Abigail smiles. “Isn’t it great to have a friend who is so predictable?”
I laugh. “What? I like to adhere to my schedule. So sue me.”
The waitress rounds the corner and asks us for our drink orders.
“What about Claudia?” I ask. “Where is she?”
“She’s not coming,” Abigail turns to the waitress. “I’ll have an iced tea, please.”
“A glass of water with ice, and a coffee, please,” I add.
“Just a glass of water for me,” Gretchen says. “Thank you.”
“Why?” I ask as soon as the server leaves. “Why couldn’t she make it?”
Abigail sighs. “She’s in bed, crying.”
“What?”
“I went to her place to talk and tried to convince her to come for our weekly lunch, but she wouldn’t budge. She said she’d eaten a pint of Oreo ice cream already.”
I’m so curious, I could burst. “What happened?”
Gretchen finally puts me out of my misery. “Jake has been cheating on her.”
“Really? But he seemed so nice,” I say, devastated for my friend. “And they haven’t been together for long at all.” Sometimes you think you can read people, but you just never know.
“I know,” Gretchen chimes in. “We all liked him.”
The server comes back with our drinks. I take my coffee black. I close my eyes for a second. I take a deep breath, and tap on the mug three times. My friends don’t even notice me doing this. And then I take a sip.
Abigail orders the spinach white omelette. Gretchen gets the avocado chicken burger, and I order the BLT with a Caesar salad, just as planned. I don’t even flip open the menu.
“How did she find out?” I ask, riveted. I want all the juicy details. I feel bad about this. I shouldn’t be taking any sort of pleasure in my friend’s misfortunes, but I’ve always been insanely curious. It’s one of the issues we try to work on in therapy. By ‘we’, I mean Eva and I. Or Dr. Russell as I sometimes call her. Dr. Russell has been my therapist for years. I’ve had a few over the years, but she’s been with me for quite a while now.
Abigail raises her glass of iced tea to her lips. “She stumbled on Jake’s Messenger app.”
“Well, she didn’t exactly stumble on his Messenger,” Gretchen chimes in. “She suspected something and she knew his phone password. She saw him input it once.”
“Why was she suspicious?” I ask. I need to know more. I need to know everything. It’s a compulsive urge. I hear Eva’s voice:Take a breath and ask yourself why you need this so bad?
I ponder the question.Because I’m bored as fuck, and I need excitement.
Abigail digs into her omelette. “Jake had been acting distant lately, blowing her off with lame excuses, cutting phone conversations short, standing her up for dates,” she tells me. “And they hadn’t been having sex much.”
“So anyway,” Gretchen says, taking over. “She went on his Instagram because he’s always on his phone, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She was about to turn off the phone when a message notification came in from his Messenger app. It said, ‘Miss you, baby. Come and warm me up after work.’”
“Holy shit,” I blurt out, loud enough for the people next to us to turn their heads. “Sorry,” I mumble.
“She read their entire conversation, and she checked her out on his Facebook. It’s a woman from work, with fake boobs.”
“How does she know her boobs are fake?” I ask.
Gretchen shrugs. “She assumes, I think. I saw a picture of her, and I’m inclined to agree.”
Abigail laughs. “Oh, you’re inclined to agree, are you?” she says, teasing her.
Gretchen scowls at the both of us. “We shouldn’t be talking about this. I feel bad. I’m not usually inclined to gossip either.”
