she left my bedroom. “Get up. We leave in fifteen.”
A half hour later, we were out on the city streets — Vanessa looking great in skintight running pants and a snug fitting Howard University sweatshirt, and me looking as if I’d just rolled out of bed in yoga pants that I rarely ever used for actual yoga, but wore more for just bumming around the apartment, paired with the cashmere hoodie that I’d worn the night before and grabbed off my bedroom floor that morning.
“I feel better already,” Vanessa said, jogging in place as we waited at the light to cross over Fifth Avenue to get into the park at the Seventy-second Street entrance. “Don’t you?”
Now, I wish I could be one of those people who says something like “You know, once I got out there, I felt great!” I really do. But I’m not. Once I got out there, I didn’t feel great. In fact, I felt worse. The sad fact was that I was absolutely exhausted by the time we’d jogged from Third Avenue to Central Park.
“Am I expected to go work a full day after this?” I asked Vanessa. She pretended not to hear me, continuing to run, nodding at other runners as we passed in a bizarre supersecret handshake sort of way. There was this weird subculture of runners in the park, a subculture that Vanessa was clearly a part of. A subculture of people who actually
These were not my people.
“So, do you want to talk about things?” she asked me, giving a brief glance in my direction.
“No,” I said (between huffs and puffs). “Do you?”
“Well,” she said, “running certainly clears my head. Helps me to think about things.”
“Why can’t you get that from taking a shower like regular people?” I asked her. “That way you don’t have to get all sweaty.”
“I think in the shower, too,” she said.
“So, what are you thinking?” I said.
“This is going to sound crazy, but I’m so embarrassed about my marriage breaking up.”
“That doesn’t sound crazy,” I said, still huffing and puffing. “That’s totally natural. You know, you don’t have to tell anyone for a while. It’s your business. The whole firm doesn’t need to know every little piece of our lives. You can take your time in processing it by yourself.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said.
“And before you know it, you’ll be back out there,” I said. “You’ll find someone even better.”
“The thought of dating in Manhattan totally terrifies me. What if there are no men left?”
“There will be plenty of men left,” I said with a laugh, even though that exact thought had gone through my mind more than once. “You should just take your time. It’s also okay to be alone for a while.”
“I don’t know how to be alone,” she said.
“Well, not completely alone,” I said. “I mean, you still have your friends. We can go out for dinner all the time, go to the movies, shop….”
“We do that already,” she said, stifling a laugh.
“I know,” I said. “I just meant that you’re not going to be alone, alone. If you want to, it’s okay to give yourself time to be single and not looking for someone new.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” she said.
“That’s okay,” I said, “I’ll show you.” Vanessa smiled at me and I smiled back. I knew that Vanessa would be just fine. It was just a matter of making her realize that she’d be fine, too.
She led us over to Writer’s Walk, a beautiful tree-lined path with enormous sculptures of famous poets and writers. I took a deep breath of fresh air and decided that I would be just fine, too.
“Hey, Vanessa!” a voice called out from ahead of us.
“Hey!” Vanessa called out as the other runner approached us. She introduced me to a friend of hers from the Road Runners Club. Another woman who was similarly attired in skintight running pants and a fitted sweatshirt that she looked great in. I smiled and tried not to look completely winded as I shook her hand and she and Vanessa jogged in place and talked about next year’s New York City Marathon. I had stopped jogging altogether, puzzling over what time the hot-dog vendors set up their carts. I know, I know, a hot dog would have been totally inappropriate this early in the morning, but I figured that a hot salted pretzel couldn’t hurt. Purely for medical reasons, that is. What? A girl has to keep up her blood sugar, doesn’t she?
“Brooke, you should keep running in place,” Vanessa said to me, still immersed in her conversation about the marathon. I pretended not to hear and instead adjusted my ponytail.
A few minutes later, we were back to running through the park, Vanessa, still nodding at random other runners and me, trying to look as if I were not at death’s door. I was getting the hang of it for a while, and as we began winding down, I was proud that I’d gone the whole time without dying. Vanessa slowed our pace to a “cool down” speed and I began to fantasize about the hot shower I would take when we got back to the apartment. Still quite a bit away, I could see the Seventy-second Street traffic light, beckoning me like a siren calling out to a tired sailor on the high seas. We got closer and closer, and a smile came to my face. I could even see the vendors beginning to set up their carts for the day, as I wondered if Vanessa had brought any cash so that she could buy me a congratulatory pretzel. I could hear the traffic roaring down Fifth Avenue and I silently patted myself on the back for a job well done.
Maybe this would be the new me. A healthier, more positive me who woke up early and went running and nodded to other runners as I ran. A motivated me who faces challenges head-on and tackles every obstacle in her way. The kind of woman who doesn’t get flummoxed by the mere prospect of going to her ex-boyfriend’s wedding. Who goes with her head held high, with a real-life boyfriend as opposed to a faux Scottish boyfriend, and behaves like the normal well-adjusted big-time lawyer that she is, as opposed to alienating the faux Scottish boyfriend she has realized she is in love with.
This was what turning over a new leaf was all about! I turned to Vanessa, all ready to tell her about my epiphany, and lost my footing for a brief instant. I felt something under my foot and it caused my entire body to jerk sideways. I heard Vanessa call something out about a hot dog, which really puzzled me, and then I went down.
My body hit the pavement with a thud, like a sack of potatoes, as I tried to break my fall with my hands.
“Brooke!” Vanessa cried out as she knelt down on the ground next to me. A crowd began to gather around us. The pain coming from my ankle was searing, and I grabbed it and bent my head down toward my knee.
“Is your friend okay?” I heard a stranger ask Vanessa.
“She tripped on that hot dog,” Vanessa said. I looked up to see the offending hot dog rolling away as Vanessa began yelling at the vendor about how we were lawyers and she was going to sue him. I knew that hot dogs weren’t particularly good for you, but this was ridiculous.
“I think I need to go to the hospital,” I said to Vanessa as she helped me to my feet. Or, foot, as the case may be. I put my arm over her shoulder as I hopped with her to the curb.
“Should we get that vendor’s license number?” Vanessa asked me.
“I’m in too much pain to think about possible future lawsuits,” I said.
“I’m taking you right to Mount Sinai Hospital,” Vanessa said as a taxicab stopped to pick us up.
“Mount Sinai?” I asked. “That’s thirty blocks away. We need to go to Lenox Hill, it’s five blocks away.”
“We can’t go to Lenox Hill,” Vanessa said, opening the cab door and gently helping me in. “Mount Sinai Hospital, please,” she said to the cab driver. He wrote down our destination while we sat there at the red light.
“She means Lenox Hill, sir,” I said, looking at Vanessa. “I’m in a bit of pain here.” He shot me a dirty look in the rearview mirror as he erased our former destination and began to scribble down the new one.
“Marcus is at Lenox Hill,” Vanessa said, looking down.
“We’re not going to see him,” I said, still clutching my ankle. “It’s a big hospital. If you want, you can even just drop me off and go home. Slow the cab down to a cool five and just roll me out. Lenox Hill, sir.”
“It’s a really small hospital and I can’t leave you alone,” she said. “She means Mount Sinai. Sorry for the confusion.”
“
“What if you
