Unlike Miles, Lennon does not seem to be out for a stroll. The opposite actually—she clearly has a destination in mind. I’m tempted to ask where we’re going but decide to stay quiet and go with it.
She slowly steps off the sidewalk as a silver SUV pulls up. A man rolls down the window. “Lennon?”
She nods.
“Like the Beatles,” the guy says, and I realize she probably gets that a lot. I assume this is where she and I part ways, but she looks at me. “Our Uber. You want to come?”
“Where to?”
She smiles wide. “I’ve got a showing. I thought if you didn’t have anything to do, you could come?”
“Oh. Okay,” I say. “Yeah. That sounds fun.”
She grins, and I slide in beside her, hoping this isn’t some elaborate human trafficking ring, and a little relieved when the address she gives the driver is a street I recognize.
“So, you’re married,” I say, hoping to learn a little more about her as we drive away from the busiest parts of the city and into a residential area. I’ve been told that these neighborhoods start to feel like small towns over time—but I’m not sure about that.
No one has a yard.
“Yep,” she says. “Daniel’s a fommy.”
I frown. “A what?”
“Father plus mommy,” she says. “Fommy. He made it up.” She gives a little shrug. “Eve was such a miracle baby that after I had her, we knew one of us was going to stay home with her. Daniel was an elementary school principal, so it was a great fit. He’s so good with her.”
She doesn’t state the obvious—she was making more money as a luxury Realtor than he was in education, so it made more sense for her to keep working. I notice because it’s so different from what I’m used to. The people who were in my social circle beforelovedto brag about money.
New Friend Lennon doesn’t seem to need to.
“It took us a long time to get pregnant,” Lennon says, her perfectly manicured hand wrapped around the strap of a pink Kate Spade purse. “And even longer to keep a pregnancy past three months.”
I look over at her. Even behind her sunglasses, I can see she’s struggling to maintain her composure.
She sniffs and looks away, trying to laugh. “Wow, I still can’t talk about it without crying.”
And I realize that no matter how together a person looks on the outside, inside, we’re all dealing with something. Just like that, I see the thing that makes this beautiful, successful, confident woman just like me.
Sometimes I think if we chose to focus on the things that make us similar more than the things that make us different, the world would be a much kinder place.
I take a cue from what she did for me earlier and reach over and squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry, Lennon.”
She shakes her head and sniffs, lifting her sunglasses to dab at the corners of her eyes. “Ugh. It’s silly, really. I should be over it by now, right?”
“I mean... no,” I say. “Grief doesn’t have a timeline. And it doesn’t always make sense.”
She nods quietly, and I see something settle inside her.
I smile at her, silently thinking about Strawberry Shortcake.
“Oh! We’re here.” Lennon stops and pulls out her phone as I look around the block. We step out of the car and onto the sidewalk in front of a storefront with a For Rent sign in the window. It’s one of many storefronts lining the street in what looks like a very popular area.
Above the stores, there seem to be apartments, and if I didn’t love The Bexley so much, I could easily imagine living in one of them. The whole street is charming and quaint in a way I didn’t expect Chicago to be—in a way that almost makes you forget you’re in the city at all.
It reminds me a little of that quintessential Main Street in every Small Town, USA.
“He’s running a little late,” Lennon says, tucking her phone away. “Do you want to see it?”
I smile. “The store? Yeah!”
