Chapter 13 #2
“You know, that’s almost two full days. I’ve spent two days of my life biting my tongue. I have a groove right here,” she said, opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue.
The room was with her now. Harper could feel it. The laughter stopped being polite and started being real.
Claire finally ended her set.
“But I’m learning. I’m fifty, and I’m learning to say the first thing instead of the third thing. It’s kind of scary. My husband is just confused. My friends are delighted, and my pantry is still very much organized by food group because some things are just correct.”
The applause was warm and genuine and seemed to last longer than Claire was prepared for. She picked up her index cards, which she hadn’t used at all, and walked back to the table with a dazed expression on her face.
Harper squeezed her arm. “You didn’t use the cards.”
“I know. I don’t know what happened. I just opened my mouth, and the truth fell out.”
“That’s called comedy, Claire.”
Nina went next. She walked up onto the stage timidly, the way she did everything, with intention rather than hesitation. A woman who was moving toward something now instead of away from it. She adjusted the microphone to her shorter stature and looked out at the room.
“My husband David died two years ago.”
The room went very quiet, very quickly.
“He was forty-eight years old. Heart attack. Completely sudden. One morning, he was making us coffee. The next morning, I was making coffee alone. And the coffee tasted exactly the same, which means my husband wasn’t as great as I thought he was at making coffee.”
There was a short beat and then a small laugh, an uncertain one. The audience wasn’t even sure they were allowed to laugh at this. Nina smiled, which gave them permission.
“David was Mexican, and his mother Elena is, and I mean this with all the love in my heart, the most intense woman in the southeastern United States. When her son died, Elena showed up at my house with enough food to feed the entire island I live on, and the opinion that I was definitely not grieving correctly. According to Elena, there is a correct way to grieve. It involves eating a lot, crying very loudly, and going to church, sometimes doing all three things simultaneously. I was doing zero of these things, which made her completely horrified.”
The room was laughing now. Nina was talking with a steadiness and a warmth.
“David used to watch the pelicans on our dock, and he would sit there for hours and watch them dive for fish. Have you ever watched a pelican fish? It’s like watching someone very uncoordinated belly flop into a pool, but still come up with dinner.
Absolutely no grace whatsoever. Just commitment and a very big mouth.
If you’ve been to a buffet, you know what I mean. ”
She paused.
“David said pelicans were proof that you didn’t have to be graceful to be effective.
I think he might have been talking about himself because he was a man who once tried to cook the entire Thanksgiving dinner by himself and then set off every smoke alarm in the house.
The fire department came. David offered them turkey, and the fire chief stayed for pie. ”
The room erupted in laughter. It was more of a joyful laugh, like hearing a story about someone you’d never met and loving them instantly.
“I miss him every day,” Nina said. “But I’m learning to live without him, and it turns out that living without someone you love is a lot like watching a pelican fish. There’s no grace, but full commitment, and a big mouth when necessary.”
She walked off the stage with the loudest applause of the night.
Claire was crying. Harper wasn’t crying because Harper had used up her annual tear allocation at the grief retreat and was now operating on her emotional reserves.
Nina sat down.
“David was unbelievable,” Harper said, smiling.
“David was the best person I’ve ever known,” Nina said.
Now she was smiling. Not that ghost of a smile, not a forced one, but a real one. The one who had been gone for two years and was back now.
Harper went last. She walked onto the stage and adjusted the microphone. She looked at the audience. She was wearing silk, as she pretty much always did, and her heels were too tall for the basement club. Her hair was perfect, and she looked like a woman who had wandered into the wrong building.
“Good evening,” she said. “My name is Harper. I’m the vice president of a financial division that manages $200 million. I have a corner office on the 14th floor. I drive a perfect German car. I own exactly one houseplant, which my assistant waters because I can’t be trusted with living things.”
She paused for a moment.
“I eat toast over the kitchen sink for dinner because I don’t even own a table.
It’s not because I can’t afford a table.
I mean, I just told you what my job is, but because buying a table would mean admitting that I’m always eating alone, and I would just rather eat standing up than sit down with that information. ”
The room was quiet, like they were holding their breath.
“My mom calls me three times a week to tell me about other people’s children.
She never says I should have children. She just mentions that her friend Bitsy’s daughter just had twins, or that cousin Margaux is on her second, or that the surgeon at church is tall and recently divorced.
She delivers the information the way a meteorologist delivers a storm warning, repeatedly, factually, and with the implication that I should be doing something about it. ”
Laughter. Half the room must have had a mother like Harper’s.
“The closest thing I have to a long-term relationship is with my assistant, James. James waters my plant. He knows my coffee order. He once told my mother I was in a meeting when I was actually just eating a burrito in my car because I couldn’t face another phone call about cousin Margaux and her highly effective ovaries.
James has an emotional support ferret named Dolores who sits in a carrier under his desk and judges everyone who walks past. So Dolores and I have a lot in common, actually.
We’re both very judgmental, and we both pretend that we don’t need anyone while secretly hoping someone will pick us. Oh, and we both bite when necessary.”
The room was hers. Harper felt it the way she did in a board meeting when everything tipped in her direction and the numbers and universe suddenly aligned.
Except this wasn’t about numbers. This was about standing in the spotlight and telling the truth about her life and turning the loneliest parts of it into something that made strangers laugh.
She told them about the pact, about the three of them turning fifty and deciding to stop being careful, about karaoke at a bar with peanut shells on the floor, about running into the ocean in their matching polka-dot bathing suits, about getting a tattoo on her wrist, a tiny little wave.
“And here’s the part that scares me most,” she said.
“There’s a man, a really good man. He builds furniture with his hands, knows how I take my coffee, and once told me I was worth the trouble I caused.
But I pushed him away years ago because I was scared.
And now he’s back, and he’s patient, and he’s waiting, and here I am standing on a stage in a basement in Charleston telling all these strangers about him before I’ve actually told him. ”
She paused. The room was completely still.
“So if anyone sees a man in Mount Pleasant with sawdust on his jeans and a rocking chair in his workshop, you tell him that Harper said she’s ready to buy a kitchen table.”
The room went crazy with applause, a full, unrestrained roar from an audience who had just heard something brave.
Harper stood there in the spotlight and felt it wash over her. She walked back to the table. Claire was grinning, and Nina was wiping her eyes.
“A kitchen table?” Claire asked.
“It’s just a metaphor.”
“It’s not a metaphor, Harper. It’s actual furniture. Are you going to buy a kitchen table?”
“Actually, I think I’m gonna let him build me one.”
Claire and Nina looked at each other, and that said everything. Harper saw it and rolled her eyes before taking a sip of wine. Her heart was still pounding.
She picked up the phone under the table and typed.
Jordan, I know it’s late. I just did something brave and stupid. Can I come over?
His response took twelve seconds.
The door has been open for four years, Harper. Come home.
She didn’t show anyone the text. She just put the phone in her pocket and sat there with her two best friends, ordering another round and laughing about the man in the Hawaiian shirt, Claire’s index cards, and the fire chief who stayed for pie.
When they left at midnight, Harper drove straight to Mount Pleasant instead of back to her condo. She parked in Jordan’s driveway. The workshop light was on. She could hear music through the open door, something low and acoustic, and see his shadow moving inside.
She sat in her car for about thirty seconds, the time it took to run into the Atlantic, and then got out and walked toward the light.