Sarah is already there when I arrive. Her dark brown hair is full of wiry curls, which are about the only distinctively Jewish thing about her other than her last name. She has a heart-shaped face and a sloped nose that curls up just slightly at the end, making her look pert and mischievous. As I enter, she stands and hurries to the door.
“Vic!” she cries, and pulls me against her five foot eight inch frame. Thankfully she’s wearing flats instead of heels, so I don’t feel like a complete shrimp next to her. My family—and Ian—call me Tiny. Everyone else has their own variation of Victoria. For Sarah, it’s Vic. Her generous br**sts squish against my smaller frame. As she leads me back to our table, every male head and some of the female ones turn to watch her.
“God, you haven’t changed at all,” she says as we sit down.
“Neither have you. You look amazing, as always.”
She uses a hand to smooth some of her wild curls back. “I’m getting better at putting on makeup, I hope.”
“Definitely,” I laugh. We’d had a sleepover once with Sarah acting as the cosmetologist. We were going for smoky eyes but ended up looking like frightened raccoons.
“Before we go any further, I have to apologize. I’m so sorry that we lost contact. I had no idea that your mother was sick.”
She looks sincere, but I hope she doesn’t start crying. Sarah was a weeper in school and if she tears up here, given my precarious emotional health, I’ll join her, which will be an embarrassing mess.
“Thanks, but no apologies are necessary. We moved close to the hospital and kind of lost touch with everyone. Plus, you went to Pace and I didn’t.”
The waiter forestalls any more apologies. I haven’t looked at my menu, but it’s a pizza place. I figure they have cheese pizza. After he takes our order, Sarah asks, “Are you still messengering? That’s what you did after high school, right?”
“No. I got in an accident and thought I would look into something else, so I’m dispatching for a security firm.” I’d actually gotten beat up by a paranoid drug addict, and my inability to get right back up on the bike got me fired, but she doesn’t need to know those kind of details.
“Oh no. I didn’t realize it was dangerous. You’re okay now though?”
I nod. “Yes, all healed up. How about you?”
“I graduated two years ago with a BA in English, which netted me a publishing assistant job. If I didn’t live at home, I wouldn’t be able to go out at all.”
“I hear you.” I completely understood those kind of money problems. Every dime I had went for food, rent, or paying down Mom’s medical bills. I didn’t have the time, energy, or—most of all—the money to go out to a bar or a club. Now I have Ian, who seems intent on seeing that everything I missed out on before is brought to me on a silver platter. It’s nice but overwhelming.
“Hopefully I’ll get a promotion one of these days into an editorial position, make a little more money, and then finally move out on my own. But I don’t want to live so far outside the city that I’m taking a two hour train ride to and from work.”
“But do you like your job?”
“Love it. I’d do it for free if I had to. I get to read manuscripts all day, work with authors, give input on covers and stuff. I once wrote the back cover copy of a book that got published.” She pumps her fist. “My boss, Diane, tells me that the dewy innocence in my eyes will dry out after I’ve read my share of crappy manuscripts or dealt with awful authors, but for now, I’m still full of youthful exuberance.” She smiles back at me, every ounce of her joy visible in her face. I can’t help but return her grin.
“I forgot how cheerful you are all the time.”
“Irritatingly so, according to Diane,” she says, unperturbed. “I’m guessing by the lack of gushing that you aren’t as in love with your job as I am with mine.”
“Unfortunately, no. It’s okay, but I can’t see me doing it for the rest of my life.”
“Do you even need to work?”
“Because I’m dating Ian?” I ask.
“My god, Vic, it’s like winning the lottery and The Bachelorette at the same time.”
“It’s better,” I admit. “Not gonna lie.”
She slaps the table and hoots a little too loud, but I don’t mind. The waiter delivers our food and in between bites of cheese pizza, we catch up, talking about people from high school, particularly her hated ex, Cameron O’Toole, who she’d discovered was cheating on her while she was at Pace University and he was at Columbia.
“Cam is just finishing his MBA. New York is sick with business school grads, and they’re all insufferable. No offense to your boyfriend.”
“He never went to college, so no offense taken,” I say.
“No college? Wow, one of those dropouts like Jobs or Gates, huh?”
“Kind of.”
“You guys have a lot in common, then,” she observes.
I’m taken aback by this. “What do you mean?”
“Neither of you went to college. You both made your way successfully in the world despite it. That’s cool. I see why you fit.” She reaches across the table and pats my hand. “You’re surprised, but you shouldn’t be. You’ve always had your shit together. Even though you had your reading disability, you still sat in class like it was no big deal. You never asked for accommodations and you went out and got a job before half the class was employed.”
She’s more right than she knows. Ian and I do have a lot in common. We both lost our mothers too young. We both love too fiercely. We’re both a little lost without each other. I’ve got to stop letting insecurities get in the way of our relationship.
“So did you confront Cam?”
“I did one better. I re-recorded his voicemail to say ‘You’ve reached Cameron aka ‘Cheating Bastard O’Toole.’ I like to cheat and have sex without a condom. You may want to get a checkup to be sure I haven’t passed around an STI. Leave a message.’”
“You didn’t.” I’m laughing so hard I have to press my napkin up to my mouth so I don’t spray pizza all over the table.
“Scout’s honor, I did. He deserved it. He’s a technological idiot, so I went ahead and changed his passcode so he wasn’t able to fix it. I think it was at least a week before he got some help and the message was changed. I heard through the grapevine that all his friends were mercilessly mocking him about it, and that no one wanted to go out with him after that.”