“You guys need to do something!” I hiss. “We’re not going to make any tips if you keep moping around like this.”
“Mneah.” LuAnn just shrugs, barely looking up from the fashion magazine she’s leafing through.
The doorbell dings, and Kayla walks in, her red shirt covered with an array of kid-related stains. “What can I get you?” I ask, relieved. Kayla will cheer them all right up; she’s practically the Goddess of Perkiness.
“A ticket down to New York?” She exhales in a long, pathetic breath. “Blake left today. Athletic orientation.”
“Aww, Kayla!” I round the counter and give her a hug. “I’m sorry. When will you see him again?”
“Not for another few weeks.” She looks forlorn. “We decided he should get settled and bond with the guys, you know? Instead of driving back to visit me every weekend.”
“That sounds sensible,” I say, trying to stay upbeat.
“It sucks.” She looks at me, genuinely upset. “I mean, we knew this was coming. It’s just . . . It hurts. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”
“Sure, you do.” I steer her to LuAnn’s table. “You’ll call, and text, and time will fly by. You guys are solid, remember? Made to last. Tell her, LuAnn.”
“Love is a lie.” LuAnn looks up from her magazine. “It’s all doomed to end.”
“LuAnn!” I turn to Kayla. “Don’t listen to her. You and Blake will be fine.”
I go get them some drinks and pastries, but by the time I get back, Dominique is camped out with them, too, denouncing all men as fools.
“You can’t build your life around them,” she says, stone faced. “Because it may seem all sunshine and roses, but what happens when you realize it’s not anymore? What have you sacrificed by then?”
Kayla looks stricken.
“That’s enough,” I say, slamming the plates down. “No more moping, from any of you. This is a mope-free zone!”
Silence.
“I’m serious!” I exclaim. “Since when am I the functional, emotionally balanced person here?”
Kayla makes a face. “OK, now I just feel worse.”
“No,” I tell them. “No bad, no worse. You had the good sense to intervene when I was going crazy, so now it’s my turn. We are going to do something fun tonight, and nobody is going to talk about their boyfriend.” I look at Kayla. “Or ex-boyfriend.” I stare at LuAnn. “Or . . .” I turn to Dominique, but trail off at her panicked expression. “Or any other guy. OK?”
“Sadie . . .” Kayla sighs. “I don’t know. . . .”
“Sure, you do. Fun!” I demand. “Who’s with me?”
More silence, broken only by the sound of my cell phone. “I mean it,” I tell them, backing away. “Start thinking about what we can do.” I answer my phone. “Hello?”
“Sadie?”
“Hey, Garrett.” I find a quiet corner. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much,” he says. “Getting settled back in. You have no idea how great it is not to be taking communal showers anymore!”
I laugh. “What, you don’t miss bonding with your fellow man — one big group of sweaty towels and shared soap?”
“Er, no,” Garrett says firmly. “Anyway, what are you up to? I thought we could get together tonight.”
“I’m at work right now,” I tell him as I watch the girls across the room. They don’t look like they’re planning a night of fun and debauchery — that’s for sure. “And I can’t hang later, I’m doing something with the girls.”
“Come on,” he says, dragging the words out temptingly. “You see them every day. I only just got back!”
“Garrett . . .”
“We could get takeout,” he continues. “Go for a drive or something.”
I feel the smallest tug in my chest, the muscle memory of response from all those times I would drop what I was doing to see him. Every time. And look how that turned out. “Sorry,” I tell him, my tone brisk. “Things are hectic until the weekend. I told you. But we’ll do something then, OK?”
“But Sadie . . .”
Across the room, Dominique scrapes her chair back, about to bail. “I have to run. Call me later.” I hang up and quickly call over to them, “If you all haven’t agreed on something to do by the time I get back, you’re taking my morning shifts for the rest of the week.”
“But —” Dominique starts, but I’m already heading to serve the next customer.
“Morning shifts,” I call back. “Seven-thirty, bright and early. Get thinking.”
They exist. Honestly, they do. Guys who aren’t him. Who might actually like you back and, gasp, do something about it.
(Pause to recover from the shock of it all.)
The sooner you start interacting with those other guys, the sooner you’ll see that he isn’t your sole chance of romantic happiness in the world. And that these Other Guys might actually be cute, and fun, and maybe even a better match for you.
After all, they actually notice you’re alive.
23
We hear the party before we even arrive: the faint thud of bass echoing through the trees, and laughter drifting out in muffled bursts. My anticipation grows. By “fun,” I figured a movie night or five-dollar bowling at the lanes outside of town, but LuAnn knew about a party happening a couple of towns over, and by some miracle, they all agreed to come.
Dominique slows her car and turns down a dirt road marked with a chalk X on the dry earth. “Deliverance much?” she mutters as we emerge into a clearing filled with other cars and beat-up pickup trucks.
I’m too busy squinting at my makeup in a compact mirror to reply, but luckily, LuAnn seems to have snapped out of her funk. “Hush, you.” She prods Dominique with her lip-gloss wand. “If you didn’t want to have a good time, you shouldn’t have come!”
“I don’t remember having a choice,” Dominique replies, but she puts the car in park, swipes LuAnn’s lip gloss, and turns the rearview mirror to check her reflection.
“So, whose party is this again?” Kayla asks. She’s next to me in the backseat.
“Some college guys, I think,” LuAnn replies. “One of those come one, come all things. I heard about it from a couple of people.”