Chapter Fifteen #2
I point at Alice. Over Quinn’s shoulder is everything that is good about the future.
At almost six feet, and most of those inches, legs, Alice towers over her mother.
Other than her freckles and dewy skin, there is not much of Quinn in Alice’s face, but there is no doubt she is Charles’s daughter, with her dark skin and wide-set eyes.
And like her father, Alice is a master of numbers and a coding marvel.
When we talk, I comprehend zero about what she does for work in AI, but I am endlessly proud of her accomplishments.
“Callie says it’s absolutely awful. Take it off.” I now realize Quinn videoed me into this dress session so she could say exactly what she thought of every gown by passing off her opinions as my sentiments. Clever.
“Do you think I’m fat?” I ask, and then suck in my cheeks and bite down on the inside of my mouth to deflect the conversation from my talents I’ve let go fallow.
“I’m more worried about your brain than your body.
” Quinn’s tapping aggressively on her screen to spotlight her point.
“The woman who wrote Milk was firing on all neurons, and I want to talk about how you are going to build that capacity back up.” Great.
According to Dr. Kwan, and now Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, every ounce of me is out of shape.
“Did you hear what I read to you? Really hear?”
I bobble my head in a sort of gesture. “I can worry about my brain after I see Thomas on New Year’s Eve. For now, answer the question: Do I look like a popped can of Pillsbury biscuits?”
“Okay, well, let me ask you this: Are you fishing for a compliment or looking to hear the truth? Up to you.” That right there is a question only a friend of thirty-four years can ask and not get drop-kicked.
“The truth. I think. I don’t want to show up at Alice’s wedding with a false sense of confidence because I let you lie to my face.”
“Give me an all-over view with the phone,” Quinn instructs.
“’K, but you have to account for the fact I’m still in my sweats, the super-thick kind.”
“Noted. No one looks good in those.” You do, Quinn, I think to myself, and then hesitantly run the camera down my whole body, feeling very exposed even though the only skin I’m showing is from the neck up.
“You’ve looked better, but we all have. More importantly, I’m gonna guess you’ve felt better.”
“Turns out I’m not one of those women who loses their appetite and ends up with revenge body when they’ve been dumped.
” I huff childishly because Quinn is that type of woman, walking around New York the exact same size she was in college.
“According to Thomas, ever since John and Andrew left for college, I have been feeding my sorrow rather than starving it. And now, according to my doctor, I have to undo the damage if I want to do more than limp through the next three decades. For the cherry on top of the sundae, Alice has forced my hand with the deadline of her wedding. If we had moved back to New York years ago, or hell, never left, I wouldn’t be in this situation. ”
“I wasn’t aware Thomas was the one responsible for pushing you into a gallon of dissatisfaction and self-loathing in California.”
He isn’t, but he sure is easy to blame. Truth is, the hours I have spent thinking about food, feeling guilty about the food I consume, and then eating more food to quell the downward spiral spinning in my head is what has contributed to my self-loathing.
All that time and brainpower could have been so much better spent figuring out a way for me to contribute to the world in service of something greater than my waistline.
But instead of positively shifting my energy outward, I chose the path of least resistance: not caring about myself.
Thomas simply called out what he saw, and he didn’t want to see it anymore, but I can’t admit that to anyone. Not even Quinn.
“Uh, do you not remember he left me in Sacramento saddled with a house that won’t sell and no career to speak of? I cannot show up to Alice’s wedding in the same condition as when Thomas left me. I need to wind the clock back a couple of years.”
“Callie, this isn’t about the wedding, and you know it.”
“It is,” I hiss back. “What else would it be about? My husband left me for a younger woman. There is absolutely nothing else on my mind other than making him feel disgrace and regret over ruining our family.”
“Asshole move aside, Thomas is creating a new life for himself. Focusing on showing him up keeps your attention on him instead of restarting your own life. Getting back to work, remembering your talents, running; you need to do that stuff for you. Not him. It’s long past time.”
“I went for one run; don’t get overly excited.” I dismiss my first step to working on my health in an attempt to push back on Quinn that she has no idea what she’s talking about, that she can’t imagine what I’ve been through. But I know that she can, and then some.
“Come on, Callie, give yourself some credit. One run can turn into two and then three. All it takes is a little discipline.”
“That is so something a skinny person like you would say.”
“Where’s all this coming from anyway?” Quinn wants to know, ignoring my ill-placed jab. Her face relaxes from motivator to sympathizer.
“It’s more of a who. My doctor called me fat.”
“I’m pretty sure they’re not allowed to say that anymore.”
“Well, she didn’t come right out and say it, but she managed to mention everything else that is wrong with me with the unspoken headline being I might die next week if I don’t drop some pounds and get my cholesterol, blood sugar, and sodium levels under control.”
“You can’t die, because I set up sort of an interview-ish-type thing for you in a few weeks.”
“What is a ‘sort of interview-ish-type thing,’ and who would possibly want to meet with me? Studies show no one hires older women.”
“So you have been reading the news!” Quinn teases.
“Quinn, what have you set me up for?” I demand with narrowed eyes but a flittering of curiosity in my belly that I can’t ignore. Or maybe I’m hungry. One hour and twelve minutes until I can eat.
“Relax, Doomsday Debbie. It’s only a Zoom. A casual conversation, but you do need to shower.”
“Give me a little credit. I wash. I put the same clothes on after, but I do wash.”
“I showed a bunch of your Milk posts to my neighbors across the hall. They both worked for Vox Media for years, and now they are starting their own media company focusing on the middle-aged female.”
“They should call it the Invisible XX,” I reply facetiously.
“Hey, that’s pretty good; I’m going to share it with them! Anyway, they want to start a daily newsletter that’s like theSkimm, but for, uh, a more mature audience.”
“Isn’t that what Katie Couric and Maria Shriver are doing?”
“Yes, but my neighbors aren’t looking for Catholic queen meets America’s sweetheart.
They want more journalistic reporting from the everyday, everywoman trenches, but with a real hit of intellect and wit.
Think Rachel Maddow meets Melissa McCarthy.
I told them not only are you clever and an incredible writer but you also tick all the ‘everywoman’ boxes. ”
“I haven’t been clever in forever.” Quinn rolls her eyes. “Okay, fine, no more disparaging remarks for the moment. What boxes are those that I tick?” I’m keen to hear.
Quinn lists: “You know, college educated, have lived on both coasts, own a home, a big reader, in and out of the workforce, kids, wondering what’s next in life.”
“More out of the work force than in”—I make it five whole seconds before mocking myself again, but I don’t further interrupt Quinn as she ignores me and continues with her list—“caring for an aging parent, recently dumped by Mr. Happily Ever After, uh . . .”
“Large and not in charge,” I add.
“You can call everything I just recited whatever you want. But Elizabeth and Leslie see it as normal, everyday life. There is nothing that you are struggling with on that list that millions of other women can’t relate to. I hate to tell you, Callie, but you aren’t that special.”
“I used to be.”
“Correction, we all used to think we were special. Then we realized that we are flawed and not immune to the tragedies of life, like every other human in existence. The difference between each one of us is when, in our lives, we come face-to-face with that truth.”
I have Lisa on the West Coast and Quinn on the East Coast coming at me with grown-up reality checks I often don’t want to hear. To evade any further enlightened axioms worthy of a social media post, I move the conversation off me and back onto Elizabeth and Leslie.
“Why don’t your neighbors write the daily newsletter, or however they are seeing this thing, themselves?”
“Oh, they’re lipstick-lesbian chic. Not a carb, nor an embryo, and certainly not a penis has been in their bodies, but they can identify an audience hungry for content a mile away.”
“Then what could they have possibly found relatable about old Milk content?”
“They liked how you wrote about social entanglements with sharpness and straight-up common sense. They want to build their media brand on a platform of joy and realness without turning it into fluff or victim-baiting, like everybody else in this clickbait culture. Elizabeth and Leslie are looking to provide an alternative information source to the trauma and drama in a world that watches it on a twenty-four-hour news cycle. All they want to do is get people to feel good and laugh again while learning some things and taking ownership of their future along the way.”
“So you pitched me to make adultery, empty-nesting, menopause, dementia, and career stagnation hilarious against the rise of disinformation, democratic tenuousness, and the rapid destruction of planet Earth?”
“Basically. Yeah. Pretty much. And you should write down what you just said—that was spot-on,” Quinn advises.
“You have to admit, Helen’s porn addiction would make a great post alongside science-backed articles on the increase of dementia in younger and younger women.
And this job would get you back to New York.
Elizabeth and Leslie want to build their team here.
They’re over the remote office where everyone only knows each other through a filter and from the neck up. ”
“Does that mean I shouldn’t tell Elizabeth and Leslie that the only thing I have going for me right now is from the neck up?”
Ignoring me, Quinn counters, bouncing up and down on the firm, tufted seat, “Does that mean you’ll take the Zoom with Leslie? She’s the easier to impress of the two. You make it past her, then she will greenlight you to meet Elizabeth in person in December.”
“I’ll take the interview. And tell Alice to take that dress—it’s the one,” I say with tears pooling in my eyes. “Look behind you at our girl. She’s all brains and beauty.”