Chapter 33
33
Lis
T o celebrate finding something fantastic to wear to the wedding, and mostly because we are out of Twizzlers at this point, Gracyn and I head to the bistro. We grab a couple of seats at the bar, and order a shit-ton of food. Sangria, fried calamari, goat cheese and tomato bruschetta, eggplant au gratin—and tiramisu. The dress is forgiving, so thankfully this splurge won’t even matter.
“So, thank you, G—for today. I hate shopping unless you make me.”
“Lis, you hate shopping regardless. God, you hate doing anything that’s just for you. Seriously, be selfish once in a while. It’s okay, you know.”
“Yeah, I feel like I’ve gotten better at it—maybe? How are you doing?”
I scoop some eggplant onto some garlic toast, garlic and spices bursting in the air. “You miss me or are you liking living alone?”
“Mmm, I’m alright. I miss you always, you know that. It’d be nice to find another roommate though. I hate that you’re still paying rent and don’t even live there.”
Gracyn grabs a fork and divides the plate of calamari in half, leaving a huge gap between the piles.
“Yeah. I hate that I’m not paying for anything with Aidan right now. He keeps telling me not to worry about it, but it’s killing me, being dependent.” I reach past her for the lemon and squeeze it on my half of the calamari.
I lean back in my seat and look out the front windows, watching people go by. There are couples walking hand in hand, families getting ice cream from next door. There is love out there and my friend needs to find some.
“So, what about Gavin? Heard from him?”
The eye roll she gives me is epic—Olympic quality.
“And how would I hear from him, hmm? No contact. That’s—you know what? Forget it. He was fun, a fling. Just leave it alone already, please? Please?”
“Someday I’m going to get you drunk enough to spill. Are you dating at all right now?”
She grumps a no into her wine glass and grabs a lemon-less ring of squid, popping it into her mouth.
I shake my head and go back to staring out the windows, and watch as a girl crossing the street stops right in the middle. A car screeches to a halt, the driver yelling at her. She doesn’t seem to notice, focused intently on something in front of the gelato place next door.
“Holy shit, what is she doing?”
Gracyn’s head pops up just as the chick waves off the driver and dashes the rest of the way across.
“Weird. Hey, I’ll be right back, I need to check when I’m working again.” And she bolts for the back room with her phone clutched tightly to her chest. She’s so making my head spin. I swirl the deep red wine around my glass, lost in thought.
“Hey, can I get a margarita, heavy on the tequila? Rocks and salt, please.”
The girl from the street drops her clutch on the bar and slides into the seat next to me. Her phone vibrates inside the clutch, stops and starts in again. She pulls it out, swiping the screen angrily.
“There’s nothing you can say that will make this right, so stop. I don’t—” The last thing I want to do is listen to her phone call, but she’s right there. And pissed. “—no, you do you. It’s fine, I’ll figure something out and get my shit out.” She disconnects and tosses her phone on the bar.
She drains half her drink in one gulp and drops her glass back down on the bar. Gracyn wiggles back into her seat on the other side of me and looks back and forth from me to the girl with her eyebrows up in her hairline.
“Sorry, y’all didn’t need to hear my mess.” She slams down the rest of her drink and rattles the ice at the bartender. “Just keep ’em coming, sugar.”
As she downs the second margarita, tension seeps out of her and sanity finds its way back in. And we all realize that Gracyn and I are just sitting there, watching this poor girl’s shit show unfold.
She looks from me to Gracyn to me once again, empty glass and back up to me again.
“Wow. Um, sorry. Really.” She reaches out her hand. “I’m Kate, and honestly, I’m not a psycho, I just… Holy shit, my day has gone to hell in a hurry.”
Her Southern twang from earlier is working its way out of her voice, like she’s willing it to go away. She slides her glass toward the edge of the bar and taps the rim as the bartender looks over.
“You gonna be alright? That’s a lot of tequila,” Gracyn asks.
“I don’t know that there’s enough tequila in the world to take care of this day. Month, really. Shit .” She shakes her head and smiles. Then the giggles start, and by the time she’s worked up to a full-on laugh, the last thing I expect are the tears.
Not laughing tears, but the real ones.
“Kate, are you okay?” I hand her a wad of cocktail napkins and slide her water glass closer. “What happened?”
“Oh, my Lawrt.” She dabs at her mascara, not smudging it in the least. It’s a skill that I absolutely do not possess.
She looks out the window and sighs. “I’m a walking soap opera. I was early, meeting my boyfriend here for dinner. I’m never early, y’all. Never. And I guess he was banking on that, because”—she swallows hard and stares at the ceiling until she gets herself together again—“because I found him making out with his boyfriend at the gelato place next door.”
My hand flies to my mouth, trying desperately to hold in the shock. Just as the words whiz through my brain, I hear Gracyn bark out, “Well shit, Lis, you don’t have the worst breakup story anymore.”
The silence is deafening for all of ten seconds before Kate’s laugh fills the bistro bar and her perfectly preserved mascara runs down her face.
Gracyn dumps the rest of her sangria down her throat and I can’t hold it back anymore. The laughter bubbles out between my fingers, still firmly clamped over my mouth. We’re for sure making a scene.
“I’m so sorry,” I squeak out, “so sorry. It’s not funny, but?—”
“Oh, it’s funny,” Kate spits out. “It just fucking sucks. I need to find a new place, too, now.” Sighing, she wipes at her eyes and mumbles, “ Fuck .”
“Sorry, again.” Nudging Gracyn with my elbow, I ask—silently—and she agrees—less silently.
“I’m looking for a new roommate. I’m Gracyn and this is Lis. She just left me for the love of her life.”
“Are you serious? Because that would be amazing.” Kate leans over me to Gracyn. “I teach kindergarten, well, I start next month, but I can prepay rent until then. I don’t want you thinking I’m gonna mooch or flake or anything. When—how soon can I move in? God, I don’t ever want to see that asshole again. Can you believe I moved up here to be with him? Shoulda known a fine dressing, pretty Southern boy wanting to move closer to the fashion district was too good to be true.”
She’s killing me, all quick wit and Southern drawl. Kate pulls out her phone and shows us a picture. Pretty is most definitely the word for him. His hair is not just styled, but coiffed. His smile is all veneers and the boy is sporting seersucker shorts and original Penguin polo that so needs to be a size larger. I think I saw in Urban Dictionary that it’s referred to as a smedium .
“Isn’t Aidan covering part of fashion week?”
Nodding through my last gulp of sangria, Kate shifts her gaze to me. “Is that your man?”
I show her the picture I took of him at the beach. Shirtless, scruffy, and rugged. Holding his hair out of his eyes and a hint of his crooked tooth where he’s biting his lip.
I love this picture the way he loves the one of me from the reflecting pool. “Yeah, he’s a photographer…very straight, I swear.”
“Mmm—you hope.”
Gracyn is shocked silent before busting out laughing, covering up my giggled If you only knew.