27. Claire
twenty-seven
“Sorry,”Lucy yawns, then immediately lifts her coffee to her lips.
“I should be the one apologizing,” I wince.
It is, after all, five-thirty in the morning. Lucy so kindly agreed to meet me where I’m at, but unfortunately for her, that means functioning before the sun is officially ready to be social.
“No. No apologizing. I’m happy to meet with you, friend.”
She waves me off with a smile, and the guilt instantly begins to melt away. Is this what it’s like? Having normal social boundaries and relationships with the people close to you? Having a friend?
We dig into our first coffees and pastries, catching up about our weeks. Aaron has been busy with basketball season. I tell her about all five of my siblings and their various activities and antics. It isn’t until the six-o’clock hour that she finally punches me in the gut with one of the questions I’m most afraid of.
“So, now that I know what all of the other Bensons like to do for fun… Claire, what do you do for you?”
I swallow, which is tricky, because there’s a lump the size of the Cape currently lodged there. I choke down the rest of my coffee, frowning when there’s nothing left at the bottom.
“Honestly? This, and those few times out at the bar with you guys, are about the extent of my social life.”
She chews on this for a moment, then asks, “What about your friends? From high school or college?”
“I never attempted to keep others around.” I both love and hate that it’s getting easier to admit this stuff. “I have duties at home, and those always come first. My relationships in school were surface level. Penelope’s brother and his friend group were the closest thing I had to normal ‘friends,’ but that was because my brother was friends with one of their brothers, so I could pass off my own social getaways as bringing Michael over there to play. I didn’t let my relationships get much deeper than that.”
“So, no extracurriculars or…”
“Nope. No sports, no clubs. I was smart, and I was an extra set of hands. And things kind of stayed that way.”
Embarrassment pangs me more than anything—that I’ve lived twenty-five years of life, and this is what I have to show for it: being my high school valedictorian with a college degree I don’t use. I’m basically a glorified Uber service that gets paid in rent and twice-yearly vacations.
Lucy inhales deeply, then carefully chooses her words.
“I want to say I’m sorry, but I’ve been in your shoes before. I never wanted the pity either.”
I’m grateful that she extends empathy, not pity.
“Here’s what I’m going to do instead,” she says. Digging into her bag, she comes up with a yellow legal pad and a pen.
“Ahh, so you are going to school counselor me after all?” I say cheekily, scrunching my nose and smiling as she hands me the pen and paper.
“You can take the girl out of the counselor’s office, but you can’t take the counselor out of the girl.” We share a quiet laugh, and then she adds, “But this is me being your friend, too. If you’d rather not share, then we can put down the therapy session and talk about trashy romance books, or boys you think are cute.”
I freeze, hoping my face doesn’t give away the boy—man—who has recently taken up residency in my brain—and maybe my pants. I know that Lucy is my friend, but I haven’t really had a true one before. I feel like, Hey, I’m sort of hooking up with our boss? isn”t first-friend-date conversation.
“You up for it?”
I nod. Literally anything to get my mind off of the way Nathan Harding’s mouth transforms into whole a different kind of Yes sir when we’re alone.
“Okay. You’re making a list. Everything you’ve ever wanted to do.”
“Everything?”
“Everything. Did you want to be an astronaut when you were a kid? Put it on the list. Wanted to work in fashion after you saw The Devil Wears Prada?”
“The who wears what?” I ask.
Her eyes bulge. “Please stop reminding me that I’m old, and I’ll plan a movie night for us and the other girls.”
I nod, and get to work on my list, all the while letting my heart turn fuzzy at the thought of a movie night with friends. It reminds me of the stuff from my books.
Friendship. Sisterhood. Grown up girl bonding. Sharing secrets, and having trustworthy people in my life.
A real sense of belonging. Where I’m wanted simply for being me.
Things that shouldn’t seem fictional, but have really only come alive for me in the stories that I read.
“Wow,” Lucy says, looking up from her phone and her second coffee. “You’ve got quite the list there.”
I shrug. “I’ve had a lot of time to imagine the things I’d do if given the time.”
Lucy scrutinizes the list for several minutes before saying, “You want to work with people.”
It’s something I could’ve deduced myself, but never thought to delve into my own psyche as much as I’ve picked apart that of others.
I shrug. “I guess I do.”
“You know what Freud would say about this, don’t you?”
Lucy tilts her head conspiratorially, and I grin.
“Probably something like, ‘The way she was parentified at such a young age created a constant need to please people, so even in the workplace, she seeks approval by doing for others.’”
“Wow,” she says, starting a slow clap. “Ten out of ten.”
We laugh. And for the next ten minutes, we finish our second coffees and psychoanalyze the rest of the group. Our group of friends. Friends who, pending a quick check of my schedule, I have plans to watch a bunch of early-2000s movies with so that they can “culture” me.
I tuck my list into my pocket, promising to do my “therapy homework” that Lucy has assigned, to go through the list and narrow it down to things I’m still interested in and things that are still plausible.
I drive into work wearing a mile wide grin. I think I’m really going to like this whole friendship thing.