Chapter Seven
Present
After handing the pamphlets to me, Dr. Kwan shared that Nurse Patty would be calling to review my lab results in the next few days.
Dr. Kwan then ended our less-than-enjoyable time together by opening the door to my patient room and announcing to me and everyone walking the hall that I needed to schedule a follow-up appointment in six months so she can assess my progress vis-à-vis the advice in the folded mint-green and pale-yellow papers.
Waiting a year, she proclaimed, would not be in the best interest of my long-term well-being.
I responded to Dr. Kwan’s suggestion to read up by tossing her lifestyle pamphlets in the medical building lobby’s wastepaper basket and then texting Lisa from the parking lot: Who’s your doctor? I’m looking to change.
“Hey, lady!” I hear someone yell, and then feel a hard pounding on the hood of my SUV vibrate through my seat. I slam on my brakes as the voice projects through my serene residential neighborhood: “What the hell!”
Whipping my gaze from the van, I look out the front window of my car and see I’ve rolled into the crosswalk. A cell phone skids through the intersection as the car to my left at the four-way stop is about to run it over.
“You almost hit me! Did you not see that stop sign?” A startled man is charging toward my open window, pointing aggressively, first at the sign and then to me, no doubt ready to give me an earful.
How many times has Thomas told me not to crank the air-conditioning and have my window open at the same time?
I can’t close the window now; I would only be feeding into the rampant stereotype that a privileged woman is afraid of every man except her husband, though I have reasons I probably should have been wary of him too.
Drips of sweat from the man’s youthful face land on my car door as he props his arms on my roof and leans into my window.
His nylon tank clings to his chest, and I can easily make out the definition of his firm pecs.
I avert my eyes from his lower half after noting that the running shorts he’s wearing are smaller than anything I’ve had the guts to put on since turning forty.
Licking his lips, he looks like he’s moistening them to further rip me apart for not paying attention.
For being clueless. Self-involved. An idiot.
After the day I’ve had, it could be any one of these things.
I open my mouth to explain my actions but come up empty, not knowing what to say.
I’m too mortified to admit that I didn’t, in fact, see him, so consumed was I by the ant man advertising my weight to the world.
“That was my best running vid yet, and now my phone’s busted before I got to post! Man, my followers would have loved it!” Wait, what? He was making a video? Maybe I’m not the only self-involved one here.
“Uh, oh gosh, um, are you okay?” I finally mumble, not wanting to anger this man any more than he already is. Rather than make eye contact, I reach over to open my glove compartment and rummage through it for my registration and proof of car insurance.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, lady. No need to go for your piece; I didn’t even make a dent in your car. I was only telling you to be careful.”
“Huh?” I look over my shoulder at him while I’m riffling through the empty candy wrappers littering the glove compartment, obscuring my documents.
I see he’s backing away from my car with his hands up, his pink palms as sweaty as his dark arms. I also see that he’s okay.
That his glistening, muscular body is way more than okay.
He’s also about the same age as John, and I feel sick to my stomach that I almost ran this young man over in the prime of his life.
“No need to go for your gun. Please. I was only telling you that you almost hit me. That’s all.
You gotta be on the lookout for runners and bikers along this route.
” Under his calm, polite tone, I detect his voice quavering a bit as he continues to take slow, intentional steps away from my car.
A gun? What’s he talking about, a gun? And then I realize what riffling through my glove compartment must look like to him, so I sit up ramrod straight, and I, too, shoot both hands in the air.
“No, no. No gun here. I was looking for proof of insurance and my registration. Automatic response to almost hitting you. I’ve had a few too many traffic tickets and fender benders.
It’s a by-product of not learning to drive until I was almost thirty.
I guess I assumed a cop would show up any second to cite me for reckless driving or something. ”
“Cop probably would pull up in this neighborhood,” he responds wryly.
I have to nod in agreement with that call. The Fab Forties in Sacramento is a famously well-patrolled neighborhood, given the high-ranking state officials and the attorneys who profit off their indiscretions living on these streets.
“I didn’t do any damage to your car if that’s what you’re worried about, promise. You can park and take a look.”
“No, I believe you, and I’d actually be fine if you did.
I hate this car,” I say, not making any moves to get out and check.
Now that neither the car nor the driver are threatening to kill him, the young man’s eyes grow wide and express disbelief of my dismissal of the pristine Range Rover.
I swell with embarrassment, realizing how indifferent I sound, sitting in the air-conditioning of my apartment on wheels.
I know what he sees is a distracted, unappreciative woman in a sweet ride with all the top-end bells and whistles, but what I feel driving around in this tank is a pervasive sense of “who even cares.”
We both go quiet, not sure what to say next, having established personal injury and car damage are nonexistent. The young man’s eyes move slowly from my car, and I follow his gaze straight ahead to the shrapnel of a destroyed phone littering the intersection.
“Good thing I have all my photos and vids backed up on my uncle’s laptop, but he’s gonna kill me over my iPhone.”
“It’s just a phone; shit happens.” I cringe again at my financial ambivalence. I’m a walking sociological stereotype today, but after your own life gets run over, a flattened iPhone doesn’t register as flinch-worthy.
“Yeah, well, shit happens a little too much to me,” he claims. This could be a bonding moment between the two of us, but I keep my mouth shut. “Plus, my uncle thinks running and making videos is the equivalent of driving and texting.”
“You might try listening to a book. It’s easier to keep your eyes on the road,” I parent this kid who is not my own to do as I say, not as I do.
“Oh, yeah? You must know my uncle. He tells me the same thing.”
“Smart man.”
“He thinks so.”
“Well, count yourself lucky that I have a connection at the Apple store. We can get this taken care of, and your uncle doesn’t need to know a thing,” I say, and chuff under my breath, thinking of Darren ducking behind the counter to hide when he sees me walking up to the Genius Bar again.
“Can you meet me outside the store tomorrow at five, and I’ll get you a new one?
” The young man’s eyes narrow, like he doesn’t believe I’ll show up.
“Let me write down my phone number; that way, you can hunt me down if I don’t show,” I say with a forced laugh so he knows I know that’s what he may be thinking and I don’t want him to question if I’ll do the right thing.
“How am I going to call you? I don’t have a phone.”
Right.
“Plus, my uncle doesn’t let me skip summer track training, like, ever.” Looking at him, I know he’s too old for high school, but maybe I overshot, thinking he’s out of college.
“Could you maybe order me one right now on your phone?” His suggestion is punctuated by a finger pointing to my own phone sitting safely in the cup holder.
“Do you run for Sacramento State?” I ask, trying to make small talk to fill in the time while I pull up the Apple website.
“Nah, I’m one of the assistant track coaches over at Regis, and then maybe cross-country in the fall if the boys like me. My uncle helped get me the job, so I can’t get away with nothin’, especially not showing up for practice.”
“Regis, huh?” I squint my eyes to help my brain think. “The school, it’s over by, um . . .”
“By the Safeway in South Sacramento. It’s all boys. Doubt you’ve driven by it.”
“I actually have. I have two boys, and I’ve been there for a couple of Saturday soccer and lacrosse games.”
“Yeah? How old are your sons? Maybe I’ve seen them around.”
There is no way I’m revealing my age by sharing how old my sons are.
“You ran all the way over here from there?” I ask, genuinely impressed, but also to shift the subject off clues to my years on earth.
“Nah, I have a route over here I like to do before I meet up with my running club in McKinley Park.” He raises his eyebrows at me, a sign to get typing. He’s not here for the get-to-know-you chitchat.
“Here.” I thrust my phone out my window. “Choose whatever phone you want. It’s the least I can do to make up for your first near-death experience.”
“Can’t say it’s my first, but thank you.” The runner wipes his hands on his shorts before accepting my phone.
“Put your address for shipping in my phone, and I’ll do the rest,” I encourage.
“Can I still get your number?” The question catches me off guard as I’m handed back my phone to fill in my credit card information.
He wants my phone number? Is it possible I’m being picked up within an hour of Dr. Kwan telling me I have one foot in the grave if I don’t shed the weight of a midsize toddler from my body?
It’s been a minute since anyone has flirted with me, so I don’t know how to react other than surprised.
In my twenties I might have leaned on the car’s window frame, sure to exaggerate my perky breasts, and encouraged this beautifully bodied man to chance a pickup line or two.
Today I’m smarting from my health assessment, and I’m sadly aware that my breasts can no longer reach the window without a two-handed boost. Despite this ugly truth, I feel a jolt of self-congratulations for still being a woman who is asked for her phone number.
“Um, sure,” I respond as breezily as possible, flashing what I hope is construed as an open-but-not-scurrilous smile. I pray he can’t smell my desperation as much as I can smell his endorphins.
Callie Kingman
212-555-0210
“Two-one-two?”
“New York City.”
“You live in New York?” Do I detect a hint of disappointment in his voice that I may not be local? I intensely want to say yes, but my California license plates say otherwise.
“I live here, but I’m trying to make my way home,” I settle on as an answer, going for coy and mysterious.
My cell phone number may be older than this man-child I’m semi-flirting with, but I’m giving myself credit for not completely forgetting how to do it.
And getting over my old husband with a much younger model may make my time in Sacramento not a total waste.
“Thanks for your number. I’ll give you a call if the package doesn’t arrive. I can’t be without a phone,” he laments as he purposely folds the paper with my number on it and tucks it into the key pocket on the waistband of his shorts. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a torso that tight.
“Of course,” I eke out. Of course he wants to be able to track down his phone if it doesn’t show up.
I can feel my cheeks burn the same color as the cherry-blossom print on my sundress.
What was I thinking? I couldn’t hold the interest of a man in his mid-fifties; how could I possibly think a twentysomething might see me as anything other than a woman his mother’s age?
“I didn’t get your name.” I deflect from my embarrassment, scrolling the Apple order on my phone to find it.
“Chap. Chap Beaumont.”