Page 6 of The False Flat

The woman popped another piece of cereal into her mouth. “You ride? Of course you ride; look at you. Do you ride with a group?”

Oh no. Did she ride? Was this southern etiquette, or was she trying to bond? How did I tell her I would never consider a group ride? I rode to recover from people, not be with people.

And she was just going to stand here and talk? Right here in the grocery store, after opening another customer’s food choice and eating it in said customer’s face? Who was this woman? I kind of envied her.

“I ride,” I replied, nodding like one of those creepy, slow-moving bobblehead dolls you occasionally see on dashboards.

She shook the box toward me. I glanced down the aisle, then reached in.

“Alone, typically.” I finally embraced this bizarre moment as if it were completely natural to eat in the middle of aisle four. “I just moved here, so I don’t know anyone.” Again, I left out the big picture stuff. I chose to ride alone. People complicated life. I was better with numbers and money. Numbers didn’t rip your heart out; numbers didn’t leave you, or if they did, they usually came back, more numbers with them.

“Great!” The woman dusted off her hands, handed me the box, and then searched in her purse. “My husband’s a cyclist. My brother too. They ride in a group. You should totally join them.”

Interior hard chuckles. It was more likely that the Cap’n would jump off the box and start breakdancing in his underwear—seriously, you couldn’t see his pants behind that bowl—than it was for me to join a group of “cyclists” who actually knew what they were doing.

“What’s your number?” the two asked. “I’ll text you mine and William’s; he’s my husband. I can let you know when their next ride is. Better yet, you should come to dinner. I kind of owe you for eating your cereal.”

Dinner? I’d just stopped for a pile of sugar to drown my sorrows in. Friends had been a previous goal before my life fell apart. I wasn’t sure I wanted a friend anymore, let alone friends. Casual acquaintance, maybe. The kind you called when you wanted to go out somewhere but would look too pathetic if you went alone, like a fondue restaurant or an escape room. This woman didn’t look like a casual acquaintance; this woman looked like she’d pry my whole life story out of me before I could skewer a piece of meat.

“That’s not—”

“Nonsense!” she said, cutting me off. “You’re new around here, and you don’t have to be alone. We’ve already bonded. I mean, how often do I meet someone who loves Cap’n Crunch, is a like-minded aspiring entrepreneur, and is so refreshingly honest about life and how hard it sucks sometimes. Please come to dinner. What’s your number?” Her phone was poised in her hand, waiting.

Wow. How did I explain to her that my freakish outburst was an anomaly? I held everything in, all the time. Though she was right about the Cap’n and the entrepreneur stuff. Still.

I bit the inside of my cheek and then decided that giving her my number was the easiest thing to do here. It wasn’t like I had to go to dinner. It wasn’t like I had to answer calls or texts. Once I was out of this store, I wouldn’t have to see this woman ever again. And I’d check the cereal aisle before I walked down it the next time I needed a fix, which would likely be soon, given the state of my life.

I peered down the aisle again, like this was some covert operation, and then gave my phone number to the amazingly bold, cereal-scarfing, second Mrs. Crunch.

“I’m Deanna, by the way.” Which I guessed was my clue to tell Deanna who I was.

“I’m Penelope. I go by Pen.” I sounded like a robot, like my mother!

“I love that. I just texted you, Pen. Next Friday? A week from tonight? Me and William, and you and . . . I’m guessing you won’t want to bring a date, but so you don’t feel like a third wheel, my brother Grant will be there too. His girlfriend is out of town; he was planning to come over for dinner anyway. It works out! I’ll be in touch.” The woman scampered off, leaving me holding an open box of cereal in one hand and my regret in the other.

The idea of dinner and riding groups made the cereal squirm in my stomach.

I grabbed a box of hot chocolate mix, the kind with the tiny, desiccated marshmallows, shuffled to the self-checkout, past the eager woman in lane five because I’d reached my people limit for the day, scanned, paid, and headed back to my bicycle.

On the way home, I had a flash of me sitting on Deanna’s plush sectional—she seemed like a woman who owned a sectional—legs tucked under me, chatting with her over ice cream, like a real friend.

It was such a pleasant thought, but then I remembered who I was. Could I be a real friend?

No. Not now at least. I couldn’t entertain the thought of friends when I was trying to get a financial practice up and running. Friends would have to wait. I’d continue watching the TV show Friends and pick up a few pointers for way, way down the road.

Back at home, I returned my bicycle to the garage, grabbed my sad, brown grocery bag, and sighed when I realized how light it was.

I’d forgotten the milk.

Ten of my well-placed mutual funds said Deanna wouldn’t have forgotten the milk.

CHAPTER 3

LIFE REALIZATION #1: BLACK AND BEIGE ARE SUITABLE TREATMENTS FOR PANIC ATTACKS

Mondays are unattractive. But when you’re scrambling to start a business on your own from scratch, they’re hideous: 1980s-sweatband hideous. On this particular Monday (three days after the grocery store incident), I was sitting at Frothy Monkey on Fifth Avenue, sipping a “hand-brewed” coffee with “house-made caramel” and staring out the window at all the sharply dressed businesspeople who knew what they were doing with their lives. Their long strides were determined, going somewhere. Their chatter was carefree, tipped with smiles and threaded with laughter. I tore my eyes away from the window and stared down at the crisp, bleached legal pad that popped against the lacquered wood in front of me.

The top three items on a financial planner’s to-do list are as follows: