Page 22 of The Best Part of Breaking Up

I always lonely until this guru told me how to meet the man of my dreams. I did not believe but now I share the good news! Let me tell you how!

I scroll until my outdated contact lenses feel like sandpaper and my right shoulder aches from the awkward positioning. I think about posting an indignant manifesto. I think about going to work trolling all the trolls. I think about deleting myself from the realm of social media altogether. In the end, I attempt to carry on with my week like usual while the comments swarm in the back of my brain like displaced bees.

Saw your article, my dad texts obliviously. I know who I’m calling for my next divorce!

He includes a laughing emoji like the statement is both a compliment and a clever joke. It honestly feels like neither. With my dad, though, you really never know. He has a particularly volatile relationship with my stepmom Amy, but I doubt they’ll ever get divorced. And if they do? God help whoever negotiates that one. I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. They should be required to wear those t-shirts like firefighters do: keep back 200 feet.

My dad married Amy only a couple of years after my mom moved me to the suburbs with Eric, and they had two kids, the same as my mom and Eric, as if the whole thing was a continuation of the tit-for-tat argument they started when I was four. Everything was a competition with them.

Who’s going to pay for Heidi’s braces? (Let’s both refuse in an attempt to harass the other into doing it.)

Who’s going to help Heidi afford college? (I’ve got kids in middle school. Can’t your dad/mom do it? He/she really hasn’t contributed enough.)

Who’s going to invite Heidi to Thanksgiving? (Both of us. At the same time. So she ends up hanging alone in an attempt to avoid having to choose.)

Actually, that’s not really true. I’m not alone. In recent years Auntie Lena and I usually spend holidays at Meg’s house, where she cooks enough delicious food for thirty people, even though there are only about fifteen of us there to celebrate. Our little hodgepodge group gathers to drink too much wine and play board games, and it’s way better than hanging out at either of my parents’ houses. Eventually they stopped inviting me, except for the occasional passive aggressive mention of their meals with the guilt-ridden “but I’m sure you have plans” tacked onto the end.

But I digress.

The point is that, despite my lack of in-person commentary, Jeanine did a great job with the article. Great enough that the presence of it is now looming in every corner of my life. So basically, it was too great. Way too great. And I’m having a hard time living up to it. Especially when family members are texting me about it, and friends are mentioning it enthusiastically when I run into them, and occasionally when I’m walking through the office I swear I can hear the faint sound of someone humming that familiar tune…

“You’re not paying attention,” Kamille says, wading into the shallow end of my building’s rooftop pool. “What if I drown?”

“We are working on the basics of water safety,” I remind her. “You’re knowledgeable. You’re capable. And I’m right here. You won’t drown.”

She scrunches up her face. “Do you know CPR?”

“My certification has lapsed, but yes, I mostly know CPR.”

“That’s not very convincing.”

“Let’s just focus on what we learned last time.”

The days have been mercilessly hot lately, and the water is on the refreshing side of lukewarm. Not so cold that it takes your breath when you jump in, but not so hot that you wonder why you got in at all. Aside from a couple of college girls chatting under the umbrella at one of the patio tables, we’ve got the place to ourselves. This time of year, we’re also lucky enough to have about two more hours of daylight. I adjust my longline bikini top and take my position in the middle of the shallow end, holding a small foam board.

“You ready?”

“Ready,” she says, securing her goggles.

Realistically, I know she doesn’t need goggles for the exercises we’re doing, but it makes her feel better to have them on, so I don’t see the harm. She places a hand on either side of the board and sucks in a deep breath, which she holds, though her face never goes into the water. Then, she kicks. The smooth plane of blue around us begins to slosh wildly with her movements. After about thirty seconds, we take a quick break and begin again. And again. I move slowly, guiding her across and back with the board.

Our training continues for the better part of fifteen minutes when I hear a familiar voice at the edge of the pool.

“She’s not breathing.”

I turn to find Quentin perched on the side of the deep end, shirtless, with his hands braced beside him and his calves swishing through the water. For a second, his presence seems like a glitch in the Matrix. My entire brain stutters, leaving me blinking idiotically before finally registering him: Quentin, the coworker, not the cocktail savant. They’re like Siamese twins my mind has to surgically separate.

“Excuse me?” I say indignantly.

“She’s holding her breath while she kicks. The key to swimming is breathing, believe it or not.”

“What are you doing here?” I question.

This is useless, of course. He lives here. This was bound to happen sooner or later. Apparently sooner won out.

Kamille stops splashing and removes her goggles, leaving faint suction-cup imprints around her eyes. They’re now shifting between me and Quentin curiously.

“Do you know him?” she asks me.

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