Page 4 of The False Flat

THROW-DOWN ON AISLE FOUR

Two weeks passed in a blur, and Nashville wasn’t at all what I’d expected. But given the whirlwind move, I hadn’t had time to expect much. Age and a musty odor clung to every crevice of my new (very expensive) two-story house located in too-trendy-for-you East Nashville. But it was quaint, situated in a tree-lined, bikeable neighborhood with a sizable backyard, and it was five minutes from downtown (why it was so expensive). Its biggest selling point, though, was its distance from my life back in Minnesota. And it was mine.

The sun threatened to set as I stood in the part of the driveway that curved into the backyard and waited for the ancient door on the detached garage to ratchet upward. The cool (yet much warmer than Minnesota) late-March breeze fluttered the new leaves on the overgrown bush beside me. A bee hovered in midair, its hum merging with my stomach growls as we (the bee and I) scanned the property. The lawn was manicured, the wooden house slats freshly painted a midnight blue, and the flower beds around the perimeter of the house had a solid two inches of mulch. I could smell the cedar.

The house was like me, strong and stately on the outside, all but falling apart on the inside.

I maneuvered into the now-open garage, past all the unpacked boxes to my bicycle, my best friend, my only friend, and current chauffeur to the grocery store, because I needed Cap’n Crunch, the best cereal, and therefore dinner, on the planet. It made my soul sing. I yanked out my new bike, bumping my elbow against the handlebars in the process. As I rubbed my arm, I felt eyes on me.

When I looked up, sure enough, “The Nose” dropped a section of blinds on an upstairs window of the house next door. That woman watched every move I made without apology. I’d assigned her a number four—the kind that comes to a point on top, most resembling a nose—though we hadn’t officially met. Erin had told me her real name was Mrs. Snoe, but until further notice, she’d remain “The Nose” to me, which wasn’t the nicest title since I didn’t know her, but I didn’t like the feeling of being spied on in the only place I could let loose—home, which this wasn’t yet.

I threw my long leg over my bicycle, and then my phone buzzed in my armband.

My knuckles blanched white on the handlebars because even without looking at the screen, I guessed it was Aurora. I’d hung up on her five minutes ago because she couldn’t believe I’d walked out on my job and my boyfriend and her. She wanted me to come back.

“You don’t even have a plan, Penelope!” she’d said, her voice stern but not shouting.

“I have a plan.” I didn’t, at least not a solid one. I was going to start my own business, now that I was out from under Houston’s sexist thumb. But the idea was all I had. Her words gnawed at my intestines, made me doubt my ability to do this—without her, in a foreign place.

Aurora Auberge wasn’t like other mothers. She didn’t meddle in my thoughts and feelings. However, she was compelled to make my life sparkle. In Minnesota, she’d picked out my apartment because I’d previously been ready to “settle” for one that had a faulty closet door. Then she’d furnished it with all the “must-haves” for a high-powered woman in finance. That was how we had a relationship. I let her run certain aspects of my life. It was easier. And left to my own devices, I’d be a slob, at least in my homelife.

Our relationship, such as it was, came with an unspoken contract:

No feelings. Those had stopped after my brother / best friend died, and my mother responded by morphing into a combination of Stepford wife and corporate powerhouse.

No problems. Potential problems were polished, shined, put in an Armani suit, and fed a wholesome dinner someone else had cooked. The fact that my physician father had coped by becoming a cheating alcoholic wasn’t a problem; it was a task for my mother to tend to.

Appearances mattered. If we looked fine, convinced everyone around us that we were fine, then we were fine. I sort of liked this one.

ABM. Always be moving. Downtime led to thinking. Thinking might lead to discovering problems, and since problems didn’t exist in my mother’s world, thinking too long was strictly prohibited.

As a child, I’d harbored resentment. As an adult, I harbored that same resentment, but I’d become accustomed to the unspoken contract. There was an odd comfort to our way of life. “Comfort” wasn’t the right word. We were too rigid for that. “Predictability,” maybe? That was it. Predictability held appeal. But now that my mother only had me to focus on, the attention was stifling.

I shoved my feet onto the pedals and moved like my life depended on it, flying by the overpriced houses along the street on my new Trek bicycle.

I shouldn’t have spent the money on it, but my old bicycle was like a human who knew my previous life, so I’d given it away. But I didn’t even have furniture. And while I had money because I knew how to multiply funds by a few clicks of my keyboard, that pool had been drained by this house. A bicycle was more important than furniture anyway.

I’d let the bouncy, fit guy at the bicycle store talk me into this one, partly because I didn’t want to admit I had no idea what I was doing. People thought you were fit when you rode a bicycle, but I wasn’t a typical cyclist. I didn’t eat kale or fawn over microgreens.

Cycling was simply how I managed the rising panic, a discovery that had changed my life a few years ago.

My legs started burning as I turned the corner. A little white-haired lady smiled and waved as she walked her curly-haired brown dog down the sidewalk. The wind blew, taking some of my thoughts with it. I was pedaling on, very near able to pretend it was okay again, when a little ping indicated Aurora had left a voicemail. The first flares of a panic attack shot across my stomach, and I screeched to a stop, ripped the phone out of its pocket on my arm, nearly tearing the tiny stitches holding the extra flap of fabric in place, and stared at the screen.

Not my mother.

Chad.

He’d called at exactly the wrong time or exactly the right time, depending on who was asked. Because right then, I didn’t want to hear his baritone voice, and I certainly didn’t want to admit how the sound of it still slid around my body, settling inside me like a decadent cup of hot chocolate. And I wanted even less to hear what he had to say. I was moving on.

I made a mental note to pick up some packages of hot chocolate.

I deleted the voicemail without listening to it, smiled, and decided that if deleting one voicemail made me feel this good, then blocking his number should be orgasmic. Not that I wanted to have an orgasm on the side of the road in front of the new neighbors. Chad’s hot breath cascaded down the side of my neck as he whispered, “Don’t do it,” and so, I did it. Illogical spite? Maybe. Whatever it was called, it made me feel better.

I found his name, scrolled to the bottom of his contact page, and saw three little delightfully red words: “Block this Caller.” I didn’t even hesitate to hit the button. Maybe I hesitated when the box warned me that I would no longer be receiving this handsome, cheating bastard’s phone calls, messages, or FaceTimes, but the hesitation was brief. I needed him blocked from my life.

The words changed from an angry red “Block this Caller” to a soothing blue “Unblock this Caller.” I secured my phone back into my armband, shoved my feet onto my pedals, and took off again as fast as my legs would move. When the wind whipped around me again, I imagined a cape flapping in the spring breeze behind me.

I’d ride away from Chad.