Thirty Happens (23 page)

I waved and walked outside.

Union Avenue in Onset at the end of July was a hot and muggy flurry of activity. Even though there was an ocean breeze coming off the bay, the air still felt so thick and despite just coming out of the air conditioned comfort of the office, my clothes were already feeling sticky on my skin.

The smell of salt air mixed with whatever Alex was baking a block away combined into the perfect summer scent. It was intoxicating. Seriously, they should figure out how to bottle that up and put it into a candle. It would sell like crazy at local stores.

I turned left, deciding that I needed whatever the hell Alex was making. Even though it was a million degrees out, she always kept the side windows open. In the spring and fall, she kept the door open. She said it was worth the extra cost of air conditioning in the amount of tourist foot traffic she got.

I stopped by to get her an iced coffee with two espresso shots at the café before walking in the door at Nonna’s. I couldn’t help but feel that happy sadness I got every time I walked in and saw the polka dot wall with pictures that all the towns’ people contributed of them and Nonna. It was a smart move, and really put this place on the map for the locals.

Alex worked a ton of hours, but she really loved what she did and you could see it in her eyes every time she tied up a box of goodies that someone was bringing home. There was something amazing in being able to do what you loved. For me, it was writing. For her, it was baking. But we both got that satisfaction of having seen our dreams to fruition.

Well, mostly.

I frowned a little, allowing a moment of darkness into my day as I thought briefly of the dreams I’d chosen to let go.

Ugh.

Move on, Karyn.

“Hey, Kar, whatcha in the mood for today?”

“Everything.”

I held up the iced coffee and raised an eyebrow.

She reached both of her arms out over the counter.

“Gimme!”

She took a long, deep sip from the straw and sighed with contentment. Then her face scrunched up.

“Ooooh brain freeze, brain freeze.”

She jumped up and down waving her hands in front of her face.

I just laughed at her.

“Every time, Alex, and it never gets old.”

“I live to amuse you.”

“You succeed.”

She looked over her display proudly and then reached in for something that looked flaky and gooey with chocolate drizzle and some sliced almonds on top.

“Here.”

I reached for my wallet, but she waved me off.

“Fair trade, liquid energy for the pastry. Besides, it’s one of my newer creations, so you will be sort of my guinea pig.”

I shrugged and broke off a piece, thrilled to see some marzipan in the middle.

“Oh my God, it’s like a dark chocolate covered roasted almond in a cloud of yummy.”

She laughed at me.

“I swear, I’m going to start recording your reactions to what you eat. The descriptions you come out with are better than anything I’ve written up on the menu.”

I just grinned at her. How could I not be smiling when eating this concoction?

“What are you calling this one?”

“Well, it’s a variation on an impade, a light cookie that has marzipan filling. But instead of the traditional dough, I went with a flakier pastry dough and drizzled that ganache on it. No name, though, because if someone came in here ordering an impade and I handed that, they would probably hit me.”

She frowned.

Alex’s strength was taking traditional Italian baking and adding a modern twist.

“So, how ‘bout Chocolate Covered Orgasm’?”

She raised an eyebrow at me.

“As much as I would
love
to, I would also like to stay in business and not get shut down by the board of health for offering orgasms.”

“Chocolate Covered Heaven?”

She nodded, a smile growing on her face.

“I think that might work. You gonna be at Ashley’s tonight?”

I gave her a look that said ‘are you crazy?’

“It’s Friday, right? I think my body would go into some form of shock if I didn’t get my weekly ice cream fix.”

“Cool, see you then.”

We hugged and I walked back out into the street. I had far too many articles to get rolling on before I would be able to relax and enjoy the usual evening with my friends.

chapter thirty.

T
hirty.

For some reason, that number had been reverberating through my head all day today. When I was getting ready for work this morning, I was obsessing over it.

Which was totally crazy and made absolutely no sense. I had only turned twenty nine, like nine or ten days ago. I had a whole year to enjoy waving goodbye to my youth.

Maybe it was everything going on. I mean, I had so many big things happening. Like getting married.

In sixty five days I was getting married.

That just seemed so, I don’t know. Grown up. It just sounded so
thirty
.

Like, middle aged or something.

I wasn’t questioning getting married. I certainly wasn’t questioning my choice in a husband. Chris was freaking amazing, and he really put up with so much from me.

I was still surprised that somehow, miraculously, he wanted me. He wanted to be my husband and put up with me until the end of time.

I had to shake this off.

I’d seen Leah this morning to get the interview for her open house. She’d confided in me that this was sort of her last ditch effort to increase the membership enough to keep it running. She figured she had about two months left at this rate before she’d have to close her doors.

I really hoped I could help. I would hate to see her have to walk away from what was her dream. Although truth be told, she didn’t seem to enjoy it very much these days. It was more like a nightmare that she couldn’t wake up from.

I sat in my car, thinking of my friend when my thoughts switched back to my age.

Thirty.

I would have thought that this would be
my
personal nightmare, back when I was in my twenties catching the T to get to different points in Boston, writing for one of the biggest papers in the country. This settled down life was not what I had in my five or ten year plan.

But, somehow, as much as part of me did miss the exciting life I had lived and the dreams I walked away from, I was happy. Yeah, it could get frustrating if I dwelled on what I left behind. However, what I gained in exchange was so much better.

Most days.

I was sitting in the parking lot of the Wareham Center Nursing Home, where I had just interviewed Katherine Miller, who turned one hundred and nine. Her family sat around us, with decorations and cake and ice cream.

I had been expecting a spaced out woman who was barely clinging to the threads of life while slumped in a wheelchair.

One of these days I would learn not to have such expectations.

Katherine
was
in a wheelchair, but she was pretty alert and still had a mind of her own. It was really a ton of fun to chat with her.

“Ms. Miller, what are your thoughts on turning one hundred and nine?”

“Well, it sure as hell beats the alternative.”

With that, she had broken the ice. We talked about her five husbands. Yes.
Five
. Some she’d buried, some she’d divorced. She was not planning on being buried near any of them because that could be hard on some of her kids. So when it was her turn to go, she wanted to be cremated and dumped in the ocean. She always loved swimming as a kid and wanted to return to the Briarwood beach where she used to run barefoot on the sand.

“Young lady, you’re freaking out about turning
thirty
? You are exactly eighty years younger than me. You have so much more that is going to happen in your life than you could ever imagine. You think you feel old now? Wait till your grandchild turns fifty.
That
is when you feel old. No, life isn’t even close to done for you. You will have that wedding you are planning. You will enjoy your friends. You will have so much laughter and happiness. Someday, there will be some babies. There will be so much joy and pain and happiness and anger that will fill your life. Don’t be worried about an age. It is just that, age. A marker for the time that you have spent on this planet. Enjoy living. Because before you know it, you’re in a nursing home, surrounded by everyone you love and being interviewed just because you outlived people.”

With that, she cackled with laughter at the absurdity of it all.

And damn, if she wasn’t right.

Every minute of my life from when I first started writing articles to when I got the call about mom’s accident had been planned. I had a course that I was following and I wasn’t about to deviate from it. Obviously, there had been some unexpected bumps along the way, but for the most part, no surprises on the professional front.

Then life happened, and changed course.

If I was honest with myself, truly honest with myself, I would have to admit that life was more enjoyable now, in a small town, working for a small paper with my small group of friends and awesome husband to be.

I guess the saying was right - if you wanted to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.

***

Well,
that
didn’t go according to plan.

I, unfortunately, had started reading the Fifty Shade series and got some stupid ideas in my head that getting tied up and spanked would be so much fun.

I even goaded poor Chris into spanking me, which by the way is
not
fun.

No, not at all.

It hurt. I was probably going to have a handprint bruise on my ass for a few days.

UGH.

That’s what I got for trying to spice shit up.

Chris looked at me with a little concern. Apparently, these past few days when I’d been sort of introspective and thinking about the past and what I didn’t have as opposed to what I
did
have, he had noticed.

“Kar, if you could go back in time and change it all, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t.” He smiled and leaned forward for a kiss, then laid on his side and pulled my back to him, so that we were curled up together.

Would I?

No. I really wouldn’t.

I flipped over and looked him in the eye.

“Chris, I’m sorry I’ve been a space case. Yeah, sometimes I get a little down that I don’t have my Pulitzer, yet. But I have so much more. So what is it you think I would change? Yeah, I almost lost my mom. But I didn’t. And I got you. I wouldn’t change that. I got my crazy friends, who are pretty damn awesome. I wouldn’t change that. We’re getting married. Really soon. I
definitely
wouldn’t change that.”

He smiled.

Time to go in for the kill.

I pulled the little stick wrapped in toilet paper out of the nightstand and held it out to him. When I’d realized that I was ‘late’ earlier this evening, I had slipped into the bathroom with hopes of seeing a plus sign.

“And I definitely would not change this moment. When I get to tell you that in about nine months, we will be a family of three. So if I went back and made the other decision, if I chose to stay, I would be giving up on life.”

Silence.

He just stared at the positive pregnancy test stick in my outstretched hand.

“Chris, are you okay.”

“Did you just say what I thought you said?”

“Hmmmm, that I wouldn’t change a thing?”

“Uh-uh, a little further back.”

“I don’t have a Pulitzer yet?”

I shrieked as he flipped me on my back and started tickling me.

“Stop, stop, you shouldn’t tickle a pregnant woman, the baby might fall out.”

I was pulled up into the biggest hug as warm tears of happy poured out of both of our eyes.

“You have just made every dream I never knew I had come true.”

I just smiled and touched his face.

“How did this happen?”

“Oh sweetie, if I have to explain that to you....”

“No, I think I’ve got that figured out.  I meant, how did it happen with us? Last I knew you were on birth control pills.”

“Oh, yeah. Those. I may or may not have stopped taking them a month or two ago. Well, once I was pretty sure I wouldn’t look like a bloated whale at our wedding, anyway.”

“Huh. I wonder why it took us so long to get pregnant, then.  I mean, two
months?
”

“I guess your elderly swimmers just needed a little extra time, and a GPS system.”

With that, he started tickling me all over again, and kissing my neck at the same time.

Happy sigh.

In life, I guess dreams adjusted daily. And in their own, crazy way, it looked like my adjusted dream were all coming true.

THE END