Chapter 8 Liana

A week later, Liana showed up for the synagogue volunteer event. A friendly 30-something greeted her. "Thanks for coming. We've got two food stations tonight. If you want to make peanut butter sandwiches, go down the hall to the left. If you want to chop vegetables, stay in this room. If you'd like, we all go to the sports bar down the street when our shift here is over, but there's certainly no requirement to do so."

"Thanks. I think I'll go make the PB probably ten to twenty percent of their high school class did. Still, Liana couldn't honestly say that she remembered James at any of the temple events throughout her childhood. James remembered her? How? From what events?

An employee at the shelter clapped their hands, stopping Liana's thoughts from spiraling. "Thanks, everyone, for volunteering your time tonight. Please choose a station for the night — you'll see that we have a few tables set up with loaves of bread, peanut butter, jars of grape jelly, and individual sandwich bags. Please make sure you're wearing a pair of disposable gloves before you start touching the food. After you make a sandwich, put it in its own bag, seal the bag, and put it in the box at the end of the table. No throwing the sandwiches, please; we don't want to smash them."

James motioned Liana over. "Come on, Abrams." He indicated the work station next to his. "I'll show you the ropes."

Smiling to herself, she joined him. He passed her a loaf of wheat bread and the largest jars of peanut butter and jelly she'd ever seen. They opened their loaves of bread and started spreading peanut butter.

"So…" she said in a lame attempt at conversation. "You also prefer making sandwiches to chopping vegetables, huh?"

"Not just any sandwiches. But PB we do love our outdoor sports. There are dozens of locations here, and most started post-pandemic."

"Well, if everyone had you as their teacher, I can imagine that even more people would take up pickleball." She realized what she just said and turned a bright shade of scarlet. "I mean… you're a really good teacher."

"Thanks." His smile looked genuine, and if he could see her beet-red ears, he didn't comment.

"And I think it's smart to have your charity event centered around pickleball," she continued, desperate to move on from her mortifying comment. "I've found it relatively easy to pick up and learn the rules, and I found I could play, even though I'm not in the best of health. I can imagine that older adults could manage to play, too."

"That's the idea."

She couldn't resist asking, "How much does it cost to enter?" She clapped a hand over her mouth. "I mean, I'm sorry if that was rude. We don't have to talk about money."

"It's a good question. $250 per person or $400 per couple. I know that's a pretty chunk of change, but believe it or not, I've lowered the price over the last couple of years compared to what it was. I want as many people as possible to be able to participate. Much to my dad's chagrin." He smiled.

"I mean, I personally couldn't afford it, but $250 is not as crazy as I was expecting for a fancy Pine Heights charity event. It's nice that you're trying to make it semi-accessible. For the 2% instead of just the 1%." She stuck out her tongue teasingly.

"Oh," he said with a half smile, "you should see the cars some of these people drive up in. While some people are out here pickling for a living, people drive up to the gala in Rolls Royces. But hey, if it helps this shelter house and feed more people, that's all I care about. I'm really proud of the event. I'm a very detail-oriented person, and I actually love event planning. I love thinking about how to make the event the best it can be, giving people the best experience possible."

"That's admirable of you. I assume you're playing doubles pickleball?" He nodded. "How do you choose who's going to partner with whom?"

"So far, most people are signing up to play with their significant other as their doubles partner. People signing up as singles can let me know if they'd like to be matched with someone in particular, and if not, we'll find a match. We're trying to make different brackets for particular age ranges, although a couple of parents have asked if they could play with their kids, which I think is so fun. So I think we'll have one bracket for players ages 18-50, a different bracket for over 50 years old, another for over 65 — which is the majority of participants; I'm sure you're not surprised. Then we'll have an open bracket for any age, and I'm seeing if there's interest in adding a wheelchair-based group, as well."

"Is it mixed doubles?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't ask her why she wanted to know, so she wouldn't have to admit to wondering if he were playing with a woman. Possibly his significant other. Not that Liana cared.

"Most of the teams signed up so far have one man and one woman, but of course we're happy to have any and all teams and will try to make the brackets as fair as possible. I'm trying to make sure everyone feels welcome, most especially same-sex couples and non-binary folks, who may not have felt super welcome at black-tie country club galas in the past."

"And who are you playing with?" Liana tried to make the question sound innocent, trying not to reveal any hint that she was dying to know whether he'd be playing with Mary Grace. Not that it's any of your business, she scolded herself.

"Actually, my past doubles partner recently decided to play with someone else." He looked her straight in the eye as he said it. Was he telling her that he and Mary Grace had recently broken up?

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"I'm not," he said. "It was a long time coming, actually. So I'm in need of a doubles partner. Or, I suppose, I could just see who needs a partner on the day of the event, if anyone shows up alone or someone gives us a last-minute cancellation."

"Oh," she repeated, dumbly. Why did it feel like he was asking her to be his doubles partner?

He paused and eyed her shrewdly but said nothing. He wasn't going to ask her, she realized. He'd promised her he wouldn't ask her out again, and he was trying to keep his promise. Why did it make her sad that he wasn't going to ask her? She was the one who'd said no.

She needed to be the one to make the move now. The proverbial pickleball was in her court. Why not go for it and see if James was truly interested in her as more than a friend? She tried to gather her courage and hoped he didn't notice the pounding of her heartbeat in her temples.

"James," she exhaled a long breath. "It's not that I don't want to be - I mean." She squared her shoulders, deciding to give him the truth. "I turned you down when you asked me to dinner, not because I don't like you that way. It's just — this is embarrassing, but I didn't want to eat dinner in front of you." Unable to look him in the eye, she focused on spreading jelly across a piece of bread. "I live with a chronic disease that sometimes makes eating… difficult. I can only eat really specific foods. And I didn't want you to think I was weird, or… I don't know, some sort of Gwyneth Paltrow high-maintenance girl who only eats gluten-free charcoal, or one of those girls who never eats more than a bite of salad in front of anyone. I mean, I know I could have just suggested we get coffee, but I kind of panicked. And I didn't want to try to explain my health challenges to you."

"Why not?" He asked, genuinely surprised. "I'd never dismiss your health challenges. You can tell me anything. I mean, I know we don't know each other that well, but you can trust me."

"I feel that. I really do. I just didn't want you to pity me, or… I don't know. You were always the popular one in school, and I wasn't, and I just figured you wouldn't want to hang out with me, or if you thought you did, you wouldn't once you realized that I am just not a fun person."

"Did someone tell you that?" he asked, his voice suddenly deathly calm. "That you are not a fun person?

"Sort of," she shrugged. "Yeah, they did. It doesn't matter."

"Someone said that to you," he repeated. It wasn't a question anymore. "Someone fucking told you that, as a result of a restricted diet due to a fucking medical condition, you are not a fun person."

She nodded, her throat suddenly dry. "My ex. I mean — to be fair, it wasn't just because of what I can and can't eat. I have an autoimmune disease that's kind of decimated my life as a whole. Especially my social life. I have a very specific diet that I have to eat at specific times of the day, but beyond that, I can't drink alcohol. I go to bed really early. At the time my ex told me I wasn't fun, my health was very poor. Much worse than it is now. I was tired all the time. I couldn't really go out at night. I usually just wanted to stay home. I couldn't do much of anything. We used to take walks in the hills together, and I suddenly couldn't do that. I don't blame him, really. I'm truly not a fun date."

"Fuck that guy," James said, and she was surprised at the venom behind his words. "Is it someone I know? Actually, don't tell me. I don't condone physical violence and I'd have a hard time holding back around him."

"I can't imagine you know him. He was a guy out in L.A. I moved back to Pine Heights with my mom a few months ago, but before that I was living in L.A., trying to work at a movie studio. Then, last summer, I lost my job and then my boyfriend in the same week. But like I said, I didn't blame the guy. I got where he was coming from. My health was terrible. It was like I was 85 years old instead of 25. It wasn't what he signed up for."

"I thought he signed up to be your fucking boyfriend?" James seethed. When she nodded and bit her lip, he shook his head in disgust. "Seriously, fuck that guy. Your health was getting worse, and you'd just lost your job, and someone who had the privilege of being let into your life decided the right answer was to ditch you?"

"It was for the best. I decided to move back to Miami, and the health stuff started to click into place. I needed surgery, and I finally got it once I moved here. My disease is supposedly in remission now. I still have bad days, but before the surgery, pretty much every day was a bad day. I couldn't leave my apartment for a week at a time, sometimes."

"That's awful. Thank you for opening up to me about that part of your life, especially after that dickwad made you feel bad for something you couldn't control."

"I don't like talking about it, mostly because I don't want you to think I'm complaining. A lot of people's lives are worse than mine. My mom was luckily in a position to keep me on her health insurance, and she let me move back in with her rent-free. I'm so lucky, really. It could have been a lot worse."

"You're not complaining. You went through something terrible. You said you have some better days now?"

"Better, yes. But it's a lifelong condition. It's called Crohn's disease. The treatments for the disease have gotten a lot better in the last decade, but there's no cure. I've dealt with a lot of chronic pain, and even if I manage my diet, which is the best way to control the symptoms, it'll still flare up from time to time, which isn't fun. But it's not supposed to shorten my life expectancy. I don't want people feeling bad for me. I'm not dying.

"But," she continued, "it makes a lot of normal activities very difficult. Not only do I have an extremely limited diet — a super weird diet, by the way, not just what most people would call ‘eating healthy food' — but I also have to eat every couple of hours so I don't ever get too hungry. At one point, before I had surgery to solve this particular issue, every meal felt like Russian roulette. I wasn't sure if this would be the one to make me bedridden for the rest of the day. So even though I don't have a lot of those terrible days anymore, I still get a ton of anxiety around food, even food I can supposedly eat. Like, one day my friend was all excited because she brought over a home-cooked meal with a recipe she'd gotten from this Cooking with Crohn's blog, and I nearly had a panic attack that she expected me to eat it and enjoy it."

She noticed that as she'd spoken, he'd taken off his food glove and slowly brought his hand to her back and rubbed small circles, just a small touch meant to soothe, to reassure her that he was there for her. It almost seemed like he was touching her subconsciously. Why did that tiniest reassurance feel so good? And God, why did he have to smell so good?

Finally, James said, "That's a lot for anyone to deal with. I'm still hung up on the asshat who broke up with you over having a chronic disease."

"Don't be. We weren't end game anyway. He's not worth thinking about."

"Damn right he's not."

She chewed her lip. "I told you not because I want sympathy, but to explain… Honestly, you're only the second person I've told about the Crohn's disease outside of my family and my mom's best friends, who are like aunts to me. I don't want to go around broadcasting it. Hopefully now you can understand why I kind of hold people at arm's length."

His jaw worked. She could practically see the wheels turning in his brain. "So, that day when I asked you to dinner, you said no because… you didn't want to eat dinner? Not because… you didn't want to go out with me?"

She thought for a long beat about how best to explain. "I'd told myself I didn't want to date yet — that I wanted to focus on recovering my health and on getting a job. I didn't want any other guys ruining my self-esteem while I'm trying to get my life back in order. But — I wanted to say yes to dinner with you that day. I really did. If I said yes to anyone, it would be you."

The look of devastation in his eyes made her want to take the words back. But he deserved her honesty.

He swallowed. "I hope you know, I'd never hurt your self-esteem. I respect you so much — I always have, even back in high school, when you didn't let anybody's shit get to you. But even more now, after knowing what you've gone through to be here right now and how strong you are."

"Thank you," she said honestly. "And I'm sorry."

He pulled her into a side hug and kissed the top of her head. "Don't be."

Her heart was pounding, and she was suddenly very eager to change the subject. The only thing she could think of to say was lame, but it was the best segue she could come up with when he was this close to her. "So, you're a pretty competitive person, right?"