Livvy’s still-beating heart was not flattened on the sidewalk. It was not bleeding out, the muscle pulverized into pancake form, staining the concrete, crushed by his ostrich cowboy boot in front of the Dennys. There wasn’t an aorta mashed into the crack of the walkway or an endocardium torn across the pavement like the thin skin of a mutilated tomato, its guts gelatinous and exposed. But, it certainly felt that way.
She was 27 and Steve was 30 but apparently after a Denver omelet, two cups of shitty coffee, and almost five years together, he felt “not ready for a commitment.”
They’d driven to breakfast in his barely- functioning Four Runner but after he’d left her with a broken organ and the bill, Livvy decided to walk the two miles home.
If you read your news solely from the weather, it was a perfect day.
Mammoth is a tiny, picturesque ski town located in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. It’s a playground for recreationalists and the less than ten thousand year-round locals who keep it running. Livvy had moved up North after finishing college at UC Riverside in the Southern quarter of the state. By the time she graduated with a perfect 4.0, Livvy was an underweight, exhausted, stressed-out mess. She’d thought that a year or two as a ski instructor would help her decompress before she went on to law school. Livvy was born with a self-awareness that would rival most 40-year-olds. She knew that she needed a break.
She’d met Steve the first week that she’d lugged the four suitcases containing her life into employee housing. He’d carried her candy-colored orange Mac desktop computer down the gravel pathway and helped her set it up next to the pine-colored twin bed that had seen God knows what over the last two decades. She would later tell her friends that it was love at first sight. His sandy hair fell in his face and the way he brushed it out of his emerald eyes made Livvy wish she were holding her ski poles to help her stand. The more she learned about him, the more her heels flew over her head and landed her in a deep hole of infatuation. Steve was one of those guys who was full of surprises. She would later learn that this wasn’t always a good thing.
He was the most spontaneous person she’d ever known. The tenure of their relationship was filled with impromptu trips, career changes, and rescue puppies who needed more care and medical bills than they could provide. This pogo-stick-esque behavior was sexy, exciting, and a little difficult to keep up with.
Livvy oscillated between feeling deeply satisfied with her relationship to wondering if she were the crazy one. Steve had this way of abruptly ending a conversation in a manner that made the other person feel genuinely stupid or, in the case of many, many employers, really pissed off. And yet, somehow, no one could ever seem to hold a grudge against Steven L. Meyers, II. Livvy thought that he was just one of those rare, lucky ducks, who managed to float through life without enduring the normal consequences that most of us face. If so, wasn’t that a great type of partner to have? One with a positive outlook who ensured (for the most part) positive outcomes?
Worrying about your romantic relationship is hard in the beginning and just gets harder over time. Livvy loved working on the mountain, teaching skiing, and then spending her summers as a river guide. Law school no longer held any appeal but, the self-awareness kicked in and something was missing. She knew that her brain was craving a different kind of challenge. That’s when she enrolled in culinary school in LA and went back and forth to Mammoth on weekends. From the moment that she stepped foot into the industrial teaching kitchens, she knew that she had made the right choice. It was hard to describe. In a way that maybe doesn’t make sense, she felt like she belonged in front of an eight-burner stove. And, it didn’t take long for her to receive the outside validation that her instincts were right. Livvy was a star.
Being on her feet seemed to make her brain work faster and more efficiently. Scouring recipes, looking for places to improve them, and sort of reading between the lines was exactly the kind of focus that she’d put into her pre-law textbooks. Livvy found herself pouring over famous techniques and processes, written by the masters of haute French cuisine, and using her science-minded brain to alter and tweak and, assuredly, receive effusive praise from her tired and well-fed instructors. The more she threw herself into this new venture, the more distant Steve seemed to grow.
By this point, they’d just celebrated their four year anniversary. They already knew about relationship ups and downs. They’d lived in almost a dozen different places, together and separately, and had weathered moves and job changes and nutty roommates. Now that Livvy had finally steered herself onto a road that not only made sense, felt great, but held the promise of great career opportunities, well, her boyfriend didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm. Which brings us back to the breakup.
The month leading up to the unceremonious Denny’s situation had been a whirlwind of change. Livvy had worked her way up to the position of head chef at a very small mom and pop restaurant just a few blocks off of Main Street. Part of the promotion from prepping vegetables to having her name printed on the menu was due to Livvy’s undeniable talent in the kitchen. The other part was that Mammoth had a transient workforce and the head chef had skipped town (and bail) without any kind of head’s up to the owners. So, yes, they were in a bind. But no one would disagree with the fact that Livvy had more than risen to the challenge.
Behind the restaurant was a two-room cabin reserved for the employee in Livvy’s position and the owners had offered it to her as soon as they realized that Chef Simon wasn’t returning and the cops showed up looking for his last known whereabouts. She’d asked them if she could discuss it with her boyfriend first. And, Steve was not into the idea of living basically where his girlfriend worked. So, she’d declined and continued sleeping on their in-need-of-an-upgrade blue futon bed while sharing a kitchen with the never-ending cycle of ski bums renting out the basement. It wasn’t ideal. At least the new guy, Brenden, would make coffee in the morning. But Livvy stayed because she was in love. She’d never stopped loving Steve.
Sure, she’d get annoyed and frustrated the way any woman does with a failure-to-launch type of boyfriend but they’d been together for too long for Livvy to imagine a life without him. And now, walking home from the breakfast place that would now be plagued with this horrific memory, Livvy couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that the relationship was over. She couldn’t wrap her head around it that night, putting Ina Garten's Engagement Chicken on the Special Menu in spite of herself. And she couldn’t wrap her head around it a week later when her restaurant friends helped her move her belongings into the cabin out back.
Livvy had a really hard time accepting the reality of the breakup for the rest of the winter, the following never-ending spring, and even the summer when they opened up the patio and she was now running a kitchen with twice the number of tables. Steve was this gnawing, unrelenting bug that she couldn’t shake off of her sweater. He’d pop into her head when she made herself coffee, hit the farmer’s market, ran circles around the lake, or simply tried to pick a movie to fall asleep to. He was everywhere. And it was secretly embarrassing. Livvy didn’t think that she wanted to get back together with him, exactly, it's that everything she owned and everywhere she went managed to spark a memory of him. When she’d find herself craving something sweet, the old Livvy would have just run to the corner store. This new Livvy put on jeans and fixed her hair, on the off-chance that she would run into Steve. In retrospect, Livvy didn’t honestly wrap her head around the breakup until she found herself at the restaurant supply store a few miles out of town exactly a year and a half after that fateful omelet. Because that’s where Kyle had decided to open his business.
On that random Tuesday, Livvy knew that she was supposed to be shopping for a stock pot and looking at new chairs for the patio, but all she could see was Kyle and his mop of dark, curly hair. And he knew about her. And about her restaurant. They had a pleasant exchange. A soup pot was procured. Chairs were ordered. Nervous laughter and dorky jokes ensued. She said goodbye, heard the bell jingle on the door behind her as she walked out to her car, and immediately started a mental list of all the things that the restaurant needed that she would have to come back there and buy.
Livvy couldn’t stop thinking about this charismatic and handsome man all day. Later that evening, when her server popped his head into the kitchen and told her that a patron would like to compliment the chef, Livvy was only mildly surprised to see Kyle sitting at the table by the water station. He just seemed like the kind of guy that would do that. But there was icing on the metaphorical cake. His date was his mother. Come on.
It wasn’t long before Livvy and Kyle were living their lives together in a mature and healthy relationship. Livvy knew that he was the guy for her the second she saw him sitting in her restaurant, bathed in candlelight, pouring wine for his mother. But that didn’t stop the image of Steve from popping into her head on occasion. Livvy wished she could ask her subconscious, why? She was oh so happy with Kyle. He was expanding his business, they were planning a wedding, and trying to get pregnant. Everything in her life was great. Why was Steve in her brain at all? Over the years, the thoughts of him dissipated but did not disappear.
Livvy and Kyle got married and had two sons, Aiden and Kai. The restaurant flourished, the family made themselves at home in the mountains, and things were good and somewhat predictable. Which is why Livvy thought it was completely random when she ran into one of the basement ski bums at the butcher.
“You’re Livvy, right?” the guy behind her in line tapped her shoulder. He was tall, cute, clean-ish cut with the ski mountain logo on his down vest. Livvy squinted and saw the long-haired, stoner, snowboard instructor who had lived in the basement at Steve’s house. The thought of Steve made her stomach drop. Why? She told her brain. Stop it!
“Oh, hi,” Livvy shifted Kai to her other hip and reached out her hand to shake his.
“Sorry, this is Kai. Kai, say hi to Brenden.”
Brenden furrowed his brow and took a long look at Livvy and her son.
“That’s crazy,” he said as a bright smile spread across his face. Livvy wasn’t a huge fan of anyone staring at her baby boy and saying those words.
“I’m sorry, what?” she asked, wishing that the person in front of her would hurry up.
“Steve.” Brenden moved his hands in what was an effectively meaningless gesture.
“Steve, what?” Livvy asked. Just saying his name made her heart quicken. Why heart? This was such a ridiculous reaction. She turned her head as her toddler started playing with her cheek.
“Steve’s son is named Kai too.”
Livvy could not have ordered her roast and gotten out of the meat market fast enough. As she strapped Kai into his car seat, her brain raced. Had she and Steve ever talked about baby names? No! Of course not. Steve only relented to moving in together when he realized that it meant a 50% reduction in his rent bill. And Kai? Kai was such a unique and cool name. She and Kyle had met a nature guide in Hawaii whose spirit they had both been so moved by on their honeymoon, it seemed like a no-brainer to name their second son after him. And that hadn’t even been the kicker. Brenden had mentioned that Steve’s son was four. So he’d named his Kai first.
Who cares? Livvy tried to tell herself.
And, from that moment on, Steve, for reasons unknown to Livvy’s consciousness, was back on her mind. She didn’t get it. She wouldn’t trade her life for anything. And, now that she was out of the relationship with her ex, she could see him for what he was. A stubborn, entitled man-child whom she was very lucky not to be married to. But still, he lived, as the kids now say, “rent-free” in her brain. Sometimes she’d go a week or two without thinking about him, and then he’d just pop right back up into her head. One morning in early February, she’d thought about him six times before she’d even cinched up her ski boots and met her mom’s group for a few runs on the mountain.
She was running late and dashed into the singles line for the gondola to ride up to the top. It was a gorgeous bluebird day. They’d already gotten a ton of snow that season and the tourists had descended upon Mammoth with a fervor that all the restaurants in town were struggling to accommodate. Livvy popped into the gondola bench, sat in the corner, and swiped her phone with her frozen fingers, confirming that she’d be receiving the correct deliveries for that night’s dinner rush. She was utterly distracted by her halibut order when she heard the voice that had been whispering through the cracks in her brain for so many years.
“Livvy?” She looked up, her pink ski goggles strapped to her helmet and her long, auburn braids framing her face. The man across from her was dressed, like everyone else on the gondola, in head-to-toe gear. But, there was no mistaking Steve. Livvy felt the recognizable drop of her stomach. They hadn’t run into each other in years. She hadn’t even been sure that he even lived in Mammoth until she’d run into the old roommate at the butcher shop.
Livvy didn’t know what to say. She’d over-analyzed their relationship ad nauseam. There was a part of her who hated Steve in the way that you do when you obsess over how someone has wronged you. There was a part of her that wanted to impress him, to show him how well she’d done without him. She had an exciting and fulfilling career, a family whom she loved, a great husband, and this sudden, perverse need to just shove it all in his face. But that’s not what came out. As another couple, dressed in matching neon from the local and overpriced store entered, the words that tumbled out of Livvy’s mouth were not her own. She stared intently at the man who maybe wasted a lot of years of her life but certainly did not ruin it and said, way too loudly-
“WE BOTH HAVE SONS NAMED KAI.” The couple in neon did a double take, making no effort to hide their interest in this now fascinating conversation. The gondola rocked like a rusty swing, starting its slow climb over the snow-packed slopes. As soon as the words jumped out of her Chapstick’ed mouth, Livvy wished she could grab them with her worn-out mittens and shove them back into wherever they came from. But, as is so often the case with words, it was too late. Her declaration hung in the frozen air of the Mammoth gondola and Livvy cursed herself for having pushed her goggles up, leaving her eyes now visible and vulnerable. Her phone dinged repeatedly, the vendor on the other end demanding to know how much halibut. And what did Steve do? He did what he’d been good at the decade before. He ended the conversation.
“Well, I named mine first.” And those were the last words spoken on the thirteen-and-a-half-minute ride to the top of the mountain. It felt like an hour. Maybe forty. The second the jail gates, sorry, the gondola doors opened, she raced off, slipping on the slickly packed snow outside.
As Livvy recounted the story to her mom friends who had known her since her Steve days, their cheeks turned pink with contact embarrassment.
“Do you think that he thinks that you copied his kid’s name?” Her most gossip-motivated girlfriend asked while clipping into her skis.
“Well,” Livvy paused. Did he? And did she care? She sighed. She exhaled CO2 and also some long, heavy, pent-up feelings.
And at that moment, the sky rumbled, the clouds parted, and something released in her body. No, she didn’t poop herself. She let go of something. She let go of Steve. Somewhere, deep in either the pit of her stomach or subconscious brain, a knot slid loose. A door closed on a long memory corridor. An image of her sweet and thoughtful husband and happy kids took over. Why had she been holding onto this memory of this admittedly jerky guy who broke her heart during a breakfast special at the local Dennys in the first place? For all these years? For no apparent reason? And why was today the day that the door closed and locked on that chapter? Is an awkward conversation relating to the naming of your child while trapped in a moving egg the answer to getting over an ex? Fuck, we hope not. But, whatever it takes, right? All’s well that ends well.
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