She’s only in town for two nights. And of those forty-eight hours, she’s set aside three just for us.
As the traffic light turns green, I accelerate onto the freeway, thinking about the five years that have passed since we last saw one another. Part of me doesn’t want to go because of how much I’ve changed and how perfect she is, what with long blonde locks of beach-kissed wavy hair, a nose job that displays the ideal nose, and a body Kim Khardasian would envy.
Oh Lord, how I’ve changed, and the only shot I’ve got that she won’t notice is if she’s gone blind. Not nearsighted or farsighted – I can never remember the difference – but I’m talking 100% blind as a bat.
I readjust my one-size-too-small wrap dress selected from my Closet of No-Longer-Worn Sizes and am instantly reminded of what she’ll notice first: the extra thirty pounds attached to the body she once called “model slim.” And don’t even get me started on the sagging eyelids and sunspot-freckled cheeks that my forty-one-year-old face loves to put right on display despite the numerous products I’ve been suckered into purchasing to make it otherwise.
Isn’t the cruelest part of aging learning the value of being young after it’s left you behind?
I text an excuse for traffic—there really is some, so I don’t feel too guilty about being a few minutes late—to which my friend, who is always five minutes early, kindly replies that she figured I would be and that she’ll be waiting at the pool.
Of course, that’s where she’ll be.
Given that hotel room lighting is considerably more forgiving than bright sunshine, I think of reasons to keep her inside, but everything I come up with—sensitive to sunlight, not wearing sunscreen, sweaty—makes me sound like a hermit with a perspiration problem. Full disclosure: I regret wearing knee-high black leather boots for a noon meeting, but they slim my legs, so you see the dilemma.
Stop it! It’s okay to look different than when I was younger; I remind myself while parking in what can only be considered a gift from above, as it’s literally in front of the rock n’ roll hotel my friend’s assistant booked for her. Before exiting the car, I look down to make sure my belly isn’t popping out any more than it has to, but it’s hopeless. I suppose I’m the before picture now, and she, the prefect after one.
Before my friend relocated out of state, our relationship was hardly perfect, though, what with significant differences in how we live – her planning to the nth degree while I like to wing things; me smoking the occasional joint while she thinks it kills brain cells; me never answering the phone when she answers practically every time; her dropping by unannounced when I think it’s one of the worst things to do; but we worked because like myself, she has zero filter and our mutual respect for the blunt truth has always kept us afloat.
It was love at first conversation. When at a mutual friend’s potluck, it came up that I was the one who brought the deviled eggs. My future friend whipped her head toward me, hurried me into a corner with a tug at my wrist, and whispered, “Girl, you’re the one who brought those things? Okay, they’re good, yeah, but they’ve stunk up the whole place!” I backed up in defense, impressed with her directness but far from thrilled it was at the expense of my favorite appetizer. “Look, they’re summer food,” she continued. “For BBQs and shit, not for a dinner party on a winter night with the windows all closed.” She had a point. And it was a tragically small space.
After walking through the lobby and into a perfectly landscaped walkway to the pool area, I spot my friend lounging on a chaise recliner in all her youthful glory. Did I mention she’s six years younger than me?
“Hey, pretty,” I say, approaching my friend. Her scent–coconut, Chanel, and coffee– welcomes me.
“AHHHHHHHHH!” she yells, jumping up to give me a bear hug.
Once untangled, my eyes shoot to her white silk blouse, which remains tucked in at the front of stylish cut-off jean shorts. Its sides dangling off her slim hips with seemingly no effort.
“You look fabulous, as usual,” I say, searching her eyes for judgment on what they were seeing.
“Sit,” she says, adding nothing more.
As we settle into cushy pool loungers, I adjust my body to find the sweet spot of being comfortable while looking as svelte as possible. The struggle is real.
“It’s been forever,” she says, pouring a glass of water from an icy pitcher with lemon slices floating on top while a charcuterie board covered with brie, prosciutto, green olives, pearl grapes, and rustic pieces of sourdough sweats under the sun, waiting for us to enjoy.
“I know. Way too long. It’s really good to see you,” I say.
While my friend sets down water for me before pouring her own, I become convinced her eyes widen at the sight of my belly pouch. I smooth my tummy-flattening tank from the bunched-up mess it so desperately wants to be.
“Dig in,” she says, motioning to the spread. “I had to keep stopping myself.”
I reach for a slice of the crusty bread when she adds, “Already had too many carbs for the week.”
I opt for an apple slice instead, hoping the sudden change in mind isn’t noticeable and that she didn’t mean to imply I should be watching mine, too.
And then we start to talk. Talking is something we’ve always been great at, no matter when we last did, because we get in a flow where we can talk about anything and everything. Our conversations come with detours, so many so that we often have to retrace our steps to remember where we were initially heading, but the scenic route has always been our way.
I interrupt myself to signal for our server, standing at the ready, waiting for a way in. I order a prosecco and my friend, a vodka soda, before we dive right back in.
Over chicken Caesar salads, my friend and I hit the big topics: marriage, family, work, dreams, regrets.
As I continually resist reaching for another piece of doughy goodness, dots connect that things might not be as great with my friend as her phone calls and social media posts have led me to believe.
“Tell me about John. Is he loving his new gig?” I ask, knowing that her husband was recently promoted to senior manager for a big tech firm specializing in software engineering.
“Yeah, he loves it, but not sure I do,” she says, with a roll of the eyes. “He’s never home anymore and when he is, all he wants to do is watch football. The NFL is going to ruin my marriage.”
“Really? How bad can it be?” I ask.
“Are you serious? Doesn’t Chris watch any sports?” she asks, referring to my boyfriend of five years, who she has yet to meet.
“No, not at all, actually, which is fine with me,” I say. “He’s more into music and yoga and going to a sound bath rather than a ball game.”
“Must be nice,” she says, reaching for her drink. She takes a large sip, draining it to the bottom. “What does he do again? Like a life coach or something?”
“An acupuncturist. He has his own business, and a lot of people come to him for help with all kinds of things. He fixed the pain in my shoulder. Remember that from my car accident?”
“But is that, like, a real job? And didn’t you say he’s older than you by, like, what? Ten years or something?”
My eyes narrow, and now it’s my turn to take a long sip of my drink. “He’s a great guy, and yeah. He’s nine years older, but I don’t care.”
I change the subject to our mutual friend, Vanessa, who recently went back to school to get her psychology degree, when my friend mentions she went back to therapy.
Hearing about my friend’s challenges, it dawns on me that if my biggest concern is turning down the bread basket, maybe I’m doing something right.
In the middle of her story about a basement pipe exploding during a backyard birthday BBQ for her mother-in-law, the wrinkles around my eyes start to recede into the peripheral of my thoughts, as does the tape I put on the bottom heel of my boot to retain its blackness where a piece of rubber had worn off. I forget that one to the point of swinging my leg atop a pool chair without care, only to remember the industrial adhesive at the sight of my friend’s bulging eyes.
Before embarrassment could set in, she abruptly stands and says, “I want to do something. Let’s go to my room, ‘kay?”
“Okay…” I say, curious.
As we pass by displays of music memorabilia—Woodstock concert posters, an array of Randy Rhode’s guitars, kitchenware belonging to Elvis—I wonder if she brought me a gift from home. I get excited at the thought. Her taste is impeccable.
But once inside her junior suite, there’s no sign of a gift box or bottle of wine. And I really begin to think I read the whole thing wrong when she instructs me to sit on the toilet and face her, saying, “This may hurt a little.”
“What the…?” I ask, watching her grab a pair of tweezers from a hanging toiletry bag.
“I’m gonna shape your brows,” she says, matter-of-factly, before thrusting my head back to find the perfect light.
I move to stop her but instead stop myself, unsure of what’s going on. How bad can my brows be? And what the heck do they have to do with anything? We were in the middle of a conversation about the new office my boss surprised me with, complete with a window, which is a first and long-awaited want of mine when she had this abrupt need to inflict torture upon my face.
“Here, let me show you how they’re supposed to look,” she says, snatching the pad and pen by the hotel phone so she can draw, yes, draw, what a perfect brow looks like.
“Cool,” I say, thinking about scrunching that piece of paper into a meatball-sized wad and lobbying it into a trash can.
Our visit is nearly over when she finishes, and I’m not exactly mad that she has a Zoom meeting to attend.
What just happened? Was it a need to find something wrong with me to make herself feel better? Sure, my tweezer-happy days of the early 2000s ruined any chance for my brows to have fullness, but what was with that sudden urge? Did she think she was doing me a favor? As though I needed one? And what if I like them just the way they are? Who made her the eyebrow guru?
On the walk to my car after our three-hour meetup, thoughts of my excess poundage have been replaced. Not by the impromptu brow tutorial, no, but by the thought that being imperfect, especially on the outside, is perfectly fine. But the inside?
How does that look?