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“Why did you show up unexpectedly? Is something wrong?”
She shrugs, and it’s clear there’s something she wants to tell me. My heart thuds in my chest. “Celeste?”
“I saw Marie a couple days ago. She came into the diner.” She speaks as if she often mentions my ex twice in one conversation. “She was shocked that I still work there.”
“She isn’t the only one,” I mutter. Celeste followed me to college and started working in a diner near campus. She finished college, but for reasons I can’t begin to fathom continued to work at the diner after she graduated.
“Marie’s getting married. Her fiancé was with her. He seems like a good guy and they seem happy.”
“You’re worried about me?”
She shrugs again, and my heart swells with affection. Even when I hold her at arm’s length, she’s here for me. “I’m happy for Marie.”
“I know. But…we thought you were going to marry her, and now she’s marrying someone else.”
“I’m married to football.”
“But you’re lonely.”
Tears well in her eyes and it’s like she stabbed me with a fork. I move next to her and wrap my arms around her.
“I’m okay. I want Marie to be happy. She wasn’t happy with me. I couldn’t give her the life she wanted.” I pause, and then whisper, “If I’m lonely, that’s my choice. But…thank you for caring. And worrying. I’m sorry I wouldn’t go out with you last night.”
She sniffles. “You would have hated it. I danced on the bar.”
“Celeste,” I say with mock judgment in my voice.
“I can get free drinks on my own, you know,” she responds. I chuckle as I release her and settle next to her on the sofa. “I have to go home tomorrow, and I need a shower, but maybe we can hang out this afternoon? We don’t have to go out if you don’t want.”
“That sounds nice.”
She heads for the shower and I push myself to my feet.
I go directly into my workout room and step on the treadmill. I hit start and increase my speed faster and faster until I’m running at a blistering pace. One mile passes and then another while I focus on the steady beat of my heart. I keep running until my legs feel like jelly.
When I finally slow down, my body is exhausted. My mind, though—it’s whirling. I slump onto the floor next to the treadmill and thump my head lightly against the wall.
Marie has moved on. I’m over her, but I’m still jealous. Not because she’s getting married, but because she found what she was looking for. She’s happy while I’m still trying to make my dream of football glory come true.
EIGHT
ELLIE
For the past eighteen years, with few exceptions, I’ve had dinner with my father once a week.
When I was a child—as stipulated in the custody agreement—he was responsible for my sister and I every Wednesday evening from three until seven. He was also responsible for us exactly one weekend per month—always the second weekend—from Friday evening at five until Sunday afternoon at one. Neither he nor my mother strayed from this agreement.
In order to change the time or day, they would have been required to speak to one another. There were no circumstances where my mother would speak to my father. They communicated through their lawyers or not at all.
On Wednesdays, he would pick us up from school and take us to the park or the library. Then he would feed us dinner and deliver us to our mother’s house. He never got out of the car, and she never left the front porch as she waited for us to say goodbye.
When we arrived home, we spoke about our day at school, but we never ever mentioned our father. If she wondered how we spent our time when we were with him, she never let on.
Our Wednesday night dinners differed from our weekends with our father in one glaring fashion. No Libby. Not once did his wife join us for dinner. Even now, she doesn’t come. My father claims she’s too busy with my half-brothers.
She didn’t even have kids in the beginning. I’d call him on it if I weren’t grateful for her absence.
I slip into the narrow booth at Lost Dog Café about five minutes early. The waitress, who has been serving me for years, slides a glass of water across the table and tells me my fries will be ready in a few minutes. Bless her, she knows fries are necessary to my existence.
