MWF Seeking BFF (26 page)

Aside from Hannah and Jillian, I’ve still never seen any of my Chicago book club friends outside of our meetings. Though I have started emailing with one of my fellow readers whenever there’s something important to say about
Modern Family
or
Friday Night Lights
, and with another when I notice her updates on
Goodreads.com
. And Natalie and I exchange messages about yoga.

You may recall that Natalie is Matt’s coworker, the one who brought me along to her friend’s cookie party earlier this year. We’ve been friendly since then, but two book clubs ago we bonded over her newfound love of yoga—she had started only a month earlier and was already doing a thirty-day challenge—and the fact that I got engaged at an Anusara retreat gave me yogi street cred in her eyes.

(It’s true. Almost two years ago, I booked a trip to Tulum, Mexico, for a week of beachside downward dogs. I’d begged Matt to join me, but since he couldn’t take the days off I decided to test my tolerance for solo travel. There would be like-minded people, I figured. New friends! On the first night, after class but before dinner, I waited, naked and in the dark—we only had electricity late at night—for my shower to heat up. Suddenly a shadow of a man slipped into my hut. I was
about to get raped by a local vagabond.
Why had they told me I didn’t need to lock my room?
After screaming, jumping some five feet in the air and simultaneously trying to cover my lady parts, I saw that the Mexican hobo rapist was in fact Matthew, who’d booked the trip in secret. Nothing like mistaking your fiancé-to-be for a sexual predator. That’s romance.)

It’s been about six weeks since Natalie and I first bonded over yoga. But the magic moment when our friendship really took flight was at our last meeting, on a Friday two weeks back. We’d read, or reread,
The Great Gatsby
, and one of our fellow members was hosting us on her family’s boat. Ten ladies, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Lake Michigan.

As with most of our meetings, discussion about the actual book lasted about thirty minutes. At which point Natalie and I decided to play with our host’s new iPad. She subscribed to
Us Weekly
on that thing! Brilliant.

“I think I want a romper,” I mentioned as we admired Alicia Keys adorably sporting her baby bump in a khaki number.

“You’re kidding.” Natalie looked horrified. “They’re awful!”

“I think they’re cute. If you can rock it, which I’m not sure I can. But they’d be perfect vacationwear. Nice and comfy, no waistband …”

“Right. Wear a dress.”

“I do, but rompers are a good alternative. No thigh chafing!”

“Rachel. Rompers are for infants. They are onesies. A grown woman should not wear one in public.”

The debate continued with no resolution. Until Saturday afternoon when I had lunch with my brother and his girlfriend, who was wearing a glorious Armani Exchange thin-strapped, gray-and-white graphic-print romper.

Gotta love modern technology. Within minutes I’d texted Natalie a photo of Jaime with a note. “See! Cute!”

It has become our Great Romper Debate. Whenever I spot a woman wearing one well, I send Natalie the photographic evidence. Whenever Jessica Simpson wears one, Natalie sends the resulting tabloid attacks my way. This happens more than it should. Some bodies do nothing for my cause.

The romper has become our inside joke. Our friendship tipping point.

FRIEND-DATE 28.
Two weeks after the inaugural dispute, Natalie and I are at the Cubs game. With our men. It’s a perfect double date because there is baseball for the guys, rampant rompering for us, and Matt actually knows these people.

If there’s anything to complain about, it’s that yoga and rompers play such starring roles in our fledgling friendship that I can’t think of much else to say. Romper this and yoga that. Whatever. I’ll take it.

Matt and I are going to Croatia next Friday. It’s our honeymoon, almost one year after the fact. We took a two-week Mediterranean cruise about seven weeks before our wedding, so taking another week off after the nuptials wasn’t in the cards. As it turned out, had we booked a big trip we would have canceled, given how sick Matt’s dad was by the time of the wedding. We couldn’t have known that then, we just lucked out. Well, really lucking out would have been having our fathers walk us down the aisle, but given the circumstances, we took what we could get.

Going to Europe for a full seven days means I’ll have no
choice but to double up on girl-dates this week. It shouldn’t be too hard, as follow-ups have been tough to come by this month. The majority of my new friends are on the wedding circuit and traveling a ton. I’ve been out of town six out of the last nine weekends. People talk about fair-weather friends, but from my experience, the warmer it gets the harder it is to pin people down. I may get my Chicago residency revoked, but I’m just going to say it: I can’t wait for summer to end.

If I really wanted to maintain my once-a-week policy, I could shoot for an impromptu Croatian jaunt with a fellow airline passenger, but that might be pushing it, even for me. Girl-dates are probably not the best addition to a honeymoon agenda.

FRIEND-DATE 29.
Logan, my GirlFriendCircles connection, is not on speed (I don’t think) but she could be. She’s like a tornado, a mini–Tasmanian devil. Given that she’s less than five feet tall, it almost feels as if her tiny size can’t contain her big personality.

I’m a talker, too, so I don’t mind, but it’s exhausting just listening to her. The intense energy she expends telling story after story—and the lack of breaks for, you know, breath—has me on edge. It’s as if she might pass out at any minute and needs to get it all in now. Sort of like Six in
Blossom
or the Micro Machines guy.

“And you should totally come to the trunk show! It’s at my apartment and there are tons of girls, and gorgeous earrings, bracelets, necklaces.” Logan pulls a catalog from her purse. “And wine, of course! It’s so fun! Rachel, you’ll love it!”

There’s real pep here. She’s genuinely excited to tell me stories of jewelry sales and networking events. It’s no wonder she works in PR. There are few women who could pull off this
kind of enthusiasm without appearing totally fake. She’s constantly hosting Tweetups, she says, and is an active member of the Step Up Women’s Network.

“You should come to our event next week! It’s going to be fab.”

I can’t make it—the whole Croatia thing—but I shouldn’t worry. “I’ll keep sending you invitations. You’ll get sick of hearing from me!”

I might, but I appreciate the enthusiasm. She even seems to be the first grown woman in history to love dating. The single ladies I’ve met who are over the age of 25 all harp on the misery of the singles scene. I can’t dispute them, as my most recent experience on the circuit—aside from with my husband—was eight years ago. I went out with a guy I met at a bar in San Francisco my junior year of college. I was interning at
San Francisco Magazine
for three months and had given my number to said gentleman when we met in the Marina neighborhood, around the corner from the room I was renting. A week later, we were to meet at the same spot. I drank an entire cranberry and vodka before he even arrived, let him make out with me on my stoop, and avoided his phone calls ever after. So no, I’m not an expert. But Logan’s lack of woe-is-me attitude is refreshing.

“I told him, ‘Ross, you’ve got a perfect girl here. If you want to see me, you need to book a ticket to Chicago. I’m not traveling to Seattle. Don’t F this up.’ ” Logan’s been talking to a guy who lives across the country. A different one than the South Carolinian she’d been pursuing last month.

“But, you know, I love dating. You never know what you’re going to get!” At 35, I’d think she was being sarcastic, except I’m not sure she knows how.

I nod and smile. It’s unnecessary to interject.

* * *

FRIEND-DATE 30.
Rachel and I meet for the early-bird special, a 5:45 stir-fry dinner before improv. We’re basically eating with our grandparents.

“I think Kimmi hates me,” she tells me.

“Me too! But I have a girl-crush on her anyway,” I say.

“Yeah. She’s way too cool for us.”

Rachel’s speaking my language.

She has an interview to be an intern at a casting agency and needs advice on what to wear. I give her my best how-to-nail-an-interview tips. Afterward, we get vanilla ice cream cones from McDonald’s and agree to make this a weekly date, as soon as I get back from Europe.

I wonder if a honeymoon has ever led to a divorce. Not that mine will. No siree. But I could see how one could. People always describe their honeymoons as “romantic,” “magical,” “blissful.” But traveling for a week with one other person, spending twenty-four hours a day with him and no one else, is sure to lead to a few spats. No one ever admits this, probably for fear of confessing that the honeymoon was over before the actual honeymoon was over.

Our week in Croatia is romantic, blissful, and magical, except for when it is hostile, frustrating, and bitter. Ours is a stupid argument, of the we’ll-laugh-about-this-later variety, but without any friends around for refuge, a little nothing feels like a huge something.

It comes four days into our trip. We are in Korcula, a charming little island off the Dalmatian coast. Actually, we’ve taken
a morning escape from Korcula to Stupe, a tiny beach island with only one structure—a seafood restaurant. There are no sand beaches in Croatia. It’s all rock. I actually prefer it this way, as I’m not a fan of dumping sand out of my bathing suit bottom after a long day in the sun. Still, given the terrain, it probably wasn’t my best idea to scale the entire island in only a pair of black flip-flops. But I’m not unlike a child who fancies herself an explorer, so I run ahead of Matt—in his sensible sneakers—in search of the perfect flat rock to set up shop.

We quickly learn what it seems all the other island visitors already know. Other than the bit of beach directly in front of the restaurant, there is no perfect space to set up shop. It seems we are the only people to have had the bright idea to trek the perimeter of the entire island, and the last bit of rock, which we need to traverse in order to get back to the dock and restaurant, is the most jagged yet. There’s only one solution.

“Take my flip-flops,” I tell Matt. “I’m going to swim it.”

“Okay, be careful,” he says.

It’s only a short distance and the person who needs to be wary is Matt, who’s maneuvering the slippery rocks while wearing his huge backpack and his beloved camera around his neck. We make it with no problem.

Until.

“Matt, there’s a weird pain in my foot and there are these strange black dots on the back of my heel that I can’t get out.”

“It’s probably just rubber fibers from your flip-flops,” he says.

“I don’t know what that means. These shoes don’t even touch the back of my heel. And when I try to get them out it starts to bleed.”

“I’m sure you’re fine,” he says. “You did all that rock climbing with your flip-flops on, they probably rubbed off on your foot. I wouldn’t worry.”

Despite having never heard of flip-flop fibers embedding themselves in someone’s skin, I choose to trust my husband. Until ten minutes later when I hear a group of British children in the water yelling, “Watch out for sea urchins!” Except “urchin” sounds more like “uhhchin” and I wish I could infuse such an accent into my would-be offspring.

“I see a sea uhhchin!”

“Don’t touch the sea uhhchin!”

I have no idea what a sea urchin is—they’re in sushi, yes?—but it appears these kids and their parents are all wearing aqua socks, while I chose to swim barefoot.

“What is a sea urchin, exactly?” I ask their mother, with whom I’d started up a friendly conversation in an effort to get this very information.

“They’re the black spiny things in the water,” she says. “You can spot them if you keep an eye out, but if you step on one the tentacles can get stuck in your foot like a splinter.”

“Do you think that’s what this is?” I shove my heel in her direction.

“I don’t really know. I’ve never seen what the sting looks like, actually.”