“Right, because you don’t love attention or anything,” she says with a smile.
“How dare you!” I tear off a chunk of bread and toss it in her direction. “At least I’m not a complete asshole.”
Lenni’s smile does a slow fade into seriousness; then she bites her lip.
“What?” I ask, a piece of bread halfway to my lips.
“You know, you don’t have to hate him for me anymore. He apologized a long time ago. We’re okay now.”
“I don’t have to forgive him either. Besides, he gives me more reasons to hate him every time we’re together.”
She shrugs and reaches for her wine.
“Hold on there.” I lift my glass toward hers. “Cheers. To Spain.”
“Cheers. To your new life as the mouthiest American Spain has ever seen.” Lenni has this way of smiling when she’s not sure how much of what she’s saying is truth and how much is a joke.
I pause. “It’s going to happen, you know.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you’re not going to worry about me.”
“Not all the time.”
“And we’ll still be best friends.”
She nods. “We’ll still be best friends.”
We smile at each other and drink. Not for the first time, I have to stop myself from moving our conversation where I really want to take it: figuring out when we’ll visit each othernext year.
Lenni hasn’t said it, but I know that when she’s in grad school, whatever vacation time she has will be spent with Cam. And that’s how it should be. I’ll love Cam Forrester until the day I die for all the ways he’s made Lenni happy and breathed life back into the hurt parts of her, but I’m still learning to deal with the changes that came with her falling in love.
If Cam wasn’t around, we’d be sitting across from each other scheming about where and when we’ll meet up, comparing academic calendars for the programs we haven’t even applied to yet, contemplating the kind of men we’ll find in Spain to buy us free drinks—okay, that last part would probably just be me. Once or twice I’ve even wondered if I’d be going to Spain at all if Lenni was single.
Spain was one of many fleeting ideas born in the wake of my breakup with Sam. As long as Lenni’s grad school was far, far away from Sam’s, I could have just as easily scraped together a loose plan to follow her wherever she went. Before Cam, we always used to talk about living out our early postcollege years together in a modern, beautifully decorated grown-up apartment in an unnamed city. It was totally naive, but I wish we still talked like that.
I know why the Spain idea, out of all of them, was the one to take root: It’s the one that will take me the farthest away from everything and everyone I know. It’s completely exhilarating to think about starting life where I know nobody and where the people I know are half a world away and useless to me. I love the idea of not needing anyone. But I still miss the days when my best friend needed me.
“So, where’s Cam’s head at lately with the draft?”
Lenni sighs like she’s both exhausted and relieved that we’re moving on to this topic. Cam’s indecision about whether to try to play pro football or to find a career outsideof sports keeps both of them up at night. “All over the place,” she says wearily. “And he seems to think I have the right answer.”
“If he doesn’t know what he wants, why would you?”
“Oh, I know exactly what I want. I want him to leave football behind and get a regular old job close to where I go to school so I can see my boyfriend more than once a month. And so I don’t have to worry he’s going to suffer a traumatic injury every week.”
Our waiter drops three appetizer-size dishes at our table—cheese-stuffed peppers, sautéed artichokes, and crisp, golden croquetas.
“Jeez, you want to tone down the expectations a little bit?” I tease. “Who do you think you are?”
“But itisa lot to ask. He’s worked his whole life for a football career.”
“But you’re not asking him. You have an opinion and I’m willing to bet you haven’t even shared it with him, have you?”
She sighs. “I have. I told him that’s what I’d love in an ideal world, but he knows it’s not what I expect. I don’t want him to have regrets, and I definitely don’t want to be the reason for those regrets.”
“That’s his problem.” I pop a pepper into my mouth.
