“Next year when Cam is using dollar bills as toilet paper, you can get him to send you on a nice extended vacation to Spain.”
“Too bad dollar bills can’t buy time.” She shoots a grim look at her laptop.
“Grad school not sounding as exciting as it used to?”
Lenni is the most career-driven person I’ve ever known and has big plans for journalism grad school next year. She could probably get in anywhere she wants, but not stressing has never been in her playbook. And with her boyfriend, Cam, probably headed to the NFL next year, the prospect of them ending up on opposite sides of the country seems to have chiseled a permanent worry line into her forehead.
“The classes sound cool. It’s the fact that I’ll barely have time to brush my teeth, let alone visit you or Cam or my mom. Especially if I end up in the eleven-month intensive program.”
“Which you’ll get into if you apply. I’m just not sure why you’d want that.”
Lenni levels me with a look; we’ve been over this a hundred times. “Because I need to make money.”
“Cam will probably make more money as a rookie than you’ll make in your lifetime, honey. Which is sickening, but at least you reap the benefits of our culture’s backward obsession with jocks.”
She gathers her dark, frizzy curls into a haphazard bun at the back of her neck and secures it with a claw clip. “I’m not taking a man’s money until I’m married to him, which certainly won’t be next year, so the sooner I graduate, the sooner I have a salary and can help out my mom.”
“Can you maybe not mention that next time my parents are here? They don’t need yet another reason to find my plans disappointing.”
“I thought you enjoyed disappointing them.”
“I’m neutral.” I rummage through a cabinet to find a jar of peanut butter to dip my pretzels into. “So did you go to the outreach event today?”
“Yep.”
“Did you see Sam?” I hate myself a little for asking.
“Yeah.”
“He was with Frenchy, right?”
Lenni nods. I can’t help making a face. It’s a reflex at this point.
Sam and I were together for over a year before he completely blindsided me by ending things last fall. We gave it another shot during second semester, but it didn’t last. He went back to the girl he’d dated during our off phase—a French major whose name I can’t be bothered to remember—while I’ve spent the last few months reassessing the mechanics of our relationship and trying to figure out how I got it all so wrong.
“So what’s new with him?” Despite everything that’s happened, Lenni and Sam have maintained a moderate amount of friendliness. She knows I’m okay with this. Sam was pretty much a fixture in both of our lives for the year-plus we were together.
“Not much. He was excited because he got all his grad school applications in.”
“Already? Overachiever. Where’d he end up applying?”
“I don’t know. Georgia Tech, I think? And MIT?”
A brief wave of nostalgia washes over me. “MIT? That was his dream school. He’ll get in for sure.”
“Eh. Who cares?” She waves off MIT as insignificant, which makes me love her a little more because weboth know it’s anything but. But since the breakup, she refuses to tolerate more than an occasional mild compliment about Sam. “Hey, who was that guy I saw you at the coffee truck with this morning?”
I try to think who she’s referring to but come up short. There are no guys in my life right now.
“The one with the hand tattoos?”
“Oh. AJ. Just a kid from my neuroscience class.”
“Is there something there?”
I cap the peanut butter jar. “Um, no.”
“He’s cute.”
