The heart is a bloom, shoots up through the stony ground
Gut there's no room, no space to rent in this town
You're out of luck, and the reason that you had to care
The traffic is stuck, and you're not moving anywhere
You thought you'd found a friend, to take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand in return for grace
It's a beautiful day. (day . . .)
The sky falls, and you feel like
It's a beautiful day.
--U2, "Beautiful Day"
The headline on the USA Today announces that "Soldiers re-enlist beyond U.S. goal; Troops help offset recruiting shortfall." She can't decide if she's glad or not (that the US has more fighting forces). More bodies (living and dead), more grief (real and feigned), and more horrible headlines (lies and truths.) She doesn't know what to think or what to feel (she's proud to be an American but at the cost of how many lives?)
One day, she figures as she tucks the newspaper under her arm, one day she'll be old and on the brink of Alzheimer's (what a terrible disease). One day she won't understand any of this. She won't know the difference between war (death) and love (life.) She'll simply be (and be happy—or sad. But does it matter if she doesn't know the difference in her own mind?)
She walks because gas is expensive and she'd rather not waste liquid money on laziness. Her sandals thwack against the pavement (and flip and flop.) She squints through sunglasses at the people walking in front of her. She doesn't know them, but she loves just looking at people—making up their life stories (usually far-fetched and involving lots of kids and a handsome spouse.)
There is no wait to get into the restaurant (The Chicken and the Egg) because it is 8 in the morning and no one gets up this early when they're on vacation. She pushes open the wooden door and requests a table for one. The hostess leads her to a small table against the wall. She doesn't even look at the menu and waits for her waiter to come and take her order (she's a creature of habit and does not like an interruption of routine.) She spreads the newspaper on the table as she waits and continues to read about the headlines and the world today.
"Hi, my name's Greg—" Cuddy's head pops up from her scanning of the Rovegate article, "—and I'll be your waiter for this morning. Can I get you something to drink?"
The boy is handsome, she notes as she lets her eyes roam over his face (he's tall and has blonde hair). He seems confident (and young.) She smiles and hands him the menu.
"I'll have a large chocolate milk, two eggs over easy, bacon, home fries, and rye toast with butter, please," she requests with a smile on her face.
He takes the menu and finishes writing.
"I'll be back with your order shortly," he informs her and leaves the table.
She sighs and goes back to her paper.
(She could use some coffee, now that she thinks of it, but coffee makes her jittery and she's at the seashore—no reason to be wired up on coffee when surrounded by beauty.)
There is not anything of importance in the newspaper. It's the same rehashed news as the day before (and she lurks on the internet enough to be up-to-date on everything that has occurred in the gap between papers.)
She folds it up and puts it on the placemat across from her. No one'll be sitting there any way (no one ever sits across from her.)
The boy (he could be a man, but she knows men and he isn't yet up to her standard) comes back from the oblivion of the kitchen bearing her chocolate milk and a mug of something she thinks is incredibly suspicious (coffee!) Perhaps he read her mind (or her face). Perhaps he wants to impress her. He is not bad looking. He seems nice. He works. He'd be a fun, little, three-day fling. They could play mini-golf and eat Ben and Jerry's ice cream. They could have fun. (Somewhere, she imagines House laughing—loudly and obnoxiously.)
He places the milk in front of her.
"Thank you—" she tells him but is cut off as he walks away to place the mug on someone else's table.
She gawks (because polite behavior is not her forte.) She grapples for her purse and flips open her compact mirror. She stares at her face. No zits, no flaws, perfection.
(And then she realizes that Greg-the-waiter is not Greg-the-bastard and he won't make comments about her breasts because he's a professional. Well, House is, too, but professional isn't the first one that comes to mind when she thinks of him.)
She mentally slaps herself. Being pretty means lots of things in this world. But she knows she shouldn't think that every man finds her pretty (beauty is in the eye of the beholder.) She's tried to get away from the '50s (and today's) social demand that the man must define a woman. But now…how can she revert back to a vain beauty queen (a redundant term) after what she's succeeded in gaining for herself? The beauty of the beach is betraying her. Its romanticism is getting to her (and through her and it's infiltrating her cracks and crevices like wet sand.)
She sips her chocolate milk (cold and much better than coffee.) She waits ten minutes and no more because her food is whisked out by a girl who is not Greg-the-waiter (because she gave him lovey-dovey eyes even though he's twenty-some years younger than she is? Mental note: stop watching Cameron lust over an older House.)
The girl tells her to enjoy her meal and leaves without any other comment. Cuddy stares at the eggs (she thinks the yolk serves its purpose as the iris and the white as the sclera). She loses the contest and has to blink back tears and gulp down egg whites because she's emotional. (She berates herself for being emotional over breakfast. It's breakfast!)
She swallows chocolate milk and bacon with equal passion (she's afraid of becoming Cameron—she doesn't cry delivering news to patients.) She briefly wonders how she can put on an act for everyone she works with, but can't help but let her emotions take hold of her when she's on vacation (she's on day 14 of her menstrual cycle—hormones already?)
The waiter brings her the check and she secretly hopes he has scribbled his number on the back. But he hasn't and she decides to end her love affair with this younger man (even if it hasn't started.) She grabs the paper, her purse, and the check and makes her way to the counter. She removes a five-dollar bill and hands it to the cashier. The cashier hands Cuddy her change and she proceeds to leave, newspaper and purse in hand.
There is a bookstore across the street and she crosses (jaywalks) to it. She opens the door and the pungent smell of paper, ocean salt, and minty perfume fills her nostrils. She inhales deeply (this odor bears the smell of years.) She peruses the magazines first.
The women on all the fashion magazines are beautiful, slender, and famous (and she's not.) She's pretty, she's smart, but that doesn't matter.
She walks down the aisles and stops briefly at the classic literature section. She picks The Great Gatsby (because she's in the mood for tragic romance), Mrs. Dalloway (because she needs florid language), and The Bell Jar (because she remembers reading it once and she wants to know if she is still as trapped as Esther.)
When she moves on to the next aisle, she passes by the light reading books (legal thrillers, bodice-rippers, mindless fluff) and instead picks up a book she had heard about briefly, Oh, Pure and Radiant Heart (tidings of time travel and nuclear annihilation). She plucks it off the shelf and adds it to her stack of books.
She finishes stalking up and down the aisles looking for something eye-catching (a familiar title, author, or pretty binding.) She finds nothing and pays for her purchases (no boy behind the counter—an older woman with graying hair and benevolent smile. Her eyes speak of books read and of things unwritten. Cuddy shivers because the air-conditing is blowing too hard.)
A set of jingle bells ring when she exits the store. She smiles and starts humming to herself (have a holly jolly Christmas, oh by golly have a holly jolly Christmas this year.) She always listens to Christmas music in July, even if she is Jewish and it's summer.
She takes a left and makes her way to the beach (to increase her chance of melanoma, but she's a doctor and laughs in the face of danger!)
She reaches the beach, slips off her expensive (and useless) tunic, and lays the towel (that had previously been hiding in her large tote) on the sand. She settles herself down on the ground. She reclines on her towel and spends the rest of the day reading,
;';
"What's a pretty lady like you doing reading about dead nuclear scientists? Lisa, right?"
She lifts her head up (although she wishes she could bury it in the sand.)
"And you're asshole, right?"
It's really a mean thing to say and she can see the shadow of pain cross over his face. She doesn't like being hit on by married men with children.
"So now would probably be a bad time to ask you to dinner?" He asks. She rolls her eyes at the book (this man barely even knows her!)
"Aren't you married?" She snipes.
"Wife's been gone for three years now," he shrugs in response.
(He doesn't elaborate on whether the wife is dead or divorced, but Cuddy is not in the mood for speculation.)
"Sorry."
"What about you?"
There are no comfortable answers to that question. She really wants to leave, but the man is (unfortunately) staying.
"I don't discuss my private life with strangers," she makes sure she emphasizes the last word.
"You said you had kids?"
And I said that because I never expected to see you again.
"Yeah," she responds (denial's never been her strong suit.)
"Well, they can hang out with my kids while we chat. How about it?"
She sighs and closes her book.
"I have to go."
"Seven at
Ott's?"
She looks at his face. He's older (maybe as old as
she, but probably younger), with graying hair. He's six feet tall
and lean—probably a runner.
"Yeah," she stands up and shakes out her towel.
"Can't wait," he enthuses.
"Yeah," she replies and throws the towel over her arm.
She starts walking away, but he grabs her arm.
"I'm sorry for yesterday, by the way. I haven't met a pretty woman in a long time. Kind of tactless you know?" He apologizes gently.
"It's also tactless to grab my arm like that. Go make sure your kids aren't drowning or something," she tells him and wrenches her arm free.
She makes sure she takes a long and winding path back to her home.
;';
He's normal, she concedes, he has all his fingers, doesn't limp, and drives a Rolls-Royce (she has yet to see.) He's relatively handsome, has children, and seems stable. Yet, at 7, when she should be at Ott's Diner, she curls up on her bed with all the doors locked and watches a documentary on cereal on the History Channel. She berates herself for being hypocritical and she listens to the tales of Kellogg and Post. She wants a man, just not one who seems credible.
She buries her head in the pillow. Suffocation's always an option. But then again, who would run the hospital (House would have a field day running around without her firm hand.)
"…And coming up next, the cereal that was created by a fortuitous mistake."
Many things come of fortuitous mistakes, she thinks. Her job, her life, her dinner invitation. (Also, it seems, Rice Krispies.)
But it's not fortunate mistakes that concern her at the moment. It's conscious decisions and choices made. It's guilt and other funny emotions. She's going to have to spend the next three days avoiding a man she didn't meet for dinner. She's going to have to stay in the house and not come out of it.
Her vacation has suddenly fallen to pieces. She hopes that, perhaps, she'll dream of something interesting when she does succumb to sleep. Like running an efficient hospital (or House following some rule.) She sighs.
;';
When she wakes up in the morning, she doesn't remember dreaming.