Chapter Thirty-Two
Present
Cradling my cup of coffee, I hear tittering outside my front door just before I open it to get my early-morning hit of weak winter vitamin D.
“We thought you might want to go for a run before sitting on the plane for six hours,” Maureen opines, huddled up with Daphne in the damp thirty degrees. She is the worst liar.
“Yeah, go get dressed so you can spill the tea.” Maureen hip-checks Daphne. It appears that, in under ten seconds, Daphne has gone off script. “I mean, run with us.” Daphne waves her hand frantically to send me back inside. “We’ll wait in your living room. My nips are about to fall off out here.”
I spot Lisa sprinting across the street in her fuzzy pink bathrobe and Uggs like a club-footed flamingo.
“Don’t say a thing. Don’t you dare say a thing without me,” Lisa repeats at the top of her lungs.
She is quite speedy when faced with the impending threat of being left out of the loop.
Maybe even a potential member for the Heart and Sole Running Club after all.
When Lisa gets to my front door, she opens her bathrobe and flashes me. Her T-shirt declares I Support Women’s Rights . . . and Wrongs. “I slept in it, so I’d be ready this morning the minute you opened your front door. I’ve been stalking you from my kitchen-sink window.”
I have done the same thing in my running clothes a time or two when Daphne and Maureen insisted on dawn-patrol runs. Daphne calls it “REM to run.”
“Did you sleep with him? Please tell us you did. And when I say ‘tell us,’ I mean every. Lurid. Detail. Oh, hi, I’m Lisa, the overly invested neighbor,” Lisa introduces herself to Daphne and Maureen.
“She means nosy,” I clarify, and Lisa sticks her tongue out at me like I’ve stepped on her title and her crown.
Wait until she hears about the royal bait-and-switch of an evening I had last night.
Over the years, Lisa has been the one to provide the juicy confidential HR stories that leave me with my mouth agape.
Though exhausted by last night’s confessional, I am excited I finally have a tale that will keep Lisa talking for days.
“I’m assuming you are part of Callie’s running cult,” Lisa continues to Daphne and Maureen by way of an introduction. Okay, maybe not a potential running-club member.
“Good morning to all of you who . . . oddly . . . are gathered on my front stoop.” I finally get a complete sentence out among these three.
I take a long sip of my coffee as my friends lean in to me, heads practically touching, impatiently waiting for more than pleasantries.
In less than twelve hours, it seems as if all the corners of my world have touched. Or more like collided.
“Fine. Fine, good morning,” Lisa huffs. “Did you sleep with him?”
Aggressive nodding by Daphne and Maureen follows.
“With Chap?” I ask with an air of disgust as I consider his newly discovered status as Porter’s son.
“Yes!” Lisa yelps, her face registering shock that I have had a complete reversal of attitude from lusty last night to appalled this morning.
“No! Porter!” Maureen and Daphne echo at the same time.
“Who’s Porter?” Lisa’s head swings back and forth in bewilderment between me, Maureen, and Daphne, who are now jumping up and down on their toes in expectation or to stay warm.
As the elder stateswoman of the group, Maureen clarifies, “Callie’s boyfriend from college.”
Grabbing the doorframe to steady herself, Lisa proclaims, “Hold on, hold on. Don’t say another word. I gotta hear this. I’m going to go find some shoes I can run in,” and sprints back across the street to her house.