Every Other Wednesday Page 7

  And then there were the people with young children. Joan had checked her watch just twenty minutes ago, when, on her way to the restaurant, she saw a young mother with two elementary school aged–looking boys in tow. No school today? Did she homeschool the boys? What were they doing there at noon on a Wednesday?

  And yet, as much as Joan wanted to dislike the casino, she didn’t. Instead, when there she experienced—what was it?—a feeling of freedom, of escape, like she was far away from her normal life and set of expected behaviors. The people at the casino were so different from those she interacted with on a regular basis. The surroundings, the décor was distasteful to Joan; and yet it was intriguing, with its Native American themes and references to wildlife and nature. There were no clocks to remind people of what they were supposed to be doing, enabling them to get lost in this fantasy world. What was the harm—well, the potential of losing a bunch of money aside—in that? And as long as people could control their gambling, wasn’t it just another form of entertainment?

  “Penny for your thoughts,” said Alice, taking off her coat. “I’ve said hello twice.”

  Joan laughed. “I was thinking about this place,” she said. “What it stands for, what it means.”

  Alice smiled at her new friend. “And what have you discovered?”

  “How deep do you want to go?”

  “Within a half inch of the surface.”

  “Not a whole lot then.”

  Alice set her cell phone down on the table. “Speaking of lots,” said Alice, “I definitely picked the wrong one. If we eat here again, Evergreen is not the place to park your car.”

  “Sorry, I forgot to tell you,” said Joan. “Stephen and I have learned that lesson ourselves.”

  “Have you heard from Ellie?” asked Alice. “She’s probably lost too.”

  “No,” said Joan. “Call her.”

  Just as Alice was scrolling through her contacts, Ellie rushed into the restaurant. Coat still on, she sat down in the chair next to Alice. “Where did you guys park?”

  Alice laughed.

  “Red Maple,” said Joan. “When you come for a meal at the casino, park in Red Maple.”

  “Now she tells me,” said Ellie, smiling at her friends.

  “I am sorry. The first couple times here, I was very confused.”

  “First couple times?” asked Alice, checking her text messages now that the phone was in her hand. “Do you guys come here a lot?”

  “No,” said Joan. “We were here for that fundraiser last month.”

  “Oh yeah, the Southwood Cancer Society,” said Alice. “Dave and I were going to go to that, too, but we couldn’t since he forgot to tell me about another obligation, a run in the woods, that night. Who runs in the woods at night?”

  “Next year,” said Joan, choosing to pick up her menu again rather than explore night running with Alice. She hoped looking at her menu would send a signal to the others to do the same, to order and then talk. When Alice and Ellie had lifted their menus off the table, Joan said, “As soon as we’ve ordered, I want to hear all about your new client, Ellie.”

  Ellie put her menu back down on the table. “She’s wonderful.”

  Alice leaned in closer to Ellie. “You’re blushing,” she said. “She must have given you a lot of business.”

  Ellie shook her head. “No, it’s not a lot of business. She’s just a really nice person. You know when you connect with someone, when you can almost read the other person’s thoughts? That’s the way our first meeting went. We were in sync on everything.”

  Alice laid her menu on the table. “That’s because she’s a woman, not a man.”

  “I’m going to have some sushi,” Joan said, her stomach announcing its hunger. She had had nothing to eat that day but a low-fat yogurt at seven o’clock.

  “Me too,” said Alice. “If there’s a place to eat sushi, this is it.”

  “How about you, Ellie?” asked Joan, nodding at their server to approach the table.

  “I’m going with Chinese,” Ellie said. “I can’t do the raw thing.”

  Orders placed and water glasses topped off, Joan said, “So, what’s her name, this wonderful woman at the new pet store?”

  “Diana,” said Ellie, smiling. “Diana McGuire.”

  “Oh, no wonder you like her,” said Alice, jabbing her left elbow into Ellie’s side. “It’s the Irish in both of you.”

  Ellie tilted her head slightly. “Could be.”

  “And you just walked right in there and asked for her business,” said Joan.

  Ellie grinned. “I did just that.”

  “Nice job,” said Joan, raising her water glass in a toast. The other two lifted theirs and touched them to Joan’s glass.

  “The world needs more women business owners,” said Alice.

  “Something wrong with male business owners?” asked Joan.

  “Yes,” said Alice, squeezing her fingers into small fists and flashing a pained expression. “Or, at least, one particular male business owner. My husband is driving me crazy. He insists on hiring runners to sell our shoes. And I get that; they know what they’re talking about. But they aren’t always the best salespeople because half of their brains are always thinking about their next running opportunity.” Joan smiled. Alice did not. “So, Dave is spending more and more time at the store—especially now that Linda is gone. He sees no real reason to be home in time for dinner, like he used to, to catch up with his youngest daughter, or, I guess, to be with me.”

  “Is the business in trouble?” asked Ellie.

  “No—the opposite, I think. Although I don’t honestly know because Dave is a lousy accountant,” said Alice. “The new store in Kensington is scheduled to open on New Year’s Day, but everything from shoe production to shelving units delivery is either behind or back ordered.” Their food arrived: tuna rolls for Joan, California rolls for Alice, and chicken and broccoli for Ellie. Joan mixed some wasabi mustard in with the soy sauce she had poured into the small dish next to her plate, dipped a piece into it, and put the whole thing into her mouth. She closed her eyes. “Nirvana?” asked Alice.

  “Close to it,” said Joan. “This is fantastic sushi.” She used the wooden chopsticks to pick up another piece, which she dipped and held in the air as she said, “So, are you going to help him?”

  “Who, Dave?” asked Alice. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve been toying with going back to the store, as you know. But I’m not sure I want to do it right now. I want some time for myself. And I know that sounds crazy—but having kids around the house for twenty-five years drained me. I’m not ready to work fifty hours a week for Dave at the new store. He’d be paying me out of our profits. Plus, I’m just starting to get back in shape.”

  Ellie speared a piece of broccoli with her fork. “How is that going? Are you as sore as you were in the beginning?”

  “Not as sore, but sore nonetheless. It’s not easy taking up running again—which is essentially what I’m doing—in your fifties.”

  “It’s not easy taking up anything in your fifties,” said Joan. “You’re lucky you have a place to work if you want. Can you imagine the looks I’d get if I walked into William Chester High School this afternoon and asked them for a job teaching calculus?”

  “You want to teach calculus?” asked Alice. “I flunked calculus. You can start with me.”

  “I can talk to Chris,” said Ellie. “He can find out what positions might be opening next semester or next fall.”

  Joan picked up another piece of sushi and swirled it in her soy sauce. “I’ll let you know,” she said. “I’m not ready to talk to anyone yet, but I want to do something.”

  “What about your mother-in-law?” asked Alice. “What is she going to think of this plan? And how about Stephen—does he want you to work?”

  “I haven’t talked with either of them about it,” said Joan, smiling. “However, if I’m going to change Sandi’s or Stephen’s mind, I’m going to need to develop a well thought o
ut plan. These are not people you approach with half-baked ideas.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Ellie. “When I was thinking about starting my own accounting business, my father and brothers grilled me for an entire evening.”

  “Hey,” said Joan, turning to face Alice. “What about your family? You haven’t talked about them. All I know is that you grew up in Connecticut and went to school in Oregon.”

  Alice bit into one of her California rolls. “I’ll give you the short version,” she said, chewing. “My only sibling, an older sister, is a neurosurgeon in San Francisco. And my parents moved out there twenty years ago to take care of Carolyn’s kids while she changed the world. They, my parents, spend a week with us every summer, and that is that.”

  “Interesting,” said Joan, a word she sometimes used when she really wanted to use something more negative.

  “Very,” said Alice.

  “And your sister?” asked Ellie. “Do you see her?”

  “Her family comes east every summer too. We all gather at one of those resorts along the Connecticut coast and pretend we’re close to one another,” said Alice, reaching for her water glass.

  “What about Dave’s family?” asked Joan.

  “Oh, we see them,” said Alice, moving her eyes to Joan’s face. “As long as we’re willing to go to them and stay no more than two nights, they’re happy to be with us.”

  DECEMBER

  CHAPTER 13

  When Dave walked into the kitchen on Friday morning, wearing his winter running clothes and yawning, Alice handed him a mug of black coffee. “It looks like you’re heading out there.”

  “I am,” he said. “Just for a quick one.”

  “Can I go with you?”

  Dave gave Alice a blank expression for a few seconds and then spoke the words he might have been searching for during the pause. “It’s icy, dark, and cold. Are you sure you want to go now? Why not go later when it’s warmer and light outside?”

  “Because you’ll be at work then.” Dave blew a stream of air out of the side of his mouth. Alice put her hands on her hips. “You have been telling me for two months that you’ll run with me.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know. And I think it’s great that you’re getting back into it. I just had a different thing in mind this morning. I was planning on doing four miles at a seven-minute pace.”

  “Never mind then,” said Alice, turning her back on him and refilling her coffee mug.

  Dave walked up behind Alice and put his hands on her shoulders. “You’re right,” he said. “I haven’t made time for running with you. If you let me off the hook this morning, I’ll go with you tomorrow. It’s supposed to be in the low forties, which will make it a lot more pleasant out there.”

  Alice turned around and faced him. “You’re not working tomorrow?”

  “I am,” he said, “but only in the morning.”

  “What if you get busy?” asked Alice, who had been promised Saturday runs that never materialized. And the Christmas season was always crazy with people buying gifts or gearing up for their New Year’s resolutions.

  “I’ll get extra help in the afternoon tomorrow,” said Dave. He smiled at his wife, finished the coffee, and put his mug in the sink. He pushed several buttons on his runner’s watch and strode toward the back door. “I’ll be back in thirty.”

  Alice was tempted to change her clothes and follow him. She knew his route; she could start from the end and jog toward the beginning. When they met, she could turn around and finish the loop with him. She took a couple steps toward the hallway, toward the stairs, toward their bedroom, and then turned around, walked back to the sink, and squinted out in the darkness to check the temperature on their outdoor thermometer. It was twenty-seven degrees. “To hell with it,” she said, heating her coffee in the microwave and then sitting down at the kitchen table. She read the newspaper’s front page headlines, and then sat back in the chair and looked at the clock. She wondered how she was ever going to get back into the habit of running daily if she didn’t have help.

  Ellie had invited Alice to walk with her. Ellie walked just about every day at a—what was it?—thirteen-minute-mile pace. That was impressive, much faster than the mall walkers, who appeared to be more interested in window shopping than in exercise, or the mall talkers, who walked a mile and a half loop in forty-five minutes, who didn’t come close to needing a shower before they parked their wide bottoms in a booth at the coffee shop for a whole milk latte and chocolate covered croissant. And these were women her age. Alice picked up her phone from the kitchen table and texted Ellie. Are you walking this morning?

  Ellie texted back. I am. In about an hour, when the sun is up! Do you want to come with me?

  Alice hesitated a moment, and then typed. Yes. I’ll drive to your house. I’ll be there by 8. Text me directions?

  Perfect. It will be nice to have company—well, human company!

  Alice finished reading the first section of the newspaper, focusing mostly on the news about the financial woes of Colt Defense, and then got up from the table to make Dave’s lunch: a peanut butter and local honey sandwich on whole wheat bread, a Greek yogurt, a banana, and two of the oatmeal and raisin cookies she had baked the day before. She was tempted to send the whole tin of them to work with him; they didn’t need cookies at home. But Alice had been baking cookies twice a week for two decades, and it was a hard habit to break. She was on her second—telling herself that eating cookies for breakfast once in a while was good for the soul—when Dave, sweating and breathing hard, came through the back door.

  “How’d you do?” Alice asked the question that Dave wanted to hear, that used to matter to her too.

  Dave looked at his watch, pushing several buttons. “Good,” he said. “It wasn’t as icy as I thought it would be. Each split was faster, and I finished the run in twenty-six minutes. I ran into Jeffrey on Main Street, so we did the last two miles together. He’s fast. He pushed me.”

  “He’s also twenty years younger than you are. He should be fast.”

  Dave removed his skullcap, releasing steam into the kitchen air. He walked to the sink, filled a large glass with cold water, and chugged it down. “It was incredibly invigorating out there this morning. Sometimes winter running is the most rewarding.”

  “Yes.” Alice walked out of the kitchen and into the hallway. She called back over her shoulder, “Your lunch is in the fridge.”

  * * *

  When Alice walked into Ellie’s kitchen, Ellie was putting a leash on Buffy. “Hey,” Ellie said. “Any trouble finding the house?”

  “Nope,” said Alice. “Your directions were perfect—much better than the smartass on Google Maps.” Ellie laughed. “I like your house. This is such a pretty and private street.”

  “It is.” Ellie grabbed her gloves from the kitchen table. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Are you sure you want to take me on? I will slow you down.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” said Ellie, leading Buffy to the back door. “We’re going to shoot for a sixteen-minute-mile pace. And if that’s too fast, we can slow down. I do this six days a week, so if we go easy today, I can always bust a gut tomorrow—or not.”

  Here was a surprise: someone who regularly exercised a certain way who was willing to alter her routine, willing to compromise. Runners, Alice thought, weren’t like that. Once they reached a specified proficiency, they were interested only in moving forward, in getting better, faster. And they pushed one another in that direction. If they did slow down, take an easy run, it was intentional, this tapering; it was part of their training. Alice knew that Ellie was serious about walking, but she was nonetheless prepared to accommodate a newcomer.

  The walking was more challenging than Alice anticipated. She walked quite a bit during the day, but it was typically only when she was doing errands, and it was always at a leisurely pace. She didn’t walk for exercise because she didn’t think of walking as exercise. Runners were convinced
about the superiority of their sport, about the sheer stamina required to run at and sustain a predetermined pace, about the mental discipline needed to finish a long, hard race. Outwardly, they supported everyone practicing an active lifestyle. But inwardly, they thought their sport, for those who excelled at it, was the best. Alice managed to keep Ellie’s pace for three miles, but then she asked Ellie to slow down. Alice’s calves were cramping—they were still sore from running three times that week—and she needed to catch her breath. By the time they reached Ellie’s house, they had slowed even more.

  “I’m sorry,” said Alice. “I think I ruined your workout.”

  Ellie shook her head. “You absolutely did not ruin my workout. Plus we got to catch up on the kids. I’m so glad to hear that Linda is enjoying UConn as much as Tim is loving NYU. The first semester away at college can be a real challenge for kids. Even when they think they are ready to be away from home, they don’t know what that really means until their possessions are unpacked in their dorm rooms and they are living with strangers.”

  “Yeah,” said Alice. “Cathy, my oldest, called us the first night and wanted us to come back and get her.”

  Ellie nodded her head. “Eighteen is such a tender age. High school seniors think they are adults until they have to handle adult responsibilities.”

  “Too true,” said Alice.

  When they were back inside Ellie’s kitchen, Alice accepted Ellie’s offer of a glass of water. They chatted for another five minutes or so before Alice announced that she needed to go. “Thank you,” said Alice, “for taking me with you today.”

  “Anytime,” said Ellie, even though she already had the feeling that another time was not likely.

  On the way home, Alice decided that she didn’t like walking for exercise. It took too long; that was one negative. And the engaged conversation they had that morning had certainly prohibited a serious, calorie-burning session. Of course, Alice admitted that she was not yet ready for a grueling workout. When she ran, it was at a ten-minute-mile pace. But the most compelling reason why Alice liked running better than walking was because running allowed both feet to be simultaneously off the ground. That suspension in the air, however brief, felt to Alice like flying. Nothing else—not yoga, not TRX, not walking—offered that same sense of controlled release. The human body, which Alice and Dave had marveled at and worshipped in college and continued to frequently discuss, was capable of much more than most people knew.