“Heather,” Tad says, still looking concerned. “Don’t try to shrug this off like it’s no big deal. I know this is a big step for you, and I’m really proud of you just for showing up. The truth is, I care about you, and your physical health is really important to me. And race training is serious business. Do it wrong, and you could seriously injure yourself.”
Athletes! They’re so particular. Morning jog, race training. Who even cares? Any way you say it, it still spells death to me.
Wait… did I think that? I didn’t mean it. No, really. This is going to be fun. I’m getting into shape. Because, like Tad keeps telling me, I’m not fat. I just need to tone up a little.
“You go ahead,” I tell him, with a smile. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Tad shrugs, gives me a good-bye wink—I guess he knows as well as I do that he’s going to leave me in his dust—and takes off.
Yeah. No way I’m going to keep up with that. But that’s okay. I’ll just go at my own pace. Nice and easy. Here we go. There, see? I’m doing it. I’m running! Hey, look at me! I’m running! I’m—
Okay, well, that’s enough of that. Whew. I mean, a girl could hyperventilate from doing that. And seriously, it’s my first day. Don’t want to overdo it.
Also, I think I felt something come loose back there. I’m not trying to overreact or anything, but I think it was my uterus. Honest. I think my uterus jiggled free.
Is that even possible? I mean, could my uterus just come sliding out?
I seriously hope not because these yoga pants slash leggings aren’t tight enough to hold it in. I got the extra large instead of the large because I figured, you know, no one would be able to see my cellulite through them if they weren’t skin tight.
But now my uterus is just going to come out between my legs and I’m going to look like I’m walking around with an enormous load in my pants.
Maybe it wasn’t my uterus. Maybe it was just my ovaries. But that’s okay, since I’m not really sure I want kids anyway. I mean, yeah, it might be nice, but what kind of mother would I make, really? If it weren’t for my ex-boyfriend’s family black sheep of a brother letting me live rent-free on a floor of his brownstone in exchange for doing all the billing and bookkeeping for his private detective agency, I’d probably be living in a six-person share in Long Island City right about now, barely making it to work before noon every day, since I live approximately a two-minute walk from where I work as it is, and I hardly ever make it there before nine.
How am I going to handle nurturing an actual living human being who is totally dependent on me for all its needs?
Look at my dog! I mean, I left my dog at home instead of bringing her here to the park with me for my morning jog because she was still sleeping and didn’t want to get up when I got up. Even when I rattled her leash. What kind of mom would do that? What kind of mom goes, “Okay. Whatever” when her kids tell her they want to stay home and sleep instead of go to school?
I’ll tell you want kind. The kind you see being led away in handcuffs on the evening news, going, “Git that camera outta my face!”
Namely me.
Seriously, though. That’s how early I’m up. So early my own dog expressed no interest in getting up and joining me. That’s really sad.
Especially since Lucy doesn’t know about the big shock she’s shortly headed for: Ever since Cooper let my father—the ex-con—move in, Lucy’s been living the high life, thanks to Dad’s habit of whipping up gourmet dinners and taking her on long rambles all over the city (in exchange for the free room and board, Cooper had Dad tail a few of his clients’ soon-to-be exes. Dad thought he looked less conspicuous hanging around outside the Ritz if he was walking a dog).
But now that Dad’s reconnected with his old business partner, Larry, and the two of them have cooked up this new super-secret plot to get them “back in the music biz,” he’s moving on up… not so much to a deluxe apartment in the sky, but to the second bedroom in Larry’s co-op on Park and Fifty-seventh, at least.
Which believe me, I’m not complaining about. Sure, I’m sorry to see Dad go—it was kind of nice to come home to an already walked dog and home-cooked meal every night.
But how many nearly thirty-year-old girls do you know who still live with their dads?
Still, if Lucy knew how shortly her gravy train was about to end, I bet she wouldn’t have been quite so blasé about taking a walk with me this morning.
Excuse me. A race-training jog.
I think Lucy might actually have had the right idea though. Once you get past the part about ogling all the cute tenure track assistant professors in their running shorts, this jogging thing is lame. I think I’ll just walk. Walking is excellent exercise. They say if you walk briskly for half an hour a day, you won’t gain weight, or something. Which isn’t as good as losing weight. You know, if you need to.
But it’s better than nothing.
Yeah, walking is good. Of course, all these people are careening past me. Sporty people. Their uteruses clearly aren’t falling out. How are they keeping theirs inside? What’s the secret?
“Heather?”
Yikes. It’s Tad.
“You okay?”
He is jogging beside me, pretty much in place, because I’m going so slowly.
“I’m fine!” I cry. “Just, you know. Pacing myself. Like you said.”