Signs of Life (32 page)

angela
Anagnost, one of my best friends from college, is getting married this weekend. I have committed a lot of time to complaining about being a bridesmaid and about leaving Kai for three whole days. My family is up north for the week, so I have to leave from there to go to the other side of the state. My parents drive me to Lauren Gentry’s apartment, which is right across town from where we are staying, so she and I can carpool to Angela’s for the weekend. Ads and Moo are with Kai while my parents drive me. I just put him down for a nap before I left.
My mom keeps telling me, “Nat, he’s fine. Everything will be fine.”

Halfway to Gentry’s apartment, we start to hear jets flying over us. The annual National Cherry Festival is going on this weekend in Traverse City. One of its main attractions is the Blue Angels, exhibition fighter-jet pilots. Of course, out of all the days and all the times, they are practicing right now. My brother calls, and my dad puts him on speakerphone. I can hear Kai screaming in the background. “There are fucking
jets
flying over the house.” Adam is frantic. “Don’t they know there are babies trying to nap in this city?” He asks what he should do to calm Kai down. Try the bottle, rock him, lie with him, I tell Ads, but it’s obvious that none of it is working. Finally Adam says, “Mom, how long till you get back here?” I feel so bad for my brother, but at the same time I want to slap him across the face. My body starts to shake at the idea that my son is crying and my car is going in the opposite direction.

My parents drop me off at Gentry’s place. It’s a tough goodbye. Gentry is really positive about the whole thing. She keeps telling me we’re going to have a great time. I do not agree with her. I get in the car and try to channel Mathews’s positive attitude.

Gentry is still one of my best friends, despite the four-hour drive between our houses. We met in college and played soccer together. During our junior year of college, a group of us girls lived in the Delta Tau Delta fraternity house. The Delts had been kicked off campus for some riotous behavior, so right there in the middle of the fraternity block was the Delt house, fully occupied by women. The Delt house was my unofficial baptism into womanhood for a lot of reasons that we won’t go into now, but the point is I am still very close with my Delt house friends. They were there for my wedding, Josh’s funeral, and they’ve
been arguing about who is the best auntie ever since Kai was born.

Gentry and I have about a two-and-half-hour drive to Angela’s. On the car ride over, I read Elizabeth Berg’s new book of short stories,
The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted
. Each story highlights a different truth of being a woman. One chapter is all about this woman who goes to Weight Watchers and sees a woman with an oxygen tube and a blind woman weighing in. The narrator says she turns around, walks out, and in honor of these two women, she goes and eats whatever she wants for the rest of the day. Dunkin’ Donuts, Kentucky Fried Chicken, White Castle—the list goes on. It’s hilarious. Another story is about women at a party talking about sex and penises and giggling like sixth-grade girls, and then one of the husbands comes over and breaks everything up, saying he’s ready to go. “Mrs. Ethel Menafee and Mrs. Birdie Stolz” is about two women who have been friends for over fifty years. Now Birdie is in the hospital with lymphatic leukemia. Ethel comes to visit her every day, and they talk about normal things that women talk about. Their chatty visits seem to keep Birdie going more than her medical care. I haven’t read a book for fun in a million years. I love Elizabeth Berg. I feel like I know her as well as I know the girls from the Delt house.

We arrive. As other girls get there, we go screaming into hotel rooms. You’d think we hadn’t seen each other in fifty years. The beauty of this wedding is that most of the girls came without their husbands and boyfriends. The conversations, therefore, are much richer in nature. First we take bets on who will be making out with which of Angela’s hot Greek brothers (there are three to choose from, though I’m out of the pool, of course). Then we move on to talking about sex. No matter where we start, we eventually always end up talking about sex. This is
hilarious to me that we’ve been friends for eight years and this topic never gets boring. Every girl in our group is so different that the conversation could go in a variety of directions. Janna, for example, likes to be very serious about sex. Janna works for a planned parenting organization in Traverse City. One of her main responsibilities is to go to schools and talk to teenagers about safe sex. Janna uses technical terms, like
clitoris
, which the rest of us find ridiculous and hilarious.

But after all of the goofing around is over, we also talk about serious stuff. Gentry is always intrigued with how my brain is doing. Gentry is big on asking me about Josh. She is one of the few people in my life who will go for the jugular of tough questions. But she doesn’t ask in a gossipy way. One of Gentry’s best qualities is that she is incapable of gossip. She even hates it when we’re all hanging out and Terrah starts reading
Us Weekly
. Whether it’s about celebrities or her friends, Gentry sees it as totally mindless.

A few months after Kai was born, Gentry came down to stay with me for the weekend. She didn’t have anyone else to visit or any other agenda other than to see me. At the time, she was waitressing full-time and taking classes for her master’s in counseling, so she was busy to say the least. The first night she stayed with me was the first time we were together by ourselves since Josh died. I remember she said, “I know this sounds insensitive, but I am so sad for me,” and she started to cry. “I just feel like I lost one of my best friends. I’m so sad for you. But I’m sad for me too.” This was one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me about losing Josh. People are always so concerned with how I’m feeling, sometimes they don’t admit how hard their own life is without him.

At some point in the midst of spending time with my girlfriends, trying to learn how to Greek dance after being overserved
and sleeping in on Friday morning, I come to the conclusion that I am having fun. Jacci, bridesmaid number three, ends up making out with Dino, Angela’s twin brother, the night of the rehearsal dinner. The day of the wedding arrives. I feel like I’ve been at Greek camp for forty-eight hours, and tonight is the big show.

At every wedding before this one in the last twelve months (Ads’s, Toby and Nikki’s), there has been some acknowledgment of Josh’s absence. Angela’s is the first wedding where this won’t happen. This is the first celebration (Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, weddings, my birthday, Christmas, etc.) where no one has come up to me and said, “Hey, are you okay?” or “Hey, this must be hard for you.” This time around, everyone just carries on like it is another normal wedding. It’s so strange because I remember the tension and discomfort I felt when people took time in their own wedding to talk about Josh. It was so hard for me. But I knew, deep down, I wanted them to say something. I know Josh won’t be mentioned at this wedding, and he shouldn’t be. This wedding isn’t about Josh or me. But I still have a knot in my stomach about celebrating without the public acknowledgment that the world is still not right. Now that a year has passed, it feels like my dark cloud has disappeared, but in some ways I want it back over my head where everyone can see it.

I stand in the lobby of the church and wait for the one person who can pull me out of this slump: Chris Mathews. Mathews was up at Elk Lake last night with Deedee and Ashley. He was planning on leaving this morning. It’s about a two-hour drive to the wedding from where he is. I call his cell phone. He hasn’t left yet.

Ashley gets on the phone and explains that Mathews is lying on the dock in his Hanes T-shirt and boxer shorts with his eyes closed. Last night they all went to the bar in Elk Rapids, and
shockingly enough, Mathews wandered off. On their way home Ashley found Mathews passed out on the grass on a side street of Elk Rapids. Ashley laughs as she tells the story.

“I
allegedly
passed out, Natalie,” I can hear him yelling in the background.

I hang up and initially curse him for being hungover and leaving me high and dry for the ceremony. But also I know that being with Deedee and Ashley at the lake might be more important than this wedding ceremony. In his own magical way he lets them know that even though Josh is gone, he still loves being with them and spending time with them on the lake. And I’m sure before going out, he probably ate dinner with Deedee on the porch and offered to take the garbage cans to the street or take care of other tasks that previously belonged to Josh. As much as I’d like him here, I know Elk Lake needs a good Chris Mathews visit this summer. I report back to the small room at the back of the church to see if I have any final duties before the ceremony starts.

Three hours later, after a very long and very hot Greek ceremony, our party bus makes it to the reception hall. Mathews is there, looking dapper as ever. I give him a huge hug. Before I can even ask how the drive was, he says, “I just want you to know, I threw up twice on the way here.” I open my mouth to say something. He puts up his index finger and cuts me off. “I pulled over, stopped the car, threw up, then kept driving. Twice.” He says this like I should be proud. I should be proud of the fact that he drove all the way here, by himself, with an incredible hangover. So I say it.

“I’m proud of you.”

He shrugs. “I’m proud of me too.” And he really means it. The reception flies by. I try to Greek dance, but I end up leaving it to the Greeks. I have an amazing time.

I watch Angela and Brad, and sure, marriage is nice, but the real lasting relationships can be found in the seven of us in matching brown strapless dresses. My friends have been a huge force holding me up over the last thirteen months. The least I can do is be here for one of my friends, despite my current feelings about eternal love. We do this for one another because we have something different than marriage and, at certain times, more powerful. So if I have to give up three days with my son to stand in three-inch heels in the non-air-conditioned Hellenic Cultural Center for an hour-long service in another language, I’ll do it. I’ll do it a hundred times over. Elizabeth Berg would be proud of me.

I stumble back to my hotel room around 1 a.m. I rummage through my bridal party goodie bag to find a snack, then open my computer. In the morning I read what I’ve written and laugh.

Once I get home, one of the first things on my agenda is team-triathlon training. Maggie and I go to our first Team in Training practice. Maggie is about a half hour late getting to my house, which is not incredibly surprising. I get in the car. She says that her father had a list of things he needed to discuss with her, and “per usual” he made her late. We get all of our stuff loaded in my car and take off for Kent Lake Metro Park.

I have been out biking twice so far, and it was really more like cruising than an actual workout. I signed up for this triathlon
two months ago, and this is my first practice. Luckily, Maggie has gone to several, so she’s scoped things out for me. She tells me that she has a crush on Coach Rick, and everyone else is “really nice.” I am uninterested in the niceness of our team. “Am I going to come in last during the workout today?” This is my only concern. She laughs and says no. I tell her she is absolutely not required to stay with me on the bike.

Everyone is gathered in the parking lot. Maggie and I get our bikes out and scurry over. Apparently, before every practice the coach gives a little session on important information for first-time racers. Today he is talking about “transitions.” Transitions are the two times an athlete has to move from one event to the next in a triathlon. Transition one is from swim to bike. Transition two is from bike to run. Coach Rick takes about twenty minutes to describe what the transition area will look like and how we should arrange every single item around our bike. He says we’ll need a towel to place under the bike, a place for some water and an energy supplement, that our sunglasses should hang on the handlebars and that our helmets are to be un-clipped, yaddi yaddi yadda. I keep looking at my watch. It’s already twenty after eight, let’s go already. “How much instruction can there be?” I want to shout. Take off your wet suit and throw on a helmet, for crying out loud!

A tall, athletic-looking woman stands next to me. She keeps raising her hand and asking for more detail. “Coach Rick, would you suggest wearing a waterproof watch or putting it on after the swim?” Coach Rick, who is really into being Coach Rick, replies with a “That’s a great question, Tammy!” and goes on to explain the details of taking off a wet suit with or sans watch. Tammy’s hand goes up three more times.

The entire time Coach Rick talks, I check out the crowd. There are a few people my age, but most of the team is older
than Maggie and me. I’d say midforties. Tammy is probably fifteen years older than me. In terms of fitness, these are some fairly average-looking athletes. There is a guy with a goatee and black riding gloves, and his belly hangs over his spandex. I put my foot on the pedal of my bike, like I know what I’m doing, and think about how I’ll probably be able to keep up. In addition to sizing everyone up, I also conclude that Maggie and I have widely different taste in men. Coach Rick has perfectly aligned tube socks and a buzz cut, and initially addressed the group with a “Hey, gang!”