Page 81 of Bless This Hot Mess

“Smart and scared. Toosmared,” Japheth nodded. “She was way too smared, but not you! You just closed your eyes, pointed to a picture… not sure why you chose Jim Carrey…”

“We’re both Canadian!” Rebekkah barked.

“Mmm hmmm. And well, yes. And now you both have the same hair-do too,” Japheth said kindly.

“May I see a mirror please?” Rebekkah asked, deciding it really couldn’t be nearly as bad as it seemed.

“No!” Everyone chorused.

“It’s BAD! It’s really bad! And I’m thirty. FUCK!” Rebekkah shouted.

Everyone looked at each other and then at the floor. Rebekkah’s hands flew to her mouth as she gasped, “Oh! I’m so, so, so sorry!”

“Rebekkah, that’s actually one of the words we don’t say at WWJD,” Suwarna reminded her with a warm but cautionary HR tone.

“Yeah, no shit,” Rebekkah muttered.

“That one too,” Suwarna said crisply and tsked her tongue.

“Rebekkah,” Ronald said, stepping closer, voice low and certain, “I think you look fly. And if you wanna sit in your feelings about being thirty for a while, that’s totally valid. You can do that.”

“Thank you, Ronald,” Rebekkah said, blinking tears back carefully so as not to run her mascara. Her hair may be a mess, but she’d applied a full beat today and was determined to keep her mug unsmudged.

“You know how I’ve been playing catch up right? Doing my homework by reading the Bible a little bit every day?” Ronald asked.

“Yes?” Rebekkah said, wary but willing to take a dive into Ronald’s inner world.

“Well, there’s plenty of old folks in there. Like Enoch? He lived to be three hundred and sixty-five years old! And Lamech? Seven hundred and seventy-seven!” Ronald said, counting on his fingers demonstratively but ineffectively.

“Don’t forget Mahalalel, he was eight hundred and ninety-five!” Emma-Lou offered, chiming in cheerfully as if it were trivia night.

“Enos was nine hundred and five, Kenan was nine hundred and ten, and Seth was nine hundred and twelve!” Japheth added, delighted to pluck these otherwise useless facts from the far recesses of his brain. “So, thirty is like… definitelynota Winter Wren.”

“That wasnota comment on her age or nearness to death,” Suwarna protested. “I was thinking of birds that Rebekkahlookslike. The Winter Wren is a plump, round ball with a stubby tail. It’s kind of a mousy brown? Can I say a bird has a mousy look?”

“Not helping!” Japheth hissed.

“But the way itsings!” Suwarna insisted, and her face brightened just thinking of it. “You wouldn’t believe the rich cascade of notes that burst out of that mousy little plump round ball–just like Rebekkah!”

“Slightly… better,” Japheth conceded.

“A stubby tail?” Rebekkah said, wounded.

“There isnothingwrong with your tail,” Ronald said gallantly.

“Thank you, Ronald,” Rebekkah sighed, sitting back in the chair.

“Ronald, after we share cake, let’s go to my office together and talk about work-place compliments and what’s appropriate,” Suwarna said, the pencil behind her ear nodding in judgment.

“Youjust called her…” Ronald began.

“Birdlike. Jovial. Diminutive.Talented,” Suwarna said, counting virtues with fingers raised in the air for all to see. “All compliments.”

“Rebekkah, there are other long-toothed people in the Bible too,” Ronald plowed on. “Jared, Noah, Adam! All over nine hundred years old.”

“What happened to Eve?” Rebekkah asked, sitting up sharply in the chair, hopeful it would also be in the high hundreds.

“Ummm… the Bible doesn’t say. She kind of disappears,” Ronald admitted.