“Or?” I repeat.
She paints her tongue over her lower lip, bites it again, then tips her head toward the bar. “We could grab one more drink. Maybe try to save a shitty night?”
My laugh is more of a grunt. “It might be past saving.”
There’s a flicker in Ellie’s eyes, a spark of a challenge. “Well,” she says, “only one way to find out.”
three
“I swear on my life. U.S. History with Miss Carlisle.”
Ellie props up her elbows on the edge of the bar, chewing tiny zigzag patterns into the end of her cocktail straw. For efficiency’s sake, we traded our table to a couple of townies for a pair of seats at the bar. We’ve already doubled Ellie’s initial offer for just one more drink since then, and she’s spent the better part of an hour proving her memory of high school, specifically what classes we had together, is far superior to mine. So far, we’ve confirmed we had art and one semester of gym together. History, however, is currently up for debate.
“I know I had Miss Carlisle. She had the…” I draw invisible vertical lines on my forehead with four fingers.
“Stringy bangs,” Ellie translates, tucking her own hair behind one ear. A gold turtle-shaped stud sparkles back at me.
“Right. Who else was in that class? Mostly people in your grade, right?”
Ellie uses her fingers to count out our classmates, startingwith her thumb, but each name is a complete blank for me. “Zack McMillan? C’mon, you remember Zack McMillan.”
I shake my head.
“Come. On. Zack McMillan, the football player? He just got married to that girl from the volleyball team.” She wiggles her phone out of the back pocket of her corduroys, blue fingernails flying across the screen until we’re both looking at a picture of a girl in a poofy white princess dress, standing next to a familiar-looking man who is presumably her husband. “You didn’t see this?”
“Wait, that’s Isha…something. It starts with aB?” I snap my fingers over and over, trying to summon the name. “Her mom is a regular at Sip. Bowman?”
“Burman,” Ellie corrects me, pulling up Isha’s profile and swiping to her content. “Do you not follow her? She was in your grade.”
“I’m only really on social media for work,” I admit.
Ellie raises her eyebrows without taking her eyes off her phone. “Seriously?”
“I run the accounts for Sip. You know, the coffee shop? When half your job is creating content and responding to comments, it kind of takes the fun out of it.”
“Wow, they had a baby already!” She holds her phone out again, showing off the same vaguely familiar couple, each of them kissing the cheek of their new mini-me. “I didn’t even know Isha was pregnant.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” I say with a shrug. “Isha’s mom never shut up about wanting to be a grandma.”
Ellie’s nose scrunches. “I didn’t realize you two were best friends.”
“Did you ever go to the original Sip?” I ask. “The seating area was really small. I have zero clue why people thought it was such a good place for private conversations. I could run a tabloid with all the gossip I’ve heard over the years.”
“Oh yeah?” Ellie ditches her phone on the bar top and leans in, intrigued. “How long have you worked there?”
“I started when I was sixteen,” I say. “So, what, five years?” Hearing myself say it out loud feels like a sucker punch. Five whole years perched just above minimum wage. At least taking on marketing has been a bit of an upgrade. “The renovations are really cool. You should come to the reopening this Friday.”
“Hmm, maybe.” Ellie taps one chipped blue fingernail against her lower lip and stares up at the ceiling. “Depends. Is the new space bigger? Or are you going to eavesdrop on all my conversations too?”
“It’s way more spaced out,” I promise. “So as long as you’re not publicly breaking up or making out with someone, you’ll be okay.”
Ellie smiles, but it’s a sadder, softer smile than I’ve seen from her so far. “I’m fresh off a breakup, actually.” She punctuates the news with a hefty gulp of her drink. “So I think we’re safe on both of those fronts.”
If I could swallow my tongue, I would. Way to bring the vibes down, Murph. I rack my brain for something witty or encouraging to say in response, but all that tumbles out is, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Not as sorry as me.” Ellie dodges my gaze, a soft pink shading in the skin around her freckles. “Or my family. I think they were really counting on me marrying a business major.”
“Were you engaged?”
