Page 21 of The Love Haters

BEANIE HAD BEENthe person to convince me to stop weighing myself in the first place.

After the breakup, she’d taken some personal days to come back for a visit, back when I still couldn’t get out of bed. I had lain on the sofa, wrapped in the trompe l’oeil tortilla blanket she’d given me for my birthday, and I’d watched her clean my entire apartment—takeout container by takeout container.

“This is very soothing,” I said, as she walked past me with another full Hefty bag.

“It’s not just soothing,” Beanie said. “It’scleansing. It’s a rebirth. By the time I head back to New York, you’re going to be a whole new person.”

That weekend, she took my digital scale—aka my closest friend—and wrapped it up in one of Lucas’s forgotten T-shirts, doused it all with lighter fluid, and set the whole thing on fire out by the street.

“This thing is ruining your life,” Beanie said, as we watched the flames. “Free yourself.”

She’d also scrubbed my apartment top to bottom—bathroom to kitchen and back. She vacuumed and dusted and decluttered so hard, she took six grocery sacks to Goodwill. Then she turned her attention on me—made me take a shower, get a haircut, go for a pedicure, and floss.

But even after the glow-ups, Beanie wasn’t satisfied. She stood in my living room and looked around.

“It’s awfully beige in here,” she said.

“It’s not beige, it’s ‘Oyster.’”

“It’s just soblah.”

“It’s notblah. It’s sophisticated.”

“You need some pops of color.”

But I shook my head. “Ihatepops of color.”

“Too bad.”

Beanie dragged me out shopping, and before I knew it, I had four new orange throw pillows. After she was gone, I thought about donating them to Goodwill, too. But, out of guilt, I just stacked them in a closet instead.

Beanie had promised me, in the wake of my failed engagement, that I was due for a renaissance. “You’re going to come back to life in ways you never could’ve imagined,” she swore.

I wasn’t sure orange throw pillows were the key to that renaissance.

But I wasn’t sure theyweren’t, either.

Sometimes Beanie was right.

The promised revival had proved elusive in the months since she’d burned my scale. But Beanie never lost sight of it. And so now, on the phone, she was evaluating this Key West job with a different set of goals than mine. I was asking questions like,Can I take this job and still physically survive?

Beanie, in contrast, was asking if this journey would help methrive.

And that’s how our conversation seesawed, like they always did, between Beanie both pushing me to go and telling me not to. This was how we processed things—thoroughly. By switching sides until we’d covered all the angles.

“What I still don’t understand is”—Beanie was now saying on our FaceTime, switching fromYou deserve this!toIs this really a good idea?—“why this coworker of yours isn’t going himself.”

“He and his brother don’t get along.”

“He won’t even be there, but he arranged for your lodging?”

“The company did. It’s his aunt’s place. She’s a real estate tycoon.”

“You don’t say.”

NowIwas the one who was pro me going. “I’m telling you,” I said, “I stalked the place on Vrbo. It’s a block of old-timey motor court cottages she fixed up. So charming! It’s all on the website. They could be in a magazine. And, according to Cole, she’s going to let me stay there for a deep discount. The only catch is that I can’t tell her why I’m there. At first.”

“You have to lie about why you’re there?”

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