2. Cam
Ihave to admit, it hurt when Tabs said our Friday nights were “just” Besties, Booze, and Books. Even though we see each other virtually every day, Friday nights are the highlight of my week. Nothing “just” about them.
I follow her up the two flights of stairs to my apartment. Although I’m the one on the lease and I live alone, it feels like our place. Tabs decorated it, and it’s filled with the funky, book-obsessed gifts she’s given me over the years. I love every single one of them.
The most recent was a huge surprise—an author clock that, instead of telling time with numbers, shows a quote taken from a book for every single minute of the day and night. It’s always the first thing I look at when I get home. But I like it even better when she comes in with me since Tabs is so competitive about how well-read she is, she’s turned the clock into a game. It’s one of the many things I love about her.
“Time?” she asks after I close the door behind us.
I read, “When he arrived it was nearly six o”clock, and the sun was setting full and warm, and the red light streamed in through the window and gave more color to the pale cheeks.”
“Easy!” she says, her blue eyes twinkling beneath her red, cat-eye glasses. “I vant to suck your blood! Dracula. Bram Stoker.”
“Nice. That’s twelve in a row, now?” I ask as I set the takeout in the kitchen.
“Thirteen, thank you very much! Hey, do you have a preference for your dinner plate tonight? You feel like sharing your meal with The Great Gatsby, Catch-22, or maybe Slaughterhouse-Five?”
Another literary gift from Tabs, plates with images of the original covers of six classic books. There isn’t a single room in my apartment that doesn’t have her touch. Not sure why it stands out for me so much tonight, but it’s like she’s intentionally trying not to notice that the relationship we have is so much more than friendship. Or, at least, that it has the potential to be.
“Um, actually, give me The Invisible Man,” I say, knowing that if she wants to get the hint, she’ll understand.
“Oh, good choice!” she says, completely missing the point. “I’ll take… Little Women.” Tabs plates all the different ingredients for our “assemble ourselves” tacos and chatters away, not paying attention to whether or not I’m listening. She’s done that for as long as I’ve known her, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The first hour of our Friday night hang-out is always the same, with Tabs telling me about all the thoughts that she’s kept in her head since the last time we talked.
Sometimes, she talks about the books she’s read. Other times, she tells me funny stories about library patrons, or Amelia’s latest escapades. Today, as we set the small kitchen table, she talks about Jane.
“I mean, I’m happy for her. Truly, I am,” she mutters then sighs again. “Bryan is nice. He’s literally perfect for her. But I can’t believe she’s having a baby already. They’ve only known each other for a few years, and they just got married. I’d need to know someone way longer than that. Ooh,” Tabs squeals as I pull the container from the bag and hand it to her, “you splurged on the spicy guac.”
“Told you. We’re celebrating.” I silently sigh to myself, wishing I could tell her about the real work project I just finished—that I”m actually a romance author and I wrote The Duke’s Treasure, the book she”s currently obsessed with.
“But you don’t even like the spicy one.”
“I got myself the normal one.” I pull it out of the bag next.
“Phew.” She plops down into the chair and makes herself at home. At least, for the duration of dinner. Not once has she spent the night. And, in fairness, I’ve never invited her to, much as I’d love to make her breakfast.
“I think Jane and Bryan are perfect together,” I say.
She scrunches her nose. “I do, too. They really are. Is it bad that I still think they should have waited?”
I shake my head. “No. You’re responsible. And Mom always says that you can’t truly know a person until you’ve lived through four life crises with them.”
“Right,” Tabs nods. She spent enough time at my house growing up that she must have heard it a dozen times. “But four crises just sounds like someone who has bad luck to me.” Tab frowns as she stuffs ground beef into a taco shell.
I focus on filling two of my own. “Not at all. Normal, stressful stuff everyone faces can be a crisis. Like a stressful move. And having someone you’re close to, like a grandparent, die. And getting so sick you need someone to take care of you.” I take a bite as I recall going through them all with Tabs by my side.
“That’s just three. What’s the fourth crisis?”
“Taking a vacation together.”
“Why is that a crisis?” Tabs laughs. “We’ve been on tons of vacations together without a single crisis. I’m not sure I agree with your mom on that one.”
“Maybe,” I hedge, “but I do think she has a point. The only reason you say none of our road trips have had a crisis is because we deal with the unexpected well. Together.”
That last word echoes through my tiny kitchen as we eat a few bites in silence.
Tabs is the first one to break it. “Remember the time we took the wrong exit and decided that it was the Universe telling us we should take a different road trip?” She covers her mouth when she laughs.
I think about that trip all the time and recall it in vivid detail. We had no idea that we’d gotten onto a stretch of a virtually unused highway without another exit or gas station for over eighty miles.
“That’s exactly Mom’s point,” I say. “When we ran out of gas?—”
Tabs pushes her chair back and starts to sing Song of the Lonely Mountain from the soundtrack to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
And even though I don’t have the best voice, I sing along, because that’s how we spent the two hours while we walked toward the closest town to find gas, belting out tunes from our favorite movies based on books, and listing all the reasons the book was better.
“That was our best road trip ever,” Tabs says.
The only thing that would have made it more perfect would have been being forced to share a bed in the roadside motel. But even if we had, Tabs didn’t see me that way then. She still doesn’t.