Chapter 19 Then #2
Lauren drains the last of her wine, then sets down the flute. “That fucker is just hanging out already with all your old friends and her—”
“They were never my friends, Lo.” I sip my wine, trying to calm my racing heart. “They were his friends from work and their wives, and we never meshed. I wasn’t their type.”
“Boring jerks with sticks up their asses?” she offers.
I smile. “We were just different.”
Lauren seems to hesitate for a second, then leans in. “Do you have other friends here, Thea? Am I stranding you with Hot Chef?”
I was about to cry a second ago, but now all I can do is laugh. Hard. So hard that Ethan and Jen and Ethan’s buddies and their wives are probably looking over at me now, as I make a scene.
Lauren starts laughing, too, covering her mouth as she snorts. I wheeze a laugh, fold forward toward the table.
We are embarrassing. And I couldn’t care less.
I finally settle down enough to dab my eyes and take a long drink of ice water. “Yes, Lauren, I have other friends, here. Mostly through work and the library.”
“So… book buddies,” she says as she dabs around her eyes, too. She sounds concerned.
“I met them through the bookish community, if that’s what you mean.
We’re not close, but I’d consider them friends.
” I shrug. “I don’t know. I used to have more close friends, back in St. Louis, but then, the last couple of years before we left, they all started having babies, and understandably their lives changed so much.
I plugged in how I could, but they were in a new chapter of life, making new friends… ” My voice wavers. “Mom friends.”
Lauren reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “And you wanted to be one of those mom friends.”
I nod. “Obviously, when we moved here, I understood those already-dying friendships weren’t going to last long distance. So I threw myself into finding a job I loved, which I did, and getting settled into the house and exploring the city. And then I met you.”
Lauren grins. “And then I completely monopolized your time for three years.”
“Wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Ethan’s loud braying laugh rings out in the restaurant again. It’s impossible not to look over. When we do, Ethan glances over his shoulder right at me, curls his arm tighter around Jen, and smirks.
Lauren glares his way. “I’ll fucking end him.”
“Lo,” I chide.
She slants me a look of pure frustration. “You’re too gracious toward him. Villainize him, Thea. Hate his guts. He was a piece of shit to you.”
“In some ways, yes,” I tell her, “he was. But I’m tired of being mad, Lo. I don’t want to waste any more energy on being mad at him.”
“I agree,” she says. “Channel your energy into brutal premeditated vengeance.”
“Lauren.”
“For instance, while he’s got lil Ms. Tinkerbell here over at your house that the fucker took”—she points her fork my way—“you take a shit on his porch, then ding-dong-ditch him.”
A laugh jumps out of me in spite of myself. I adore Lauren—her honest irreverence, her fierce love, her unapologetic vindictiveness. I clap my hands over my face and muffle the sudden sob that bursts out on the tail end of my laughter.
“Sweetie,” she whispers, leaning in. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” She’s silent for a beat, then tells me, “I should have said, ‘I’ll take a shit in a bag, light it on fire, leave it on his porch, then ding-dong-ditch him.’ ”
Another gunky laugh jumps out of me. “I’m going to miss you so much, Lo.”
“I’m going to miss you, too.” She sniffs, straightening her shoulders, then leans in as she says, “The jackass clocked us again. And can I just say, you look slammin’?”
“You look slammin’,” I tell her. “You always do.”
Lauren scowls at me. “So do you, you turd nugget.” She picks up her phone, unlocking it, then turns it my way.
I blink, startled to see a photo of me in profile, candlelight soft and flattering to the angles of my face, accentuating the summertime freckles scattered across my nose and cheeks, drawing out the amber in my brown curls that spill to my shoulders, calling out the gold in my hazel eyes.
My head’s bent from peering down at the menu, but my eyes are up, my lips pursed in a pout that accentuates their fullness, something I’ve been self-conscious about for as long as I can remember.
“Go ahead,” Lauren says. “Look at this hot-as-fuck photo of you and try to tell me I’m slammin’ while implying you’re not.”
“Okay.” I grin. “I look slammin’ tonight.”
“Hell, yes, you do!”
I hear the click of another photo being taken and groan, “Lauren!”
“What?” she says. “I needed a photo of you smiling, too, not just giving me bedroom eyes.”
I snort. “Bedroom eyes.”
Lauren takes another bite of dessert, then licks her fork clean. “Ethan’s still watching us. So is Tink.”
“Jen,” I remind her quietly.
“Really don’t care about getting her name right.” Lauren leans in, a sudden sinister grin on her face, and says, “What do you say I kiss the hell out of you and give them something to be jealous of?”
I smile as I lean in, too, and say, “No.”
Her grin dissolves. “Why the hell not?”
“Because I don’t want to ruin tonight by about making it about anything other than our friendship. And I don’t want to have to learn that, in addition to running, cooking, personal style, and general badassery, kissing is another thing you’re better at than me.”
Lauren narrows her eyes. “You’re so full of shit.”
“I’m not!” I tell her. “I really don’t want to make it about… him. Or her.”
“That part I believe,” she says. “But the rest of it, stop knocking yourself down, Thea.” She clasps my hand inside both of hers, then says gravely, “If you do one thing for me once I’m gone—”
“You’re not perishing, Lo. You’re relocating for work.”
“Still,” she says. “Do this for me, at least, if at first you can’t do it for yourself—be big, Thea.
Take up space. Do whatever the fuck you want, because you can, and because, once I’m out of here, there will be a significant deficit in Pittsburgh’s collective boss-ass bitch quota.
But most of all, take care of yourself, so I know you’re okay. All right?”
I smile softly and tangle my hands with hers, clasping them together. “I’ll try my best. To be a big, space-taking, boss-ass bitch. And I will take care of myself. I’ll be okay.”
Lauren nods, her eyes searching mine. Then she leans in again and says, “Sure you don’t want to kiss my face off and make them insanely jealous?”
“Come on, Lo. Let’s get out of here.”
“Fine,” she sighs.
I stand, purse on my shoulder, stretching out my hand to Lauren. She stands, too, and takes it, letting me lead her in a winding path out of the restaurant.
Outside, we’re welcomed by the warmth of a balmy summer night, a rare clear sky smattered with dazzling stars.
Lauren turns toward me, our hands drawing apart. The playfulness from inside has evaporated. Now it’s only the quiet night, the hum of crickets, and the steady rumble of cars and buses rolling by. The background noise for our goodbye.
“Nightcap back at my place?” I ask, my voice thick, knowing I sound a little desperate. “I’ve got a very cute postage stamp of a backyard, with string lights and a café table and chairs, thanks to this pushy friend I have who foisted them on me.”
“And strung up the lights?” she adds. “In the perfect zigzag pattern because your efforts looked like they’d been woven by a drunk spider?”
A laugh jumps out of me. I brush away the tears. “Yeah. She’s a good friend.”
Lauren dabs at her nose, peering down the road. “Your offer is tempting,” she concedes, “but I think maybe your friend needs to head back to her mostly empty condo and collect herself.”
“I get that,” I whisper. “It’s a tight fit back there, anyway. Two five-foot-eleven women in that postage stamp, feels like we’re sitting in the lawn version of a too-tight tub.”
She laughs roughly. “It’s a microscopic yard. I think my condo closet was bigger than that.”
I know her closet was bigger than that backyard. “Maybe a smidge.”
She snorts loudly. Then she glances toward a car rolling toward us, another one behind it, both pulling to a stop.
“Separate cars?” I ask.
She nods. “For separate ways.”
I blow out an unsteady breath, then I launch myself at her, hugging her hard.
My chest aches, my eyes burn. I squeeze Lauren tight and tell her hoarsely, “It’s tight quarters, but that postage stamp will always be waiting for you.
String lights. Café table and chairs. A cold bottle of white with your name on it.
” I pull back and hold her eyes. “And a friend who wants to share it with you.”
“Sounds perfect,” she mutters, wiping at her cheeks.
She holds my eyes for a moment, then curls her arm in mine, guiding us toward our cars.
“Just think, after I get my footing in this job, months of hotel living under my belt, I’ll be even more accustomed to close quarters by the time I visit your postage stamp again. ”
Months. I won’t see Lauren for months.
She stops at my car, then yanks me into a fierce hug. “Miss you already,” she says.
I squeeze her back, hard. “Miss you already, too.”
She pulls away abruptly, putting distance between us as she walks to her car. No gentle, slow extraction. Very Lauren, ripping off the Band-Aid.
I call to her, “Come visit the postage stamp soon, okay?”
Lauren opens her car door and grins. “You know I will, as soon as I can. At which point, between hotel living and our postage-stamp wine nights, if you finally take me up on my offer to kill Ethan, prison will feel spacious!”
“Lauren!” I shriek. “No jokes about homicide!”
Cackling like a gorgeous villainess, she slips into her car and slams the door shut.
I force myself into my car, my hands shaking as I buckle myself in, tears blurring my view out the window as the driver pulls out.
I feel so impossibly sad.
But I feel something else, too, as I stare up into the cloudless night. Inside my heart, my own finally clear sky, glittering with tiny pricks of hopeful light.
Tonight, I told Lauren I’d be okay. And tonight, I finally know I meant it.