“The cyclone.” She wasn’t sure why she used the definite article—thethe. Maybe because the storms all felt like they came from the same place, the same source, as if the ingredients for them were always there, hovering in the background, an amorphous soup that could spill over at any moment. And unlike inThe Wizard of Oz, where she was pretty sure she’d gotten the concept of a cyclone—didn’t most people call them tornadoes these days?—she wasn’t going to wake up in a land of color and whimsy when the storm was over. She was just going to be in her same life, her neck hurting from pulling her head down to her chest, which was something she did byinstinct. Protecting her head, covering her ears: it wasn’t logical, but it felt like it helped get her through the storm. But she sometimes did it so vehemently, and for so long, that her neck ached afterward.
She breathed in and counted to three. Sometimes, if she caught the tingly-bones feeling soon enough, she could head things off.
There was no reason to go buy aNew Yorker, she told herself while she breathed out to a count of four. Her copy would come. Maybe even later today. She inhaled for five. Whatever Jack Branksome had said about her wasn’t going to change anything about her life. She exhaled for six. Whatever he’d said about her would still be there for her to read later today, or tomorrow.
The breathing wasn’t working. The cyclone was stronger than her ability to defend against it. All she could do was sit down, protect her head, and tell herself she wasn’t dying. That there was no need to call 911 for a panic attack.
She would survive. She always did.
The first time Reggie had come over unannounced, Blair invited him in for a drink.
She was lonely.
At least she was self-aware about it. She liked to believe that self-awareness had an inoculating effect.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t have friends. Tiff would be here the moment she was summoned. But Tiff was busy—with running their joint empire but also with a newish relationship with a guy who had a six-year-old she was trying to charm.
Beyond her number one ride-or-die, though, Blair had a circle of women she was close to, a circle she’d actively been avoiding. What if someone witnessed the cyclone? She had never had an episode at the office—the office was her happy place—but beyond that, she didn’t trust herself.
It was going to be OK, though. She needed a bit of time to get stabilized, to get her act together, then she’d be fine. Back to baseline and ready to embark on a new era.
So when her gate buzzed a week after she’d moved in and it was Reggie squinting into the camera and saying, “Have you heard from Esme?” Blair, knowing she was lonely but had to be picky about whom she allowed to get close to her, invited him in. They were co-parents, after all.
“No. Why? Have you?” she asked as she swung open the front door a minute later.
“Have I what?”
“Heard from Esme?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “I was just wondering if you had.”
“Not since lunchtime.”
“You heard from hertoday?”
“Sometimes she sends me pictures of what she’s eating in the cafeteria.”
Reggie turned a slow circle in the living room. While he was examining the place, Blair seized the opportunity to examine him. He was the same, yet not. Her husband, yet not. Same old dark-brown textured man-bob, hairline courtesy of a trip to Turkey seven years ago. But he was wearing a muscle shirt. The old Reggie would have changed into street clothes before leaving the gym. But New Reggie had bigger muscles than Old Reggie, and he probably wanted to show them off.
“The place looks great,” he said as he finished his rotation. “The same but different.”
“What’s the same?” None of the furniture was. The walls were different colors than when they’d lived here.
He looked up at the beamed ceiling. “The bones of the place.” He picked up a quilt from the back of an armchair. “And the millions of blankets.”
It was true she had a lot of blankets and quilts. She liked having options for the perfect level of coziness.
“I don’t think you need this many blankets anymore. You’re the mistress of your own thermostat now.” He threw the quilt down, and now it needed to be refolded. “Can I have a beer?”
“In the fridge. Help yourself.” She made a note to stop stocking the fancy IPA from a local brewery Reggie favored. Reggie’s beer wasn’t her problem anymore, and there was only one refrigerator in this house.
She picked up the quilt. It was a tough one to fold because her grandmother hadn’t been a very careful seamstress and one of the four corners was wonky and difficult to get to lie flat.
“Why would Esme send you pictures of her food?” Reggie asked, returning from the kitchen and raising his bottle in a toast even though Blair wasn’t drinking anything.
“To gross me out.”
“What was she eating?”
