The Better Half(2)
What followed the board’s mandate was two years of me pulling hundred-hour workweeks. As assistant head, I ran Royal-Hawkins while Headmaster Nevins spent his last days focused on his farewell tour and mansplaining the school’s alarm system to me, which I’ve been successfully arming for years. Professionally, I had my administrative duties to tend to plus taking on my final degree at UCLA in the evenings and on the weekends. Personally, I was busy raising my daughter, Xandra, and prepping her to apply to Pemberley, the boarding school outside New York City her father had attended, for her freshman year of high school. I was spent. For those two years my entire world was consumed by Google Docs. And then a week ago, after what seemed like a lifetime of going and doing and stressing, it all came to an end. In one day, I had picked Xandra up from LAX at the end of her freshman year, moved my Bruins tassel from the right to the left, wheeled boxes into my new office, and sent out my first Message from the Head of School to families and alumni of Royal-Hawkins. I expertly hid my woes of middle-age exhaustion and feelings of impostor syndrome from the school community. Now it is time to celebrate my accomplishments with Marisol. Despite our close bond, we tend to differ in our definitions of revelry. I know Marisol’s packing pot gummies in her purse, whereas I have chewable melatonin.
“Wake me up a few minutes before we get there. I don’t want the valet to catch me drooling on myself.” I lick the corners of my mouth to start clean.
“Oh, I see how it is. You’re worried what other folks think, but you’re okay looking all raggedy for me. I’ve been waiting for this girls’ weekend for forever, so you better be ready to turn it out!” Marisol nudges my knee and blows me a kiss with her pouty, apple-red glossed lips. I know she’s excited to have me all to herself for the next couple of days after an extensive girls’ night out drought, other than our monthly afternoon spa dates. Buried in life or not, we both agree: after forty, we have to do the work necessary to keep ourselves pulled together given our public-facing jobs.
I doze in and out, and when salty air tickles my nose I can tell we’re nearing the Pacific Ocean. Marisol pats my arm and announces, “Freshen up, girlfriend. We’re five minutes away.”
“I can’t wait to check out the hotel’s room service menu. You think they have wedge salad?” I ask, bringing the seat back upright.
“I thought you wanted to go pure monastic this weekend. All sprouts, lean proteins, and not talking to anybody but me.”
“I believe salad is comfort spa food. Iceberg lettuce slathered in blue cheese and bacon . . . yum. But you’re right, my plan for the rest of the evening is straight to the room, robe on, full Buddhist. Dinner in bed cooked by somebody other than me and surfing free streaming options is my idea of enlightenment.”
“I don’t think Buddhists eat meat.”
“Hey, don’t eff up my plan with a technicality.”
“You better have brought something sexy to wear. You know, just in case we decide to leave the room,” Marisol tosses out, looking for our turn so she doesn’t have to make eye contact with me. “I didn’t use a weekend hall pass from Jaime and my monsters to play backgammon in bed with you all night.”
Damn, I knew it. And I know her. Marisol avoiding eye contact is my hint that my best friend has plans of her own, and there will be no fondling the remote in my future. I suppose I can start to correct the damage done to my circadian rhythm from all my degree gathering when I get home.
We unload our bags at the hotel, and Marisol decides we’re going to get cute and hit the lounge before the evening rush. Within thirty minutes of our arrival, a crowd has already formed a human fence around the bar, so we choose a table close to the retractable wall of windows open to the ocean. Settled and in need of cocktails, we resort to a tried-and-true method of choosing who will wade into the fray for drinks.
“One. Two. Three. Shoot. One. Two. Three. Shoot. Paper covers rock twice, you lose!” Marisol howls triumphantly while I stifle a yawn. You’d think I’d be better at this game. It’s how Xandra and I determine who gets to decide takeout on weekends.
Marisol stretches her bare chestnut arms up in victory, a joyous smile radiating across her face. She projects her voice above the hum of the bar so I’m sure to hear her order correctly. “Margarita, blended, light salt, twist of lime, half straw.” I feel like a Starbucks barista. “Thank YOU! Now go, go, go, Mami’s looking good and feeling parched!”
I wish I could say Marisol’s a gracious winner, but I have thirty-five years of evidence to the contrary. We first met when she schooled me at double Dutch on the asphalt strip between our apartment buildings in Queens but then felt so bad for gloating that she shared her TWIX bar. She’s a competitive bitch with a conscience.
“Aren’t we supposed to be celebrating me this weekend? You should be hustling the drinks,” I declare, standing up and smoothing down my sleeveless turquoise wrap dress. Peering across the bar, I see I’ll have to fight my way through an unexpected cross section of a wedding party catching a buzz the night before the nuptials and a conference group undoubtedly drinking heavily to forget a blistering day spent listening to PowerPoint presentations.
“I probably should but . . . nah! You lost fair and square.” Marisol waves me onward to chart my solo course to Margaritaville.
“Sorry. Sorry. So sorry.” I excuse my way through the millennials sporting bandage dresses to reach the lounge bar at the Biltmore. I spy a sliver of space in between two men ignoring one another, both fixated on getting the lone bartender’s attention.