Page 120 of Still Me
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Josh took a break from his never-ending round of corporate jockeying and had lunch with me at the noodle bar, announcing there was a company “family day” the following Saturday at the Loeb Boathouse and that he’d like me to come as his plus-one.
“I was planning on going to the library protest.”
“You don’t want to keep doing that, Louisa. You’re not going to change anything standing around with a bunch of people shouting at passing cars.”
“And I’m not really family,” I said, bristling slightly.
“Close enough. C’mon! It’ll be a great day. Have you ever been to the boathouse? It’s gorgeous. My firm really knows how to lay on a party. You’re still doing your ‘say yes’ thing, right? So you have to say yes.” He did puppy eyes at me. “Say yes, Louisa, please. Go on.”
He had me and he knew it. I smiled resignedly. “Okay. Yes.”
“Great! Last year apparently they had all these inflatable sumo suits and people wrestled on the grass and there were family races and organized games. You’re going to love it.”
“Sounds amazing,” I said. The words “organized games” held the same appeal to me as the words “compulsory smear test.” But it was Josh and he looked so pleased at the thought of my accompanying him that I didn’t have the heart to say no.
“I promise you won’t have to wrestle my coworkers. You might have to wrestle me afterward, though,” he said, then kissed me, and left.
—
I checked my inbox all week, but there was nothing, other than an e-mail from Lily asking if I knew the best place to get an underage tattoo, a friendly hello from someone who was apparently at school with me but whom I didn’t remember at all, and one from my mother sending me a GIF of an overweight cat apparently talking to a two-year-old and a link to a game called Farm Fun Fandango.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay by yourself, Margot?” I said, as I gathered my keys and purse into my handbag. I was wearing a white jumpsuit with gold lamé epaulets and trim that she’d given me from her early eighties period and she clasped her hands together. “Oh, that looks magnificent on you. You must have almost exactly the measurements that I had at the same age. I used to have a bust, you know! Terribly unfashionable in the sixties and seventies but there you go.”
I didn’t like to tell her that it was taking everything I had not to burst her seams but she was right—I had lost a few pounds since I’d moved in with her, mostly because of my efforts to cook her things that werenutritionally useful. I felt lovely in the jumpsuit and gave her a twirl. “Have you taken your pills?”
“Of course I have. Don’t fuss, dear. Does that mean you won’t be back later?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll take Dean Martin for a quick walk before I go, though. Just in case.” I paused, as I reached for the dog’s lead. “Margot? Why did you call him Dean Martin? I never asked.”
The tone of her response told me it was an idiotic question. “Because Dean Martin was the most terrifically handsome man, and he’s the most terrifically handsome dog, of course.”
The little dog sat obediently, his bulging, mismatched eyes rolling above his flapping tongue.
“Silly of me to ask,” I said, and let myself out of the front door.
“Well, look at you!” Ashok whistled as Dean Martin and I ran down the last flight of stairs to the ground floor. “Disco diva!”
“You like it?” I said, throwing a shape in front of him. “It was Margot’s.”
“Seriously? That woman is full of surprises.”
“Watch out for her, will you? She’s pretty wobbly today.”
“Kept back a piece of mail just so I have an excuse to knock on her door at six o’clock.”
“You’re a star.”
We jogged outside to the park and Dean Martin did what dogs do and I did what you do with a little bag and a certain amount of shuddering and various passersby stared in the way you do if you see a girl in a lamé-trimmed jumpsuit running around with an excitable dog and a small bag of poo. It was as we sprinted back in, Dean Martin yapping delightedly at my heels, that we bumped into Josh in the lobby. “Oh, hey!” I said, kissing him. “I’ll be two minutes, okay? Just have to wash my hands and grab my handbag.”
“Grab your handbag?”
“Yes!” I gazed at him. “Oh. Purse. You call it a purse?”
“I just meant—you’re not getting changed?”
I looked down at my jumpsuit. “I am changed.”
