Page 20 of Cascade

“Hello, hello!” Squeaks the proprietor, a compact woman with short hair and huge muscles. “You must be the Indigo Girls.”

She giggles as Indigo fluffs her hair. “I gave us a name,” Indigo says, tugging down her shirt and tucking it into her exercise pants. “We’re the only ones who will be here!”

Indigo skips off toward the purple set of silks and the owner, who introduces herself as Ivy, asks us if we’re “ready to soar.” Diana rolls her eyes and Abigail shares her pregnancy news. She points a thumb at me and says, “I brought my midwife along with me.”

Ivy coos and promises to suggest gentle postures for Abigail and protect her joints. “But the rest of you,” Ivy points around the room. “You’re gonna work!”

Ever since Abigail’s party a few weeks ago, I’ve been invited to hang out with this group of women on a regular basis. I’m still not used to it. I’ll tell them all about the exciting elements of my research and talk about Oscar but I haven’t gotten up the nerve to open up any more, even after Sara blurted a few more frustrated comments about her mother.

When Ivy sets us up to hang upside down with the silks wrapped around our legs, I’m the first in the group to invert and balance myself on my hands. Indigo cackles with laughter and I look over to see her pointing. “Opal,” she huffs. “Your tits are practically in your mouth!”

She’s not wrong. I feel suffocated by my breasts in this position as they threaten to spill out from my tank. As Abigail and Diana join in the teasing, commenting on their own small bust and asking me to take some of my extras, I realize they’re laughingwithme. They’re not mocking me.

We are experiencing something absurdtogetherand when I shimmy my shoulders so my breasts jostle even more, it feels so free and so light to laugh with them.

By the end of the class, I realize I really am soaring, even if I never did quite manage any of the dangling poses.

As Ivy locks up the studio for the night, Diana invites her to join us at the Nobler Experiment outside town. We all walk over together, rehashing the foibles of the past hour, and I feel overwhelmed by the intimacy of it all, of their kindness. This just isn’t something I’m accustomed to.

The more I become aware of it, the faster my heart beats until I’m starting to panic a little bit at the thought of messing up and ruining the magic. My mind starts to create worst case scenarios and I fall back from the group trying to find my breath.

As they round the corner, the girls charge on ahead, all except for Sara. She notices me falling behind and comes up beside me. “Hey, girl,” she says. “What’s up?”

I shake my head, unable to form words. How am I supposed to tell her that I’m worried that my worry is going to ruin the evening? I try to figure out how I can break off and head for home, sit and pet my cat and review my case files. “I have so much work,” I tell her, wringing my hands and picking at my cuticles.

Sara tilts her head and stares at me in the street light. She thinks for a minute and sighs. “Look,” she says. “I’m just going to say this and you can hate me later, but I see a lot of myself in you right now.” I snap my eyes to hers.

“When I first went to college, all that shit with my mom and her drinking, it used to make me freak out. Do you have anyone you can talk to about that stuff?”

“What stuff?” I feel my heart climbing in my throat, threatening to strangle me. Has Archer been telling her about what he saw with my father?

“Whatever it is that has you hyperventilating after a group of women were nice to you,” Sara says, and something bursts inside me.

She saw. She doesn’t know the what and the why, but she can see that my worry is out of control. It’s all falling apart.

“My ex is a therapist,” Sara says, digging around in her shoulder bag. She finds a card and pulls it out. “You’d like her.” She places the card in my palm and squeezes, meeting me in the eye. “I know it’s hard to talk about big shit. But…it’s like taking a big shit. You feel so much better afterwards.”

Sara grabs my elbow and steers me into the bar. Our group has already commandeered a booth near the back and Indigo is screaming at Diana that she owes her a sober ride home. I order a ginger ale and sip it while the girls rehash our snafus on the silks.

Abigail, who isn’t drunk because of the baby but seems so emotional she might as well be tipsy, clutches Diana and Indigo’s hands in the booth. “I just can’t believe this is my life,” she croons. “I mean, I have a book and a Hunter and YOU GUYS.” Indigo leans a head on her shoulder and smiles. “Oh!” Abigail gasps and sits up straight in the booth. “Opal, I felt the baby move. I felt it!”

That brings on a flurry of excitement throughout the tavern. It seems like everyone knows Abigail, or at least Diana, and soon everyone from the owner to the maintenance guy is lined up to pat Abigail’s stomach, even though I explain that she will feel the baby internally much sooner than any of us can detect anything from the outside.

They don’t seem to mind, though. I look at the crowd of townspeople so happy and eager to share in this joy of Abigail’s. I think how much smaller the circle of well-wishers would be lined up to pat my belly if I got pregnant.

Small like nonexistent.

I slide my hand into my pocket and feel the card Sara handed me. I don’t recognize the name—she’s not someone on my network of therapists specializing in postpartum depression or anxiety or any of the conditions I typically refer my clients for therapy.

Today was a roller coaster of emotion between the silks class and Sara’s conversation and now, this gloomy comparison of Abigail’s support network to my own lack of one.

I run my tongue along my teeth and step outside the bar, feeling my heart rate increase.

I know from referring patients that therapists don’t answer their phone numbers. They check the voicemail in between clients. There’s no harm in leaving my name tonight. It’ll be ages before I have to deal with the return call, before I have to explain just why I’m calling.

Tonight, I’m just Opal Whittaker, leaving a message because my friend Sara thought it would be a good idea. I take a deep breath and dial the number.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

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