Chapter 8 Friday #2
With one last look in the mirror, I try to visualize a scenario where it’d be appropriate to wear this dress to work. I’d like Finn to see me in it.
“I need an hour,” Cindy tells us.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “I can come back on Monday.”
Nora pulls me toward the dressing room. “That’s perfect. Thanks, Cindy! See you in an hour.”
—
With time to kill, Nora and I walk to the coffee shop down the street.
I buy her an iced Americano and a blueberry muffin to thank her for this afternoon, and we sip our drinks while people-watching from the bench outside the café.
We’re on a busy street, with a constant stream of film bros and girls with patchwork tattoos coming in and out of shops and hustling past us on the sidewalk.
Nora picks at her muffin while I focus on smiling at any man who looks to be around my age, hoping that one might stop to talk and give me a chance to practice my flirting.
Nora reaches down and slips off her black platform sandals.
“My feet are killing me,” she whines as she massages her freshly pedicured foot.
“The new manager makes us wear heels for our shifts.” Nora has been working as a server at a few different bars and restaurants ever since we graduated.
It started out as a temporary gig while she looked for something more compatible with her sociology degree and has gradually become her full-time job.
“Ouch.” I give her a sympathetic grimace. “What ever happened to the therapy practice you applied—”
“I didn’t get it.”
“What about the addiction treatment center—”
“Nope,” she sighs. “No one in the field takes me seriously.”
“I don’t get it.” I shake my head. “Any potential employer lucky enough to spend five minutes with you should be able to tell how great of an advocate you are. I mean, if it weren’t for you, I’d probably pass out at the altar next week due to lack of oxygen from a dress that’s too tight.”
She shrugs, continuing to massage her foot. “So, how’s everything going with Finn?”
I can tell she doesn’t want to keep talking about work, so I let her change the subject.
“Good. There was a moment on Wednesday where we really connected over our mutual dislike of screen time and social media,” I tell her. “Nothing brings two people together more than hating the same thing.”
“Phoebe…” Nora starts, dropping a blueberry onto the ground. “You’re addicted to your phone. And you binged fourteen seasons of SVU this summer.”
“It wasn’t a binge,” I argue. “There are twenty-five seasons total; I barely watched half of them.”
“But there’s no need to pretend to be someone you’re not,” Nora says. “Plus, the only surefire way to get a guy to ask you out is to make it seem like you’re not interested.”
“That would be me pretending to be someone I’m very much not.”
“You don’t have to change the way you interact with him,” she explains. “Just make him think you’re interested in someone else. Is there another guy at school you can flirt with?”
I think about reaching out to tickle Teacher Rob again, but this time in front of Finn. Would that make him jealous?
Lost in the thought of Finn burning with envy, I barely notice the goldendoodle sniffing around Nora’s muffin crumbs at my feet.
“Hello!” I say as I reach down to pet the dog. I give it a good scratch between the ears, and it plops down on the ground, belly up, in response. “Aren’t you a good dog,” I say, completely oblivious to the fact that the dog even has an owner until I hear his voice coming from above me.
“She’s very friendly,” he says. I look up toward the voice and am delighted to find a cute twentysomething with dark hair and deep brown eyes shielding me from the sun with his height.
Pet a dog with a cute owner. The universe is on my side today.
Without taking even one step out of my way, I’ve found myself in the middle of checking off one of the tasks from my list. Maybe there’s a higher force at play that sent me Finn, and now this guy, as a peace offering after cursing me for so many years.
I open my mouth to make conversation, but Nora beats me to it.
“She sure is,” Nora responds. “And very cute.” She eyes the owner up and down. “She must get that from her dad.”
I shoot daggers at her, a silent plea to let me have this one, but she’s too focused on Dog Dad to pay me any mind. I watch as she stares at him with her big brown eyes, biting her lip and absentmindedly playing with the ends of her long dirty-blond hair.
“You’re too kind,” he says, giving Nora and her low-cut tank top a full once-over. They take a second to stare at each other in silence, and I realize that a bus could roll over the curb and take me out and the only one to notice would be the dog.
“You know…” He sits down next to Nora on the other side of the bench, and she pivots her entire body toward him, her back now facing me. “I’ve been looking for a stepmom for her, if you’d have any interest in applying for the position.”
Oh, Jesus Christ. The entire interaction sounds like it was written by AI. I take a sudden interest in reading the movie titles on the marquee of the 1950s-themed theater on the other side of the street.
Maybe I’ll do the 4:30 showing of Godzilla and let Nora walk the four miles home.
“I’d be interested in a preliminary interview. Over drinks, of course,” Nora responds, and I can practically hear the flutter of her eyelashes as she bats them. “Where are you taking me?” she asks.
“How’s Harriett’s?” he asks. “Tomorrow at seven?” They exchange numbers.
Finn and I haven’t even done that yet, I realize.
I give the dog one last belly rub before her dad takes her away without so much as a nod toward me, and I turn to Nora, my fists involuntarily clenched.
She sips on her coffee casually, as if nothing just happened.
“Are you kidding me?” I ask her. I’m seeing red.
“I know, cute, right?” She’s still fiddling with the ends of her hair and is completely oblivious to the shift in my mood.
“No, I mean are you kidding me? That was supposed to be an opportunity for me to check something off my list, and you ruined it.”
I try to take a deep breath so I don’t say something I’ll regret.
“You’re still doing that list thing?”
List thing.
The verbal punch to the gut knocks the wind out of me and renders me speechless.
Nora continues. “You’ve been nonstop about how ‘Finn is the one’ and you’re mad that I talked to a random guy on the street?” She looks genuinely confused, which does nothing but pique my anger.
I feel my hands start to shake, frustrated that someone so close to me could misunderstand the situation so deeply.
“Finn is part of the list! The list isn’t just a thing—it’s everything to me right now.” I put my head in my hands, embarrassed by how many times I’ve cried this week alone. “The list could be what fixes me. Couldn’t you just…not? Just this once.”
“ ‘Just this once’?” Nora echoes. “What do you mean ‘just this once’?”
I lift my head from my hands. “I mean that—”
Nora cuts me off. “You think I’ll sleep with any guy I meet on the street?” I watch as the muscles in her jaw tense.
“What? No!” I protest. “I just mean that you could have let me try and talk to this guy.”
She crosses her arms and leans back on the bench, looking forward, toward the movie theater, instead of at me.
“You’ve always judged me, Phoebe.” It comes out in a whisper as she shakes her head. “Always.”
“What?” I ask, completely shocked by her admission. “I’ve never once judged you.”
“Yes, you have. You sit there with your perfectly organized life and your perfect job and your lists and your”—she pauses while looking for the right word—“innocence.” She takes a deep breath and looks back at me.
“And you judge me for not having my shit together. Not everyone has their whole life mapped out and color coded.”
“Nora, I’m not judging you, I’m envious of you.
I would kill to be able to do what you just did.
And what you’ll probably be doing tomorrow night.
” She rolls her eyes playfully, and I can feel my anger begin to subside.
I reach out and grab her hand. “I’m serious, Nora. I wish I could be more like you.”
“You shouldn’t,” she says, finally turning toward me. “I have no idea what I’m doing with my life. I can’t find a job in the field that I want, and I’m no closer to having a boyfriend than you are, no matter how many dates I go on or how much sex I’m having.”
I think about that for a second. Could we really be in the same boat?
I’m not sure about that.
But even if we’re in different boats, I can tell Nora feels just as lost at sea as I do. Maybe it makes me a bad friend, but it brings me a little bit of comfort to think of her floating out there with me. It makes me feel less alone.
“And for what it’s worth”—she squeezes my hand—“I wish I was more like you, too.”
I put my head on her shoulder and let out a sigh.
I picture the two of us frantically trying to paddle to shore and smile despite myself.