Making a hard decision feels like this:
a racing heart
cold sweat
numb lips
tingly fingers
queasy stomach
weak limbs
dizziness
Panic, in other words. Making a decision feels like panic.
(I once asked Fitz if this visceral response was normal. He didn’t respond, which makes me think the answer is no.)
I’ve been sweaty and crampy and sick since last night, and that’s why I’m on a yeast-finding expedition. Because I need help, and baking always helps.
“Are the goats going to be okay in this weather?” I wrap my hands around my hot chocolate and take a sip, fiddling again with the broken heater in Clover’s old Prius, on the off chance that today is the day my poking and prodding become effective. (Spoiler alert: It’s not.)
“It’s only fifty-five degrees,” Clover says.
“Only? Fifty-five degrees is practically subarctic.”
“It’s going to be much colder than this wherever you end up for Christmas.”
I groan. “What would you do, if you were me?”
Clover turns off the car and pulls a pink beanie with a fuzzy pom-pom over her long ice-blonde waves. We’re both in yoga clothes because, like I predicted, her condition for driving me to the store is that I attend goat yoga with her. The class is put on by her youth group and run by her boyfriend, Jay. I rarely join Clover at her youth group activities, but when she first mentioned goat yoga, it was too weird and too hilarious to pass up. She was also nervous, she confessed before our first class, that she didn’t have the “right” body type for yoga. Naturally, she smashed that fear in about point two seconds, proving that curvy girls can do whatever they want.
“You know what I would do.”
“You would choose the boy.”
She grins. “I always choose the boy.”
“What would your mother say if she could hear you?”
Clover rolls her eyes. “My mother chose the boy too, once upon a time. And she still chooses him, ‘every single day,’ as she likes to remind me.”
“Did you tell them about your Christmas Eve plans?” I ask her.
“Blah. No. I’m putting it off as long as I can. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right?”
“Is that what they teach at that church of yours?” I tease while we exit the car and cross the cold, crowded parking lot. Three days before Christmas and everyone has last-minute errands to run. “Only in your house would you have to lie about serving Christmas Eve lunch at the women’s shelter.”
“It’s not about the service or the shelter. My mom served there herself half a dozen times when she was campaigning, and half a dozen more since she was elected to the state house.”
Clover’s mom is the junior representative of Arizona’s Twelfth District, and I vividly remember the campaign pictures of her “happily unmarried” parents and her brother, Heath, in aprons and hairnets serving soup to the women and children in the shelter who were fleeing domestic abuse. Bethany James is a total bleeding heart, but she also disapproves of much of Clover’s new lifestyle.
“If Jay wasn’t there—”
“If Jay wasn’t there, she’d still be weird about it. Church gives her hives. But it’s the serious boyfriend thing that really freaks her out,” she says.
“Sorry, Clove. She’ll come around,” I say, even as I remember her grimacing the whole way through her daughter’s baptism this summer.
“That’s what I’ve been telling Jay, and myself, for the last nine months. But I swear it’s gotten worse. If she’s not careful, she’s going to push us both away for good.” Glass doors slide open and we step into a rush of warm air. A stack of cinnamon-scented pine cones sits near the door, giving the air a warm, spicy aroma.
I frown as I grab a grocery basket, unsure of what to say. Sure, it was a little weird for me the first time I saw Clover passing out flyers for the Christian Youth Group, but her life is not about me. Going to church makes her happy. Dating Jay makes her happy. But sometimes she hints about a distant future with Jay, and my skin itches at the prospect of making that commitment at such a young age.
“Enough distracting yourself with my problems. Did you make a pro-con list?”
“You have to ask?” Pro-con lists are a sham. The pro of one thing is inevitably the con of another thing, making it all a wash.
“Spell it out for me anyway.”
We bypass rows of candy canes and wrapping paper, sidestepping a disgruntled employee with a mop and a bucket on our way to the baking aisle. “If I go to the cabin with Fitz, I can destroy that horrible letter before he has the chance to read it. If I go to New York, well, that’s self-explanatory. I’d be in New York. But how can I enjoy New York if I’m worried about the letter?”
“Huh.” She picks up a jar of yeast and tosses it into my basket.
“What?”
“If you don’t want Fitz to read the letter, why’d you write it?”
“Because!” I huff. She folds her arms and waits. “Because I knew he was planning some romantic thing with Molly and I was sad and jealous and felt like I would explode if our relationship continued as-is for another day. I was tired of being his consolation prize, the girl he calls when his relationship goes up in flames.”
“What changed?”
“I saw him.” I flash back to his damp hair in the rain, the way he carefully held the umbrella over my head, his strong hands as he kept me from falling.
“That’s all it took to break down your resolve? Looking at him?”
I shrug. “That’s all it ever takes.”
I put the last few supplies in my basket and we exit the aisle.
“Mom asked me to grab wrapping paper and Scotch tape, then we can go,” Clover says. We weave our way through a trail of wet-floor signs and follow the explosion of red and green to the Christmas aisle, where I yelp at the familiar sight of glasses and shiny black hair. I grab Clover’s arm and pull her into the greeting card aisle.
“What are you doing?”
“Molly!” I whisper.
“What?”
“Molly’s in the Christmas aisle.”
“No way.” Clover pokes her head around the endcap and gasps.
“What’s she doing?” I ask.
“Holding a stuffed teddy bear. Do you think it’s for Fitz?”
“She forfeited the right to buy Fitz a present when she dumped him.” I edge near her and peek around an endcap displaying last-minute stocking stuffers. Molly Nguyen is standing forlornly in front of a shelf of cheesy teddy bears in Santa hats. Clover moves to walk into the aisle but I pull her back. “Wait for her to leave!”
“We’re gonna be late for yoga,” Clover says too loudly. Molly looks up and catches us staring at her.
“Oh! I didn’t think I’d see anyone I knew.” Molly gestures to her sloppy ponytail and baggy Minnie Mouse sweatshirt as we move awkwardly into the aisle.
“You look fine,” Clover says. And she does. It’s true that Molly’s usually more put together than this, but she still has an effortlessly cute vibe. If I were a more evolved human or a better feminist, I wouldn’t be jealous of her flawless beauty or the way her face was made for those chic black frames, but I’m not better, and I am jealous.