13. what best friends are for
CHAPTER 13
WHAT BEST FRIENDS ARE FOR
IVY
For the record, this whole job search thing? It really, really sucks.
Look, I’m not sticking my head in the sand. I know I can’t keep putting it off, but can anyone blame me for not wanting to run with open arms toward a nine-to-five desk job that I’ll be stuck in until I’m seventy? (Probably eighty, at this rate).
I like working (well, I like having a paycheck), and I know how to work my (absolutely juicy) ass off. But every day and every week was nothing but routine. Bland, boiled chicken. No seasoning. No flavor.
Life should be more exciting than a one-woman show on health reform.
I used to have hobbies. I used to be interesting.
Then I turned into someone who woke up on a Monday morning, already counting down until the weekend.
But what other choice do I have? We’re all out here making the most of the time we have. Well. Other people are.
I don’t think I’ve made the most of anything in years.
Every time Mom calls, I want to cry. I haven’t updated my résumé. I can’t bring myself to open it, even though I need to. Time’s a-wasting, and my savings won’t last forever. Then I remember the emails, and endless pressure, and I have to ask, is this it? Is this all I’ll be for the rest of my life?
When I got offered the internship, I said yes immediately. I’d heard the horror stories about the job market. How hard it was to find anything in my field— or even out of my field. The hundreds of applications that went rejected or unanswered. The long, complicated interview process.
Even the lucky ones who got hired talked about the shitty work conditions. Being judged for a terrible work ethic if you didn’t devote every second of your life outside of your working hours to the job or had the audacity to not come in early because you had— gasp— personal obligations.
I knew I was being offered a privilege few had. So I took it. And the permanent job offer that followed. I thought I was making a mature decision.
I thought I’d be happier.
* * *
“I can’t believe it’s been a week already,” Emma pouts prettily, her long legs curled up under her where she’s draped elegantly on the end of my olive two-seater. Usually, after Pilates, we lunch, but until I get another job, the only reservations I’ll be making are at Chez Ivy .
Emma clasps her hands together, stretching them above her head. “I hate not seeing you in the office. First Charlie, and now you. It’s awful not seeing my favorite people every day.”
It really is. Working with my best friend made even the worst days better. “If I ever get another job?—”
“When,” Emma stresses.
Always the optimist. I smile from where I’m sprawled out on the floor with the pile of laundry I’ve been ignoring. “Maybe you can come work with me. Get the gang back together.”
I can’t imagine Emma ever being without a job. She’s the most capable person I’ve ever met (even though she would never brag), but that’s not why I love her. It’s the giant heart underneath, the same one that I worried for when she was still pining over her piece-of-shit ex, before she and Charlie sorted themselves out.
“I’d follow you to the ends of the earth,” she says.
I haven’t been to church since I hit puberty, but if there’s a god, the proof is in how lucky I am to have Emma in my life. “Have you spoken with your mom yet?”
“No,” I say, throwing myself back on the pillows I pulled off the sofa, sinking into them like they can protect me from the oncoming train that is going to be my mother’s disappointment. “And it’s getting harder not to tell her. I can’t lie to her, but if I tell her before I have a job worked out, I’ll wake up tomorrow to fifty news articles she’s sent me about the decline of the economy and how ungrateful and irresponsible our generation is.”
Either that, or I’ll get an email the length of a small novel that I’ll inevitably have to call my therapist about, and I was sort of hoping to talk about something new for a change. My therapist has been through enough.
No. It’s better this way, even though it’s slowly eating away at my insides. There’s enough on her plate right now with Ciara and the baby, and I certainly don’t need any help with freaking out over my current situation.
I’m managing that just fine on my own.
“Surely she’d understand if you explained wanting a break,” Emma says.
Maybe. I throw the striped blouse I’m holding on to the clean pile without folding it. What’s the point in ironing anything when I’ve spent the past two weeks exclusively in gym gear?
“In my senior year of high school, this local newspaper came by to do a piece on our end-of-year-show. Nothing special. A photo of the cast and some sweet stuff about how enthusiastic we all were.” A total puff piece, but nothing beat how cool it felt to see my face in the paper. “I stuck it up above my bed, and when it came time to choose a college, she sat me down, looked at it, and said, ‘I know you’re going to miss it, but you need to think about your future.’”
I inspect a pair of jeans for stains and find none, rolling them into a ball and putting them on top of the clean pile. I get that it’s my mother’s job to protect me and all, but wow, dagger straight to the heart.
Emma slides off the couch to tackle me into a hug. “I want you to know I support you, 100 percent, no matter what you do. Also, we’re missing two very important things right now.”
I squeeze her back, blinking away the heat prickling my eyes. “Those two things better be tacos and booze.”
“Great minds think alike,” Emma says with glee, standing and grabbing her phone. “I’ll order, and you can tell me all about your date with Lincoln.”
That sly, sexy bitch. Where the hell do I even begin?
I give up on folding a camp T-shirt, throwing it back on the dirty pile to stretch my legs out. “I don’t know what you want me to say. It was good, and weird, and completely unpredictable.” I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
“All your favorite things.”
“I know,” I groan. “First dates will be doomed after this. And the sex… Record making. Scale broken. Tens across the board. I’d let that show run into the ground just for one more season.”
The tip of Emma’s button nose scrunches. “While I’m happy for you, it’s a little strange to think of him like that. All I know of him are glimpses of the cocky kid who used to walk his sister to my house and swim in my pool every summer. We weren’t close. Back then he was too cool for everyone.” She finishes typing and places her phone to the side.
“He’s still like that,” I say. But boy, does it turn me on. I’ve always been a sucker for a guy who had enough of his shit together to not be bothered with petty crap.
Emma smooths out her hair, which is barely damp. Meanwhile I look like I ran face-first into a hurricane. “And the masquerade? I know you were looking forward to it.”
I pause, because this is Emma— gorgeous, smart, looks incredible in a pantsuit, got her shit together, Emma— and I may have oopsied a little too close to the sun this time.
I bury my face in a blue sundress. “I accidentally told his mom we were dating.”
Silence. I open a single eye to find her staring at me, fighting a smile with her jaw dropped.
“It wasn’t on purpose!” I clarify.
“I gathered that from the accidentally,” Emma says. Through the ceiling come the harsh stabs of piano keys that mark Hania’s weekly lessons. “What happened?”
I abandon the pile to slide into the seat next to her. “I told him that I was wondering who I would have been if I’d made different choices in life, and he said to be whoever I wanted because no one would know the difference. In my defense, I had no idea it was his mom until after I said it.”
She’s eyeing me knowingly. “It’s interesting that in one of the roles, you wanted to be was girlfriend.”
“Don’t think I haven’t been deconstructing that for the past twenty-four hours.” Crap. I really was going to have to call my therapist, wasn’t I? “What’s the deal with his family?”
Emma crosses her legs and shrugs one shoulder. “I only met his grandfather a few times. He was a very severe man, the type who talks to children as if they’re business associates. Nana always said he wasn’t worth the air it would take to curse him, but I remember Lincoln’s dad being down-to-earth. Always smiling, always friendly. I don’t know much about the split, only that his mom moved back here with Reed and Darcy, and Lincoln stayed in the UK with his dad. After that, I barely saw him, not until the party last year.”
God, I have so many questions. Reed had been equal parts welcoming and cold, and while Astrid had been a delight, there was a clear distance between her and Lincoln I wanted to understand.
I hate the thought that I’ll never see her again.
A knock at my door gets me off the couch, signaling treats have arrived.
When I answer it, I’m not at all surprised to find Charlie there, bags in hand. “Oh, cute,” I joke over my shoulder. “You got a new personal assistant.” Although it might as well be true. They started out slinging insults to each other, but eventually they became a team.
I want that. I’ve always wanted it. Deeply, with every fiber.
“Jealous?” Charlie winks.
“Not in a million years.” Except I am. A little. Not about Charlie— God, no — but having someone rock up when I need them? Yeah, I’ll take some of that.
I take the treasure out of his hands, ushering him inside. “Hey, you quit without having anything lined up. Weren’t you worried?”
I leave him the spot beside Emma on the sofa, sinking back onto the floor, leaning against the TV unit opposite them. He slots in perfectly beside her, his worn dark jeans beside her candy pink leggings, their edges clicking into place.
There’s gray under his trimmed nails, stubborn oil that won’t be scrubbed off. Last week he almost floated out of his bones when I asked about the 1978 Datsun he was rebuilding at work.
What I would give to have purpose like that.
Charlie shakes his head. “Not really.”
“That’s not entirely true.” Emma nudges his knee with her foot, which he catches and starts rubbing. I split the food between us, piling extra cheese on my plate.
“Okay,” he admits. “I was a little worried, but I’ve always found my feet. You got a payout, right?”
“A small one,” I confirm.
He nods. “Yeah, that helps. So maybe take some time, if you can. I know what it’s like to keep going, rain or shine. Starts to feel like if you stop?—”
“Everything’ll fall apart,” I finish for him.
“Exactly, but if you don’t stop now, when will you?” It’s a good point.
Above us, Hania stops, starts again. It’s getting better. Now there are at least two and a half blind mice. I should take her some hand cream tomorrow; her fingers will be aching.
Charlie picked well. The food smells and tastes delicious, and a comfortable silence settles as we all eat, Hania’s practice serving as background music.
Back in college, it was all about moving out. Getting my own place. Then a car, covering my student loans, eating better, finding a good hairdresser, and being able to make appointments in advance . Seeing a dentist more than once a decade.
Now it’s like there are more downsides than ups. Working until I’m exhausted, followed by an ocean of guilt if I’m not making the most of every spare minute. Check in with my mom, pay my bills, be a good friend, eventually read a non-fiction book instead of doom scrolling first thing in the morning. Take my vitamins.
Sometimes life feels like free labor.
“Every time I think of going back to doc control, it’s like I’ve eaten bad sushi. I can’t tell if that’s because I’m over it all or because I can’t stomach jumping back in so fast. I know I was decent at it. Maybe not as fabulous as you two?—”
“You’re brilliant,” Emma cuts in. “Don’t you dare suggest otherwise.”
And okay, I am. I just like hearing her say it sometimes, with all the indignant fury she carries. It’s nice. Charlie is smiling like he knows exactly how I feel, and yeah, he would.
“I just keep thinking, maybe I’ve hitched my wagon to the wrong horse. I won’t ever be able to do anything else.”
“Nah, that shit’s transferable,” Charlie says. “The way you handle the toughest of customers without breaking a sweat? You’ve got skills not everyone can learn, and the rest, you’re smart enough to pick up. I wouldn’t be worried. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”
Well, damn. Here I was thinking Emma’s compliments were the only kind that could knock me over, but it turns out Charlie’s got a mean right hook when he wants to.
Gratitude warms me from the inside out. The one love I have never shied away from is this — friendship.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Charlie says, his grin stretching out, and I know the tender moment is over. “How was your night of mystery with Mr. Moneybags?”
I flush at the memory of every touch, every whisper in my ear, every filthy promise.
Emma turns to him. “Be nice. That’s her boyfriend you’re talking about.”
I groan into my hands as Emma laughs.
“Already?” Charlie asks. “Damn Ivy, you work fast. Should we RSVP to the wedding now, or…?”
I drop my hands to give him the finger. “You can keep your RSVP because we’ve broken up, and I’m never going to see him again.”
What I don’t say is that I keep hoping to bump into him in the elevator, or that every time a man sits beside me at the bar, my heart jumps until I realize it isn’t him.
In senior year, I won the lead role in our production of some show I can’t even remember the name of now. It wasn’t a sign of my skill, because I truly cannot undersell how average an actor I was, but it didn’t matter, because lead meant playing lover to Jake.
My crush on him had lasted two years, kept alive by my own naivety and his manipulation. Not that I’d learned that until after graduation.
But the day casting had been announced, my heart had soared. Straight to the clouds, where my head has always been, lighter than air.
There was a kiss on page twelve.
I dreamed of that kiss every night. It would be our first. Maybe then he’d finally see me as someone other than his friend.
Our lips would meet— and they had to; it was scripted— and the agony of my unrequited love would finally come to an end. Good or bad, I didn’t care.
I just wanted that kiss.
We skipped over it in rehearsals. I’d been too nervous to attempt it at the time, and Mr. Thomas was too focused on staging to care. As long as we hit our marks on the night, he said.
Still, I played it out in my head every night.
By the night of the performance, we’d kissed a dozen times, if only in my imagination. Jake’s strong hands cupping my face, his lips soft under mine, but not hesitant.
Never hesitant.
The moment came, and…
No kiss.
The cue was his, and he missed it. Said his line and walked off stage just as he was supposed to. But no kiss.
I kept going— the show must go on, always— but it stayed with me. The regret of inaction. Of longing. Of dragging someone else into my fantasies.
And a month later, when he sat next to me in the stairwell, whispering how I treated him better than his girlfriend, keeping his hooks in me even as he said we couldn’t be anything but friends…
I decided I’d never lie to myself again.