Page 78 of Bless This Hot Mess

“No!” Rebekkah yelped.

“Rebekkah dear,” Emma-Lou said, stepping forward andbending down to speak with her face to face. “I think I know what’s happening. I’ve been right where you are and I know how scary it can feel to face down the second half of your life.”

“Second half. What?!” Rebekkah blinked furiously, “I’ve never thought about it like that…”

“Statistically Emma-Lou is right,” Suwarna said, hands folded like a dean about to announce finals. “Though a little bit wrong. The average age of death in Canada is eighty-one point seven years and for women it’s eighty-three point nine so you’re still technically a Spring chicken!”

“Ummm…?” Carrington hedged, lips pursed.

“A Summer Tanager?” Suwarna tried. “That’s a scarlet-coloured North American songbird.”

“Iknowwhat a Summer Tanager is, Suwarna. But that’s not it…” Carrington said, bending down beside Emma-Lou for a more thorough classification.

“A Winter Wren?” Suwarna proffered.

“Bingo!” Carrington declared, standing up and dusting off their hands with finality.

“You skipped right past Autumn!” Rebekkah protested, indignant but still adorable in her butter-yellow blouse and sage tulip-hem skirt; legs akimbo and ego smashed.

“I call it like I see it,” Suwarna said, unbothered. “Have you had a hard life?”

“As I was saying…” Emma-Lou resumed, anxious to ensure the star and possibly saviour of the radio station didn’t endure further beratement from the other employees. Her eyes danced brightly with the opportunity to share the wisdom she’d gleaned from the self-help section in the local library, “Birthdays can be scary. You can start going down a rabbit hole of never-will-I-evers as the years dash by. Will I ever win the show jumping grand prix at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair? Can I use my reading glasses to successfully take up archery? Is it too late to get a septum piercing and still be taken seriously? I’m gonna be real straight with you. Birthdays can be a bitch. They can strike fear into the heart, like a dagger. Twisting and poking and provokingdark feelings of despair!”

“Are you going to say something to make me feel better soon?” Rebekkah asked, very calm in the way of a person who might soon throw a cake.

“Oh, yes!” Emma-Lou said, catching herself. “Rebekkah, do you know what started to make me feel better about my advancing age?”

“How old are you? If you don’t mind me asking,” Rebekkah said, already wary of the answer. After all, she knew sharing your age could be a delicate subject.

“I’m thirty. And four months,” Emma-Lou answered honestly.

“You’re thirty and four months and you own a radio station?” Rebekkah asked, despair and admiration wrestling. “And you’re an equestrian?”

“Yes,” Emma-Lou said softly. “But I’ve never won the grand prix at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. I’veonlycome in second.”

“Okay, I’m not sure anything you say is gonna help me,” Rebekkah decided, managing to swing her legs around and steady herself enough for an ascent.

“It’s not anything I can say, it’s what Carrington can do!” Emma-Lou declared. “When I was approaching thirty, I was feeling bereft, like my prime fertility years were flying away fast.”

“I didn’t know you wanted children?” Suwarna asked with growing curiosity.

“I don’t,” Emma-Lou said. “But the thought thatsomething like my age was going to take away my choice? Nowthatbothered me. Just like the thought of never entering a barefoot water-skiing competition was relentlessly tormenting me for months, keeping me awake at night.”

“Did… did you want to?” Carrington asked, half appalled, half intrigued at imagining their boss in this new adrenaline filled aqua arena.

“Oh no! I only swim in pools,” Emma-Lou assured them. “But the idea that my age and brittle bones might not permit me to glide across a lake shimmering with the sun, like someone had scattered diamonds across its surface–in my bare feet but dancing on the water like an ice-skating queen like Tara Lipinski…”

“Or Shae-Lynn Bourne! But without Victor Kraatz,” Carrington continued, piling onto the daydream as it grew in grandeur.

“Or Elvis Stojko doing a triple Salchow… in jeans! So cool. But Emma-Lou, you’d be in your bathing suit (and a lifejacket!) of course,” Suwarna added, safety always top of her mind.

“I’m not sure whatanyof this has to do with me!” Rebekkah cried. “It’smybirthday and I’m… I’m not ready to be thirty!”

“As I was saying,” Emma-Lou pressed on, “there’snothingI can say to make you feel better or to accept your station in life. But when I was having a mini meltdown at the thought of turning thirty, I was standing here at Carrington’s desk, right where you are now and I was apuddleof tears. And do you know what happened?”

“Please tell me! What?!” Rebekkah begged.

“I looked up and Carrington was coming at me with a pair of scissors,” Emma-Lou said.