-up session, a regular ritual for us to stay connected amid the chaos of our personal and professional lives. It’s after nine-thirty P.M. and the evening is winding down. It’s too late tonight to open this can of worms.

At least, this is what I tell myself. The truth is that I’ve been too scared to say anything to anyone, including my best friends. Saying it would require action on my part. I’d have to do something about my restlessness, address my anxiety about the future, and put myself out there. I’m still firmly in the wallowing stage.

When I stay silent, Serena takes the reins. “Should we order another drink for this, babe?”

“I’m fine, really,” I reassure them, knowing Serena will not let this drop if I don’t give her something. As Bon Jovi begins to serenade us, I continue. “I just feel stagnant. So much is happening in both of your lives that I can’t help but think: Where am I going? What am I doing?”

“Jo, you can’t compare yourself to anyone…”

I wave off Amber’s words with a flick of my wrist. “I’m not. I promise. By the way, did you figure out the wedding cake situation?”

Using Amber’s upcoming wedding as a distraction is a cheap ploy, but she takes the bait. “Yeah, I finally got in touch with that bakery.”

“That’s the last of the big stuff, right?” I ask, as if we haven’t been wedding planning nonstop for the last several weeks. As a bridesmaid, I have my own personal to-do list, which Serena sent me in all her type A, ultra-organized glory on Amber’s behalf.

“Wait a second,” Serena interjects, her gaze fixated on me. “You’re deflecting.”

Serena’s tenacity, plus her ability to see what others don’t—that’s what put her on a fast track to partner status as a consultant. She’s one of the smartest people I know, second only to Amber.

In spite of our many differences, we are now lifelong friends—courtesy of a Craigslist “roommate wanted” ad more than a decade ago.

My cheeks heat as Amber shakes her head at me, as if she can’t believe she fell for my trick. “Maybe a little,” I reply sheepishly. “I really am fine, though. I just see you two going places, accomplishing stuff, all of which you deserve. And I’m here, still doing the same thing for the last ten years.”

What I want to say is, I’m at the top. Where do I go from here?

But I can’t say those thoughts because they’re terrifying. Vocalizing them would be like opening my eyes at the edge of a cliff. The same cliff that I just spent years climbing up. Who the hell would jump from that?

“Jo, you have an… unusual job,” Amber says thoughtfully. “It’s not like the corporate track that Serena and I are on. You should talk to Z about this. I bet she would be willing to help you find your way out of this funk.”

My mentor and boss, Z, is the enterprising woman who plucked me from obscurity back when I was barely getting by teaching cardio dance and Zumba classes in a Chelsea studio that always smelled like spray paint. She spun a tale of grandeur so explosive that I couldn’t help but listen.

Not sure if I was being stupid or naive, I followed her to a tiny studio named Haven in NoHo and began teaching spin with no experience. When the classes started filling up, I was surprised, but then even my inner skeptic couldn’t deny that Z had hit a golden vein. This was New York, and word traveled fast. Studios came in Washington, DC; Los Angeles; Miami; Chicago; the waitlists running hundreds of people deep… and then Haven Home.

When we started streaming classes to bikes where people lived, my world turned upside down. Suddenly, people from every corner of the country were riding with me. Lifting weights with me. Listening to me talk into a microphone while we sweated and pushed and worked together.

All these years later, and I’m still not used to it.

“I agree with Amber,” Serena says as she brushes her honey-blond hair behind her shoulders. “You should talk to Z. Maybe take some time off. Go on a vacation or something.”

“I just went on vacation,” I remind them both. That long weekend visiting my family back in Texas is what sent me further down this spiral. Vacations were meant to relax and recharge you; I had come home more stressed out than when I left.

Serena looks me over as if she’s trying to read my mind. “Still, talk to Z. Then report back at my goodbye party next weekend.”

Right—an informal affair to say good luck before my best friend leaves the country. Her work as a consultant at one of New York’s oldest and most prestigious firms has her on the road constantly, but she’s never been gone this long before. The party was supposed to be a small, casual get-together at Serena’s favorite trendy bar, but it has since evolved into a much larger party courtesy of my friend’s enormous professional network.

“I still refuse to believe you’re moving to Tokyo,” I say. “What the hell am I supposed to do without you for three months? We’ve never gone more than a couple of weeks without seeing each other.”

Serena heaves a heavy sigh and traces a manicured finger—painted a simple but elegant nude pink—along the rim of her empty glass. “It’s going to be weird, isn’t it? It’s a lot of change, but I’ll be back before you know it.”

“In the meantime, don’t get bangs. At least wait until Serena leaves,” Amber cautions with a friendly wink in my direction.

I can’t help but laugh at Serena’s offended face. We all rise from our table and perform our usual hug goodbye routine. As always, I wonder how Serena’s gray suit and cream-colored blouse isn’t wrinkled after her flight back from whatever client’s city she’s just returned from, her little Tumi suitcase in tow, or how Amber always smells so good no matter where we are. After a full day of teaching and two cocktails, I look and smell like a drowned rat with whiskey breath.

It’s not until I’m outside, enveloped in the unseasonable warmth of an early-May New York night, that I feel the tension start to lift from my body. My muscles are tired. My whole body is sore. I’ve pushed it hard the last few days, with back-to-back classes and not enough recovery time. My feet feel like two stiff bricks the entire four-block walk home. I can feel my age creeping up on me now that I’m on the other side of thirty, an unwelcome weed in my personal garden of youth, dragging me down as I fight to maintain the same pace I’ve kept for so long.

Yet I continue to trudge through without doing anything about it. I’ve been watching the days melt into weeks that turn into months without feeling like I’m actually living, all while watching as the people around me fill their time with excitement. Promotions. Weddings. Adventures abroad.

What kills me most about this is that I know I’m the problem.

I’m the one who’s too scared to make a change. I’m the one who’s too afraid to make a leap.

I wasn’t always this way. Granted, I’ve always been an anxious person, especially when considering what ifs — what if I get my period on this trip, I better pack tampons; what if this midterm paper doesn’t save correctly, I better email it to myself three separate times to be safe—but I’d been able to manage it before. Even the big stuff, like moving to New York, hadn’t felt impossible once I’d prepared enough.

Only somewhere along the path into adulthood, I lost that spark. That little flame of confidence was extinguished. I can almost pinpoint the moment it went out, and despite all the effort I’ve put into pulling myself out of that hole, nothing is the same as it was before.

I’ve never managed to light that fire again.

So, yes, I can listen to Amber and Serena; I can wait for bangs. But getting my spark back cannot.