The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner Page B

you’ll never stick your . . . thingie . . . in the outflow tube.”
    He shook his head. “I should just stay out of hot tubs. But I like them! Surely you see my dilemma.” He’d looked at me searchingly, and I’d turned away, but not before giving him the line he expected: “Don’t call me Shirley.”
    Grandma stood at the side of the bed, wringing her hands.“There are other fish in the sea,” she said. I didn’t answer. “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush,” she said. I didn’t even know what that was supposed to mean. “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” I lifted up my head, glaring at her.
    “What are you talking about?” I croaked.
    She retreated quickly, moving backward across my floor in her slippers. “I’ll just let you rest, then,” she said, and closed the door behind her.
    I stayed in my room all night long, flat on my back on my queen-size bed, replaying every conversation that I could remember having with Rob, every minute that we’d been alone together, writing or eating lunch or doing impressions of Taryn Montaine Tries to Unwrap a New CD, or Taryn Montaine Realizes that Her Hybrid Actually Does Need Gas After All. Maybe he’d just been using me as a constantly available audience, someone on whom he could try out his bits before bringing them to the writers’ room. Tears ran down my cheeks, and I rubbed them away, letting my fingers explore the contours of my cheek, where the skin was stretched, where my eye drooped. How had I misread the signals so badly? How had I been so dumb?
    I never told Grandma what had happened. As it turned out, I didn’t have to. Rob and Taryn had sold their wedding pictures to People magazine, and the happy news had been spread all across the Girls’ Room website, along with what was, in my opinion, an entirely fabricated tale about how the two had fallen in love over their seasons of working together. “I am so sorry,” Grandma said as I lay with my head buried in my pillow, not answering, because what was there to say?
    For the first week, I wanted to die. I thought about how to do it: the warm bath, the razor blade, the plastic bag, the pills. Then, with the first sort-of smile I’d managed since I’d gotten the news, I recalled Dorothy Parker’s poem “Résumé.” Razors pain you / Rivers are damp / Acids stain you / And drugs cause cramp. / Guns aren’t lawful / Nooses give / Gas smells awful / You might as well live.
    Might as well live . Besides, if I died, Rob would know just how badly he’d hurt me. All I had left was my pride . . . and I was determined to hang on to as much of it as I could. He doesn’t get to win this one, I’d think, while dragging my leaden body and stiff limbs through some formerly unremarkable task, like showering or putting on pants. I would survive, if only to thwart him, to show him that I could succeed in spite of him. Ten days after I drove off the lot, I packed a bag, got into my car, and went to my gym and its big, brand-new swimming pool.
    That first night, and on many nights to follow, I would swim, lap after lap after lap until my fingers were pruney and my goggles were fogged and my arms and legs were so heavy that I couldn’t think of anything—not Rob, not Taryn, not what I was going to do next. Back at home, I’d fall into bed exhausted, my shoulders throbbing, my skin reeking of chlorine . . . and when I slept, I’d dream of swimming in open water, from Dover to Calais, or Miami to Cuba, with the taste of salt in my mouth and the waves lifting my body, the sun warming my back and shoulders and miles of empty water all around me.
    Grandma kept working, leaving the house before eight each morning to take her seat on Flight 152, a romantic comedy set entirely on an airplane (she wore a polyester plaid pantsuit and sat, with a crochet hook that would eventually become integral to the plot, in seat 15-C). For three weeks, she put up with my impersonation of a silent, swimming,