Chapter Eleven
Eleven
Pam
If I can change my thoughts, I can change anything.
“Pamela Rollins. He showed up at your house with flowers, asked you to date him, and almost missed his flight? That sounds like something out of a romance novel!” Nancy said in a whisper that bordered on too loud.
After a week of dodging my responsibilities and spending most of my free time texting or video-chatting with Alistair, I was finally back at the library for a volunteer shift.
For the past hour, I’d been filling in my friend and coworker, Nancy, with all the details of what exactly had transpired since the New Year, and unlike with Tegan, I’d provided Nancy with all the juicy bits.
“I know,” I sighed, recalling how romantic it was. “But I just don’t understand why he’d do all this for me.”
“Why?” Nancy gaped and leaned in closer. “You’re an amazing woman with plenty to offer! You need to stop with all that negative self-talk. Hold on a second.”
She slipped on her glasses from where they hung on a beaded lanyard around her neck and began typing furiously, searching for something in the library’s database system.
“Aha!” she said after scrolling down the page and scribbling a number on a sticky note. “I’ll be right back.”
I watched her bustle off into the stacks, her bohemian skirt fluttering behind her. I loved how it was the dead of winter and she was dressed like it was the summer of ’69.
Nancy and I had been friends since middle school, but her life had gone in a drastically different direction than mine. She’d gone away to college, explored exotic places, and never married or had children. She was the free spirit to my homebody, and I appreciated her for it.
After a few minutes, she returned and handed me a book.
Finding Yourself After Forty: How Mantras, Meditation, and Daily Yoga Transformed My Life.
A self-help book?
She couldn’t possibly be serious.
“Don’t you do it. Don’t look at me like that, Pam,” she said, pushing the book toward me again. “I saw the author speak a few months ago in Santa Fe, and it was life-changing. Just take it home and read it. I really think it’ll speak to you, especially in your current situation.”
I grabbed the book and flipped it over to find a woman our age dressed from head to toe in spandex, smiling at the camera as she held some elaborate yoga pose. “Nance, you know I’m not flexible. How is this supposed to help me?”
She laughed and shook her head. “I mean, yoga would help with your flexibility, but it isn’t only about yoga. It’s the mantras, the affirmations. Reminding yourself that you’re worthy of good things.”
“Reminding myself I’m worthy of good things, hmm?” As a mom, I constantly did that for my children, but when was the last time I’d talked myself up? When was the last time I truly believed I was something special?
Maybe my marriage had done more damage than I’d realized.
Nancy reached out and grabbed my hands where they rested on the book’s cover and gave them a soft squeeze. “If anyone deserves a little romance, it’s you. And maybe you’ll be inspired to take up yoga. Work on your flexibility a little bit for Alistair.”
“Nancy!” I choked out and swatted her arm, sending her into a fit of laughter that had the library patrons glaring in our direction.
“You never know. You’re in for quite the workout if he can go twenty times—”
“Will you stop it!” I hissed. I could feel my cheeks growing hot with embarrassment.
She wiggled her eyebrows and slipped off her glasses, letting them dangle around her neck. “I’m just giving you a hard time. I’m happy for you, Pam. I really am. Alistair sounds lovely.”
“He is. But the distance…” I thought about it more often than I liked to admit. It wasn’t like I could just hop in the car and stop by his place whenever I wanted.
Nancy waved me off. “Distance is relative. You can be in the same room as your partner and feel like you’re worlds apart. It’s the connection that matters.”
Well, she had me there. She’d summed up my entire relationship with Don in a few sentences.
Alistair and I had a connection, that was for sure, but it was still in the early stages, where everything was shiny and new.
How would we feel in a few weeks when the initial excitement faded and the distance got to be too much?
Shit.
Here I was, self-sabotaging again, completely disregarding the fact that I was happy and worthy of good things.
“All right. I’ll read the book and let you know what I think.” I checked it out and slipped it into my bag, earning a smile from Nancy.
“Thank you, and make sure you tell Mr. Darcy I said hello,” she said with a wink, and shrugged into her patchwork coat. “Did you want to grab a coffee?”
Our shift was over, and as much as I loved Nancy’s company, I wanted to get home and laze around before my phone call with Alistair this evening.
“I can’t today, but maybe later this week.”
She sighed and wrapped the rainbow scarf I’d made her around her throat. “I see how it is. Already ditching your friend for your boyfriend.”
“It isn’t like that at all!” I laughed, even though it was definitely like that.
“Mm-hmm. Next thing I know, you’ll be moving to Colorado and shacking up in a chateau with a millionaire minotaur, like in one of your books.” Nancy threw her bag over her shoulder and gave me a quick hug. “I’ll see you later this week!”
“See ya!”
While being whisked away to a mountain mansion would make for an amazing romance novel, it wasn’t something I’d ever consider.
My entire life was here. Tegan was getting married in the fall, and I was under the impression it wouldn’t be long before she and Atlas made me a grandma.
As for Reece and Cyrus, I knew they were just biding their time, letting Atlas and Tegan have their moment before they got engaged.
There was too much happening here for me to leave. Not even a charming minotaur could change that.
As I walked out to my car, my phone vibrated with a call.
Speak of the devil.
“Hey there, pretty lady,” Alistair said on the other end of the line. “What are you up to?”
I smiled so wide, it made my cheeks hurt. “I just finished my shift at the library, and I’m about to drive home. What about you? Working hard or hardly working?”
“Well, I was working hard. I’m about to head into some meetings for the rest of the day, but I wanted to call and hear your voice.”
I was too stunned to even speak.
When had Don ever called just to hear my voice?
“Pam? You still there?” Alistair asked.
“I’m here, sorry. Just spaced out for a second.”
Another laugh. “Happens to me all the time. Do you want to do dinner tonight?”
With the two-hour time difference, our version of a dinner date was Alistair video-chatting me from his office while he finished up with work and I cooked myself dinner.
The first time we’d done it, I’d felt a little awkward, like I was hosting a cooking show or something, but now it was a part of my day I looked forward to.
“I’d love that. I hope your meetings aren’t too painful.” I didn’t know much about conducting business at the level Alistair did, but from what he’d told me, most of his meetings could have been an email.
“They won’t be now that I have this to look forward to. I’ll talk to you later, babe.”
Babe.
My brain tingled every time he called me that in his rumbly voice.
“Talk to you then, bye.”
I trust my path.
I embrace change.
I am worthy of love.
Those were just a few of the affirmations I’d scribbled down from the book.
Whatever preconceived notions I had about Finding Yourself After Forty were wrong. Keeping good on my promise to Nancy, I’d dug into the book as soon as I got home from the library. For the past few hours, I’d been enamored with author Jane Stone’s story.
She’d spent most of her life as a stay-at-home mom, and when her husband passed, she felt lost—until a friend introduced her to yoga. Through her yoga practice, mantras, and affirmations, she transformed her mindset and found a sense of purpose.
It was relatable—almost like this book was written for me.
“Shit,” I said under my breath when Alistair’s video-chat request came through. I’d been so engrossed with the book that I’d lost track of time.
“There she is,” he said when I answered. “What are you up to, pretty lady?”
Alistair’s smiling face filled my screen. Today he was dressed in a baby-blue button-down shirt that complemented his cream-colored hair, the neck unbuttoned just enough that the wispy grays of his chest hair peeked out.
I propped my phone against the vase on my kitchen table and pushed my glasses up my nose. “I was reading and lost track of time. It’s probably a sandwich-for-dinner type of night.”
“What were you reading?” He lowered his voice. “Does it involve aliens?”
I loved that he was interested and genuinely wanted to know, even if he assumed it was smut.
“No,” I said with a laugh. “No aliens in this one. My friend recommended this book about mantras and yoga. I thought it would be super crunchy, but it’s really inspiring.
The author changed her entire life because she believed she could.
I mean, I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but a lot of the affirmations she mentions resonate with me. ”
He rubbed the scraggly whiskers dotting his chin. “There are a lot of successful people who believe in the power of affirmations. It’s a pretty common theme in the business books I’ve read.”
“Do you think it actually works?” I asked in a low whisper.
Alistair thought for a moment, then slowly nodded. “I do. If you put those vibes out into the universe, I believe it answers.”
I snorted. “Did you eat an edible before you called?” I knew the answer was no, because he still had to drive home, but it was the type of profound statement you’d expect from someone under the influence of cannabis.
“No,” he laughed. “It’s just in the air here all the time.
We live in a cannabis cloud. Seriously, though…
” Alistair put his arms on his desk and leaned in closer, his expression softening.
“I think that if you’re interested in the techniques she mentions in the book, you should give it a try.
Write your mantras down and will those things into existence.
Hell, maybe even sign up for a yoga class.
I’ve been thinking of taking it up myself.
You saw me on the ice! Gotta work on my balance. ”
So this was what it was like to date someone who was supportive.
If I had mentioned something like affirmations or yoga to Don, he would have laughed in my face.
But that wasn’t the case now.
I looked at Alistair and grinned. “You know, I think I will.”