Breaking the Rules: The Honeybees, book 1 (19 page)

I took the flowers inside and sunk down into a chair. Did this change anything?

No, I decided. My leg was still broken. I still couldn’t run the marathon. If Devin couldn’t change the past, nothing he could say now would make me feel any better.

I tried to concentrate on my students the rest of the week and on redefining my goals for the coming months, but I couldn’t get Devin out of my head. The reunion was on Friday, and I’d be going alone. As much as I didn’t want to, I missed Devin like crazy. Part of me wished he could still come with me to the event and be my emotional support.

But we’d broken up, and I’d have to face it alone. Besides, he had a marathon to run early the next morning. And thinking about the marathon, remembering why I wouldn’t be running it myself, I was glad he wouldn’t be there.

At least I had my Honeybees. I was so glad I’d reconnected with each of them over the past few months. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed them since we’d lost touch, and seeing them had reminded me how much I’d enjoyed our friendship back then.
 

Finally, the evening of the reunion arrived. After going back and forth a few times, I put on the deep blue dress I’d worn the night Matt had dumped me. I hadn’t worn it once since then—too many bad memories—but it felt far enough in the past now that I could face the dress again.
 

What would everyone look like?
I wondered. What would they be doing with their lives? I imagined them all married, possibly pregnant or with a kid. The ones who didn’t have kids would’ve been traveling the world or starting companies. By now some of them would have masters degrees or even PhDs. Some would be doctors or lawyers, some would be executives at national corporations. Maybe there would be successful filmmakers or artists or writers. I tried to remember what my classmates had wanted to do for a living back in high school.
 

And then there was me. Fifteen pounds overweight, broken leg, single, with nothing to show for my decade since high school except my failed relationship and a few former students who still remembered me. I pinched my stomach through the lush fabric of the dress and sighed. No accomplishments to my name. No marathon to tell about.
 

As I headed out on the BART toward the hotel where the reunion was taking place, I wished I’d asked the Honeybees if they wanted to meet for happy hour beforehand. I’d be a lot more nervous walking in alone—and a drink might help.
 

But of course I hadn’t—until a few days ago, I’d thought I wouldn’t be drinking at all tonight. I’d thought I’d be preparing for the event I’d been working toward for months.

My stomach clenched as I walked into the hotel lobby, where a sign directed me to the second-floor ballroom. “Richardson High School Reunion.” This was really happening.
 

Upstairs, my old class president and vice president sat behind a table full of name tags, checking people in. I got in the short line, smoothing my dress anxiously and scanning the people around me for familiar faces. None.

When it was my turn, the former class president greeted me, then looked more closely. “Sophie! I almost didn’t recognize you.” Then, looking down at my cast, she added, “Oh, you poor thing.”

I felt myself blushing deeply. “Hi Tessa. Good to see you.” Had I really gained that much weight? I must look terrible to someone like her, someone who hadn’t seen me in so many years. The broken leg was only the rotten icing on the whole unpleasant cake.
 

“You look great,” she added, but I thought she must’ve just been trying to cover up her initial reaction. “And your guest?” she prompted, glancing up from her list of names.
 

“He’s…he’s not coming,” I said, feeling my stomach sink. This was going so poorly already; what other horrors would this night bring? Should I not have come?

She gave me my name tag and I headed into the ballroom. It was decorated to look almost like a prom, clusters of balloons and streamers decorating the room and a big balloon arch stretching over the stage. The back half of the room was full of tables, and the front had been made into a dance floor. People were milling around or standing in small groups.
 

Why hadn’t I come with someone?
I wondered again. I kicked myself for walking into this situation alone.
 

And then I saw Caroline. She was standing alone near the bar, and I headed toward her, relieved. “Hey, Sophie! I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, then, “Shit! What happened to your leg?”

“Oh…” I looked away. “It’s a long story.” More specifically, it was just a story I didn’t want to tell. Even Caroline. “How are you?”

“I’m nervous. Have you seen anyone you know yet?”

“Not really.”

“Oh hey! So how’s that, uh…” Caroline gave me a knowing smile and then whispered, “vibrator working out?”

I laughed. “You would not believe what happened.” I told her about walking in with Devin to find Taco with the buzzing vibrator in the middle of the living room floor.
 

“No!” she gasped. “Oh, that’s terrible! But—wait, isn’t Devin the one you were so mad at because he thought your dog was his?”

I nodded. “I have a lot to fill you in on,” I said. But before I could start, Olivia and Hannah appeared at our side.

“Oh wow, hi!” There were hugs all around as we greeted each other, along with exclamations about my broken leg, and then the Honeybees were almost complete.
 

“Has anyone heard from Rachel?” I asked. “I meant to text her to ask if she was coming, but I—” I glanced down at my cast “—got distracted.”
 

“No,” murmured the others, shaking their heads. “I don’t think I’ve talked to her once since graduation,” Olivia said.
 

I was disappointed. But at least I had the others—Caroline, who had helped me get over Matt by buying a new toy; Olivia, who had encouraged me to listen to my heart when it came to Devin; and Hannah, who told me to have fun and not take life too seriously. Without Rachel, though, the final piece of the puzzle was missing. I remembered how she’d told me at the art gallery that we seek out in a romantic partner what we were missing in ourselves. It had been good advice, even though with Devin things had crashed and burned—literally. Well, maybe not burned.
 

“Let’s get drinks and then I want to hear all about how you broke your leg,” Hannah said, and I groaned.
 

We stepped toward the bar and glanced at the short cocktail menu, and then Olivia squealed. “They have a drink called a Honeybee!”

“We clearly have to get that,” I said.
 

“Four Honeybees, please,” Hannah said to the bartender.
 

“Make that five,” said a voice behind us. We all turned together.
 

“Rachel!” There was another round of hugs, and I said into her hair as she pulled me close, “I’m so happy you’re here.”
 

We took our drinks to a table and Hannah said, “All right, spill. What happened?”

I sighed, feeling my cheeks turn pink. “I let Devin take me skydiving last weekend,” I said, feeling foolish. “We came in at a weird angle, and I broke my leg.”

There were gasps and cries of disbelief around the table. “You broke your leg skydiving?” Caroline said. “Wow! Your life is so much more interesting than mine.”

I laughed. “Hardly.”
 

“No, really,” Rachel said, “that’s a really brave thing to do. Sounds like this Devin person is really expanding your horizons.” She gave a wicked smile.
 

I swallowed. “Actually…we broke up.” It hurt just to say, and I struggled to blink back tears.
 

“What? No!” my friends said.
 

I looked around the table at them. Each one of these women had encouraged me in my relationship with Devin, and I felt like I was letting them down, in a strange way, by breaking up with him. “I had to,” I said. “He was just too unpredictable, too spontaneous, and…and I can’t run the marathon with a broken leg.”

Olivia leaned forward. “Maybe not,” she said, “but wasn’t it your choice to go along with the skydiving idea? He didn’t force you into it.”

I glanced at the ceiling, then back at her. “True…” I was getting uncomfortable. “Anyway, what’s new with you all?”

Hannah talked about a guy she’d gone home with last weekend, Olivia talked about a new restaurant client that was driving her crazy, and Caroline talked about perfecting her pizza dough recipe.
 

“Pizza party at Caroline’s next weekend!” I said.
 

“Can we please?” she said. “It’s so great to see all of you again. Let’s not lose touch like we did before.”

“That sounds great,” we all agreed.
 

“What about you, Rachel?” I asked.
 

She shifted in her seat. “Actually, I bought some paints and a couple of canvases, and I’m trying to get back into doing art.”
 

“That’s great!” I said.
 

“It’s thanks to you,” she said. “After I saw you the other week, I realized that you were right—there’s no good reason I stopped, and I miss it. I’m really happy to be starting to work on my art again.”

I glowed with pleasure. Looking around at my old friends, I was so happy to have reconnected with all of them.
 

“And where’s your husband?” Olivia asked.
 

“He’s working,” Rachel said, and rolled her eyes in mock disgust. “He’s always working.”

Dinner was served then, and afterward we all broke apart to mingle with our other former classmates. This was the part that had made me most nervous. This was the part where everyone would tell me they were accomplished and well-traveled and happy, that they had set out on their perfect path out of high school and were exactly where they thought they’d be.
 

But it didn’t happen that way.

“Sophie!” said a voice, and I turned to find George, an old classmate I’d had classes with since elementary school. He’d gained some weight since graduation too, I noticed, yet what I noticed most of all was how good it was to see him again.
 

“Wow, hi!” I said, giving him a big hug.
 

George was an electrical engineer, and I felt that familiar tightness returning to my chest as he talked about his job.
 

“And are you married? Kids?” I asked, and he shook his head.

“Actually, no, I’m divorced.”

“Divorced?” I echoed, surprised. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Yeah, we split up last year,” he said. “It was actually just finalized last week.”

Next I talked to Alison and Henry, a couple who had started dating our junior year of high school and were, somehow, still together. She had a noticeable baby bump, and I wished her my congratulations.
 

“Thanks,” she said, “though at the moment, I’d trade it all for a drink and some raw sushi.”

I laughed. “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“Not yet,” she said. “We’re thinking Anneliese for a girl and Devin for a boy.”

The wind was knocked out of me for a moment as visions of Devin forced themselves into my brain. “Oh, I…those are good names,” I finished, then quickly moved on. “Do you have a nursery ready to go? It must be so fun to paint and decorate a room for a baby.”

“Well…” Alison twirled her wedding ring for a moment before continuing. “We’re not quite sure where we’re going to put the baby. This wasn’t exactly…planned. We’re thrilled, of course,” she added quickly. “But we can’t really afford a bigger place right now.”

“I was laid off at the new year,” Henry added, “so if you hear of anything in semiconductors…”

Then there was Margaret. “Three years cancer-free!” she proudly announced.
 

“I had no idea!” I said, shocked. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. It was rough there for a while. Just glad to be through it.”

A few minutes later, I saw back down at our table, where Caroline and Olivia had already returned. “You know…” I said, “I really thought everyone would be so settled, but they’re not. Some people are divorced or have been laid off. They’re facing all sorts of unexpected situations.”

“Of course they are,” Caroline said. “Life is unpredictable.”

“I thought they’d all have…I don’t know, perfect careers by now,” I said.
 

“Are you kidding?” Caroline said. “I work at a grocery store! I’m not impressing anyone with my dazzling career choices.”

“And perfect spouses and perfect lives. I thought I would be the only one whose life wasn’t moving forward. But I’m not.”

“You are moving forward,” Olivia observed. “And so are they. It’s just that forward isn’t always the path that looks the straightest, and the place you’re headed isn’t always the place you thought you wanted to go.”

We sat in silence for a minute as I stared out at my old classmates, thinking about all the disappointments these people had faced over the years. They too had had breakups, had gained weight, had not gotten the job they wanted or gotten into the school they wanted. Yet what stood out to me was not their failures, but what they had accomplished in the years since high school, and everything they had overcome. People seemed nicer now than they had then, more confident. More unapologetically themselves.
 

Everyone makes mistakes
, I remembered the museum director saying to Angelina the day before. I’d been trying to live my life without making mistakes for so long that it was impossible to imagine what it would feel like to view my mistakes not as mistakes, but as opportunities for growth. Not as obstacles in my path, but as the path itself.
 

But maybe that’s exactly what they were. Maybe it was okay not to know where I was headed at every moment. Maybe it was okay to stumble and fall and to learn from the experience. Life was certainly more interesting when I allowed in the unexpected.
 

No one was ever settled. Even the ones who had been “settled”—in jobs, in relationships, in houses—were now unsettled, their lives continuing to change and evolve with the years, and the ones who seemed settled now would one day be less so too.