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“No, it’s always been a complete waste of time. But maybe if Luisa and I ganged up on her?”
“Has ganging up worked before?”
“It’s Hilary. Nothing’s worked before. Where is Luisa, anyhow?” I asked. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”
Hilary and Iggie reached us where we were standing at the top of the steps. “Hey, Raquel, hey, Pedrolino,” said Iggie. “We were going to check out the buffet. All of that dancing really builds up an appetite.” He patted his velvet shirt where it strained across the beginnings of a pot belly.
“Have you two eaten?” asked Hilary.
“Not yet. We were just trying to find Luisa,” I said.
“She’s over there,” said Hilary, gesturing to the far corner of the tent. Her height gave her an advantage when it came to locating people in crowds. “And it looks like she was right about not needing your help, Rach,” she added.
Beyond the dance floor, Luisa was deep in animated conversation with Abigail. And while Abigail bore a significant resemblance to a gazellelike supermodel, if somebody were to make a movie of Luisa’s life, the lead role would be played by Salma Hayek. Together, the two were a formidable sight. I made a mental note not to stand next to them in any photographs.
“Whoa,” said Iggie, his arm slipping from Hilary’s shoulder. “Who’s that with LuLu?” Luisa was even less of a LuLu than I was a Raquel or Peter a Pedrolino, but it seemed best to let it pass.
“A coworker of mine,” said Peter. “And a friend. Her name is Abigail.”
“Abigail,” said Iggie thoughtfully. “Babealicious, isn’t she?”
Fortunately, he was still gazing at Abigail and Luisa, so he didn’t notice Hilary glance over at me and mouth “babealicious” or Peter again making a choking noise as he struggled not to laugh.
I reminded myself of the fees Winslow, Brown would generate if Iggie chose the firm to handle the Igobe IPO and the much-needed momentum those fees would generate on my own path to a Winslow, Brown partnership.
“She certainly is,” I said.
3
T he next morning Peter made me go running.
“That’s what we always do on Sundays in San Francisco,” he said. “A long run along the water and then a big brunch.”
“Sounds wonderful,” I lied, except about the brunch part. “There’s nothing I would rather do this morning. If only I’d remembered to bring my workout clothes. Darn. What a shame.”
“I packed your stuff for you.”
“You did?”
He smiled in a way that would have been smug if he had been anyone else. “I had a feeling you might forget.”
Peter exercised because he enjoyed it. I exercised because I enjoyed fitting into my clothes. “Even my sneakers?” I asked.
“Even your sneakers,” he said.
“Oh.”
“Come on, it will be fun.”
“How are you defining fun? ”
Ten minutes later, we descended the stairs dressed in shorts, T-shirts and running shoes and found Peter’s parents in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading the paper. Judging by their attire and healthy glow, they’d already been for their own run. I thanked them again for the party, which hadn’t wound down until after midnight.
“It was such a treat to finally meet your family, Rachel. I wish they could have stayed longer,” Susan said.
The various Benjamins had been among the last to leave the previous evening, and they had gotten along beautifully with the Forrests and their friends, but by my calculations they were now well on their way to the airport, and I considered this excellent timing. While I loved my family, between the joint family dinner on Friday night, a joint family outing yesterday to the Asian Art Museum, and then the party, there had been more than enough opportunities for somebody to dredge up a mortifying tidbit from my past. And since my past was rife with mortifying tidbits, I was amazed to have made it through all of these events safely—prolonging the interaction further would have been courting disaster. But I didn’t mention any of that. “They really liked meeting you, too,” I said instead.
“Are you two going for a run?” Susan asked.
“Yep,” said Peter, reaching into the refrigerator and taking out a couple of bottles of water. He held one out to me, but I shook my head, and he exchanged it for a Diet Coke. I opened the can with pleased anticipation. There was nothing quite like the day’s first hit.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have some coffee, dear? Or orange juice?” Susan asked me.
“Oh, um, thank you, but I like soda in the morning.” In fact, morning was my favorite time to drink soda, although I also enjoyed it in the afternoon and evening.
“Peter, honey, don’t you think Rachel might want a glass? Rachel, dear, don’t you want a glass?”
“Rachel prefers it out of the can, Mom,” said Peter. I did prefer it out of the can. There was something about the way the carbonation and aluminum interacted that made it especially tasty.
“Are you sure, dear?” The perplexed look on Susan’s face reminded me that my habits might seem a little strange to the uninitiated.
“You know, I will have a glass. Thanks,” I said.
Peter stared at me, the perplexed look on his face an exact replica of his mother’s, but he reached into a cupboard and handed me a glass. I poured out the soda and drank it down.
“We’ll be back in an hour or so,” Peter told his parents.
“An hour?” I said under my breath.
“Have fun,” Susan said. “We’ll have brunch ready when you get back.” Charles raised his coffee cup in our direction without glancing up from the paper.
Peter ushered me out the front door. “Ready?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, but he took my hand anyway and began pulling me along the street.
“Is this pace okay?” he called over his shoulder.
“Uh-huh,” I said, and it was for a bit, since the first part was all downhill. Peter even trusted me to keep moving once he let go of my hand. The next part along the water was flat and picturesque with the light glinting off the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, and for a few minutes I felt an inspiring camaraderie with the other runners on the path. But that quickly dissipated.
“Look,” said Peter, slowing his pace to accommodate my own, which had started to lag. He pointed to some slippery animals sitting on rocks in the water. They were seals or sea lions, or maybe even walruses, but I was too winded to ask, much less care, nor did he seem to notice I wasn’t holding up my end of the conversation as he pointed out other landmarks. By the time we finally turned back I’d been evaluating alternative modes of revenge for a good ten minutes, and when we found ourselves at the bottom of the Lyon Street steps, I had no choice but to draw the line. In truth, there was no conscious decision. My feet simply stopped.
“No,” I wheezed.
“No what?” Peter asked, still jogging in place as I rested my hands on my knees and struggled to feed air into my burning lungs.
“No, I’m not running up those.”
“We’re almost home. You’ll feel great afterward.” I scowled at his chipper tone.
Two women with legs the size of tree trunks sprinted by us and charged up the steps. “Marathons weren’t enough of a challenge, so I started training for an iron man,” one was saying to the other.
“My first iron man was a total rush,” the other replied.
“I’ll meet you at the top,” I said to Peter.
He ran up and down the steps several times as I made my way up them just once. “That’s obnoxious,” I told him as he pranced by me yet again, but he pretended not to hear. He was stretching when I eventually crested the final flight.
“Is this your passive-aggressive way of trying to get me to break up with you?” I asked as we walked the remaining distance to his parents’ house. Or, to be more accurate, as Peter walked and I limped.
“You loved every second.”
“If that was love, you should have some serious misgivings when I say I love you.”
“You know, you’d probably feel better if you hydrated before you ran.”
“I did hydrate.”
“Rachel. Diet Coke is not hydration.”
“You say tomato.”
“Maybe you should admit it. You have a problem.”
“I don’t have a problem. What’s my problem?” I asked.
“You’re addicted to Diet Coke.”
“Yes, but it’s not a problem.” We’d reached the house, and I contemplated the steps leading up to the front door. They seemed steeper than they had the day before. A bald man passed by walking a Great Dane, and Spot appeared at the bay window and started to bark, but the Great Dane trotted on, oblivious.
“You couldn’t last two days without Diet Coke,” said Peter.
“Why would I want to?”
“What if I dared you?”
I looked up at him and was alarmed to see he wasn’t joking. “That’s not fair,” I said. Peter knew how I felt about dares—specifically, that you didn’t turn them down unless you were comfortable being branded a wuss.
“You mean, you’re turning down a dare?”
I considered my options. I didn’t really have any, given that I didn’t want anyone to think I was a wuss, at least not about something like this. “No,” I said reluctantly, “I’m not turning down a dare.”
“Forty-eight hours, then. No Diet Coke. In fact, how about no caffeine?”
I gasped. “No caffeine?”
“No caffeine. You wouldn’t want to do this halfway, would you?”
“Yes, I would. I absolutely would.”
“No caffeine,” he repeated firmly.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked, forlorn.
“Because I want you to live a long and healthy life.” He consulted his watch. “It’s ten o’clock. You only need to last until ten on Tuesday. It will be fun.”
It was the second time that day Peter had declared something terrible would be fun, and it wasn’t even noon.
Little did I know just how much less fun the day would get.
At least Peter had been telling the truth about brunch. I believe strongly in eating frequently and in large quantities, but the Forrests made me feel positively ascetic. There were scrambled eggs and crisp bacon on china platters, warm scones and croissants in a basket, sliced melon and berries in a glass bowl, and a pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice.
Of course, nothing goes with bacon quite as well as Diet Coke, but I tried not to think about that. I’d read somewhere that it took smokers three days for their physical addiction to nicotine to pass. Caffeine couldn’t be nearly as addictive as smoking. I was starting to feel a little shaky and had the beginning of a headache, but I assured myself the cravings would last only a few hours at the most. When Susan offered me a soda, I politely demurred and asked for herbal tea instead, feeling superlatively normal. But even with a generous dollop of honey, the tea lacked the stimulating kick of Diet Coke. I glanced up at the clock. Only forty-seven hours to go.
We ate in the cozy breakfast room, chatting about the party as we passed around sections of the paper. We were discussing potential outings for the day when I heard my cell phone ringing from up in Peter’s bedroom. Years of Winslow, Brown partners phoning at odd hours had instilled a Pavlovian response to that sound, and I jerked up automatically. But, as my mother frequently reminded me, it wasn’t polite to take calls during a meal. That never dissuaded me in the presence of my own family, but while it was one thing to be impolite to my mother, it was another thing entirely to be impolite to somebody else’s, particularly Peter’s. I sat back down.
“Don’t you want to get that?” Peter asked.
“It can wait,” I said.
“What if it’s work?” he asked.
“It can still wait,” I said again. Officially, I was on vacation, having taken off the Friday and Monday surrounding the weekend, and I’d put in a superhuman effort before I left to make sure I was fully caught up on the deals and projects I had underway. Nobody from Winslow, Brown should be calling, but that didn’t guarantee anything. People in my line of work adhered closely to the saying that time-is-money, and the partners tended to view my time as their money. Not a single one of my vacations had gone uninterrupted since I’d started at the firm.
“Are you sure, dear?” asked Susan.
“I’m sure,” I said, resolute.
The ringing finally stopped, but a moment later Peter’s own cell phone trilled from upstairs. He twitched. “Do you want to get that, honey?” his mother asked.
“If Rachel can wait, I can wait,” he said stolidly.
Peter’s phone had barely stopped ringing when mine started ringing again. Then his started ringing again, too.
“Somebody must really want to get a hold of you kids,” commented Charles. We were all silent as we listened to the alternating rings from two floors above. I gripped the seat of my chair with both hands to keep myself at the table.
But no sooner had our cell phones stopped than the Forrests’ home phone began to ring. “I’ll get that,” said Susan, just as both Peter’s phone and my phone started up again. She reached for the extension on the wall with one hand and started clearing plates from the table with the other, and Charles rose to help her.
I took this as a cue the meal was over and rushed up the stairs to answer my phone, calling over my shoulder for them to leave the dishes to me. Normal future daughters-in-law probably delighted in post-meal cleanup.
I grabbed my BlackBerry a second after it stopped ringing. Peter was more successful, reaching his own phone just in time. He would undoubtedly attribute his success to hydration, even though I’d beaten him up the stairs.
“Hello? Oh, hi, Abigail,” he said. “It’s Abigail,” he mouthed to me, as if I couldn’t figure that out from his greeting. Perhaps he thought caffeine withdrawal was impeding my mental processes. Based on how I was starting to feel, this wasn’t entirely out of the question.
I began scrolling through my message log. There were several missed calls, some of which must have come through while we were out on Peter’s little adventure in sadism. The most recent were from Luisa.
“Really?” Peter said into his phone. The way he said it, with a combination of curiosity, invitation, and amusement, made me look up. It was the gossipy tone of a morning-after debrief. “I can check with Rachel, but I’m pretty sure Luisa’s not dating anyone.”
I shook my head to confirm this was true. “Not since she and Isobel broke up last fall. Did something happen?” I asked excitedly, trying to keep my voice low so Abigail couldn’t hear me. “With Abigail and Luisa?”
