The F Word

  If you have to crawl along the darkened fringes of your driveway, Olivia Bonita Morten, you are getting inside that motherfucking house. You are not going to have one of those panic attacks on your lawn like a crazy person in front of all these adorable kids. Trick or treat? How about a trick: You can work your whole life toward a dream and then it’s taken away from you within the span of a week!

  I lift my leg and put it on the ground, followed by the other. I’m beyond light-headed at this point and can only manage to stand up about halfway, so that I resemble some kind of tormented question mark. My breath won’t catch and now that I’ve been through one, I know damn well that I’m on the verge of another panic attack.

  I try, once more, to stand up straight. Nothing. Okay. Fine. Let’s see how far this tormented question mark can walk toward her house without frightening the children.

  I remember back to when I was in that Groot costume and all I have to do is sidestep—a sad whimper escapes my lips. Right. Okay, don’t think about today at the Halloween fair. Another whimper. Ben. How about we don’t think about anything until we get inside this house. Another breath doesn’t catch. I’m losing my balance … I’m falling. No. Please. I can’t fall. I can’t faint in my own driveway. My eyes dart toward the sidewalk as a pack of kids come toward the house like a swarm of color and sugar highs. I’m pitched forward when it comes to me—

  Speed skating.

  I tuck my arm behind my back, and moving with the momentum, I slide my foot forward, catching myself before I fall. I pump my arm, letting my whole body lean with it, and slide the other foot forward. I grab my purse, bump the car door shut with my hip, and slide the other foot forward once more. I will not think about what I look like. I will let myself think that this pack of kids and their parents will just think the weird lady is waving. I’m waving. I’m waving. I will focus on getting into my house.

  I catch myself absently humming “Dream a Little Dream” as I raise my arm high in the air just like I’m back on the street I grew up on. The pendulum movement of my body along with the air on my face is working. It’s calming me down. My breath finally catches. And again. And again. My voice cracks with gratitude and I reach even higher, the familiar feeling of my shoulder stretching and rotating. I dig into the warmth as my quads burn. The relief shoots through my body as my breath finally steadies.

  I step up onto my porch and open my hand. The keys have left a sweaty indentation. With still-shaking hands, I finally get the key in the lock and push open the door. I skate inside and close the door behind me.

  “You did it,” I say. I bolt the lock and lean against it. The house settles. That one creak from somewhere over the den. That same bump from just outside the kitchen. The same lights are on, ready for my solo late return. Not the overhead lights in the living room, but that one persimmon-colored floor lamp I bought from that place on Green Street with the broken spoke inside the lampshade, that no matter what I do, stubbornly remains broken. The nook light in the kitchen. The outside light by the garage. And the night-light from our en suite bathroom. Just enough light for security, but not so much that I’ll feel like no one else is home.

  I think back to the summer vacations I used to take with my extended family. I’d fall asleep to the sounds of the adults laughing somewhere in the house. And I’d wake up to the smell of coffee and conversations that were already in full swing. I’ve always thought that the sound of your family talking to one another somewhere in the house is the best lullaby you could ask for. It made me feel safe. That I was a part of something. And that when I sleepily walked down that hallway come morning, there’d be someone there to wish me a good morning.

  I’ve gotten used to thinking I don’t need that anymore. That a nice tablescape with gourds is just as comforting as the sound of voices in the house. And the smell of coffee percolating can now be achieved just by buying the proper coffeemaker. I walk cautiously over and sit down in the houndstooth slipper chair I lovingly chose but have yet to sit in.

  “Ugh, so this is super uncomfortable,” I say, shifting around.

  I scan my house—with its planned, left-on lights and the bumps and creaks to which I’ve become accustomed. It’s perfect. My phone rings from deep inside my purse. Perfect and cold. I lift my purse onto my lap and dig through it, finally pulling my phone from its depths. It’s Caroline.

  “Thish one mom she tole me imma—I mean, she tole me I shu-go as elsafromfrozen for Haylo…,” Caroline trails off. “Hayloweeeeeeen.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask, my voice ragged and soft.

  “Thish one mom she tole me imma—I mean, she tole me I shu-go as elsafromfrozen for Hayloweeeeeeen.”

  “Someone told you to go as Elsa from Frozen for Halloween?” I ask.

  “Thash wha-I been tellin’ you,” she slurs.

  “Who?”

  “Thish bishy mom in some kinda coat with the…” And then silence.

  “Caroline?”

  “She a bish. Tellin’ me to letitgo, ohhhhh I’ll letitgo. In her faaaace.”

  “Are you handing out candy to trick-or-treaters?”

  “Yesh.”

  “Are you drinking?”

  “Yesh.”

  “Have you been drunk while giving out candy to trick-or-treaters?” My entire being is now thankfully completely focused on the task at hand.

  “She said I shu-be elsafromfrozen. I … turn tha light out, shhhh. Then. THEN. I drank some wine.”

  “So you didn’t—at any point—hand out candy to children drunk?”

  “No, what? No … thash weird … who … who wu-do thash.”

  “Indeed.”

  “INDEED.” Caroline repeats the word, but this time with a cartoonish British accent.

  “Where are you—”

  “Indeed!” Another exclamation.

  “Okay.”

  “Guvnah!” And then Caroline crumbles into a fit of giggles, her phone cracking to the floor. I wait. She meanders around the house trying to find the phone until finally squealing, “Where youuuuuuuu go! There you go!” She picks up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Caroline? Honey, can you—”

  “Ooooooooh, honeyyyyyyyyyyyyy.”

  “Caroline…”

  “Who is thish?”

  “It’s Olivia.”

  “Oh, hello.” My head drops into my hands.

  “Is it time for bed?” I ask.

  “Is that why you called?” Caroline whispers.

  A beat.

  “Yes.” I raise my head.

  “Oh.”

  “So, time for bed?”

  “Sure, yeah, okay.”

  “Do you want me to come over? Make sure you’re okay?” I hear a rustling and some distant mumbling. More rustling. “Caroline?” A door. Open and close. Another door. Some more rustling.

  “Olivia?” A man’s deep voice crackles through the line.

  “Richard. Oh, thank god.”

  “I’ve got her. She’s fast asleep on some patio furniture.”

  “Oh, good. Can you do me a favor?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can you get her up to bed and then take her phone?”

  “Yep.”

  I catch myself. “And you know, make sure she doesn’t choke on her vomit and die, but…”

  “Mostly the phone.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will do.”

  “Keep me posted?”

  “Copy that.” Richard hangs up without a sign-off. I guess former Navy SEALs don’t really feel the need to say adorable polite farewells.

  Before I get into some weepy monologue, I stand and walk into the kitchen. I haven’t eaten much of anything all day and would like to get something down before I turn in. I get out the fixings for my chicken salad. I grab a glass and find a bottle of club soda in the fridge, hoping it will settle my stomach.

  I sit down at the dining room table, flip my napkin onto my lap, and look down at the salad. This is essentially the same salad
I’ve been making for myself ever since I started losing weight. In the very beginning, I experimented with different meals and, after trying to do some weird, healthy hash thing with a sweet potato and black beans, gained two pounds in one week. I freaked out and went straight back to my beloved chicken salad for dinner. Within two weeks I’d lost four pounds—the two that I’d gained from the Great Hash Incident plus two more. I take a bite. Wash it down with club soda.

  Another bite.

  This same salad. Chicken. Cherry tomatoes. Goat cheese. Olive oil. Balsamic vinegar. Field greens. If I’m on my own, this is the dinner I make. Another bite. I’m even still using the same Barefoot Contessa recipe to cook the chicken.

  I look over to the kitchen. I make the same smoothie for breakfast every morning. Hemp milk. Handful of baby kale. Vegan protein powder. Half of a frozen banana. Almond butter. It’s changed a little over the years. Skim milk to almond milk to hemp milk. Greens to baby spinach to baby kale. I changed the brand of protein powder to one Leah told me about that wasn’t as grainy. And the tablespoon of almond butter is new once I swapped out the avocado. Like within the last few years.

  Another bite.

  I also eat the same lunch every day when I’m not out with a client. Small curd cottage cheese. Cinnamon. Fresh berries—preferably blackberries, as they have less carbs than raspberries—although I enjoy raspberries more. Another bite.

  Same smoothie. Same cottage cheese lunch. Same chicken salad dinner. Every day. For going on fifteen years. I fork a cherry tomato and pull it through a smear of goat cheese. It seems that boring, numb robot who likes to surround herself with pretty little idiots also doesn’t have much of a palate.

  I finish the salad, load the dishwasher, turn off all the lights in the house, and shuffle down the hall to my bedroom. I’m done processing the bullshit I’ve seen today. I’m going to close this day out once and for all. With our Christmas card photo shoot tomorrow, I have plenty to think about while I take my makeup off. What I’ll wear. What Adam will wear. I take a long shower. Will I use a holiday background or take a more casual shot somewhere in the house? I dry off and brush my teeth. How will I act like my husband isn’t a lying cheating bastard? I get into my pajamas and crawl into bed. Maybe I should go to the store and grab some pastries to set out for the photographer. Just as I’m plugging in my phone, I receive a text from Richard.

  “Caroline in bed. Asleep. I have phone now.”

  I text back, “Thank you.” And nothing.

  I set the alarm and turn over on my side. Away from my phone and toward where Adam should be, but hasn’t been for days if not … has it been weeks? I flip back over. Yes. I think I will get some pastries for tomorrow.

  HULK

  After making my morning smoothie, using peaches and cardamom instead of berries (take that, Boring Robot), I decide to ride my bike to the store in case I won’t be able to get into the gym today. Besides, it’s a crisp autumn day and I’m looking to shake off any remnants of Yesterday: The Day That Would Not End.

  I roll into the parking lot, lock my bike up to a low metal gate near the market, grab my reusable bags, and stride into the store feeling strong and purposeful. I situate my messenger bag so it doesn’t split my torso with one boob on either side and pull a grocery cart loose from its brethren. Just as I was leaving for the store, Adam texted that he’d be home within the hour. He didn’t even make up a lie this time. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.

  I bury myself in buying food for the Christmas card shoot. I feel the same vicarious joy in picking out foods I never eat as I do when I’m searching for the perfect gift for someone. The freedom to be luxurious. Something I rarely extend to myself.

  I buy raspberries, juice, pastries fresh from the bakery, and various sparkling waters. I pile them in my cart and find the express lane. As I wait in line, I scan the tabloids. Infuriating headlines that taunt women as they shop for their families with promises that the perfect women they envy are on the verge of losing their man, getting older and fatter, or some shameful scandal involving all three.

  We deliberately timed the announcement of Caroline and Max’s divorce so it’d miss this week’s magazine covers. I’m sure all of the tabloids are working on next week’s cover now, scrabbling through their archives for photos of Caroline where she isn’t wearing makeup and looks appropriately desperate.

  The woman in front of me sets her groceries down on the conveyor belt and protectively places the plastic separator between her groceries and mine. I’m just about to start unloading my groceries when someone bumps me.

  “Let me just get in front of you,” the old woman says, clutching a container of soup.

  “I’m sorry?”

  The woman is dressed in a pair of stained sweats and an old T-shirt announcing that she was a finisher in the Fun in the Sun 5K back in 1985. She’s bone thin and has applied enough mascara for a big night out, set off by pink circles of rouge on her cheeks that would make any Victorian doll envious.

  “Yeah, let me just get in front of you,” she repeats, now elbowing her way past me. But, there’s not enough room in the narrow express lane and it’s very quickly turning into the most depressing slapstick comedy bit ever recorded.

  “Okay. Ma’am? Just … can you hold on a second?” Now everyone is staring and the woman is standing so close to me that I can smell not only the tomato soup dripping down the sides of the container but her powdery rose perfume as well. “Let me move out of your way before you—” and in the middle of my sentence she starts pushing past me once more, pulling a shelf of spearmint gum to the ground in the process. I bend down to pick up the gum just as she steps over me, sloshing her soup down on the conveyor belt.

  “I’ve got water on my lung,” the woman says as I’m picking up the gum.

  “Oh,” I say.

  “My friends think I should go to the hospital, but they’ll just admit me.”

  “Uh-huh.” I put the last packet of gum back on the shelf.

  “I just wanted some soup, you know?” I nod. As the woman tells the cashier her tale of woe, I start to put my groceries down on the conveyor belt again.

  “I wish I could eat like that,” she says, eyeing my haul.

  “I’m sorry?” The woman hands the cashier a wadded-up five-dollar bill.

  “I said I wish I could eat like that,” she yells as if I’m hard of hearing.

  “It’s for a morning meeting.” I can hear the defensiveness in my voice.

  “That’s what I used to say, too,” she says with an elaborate wink. Her mascaraed eyelashes stick to one another and for a brief moment, she looks like some garage sale baby doll with one eye forever stuck closed.

  “Your change,” the cashier says, holding out the woman’s money and an overlong receipt. I force myself to look anywhere else but at the woman, trying to preemptively shield myself from whatever zinger of a parting shot she has planned for me. She shoves the change and the receipt into her pocket, cradles the container of soup, and shambles out of the store without a second thought of me.

  “She comes in all the time,” the cashier says, beeping my groceries over the scanner. I hand my reusable bags to the bag boy.

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Mean as a snake,” the cashier says, her voice dipping to a whisper. I don’t want to know the history of the Saddest Woman in the World and I certainly don’t want to commiserate with this cashier about how mean she was to me. I want to buy my food, bike home, and set up a lovely spread for the photographer so I can have an even better Christmas card with the husband who’s been cheating on me for the entirety of our marriage. I need this morning to go well. I need this morning to go according to plan.

  “Yeah, I kind of got that,” I say, pulling my credit card from my wallet and sliding it through the machine. And then, like the beginnings of a cold, I feel the tingling of the little voices asking: How thin do I have to be before no one feels the need to comment on what I’m eating? What made
that woman think we were fellow travelers? Could she tell I’m a fraud?

  I walk out of the grocery store without so much as a grunted farewell and hurry out to my bike. Forcing myself to get back on track, I unlock my bike, put the reusable bags into the basket, tuck my wallet underneath them, and buckle my helmet under my chin. Just as I’m kicking off, I see a run-down minivan parked across the entrance of the grocery store. That’s got to be hers, I think to myself.

  Despite everything telling me not to investigate, I pedal toward her. Not even trying to park in any designated spot except the one a fire truck would use in case of an emergency, the woman is now sitting in the front seat of her car drinking the soup. I need to tell her that I biked here, introduce her to Luz Alcazar—yes, THE Luz Alcazar—the world-famous photographer who will be taking our personal Christmas card portrait. I can see myself now, bicycle helmet askew, screaming my accomplishments into her smoke-stained window, the smell of tomato soup saturating my impromptu, parking lot keynote speech.

  Instead, all I feel as I pedal past is this chilling recognition of something familiar. Something inevitable.

  I will not end up like you, old woman.

  I won’t.

  I bike home faster than I’ve ever biked. It feels good and momentarily washes me clean of whatever stink that woman left on me. I’ll never be able to eat tomato soup again, I think, as I pull into our driveway.

  I set out my breakfast spread, get showered, and as I’m blow-drying my hair, I hear Adam come in.

  “Liv?” he calls out. I hear his keys clatter onto the table. “I got you a coffee from that place you like.” I walk out of the bathroom, my towel tied tightly around my body.