Page 11 of The Best Worst Thing

The Greenbelt

She didn’t have to wait very long.

By noon, Nicole and Logan were sinking their sneakered feet into the warm, soft earth of the Greenbelt, a miles-long, tree-lined running path that connected their two towns.

Logan was wearing some Tahoe Marathon shirt and these short, navy shorts, and Nicole could see how tan and long and lean his quads were, which was not something she was entirely prepared for, so she’d spent the past seventeen minutes focusing on her breathing instead.

Which was probably a good thing. Because she needed all the help she could get.

“You okay, Missouri? You want to stop?”

“No,” Nicole said between heaves. “I do not want to stop.”

He came to a halt. Nicole, a half step later, dropped her hands onto her knees, wheezing.

“What are you doing?” she said. “I’m fine, I—”

“I actually hate running,” he said. “It’s completely pointless. Nihilistic and Sisyphean and anything else you can think of, it’s definitely that too. Just a horrible sport, if you ask me. And I won’t waste another minute engaged in this middle-aged performance art. I’ve had enough. I’m done.”

Nicole—still catching her breath—rolled her eyes, rattling off every which way Logan was a full-fledged moron.

He grinned the entire time, then motioned her down the trail and asked if she’d like to take a break from making fun of him for some lunch.

Nicole nodded, and off they went, chatting about bread-and-butter pickles, professional table tennis, and whatever else was on Logan’s mind while the midday sun beamed through the arching trees in rustling spots and streaks.

As they headed south, the cresting hill curved, revealing long, wide stretches of the glistening Pacific until they’d finally arrived at Pier Avenue, a low-key string of cafés, surf shops, and yoga studios that sloped all the way down to the shore of Hermosa Beach.

They grabbed iced coffees, premade sandwiches, and a few half-priced pastries from a bakery Logan liked, then worked their way down to the water, where they kicked off their shoes and socks and twisted their toes into the warm white sand.

With the sun beating down on their shoulders, Logan told Nicole all about Quentin’s months-long retreat to Fez, the Nintendo 8-bit system his best friend had been restoring all week, and how his mom kept sending him newspaper cutouts of age-appropriate female journalists affixed with Post-its that said things like “What about her?” and “She seems nice!” But by the time they’d finished their picnic, the conversation had come back to Nicole and what she’d been doing the past couple of years.

“I don’t know,” she said, poking at an ice cube with her straw. “I mostly do this podcast thing? It’s nothing, though. It’s stupid.”

“Wait, you have a podcast? That sounds really cool. Why is that stupid?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why I said that.”

But, of course, there were a million reasons to have said that.

Because of what had happened at Kyle’s party.

Because the whole show was literally about getting pregnant with her cheating husband’s baby.

And because if Logan went home and listened, he’d realize within seconds that Nicole might be a mother by March.

Because while Nicole knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that transfer would work, she’d never shared that with anyone.

Except for Mari, kind of, the other night.

Because that—that, and what had happened with Gabe—were failures so definitive she wasn’t quite sure how to broach them, let alone broadcast them.

“What’s it about?” he said. “Can I listen?”

“Oh, no. Trust me, you’d hate it. It’s mostly women’s issues.”

“I like women! I like issues!”

Nicole’s fingers found a cracked, sand-crusted seashell at her feet. She traced its grooves for a moment, then tossed it aside. “It’s about infertility. Please don’t listen. I’m serious, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, nodding once. Then he turned to her, sifted his fingers through the sand, and took a deep breath.

“I was kind of surprised when I saw you … I just assumed …” Another inhale.

“What I’m trying to say is, I know how much you wanted that.

And I can’t imagine how hard it’s been for you. ”

Nicole wrinkled her nose. Who would’ve thought, of all the people on this planet, it’d be Logan who wasn’t afraid to talk about this stuff? But then again, hadn’t he always surprised her? Especially those last six months?

“I can’t carry children,” she said. “That’s what I found out. That it’s my fault, that—”

“It’s not your fault.”

Nicole buried her feet in the sand and stared out at the horizon.

“It is,” she said. “If it weren’t for me, if …”

She was crying. It just kind of happened. She was crying—right here, right next to Logan on a perfect July day, a crumpled-up bag of moderately stale baked goods between them. She pulled her legs into her chest and hid her face in her knees.

Logan began to say her name, then stopped himself.

He reached out his hand, then pulled it back.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her face with the hem of her shirt, half looking at him.

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.

I talk about it every week, but it’s not the same, I guess.

The whole podcast is just … I don’t know.

It’s kind of one big joke. And the truth is, I don’t even know who I’m trying to make laugh. ”

“Well, you can tell me anything,” he said. “I’ve got nowhere to be until … ever, actually. Maybe Atlanta midweek, but until then, nothing.”

She kicked a little sand his way. “Why is your job so fake? What do you even do again?”

“Same as always, Nicole. I sell shit.” He reached for her abandoned cinnamon roll and took a bite. “I sell shit, and I talk to you.”

“You’re really good at it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

And then, for a little while, they just sat there. Waves crashed. Children shrieked. Lifeguards whistled. Yet somehow, everything was perfectly quiet.

Afternoon melted into evening. They wandered for hours, walking and talking and stopping for cones of vanilla soft serve that dripped down their rainbow-sprinkled wrists.

They perused a farmers’ market, rifled through a record store, then sneezed their way through a two-story antique shop teeming with moth-holed costumery nobody wished to buy.

By seven thirty, the California sky had softened into sherbet-colored brushstrokes of coral and lilac and rose; the slowly dipping sun, gold.

They grabbed tacos from a hole in the wall on Fifth Street, then snatched the least wobbly table they could find and rolled their eyes at each other some more.

After dinner, they glided north across town, talking shit about creative directors while the finally setting sun cast that last, magical glow on the run-down bars and shuttered hardware supply stores that lined this strange little stretch of Pacific Coast Highway.

And by the time the laid-back, paint-chipped tall-and-skinnies that filled Hermosa’s steep, crowded streets had given way to the Hill Section of Manhattan Beach—where the trees were trimmed and the houses were huge and the views, limitless—night had fallen.

“I’m just a few more down,” Nicole said.

Logan nodded. Every ten feet or so, he’d look around, eyes wide, and kind of shake his head. Nicole kept trying to think of something witty to say to keep the conversation going, but she couldn’t. So they just wandered silently until she came to a stop. Logan smirked.

“Are you laughing at my house?” she said.

“No,” he said. “I’m laughing near your house.”

Nicole looked around, cheeks warm. Four thousand square feet of crisp white siding, careful stonework, and glossy black-framed picture windows stared back at her.

A single forgotten light was on in her upstairs bedroom, revealing the sleeping silhouette of a bistro table and two chairs centered on an oversize balcony.

Succulents burst from glazed planters, and above the front stoop, a statement pendant hung, oil-rubbed bronze and frosted glass.

“It’s …”

“Subtle?” he said.

“It is subtle!”

“Totally,” Logan said. They were both chuckling now, and almost at her front door. He eyed the SUV parked in the lavender-lined driveway. “Your car’s white?”

“Um, yeah?”

Logan stifled another smirk.

“What?” she said. “Is my car funny now too?”

“Nothing, it’s … Never mind.”

They were standing on her stoop, shifting in their sneakers. The sky, ink. The air, dense. Their summer day, smudged across the bridge of his nose. His hands were in his pockets.

“Can we do this again next Saturday?” he said.

Nicole nodded. Logan’s face lit up.

And then Nicole stepped inside her house, let Nero pee in the backyard, left the dishes for tomorrow, and just lay in her unmade bed, trying her best not to replay every single second of her day, over and over again.

She gave herself a C+, then finally fell asleep.