All the air rushes from my body as if I’ve been physically punched. “Ada…”
“No. I mean it. I’m still fine as a secret best friend, but you’re always going to be too scared to go to bat for me when it counts, especially in front of the bullshit mates you care more about than me. You’re a pussy. You’re a pussy the same way Jake’s a pussy, and you can bothfuck off!”
“No, Ada,youfuck off.” My last thread of sense snaps, and I bang my palm against the steering wheel. “I’m so tired of you making out like there’s something wrong with me for wanting to be nice to people. I’m not like you. You don’t care if you hurt people’s feelings as long as you get what you want. Well, I do. Icare.”
“No, I?—”
“All I wanted from this weekend was to forget about the bar, about money, about anything, and have fun and get laid. And instead, all that’s gone to shit because I’ve had to come and rescue you, because you spent your morning sneaking around the countryside stirring up shit on people you don’t like because they were mean to you in high school. We’re adults! Why can’t you just leave this shit in the past and act normal for once?”
I’ve gone too far. I know it the instant the words pass my lips. But I can’t take it back. I am too angry. My words hang between us, the cruellest thing I can say to her. In my mind’s eye, I picture a miniature version of myself leaping into the air and wrangling them back, stuffing them down inside me where they belong. But my actual eyes are filled with the image of Ada slamming the car door and walking away, her khaki shoulders pulled back, her cloud of dark hairswaying like a battle flag.
Shit.
I’m hollow inside. I should go after her, try to fix it. But I can’t move. I sit in my car, waiting, hoping she reappears. Hoping we can calm down and apologise to one another before the cocktail party. But she doesn’t. After a while, I head upstairs to the hotel room and start getting ready.
This isn’t how I pictured tonight. I wanted drinks and music, Ada and I dancing around the bathroom as we put on each other’s eyeliner. Instead, I sip on a ridiculously priced, mini bar prosecco in silence.
Thankfully, my hair has survived the implosion of my longest friendship. Ada was supposed to do my makeup—she’s the Michelangelo of cosmetics—but without her, I do my best. It’s nothing much, base, eyes and a red lip. Hopefully, it’s enough that nobody notices I’ve never learnt how to contour. I struggle to get my dress done up by myself, my grunts echoing in the empty room as I test my flexibility with the back zip.
By the time the rideshare’s here, I’ve finished two of the small bottles of bubbles, but they’ve not left me fizzy and excited. Just sad.
I hover in front of Ada’s door for a minute, but no sound comes from inside.
She’s left me to fend for myself again. At least last time she gave me twenty-four hours’ notice before she bailed on school to move to New York. Then I remember what I said to her, and what she said to me, and I’m torn between being glad we’re apart and wishing we were together. All of this just hurts.
My rideshare driver is another 5-star master of silence, and as we make our way across town, I think about what it would be like to come home, take the primary care position and have money again.Realmoney. Enough to afford blowouts from Johnny, takeaway from Mr. Partha’s food truck, and maybe even enough to save for a holiday. Not a big one—Rarotonga, maybe. A week of lying on beaches with cocktails, watching the tide roll in and out over the cover of a paperback.
Bliss.
And Will. Picking me up from work, meeting me for lunch.Maybe even lying next to me on a striped towel, with salt-ruffled hair and adoring sky-blue eyes.
It’s okay to want those things, I tell myself, as guilt and Ada’s words fight to resurface in my brain. It doesn’t make me a bad person to want something better than I have.It doesn’t make me a shitty friend to want support on the one weekend I’ve been holding out for ages. I am allowed to want to be happy.
I am allowed to be happy.
I repeat the mantra as the car winds its way towards Silverlight Estate Hotel. I continue mouthing it to myself as I make my way through the chrome and glass entrance and into the room where the cocktail reception is being held. All the way until I come face-to-face with Jenny.
“Cecelia. I thought you weren’t going to make it.”
“Jennifer. I thought I made my intentions clear. Besides,” I add with a saccharine smile, “Nobody throws a party like Jenny Wallis.”
Her left eye twitches at the mention of her maiden name. “Thanks. Well, I hope you enjoy it. You’ll find the facilities here at Silverlight exceptional. Soclean.”
This bitch.
I entertain a brief fantasy of grabbing her hair extensions and whipping her around like the principal fromMatilda. But she loves to play the victim, and I’ll be damned if she pulls me into the gutter with her.
“How lovely. No mice, then?”
Her smirk widens. “Of course not.”
“Hmm. Must take the presence of a pretty big pussy to keep them at bay this close to the countryside.” It’s not my finest comeback, but it’ll have to do, and the narrowing of her eyes intensifies.
“Name cards are on the table over there,” she snaps.
“Oh, no need for that. Everyone I’m here to see will recognise me.”
I step around her, keeping my head high. I have a quick scan of the room but can’t seeWill or Ada, so I head to the bar for alcoholic reinforcement. I’ve just ordered a gin and tonic when someone slides into position beside me.
