“He looks like Ichabod Crane,” Lauren said once. “I mean, what I think Ichabod Crane would look like if he wore the same pants for a year, you know?”
“I just don’t understand when he has time to wash those pants,” Mary said. “He wears them every day. That’s just so gross.” They al agreed.
After graduation, Louis broke up with El en again. He told her that he couldn’t be tied down, that he was going to travel through Europe alone and needed his freedom. “Please let this one stick,” they said to one another. Sure, El en was devastated now, but she’d meet someone else, someone who would make her happier. They were sure of that. It was al for the best.
They al spent a year after graduation living with their parents in their respective suburbs, saving money and looking for jobs. It was miserable, sleeping in twin beds in their childhood rooms, sending out mil ions of résumés, and trying not to get annoyed when their parents said things like
“What time wil you be home?” and “No drinks upstairs.”
Lauren, El en, and their friend Shannon al moved to Chicago that summer. El en had gotten a job offer in Boston but had turned it down, claiming that she had always wanted to live in Chicago. “It’s such a fun city,” she said. “The lake is so great.” Lauren and Shannon rol ed their eyes at each other. They knew she was lying about the lake. Louis was from Chicago and El en was just hoping he’d come back there soon. It was sad, real y.
Even a little pathetic, they thought.
But they didn’t real y care that much. One year after graduating, they were final y on their own. They rented an apartment on Armitage with two and a half bedrooms, one tiny bathroom, no air-conditioning, and a giant deck. It was almost like col ege, except they had to get up and go to work every morning.
It was so hot that summer that no one could stay inside. They tried (for the sake of being grown-ups) not to go out every night. They sat on the deck in ponytails and shorts, reading magazines and painting their nails, trying to imagine a breeze from Lake Michigan. Eventual y, someone would suggest having a beer or a glass of wine. They’d sit awhile, and someone would suggest going to the bar below them, just for one drink, just to sit in air-conditioning for a while. And before they knew it, it was two in the morning and they were listening to Karen, the crazy bartender with missing teeth at Shoes Pub, tel them about Craig, the asshole who broke her heart.
Lauren blamed the weather for a lot of what happened that summer. It drove them out of their apartment, to bars and street fairs and concerts. It made them restless and irritable while they waited for something to start. They al knew they ought to feel different in their new lives, but they felt the same and it put them on edge. Hot and impatient, they fidgeted in the heat, grumbling and asking each other, “What next? What next?”
El en was at a loss without Louis. She hadn’t so much as flirted with an ugly boy since he’d left for Europe. He sent her postcards from Paris and Florence that said things like Be yourself or be nothing and Live humbly but live true.
Lauren and Shannon snatched these cards from the pile to read them before El en did. It was one of their greatest sources of entertainment.
“Live humbly?” Shannon said. “Uh, yeah. I’m pretty sure his parents are paying for his humble trip around Europe.”
They always put the cards back in the mail so that El en could take them to her room and read them over and over again. They knew she was pining over him in there.
“We’ve got to get her over this,” Lauren said. So they dragged her to bars and scouted for unattractive men. A few times she even met some homely boys, let them buy her a drink, and talked to them for a while. But when the girls got close, they heard what El en was saying to these guys.
“He real y broke my heart,” she’d say. “I just real y miss him.”
“What can we do?” they asked each other. They shook their heads in disappointment. Why couldn’t she just let it go?
They al got tickets to a concert at the old steel factory down the street, to see a young, handsome singer who wrote tortured love songs and whined about the troubles of being twenty-five. Their friend Isabel a was visiting from New York, and she came over before the concert to drink beers on the porch, but al she did was wander around and say, “This place is huge. Your apartment is huge.”
“Yeah, we like it,” Lauren said.
“No,” Isabel a said. “You have no idea. You should see my apartment in New York. It’s teeny. And expensive. This place is a mansion.”
“Then move here,” Lauren told her. “Move to Chicago!” Isabel a just smiled and continued to look around in wonder.
Lauren and Shannon were in a fight that started when Shannon cal ed Lauren a slob. “Isabel a, don’t you think it’s disgusting when someone leaves Q-tips on the sink?” Shannon asked. Isabel a shook her head and kept quiet.
“You’re the one who sits in that bathroom for an hour and plucks your hairy eyebrows,” Lauren said. “If anyone’s a pig, it’s you.”
Isabel a just smiled and looked happy that she didn’t have to weigh in. Now Lauren and Shannon were sitting on the porch, sighing and scoffing to let everyone know that they weren’t speaking to each other.
El en was in the kitchen pouring wine when Isabel a asked her, “So, have you seen Louis since he’s been back?”
It was like a movie: El en spil ed her wine, Isabel a jumped, and Lauren and Shannon forgot they were ignoring each other and looked at each other with wide eyes.
“Louis is back?” El en asked.
“Yeah.” Isabel a made a face. “Sorry, El en. I thought you knew.”
El en shook her head and swal owed some wine. “No,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“Sorry,” Isabel a said again. “I just assumed he would have cal ed you. I saw Phil last weekend and told him I was coming here for the weekend and he mentioned it. He just got back a couple weeks ago. I’m sure he was going to cal you.”
They al looked at El en, who was now calmly drinking her wine. Lauren could tel that she wasn’t upset. Surprised, yes. But not upset. They’d known El en long enough to be able to read her mood by the way she held herself, and right then, she was as straight as a pole, alert, and excited.
“Fuck,” Shannon said softly.
“Yeah,” Lauren answered. “I know.”
They went to the concert, where Lauren and Shannon made up, then got in a fight again when Shannon forgot to watch the Porta-Potty Lauren was in, and let a man open the door, which had a broken lock. “Everyone in line saw me with my pants down,” Lauren screamed.
“So what’s new?” Shannon asked.
They went to a bar cal ed Life’s Too Short near the old Cabrini-Green buildings. The whole area was under construction and the streets were lined with half-built condos and shel s of townhouses. Because nothing was around it, the bar paid no attention to the city’s rules about shutting down by four a.m. The bartenders let everyone stay in the bar’s outdoor area. Nothing good ever came of this, but they kept going back.
They sat in a corner of the patio where they could see everyone that walked in. They were fascinated with watching Margaret Applebee, a girl
they knew from col ege. She’d always been kind of fat, but had dropped about forty pounds that year and was, according to Shannon, “whoring it up al over town.” She was talking to their friend Mitch McCormick, pressing herself against his arm, and they were al waiting for him to tel her to go away.