“Who does she think she is?” Shannon asked. “Like Mitch would ever be interested in her. It’s so embarrassing.”
“She’s persistent, though,” Lauren said. “You gotta give her that.”
“I don’t even recognize her,” Isabel a said. “She lost forty pounds? She’s a whole different person.”
None of them saw Louis walk in. They were al so focused on the Margaret Applebee fiasco that they didn’t notice him until he was standing at their table saying, “Hey, El en.” El en tried to smile and then immediately burst into tears.
“She’s real y drunk,” Lauren said to Louis.
He took her by the arm and led her away from them. Now they watched the two of them, heads bent together, talking quietly to each other.
“Oh shit,” Shannon said. “Margaret Applebee is gone. We missed it. Where’s Mitch?”
El en came back over to the table, crying harder now. She couldn’t real y talk, but they could guess what had happened.
“He’s a jackass,” Lauren said.
“He’s not worth it.” Isabel a rubbed El en’s back.
“You should just forget him,” Lauren said.
“I think Mitch went home with Margaret Applebee,” Shannon said.
El en was up and out before any of them the next morning, and she came back to the apartment with Bloody Mary ingredients, a large block of cheddar cheese, and a log of summer sausage.
“I’m sorry, you guys,” she said. “For how I freaked out last night.”
“No worries,” Shannon said. She’d already made herself a Bloody Mary and was now cutting off hunks of cheese and sausage to shove in her mouth. Isabel a lay on the couch, listening to the conversation. She was too hungover to move, but made a noise and motioned for some cheese and sausage. Lauren cut some off and brought it over to her.
“I cal ed Louis this morning to apologize to him too,” El en told them.
“Why?” Shannon asked.
“Because I want to be friends,” El en said. “I at least want to be friends with him.”
“Do you think that wil work?” Lauren asked.
“I think it’s my only choice,” she said. They were quiet for a few moments.
“There’s something weird about summer sausage,” Shannon said.
“There’s a lot of things weird about summer sausage,” El en said.
“It should be disgusting,” Lauren said. “I mean, you leave it wrapped up and unrefrigerated forever, but when you open it, it’s stil delicious. It’s one of the great world wonders.”
“I think it’s curing my headache,” Isabel a said. She tried to sit up and then lay right back down. “Never mind,” she said.
“I think you guys might stil be a little drunk,” El en said.
Later, they al agreed that she was a disaster waiting to happen.
Lauren met Tripp at a bar in Bucktown that had maps al over the wal s and pool tables in the corner. He wasn’t much, but she kept seeing him. For her birthday, he gave her gift certificates to the bar downstairs and a dirty romance novel that you buy at a grocery store. “I know you like to read,”
he told her. The card read Dear Lorin, Happy Birthday. Sincerely Tripp.
“Do you think he knows he spel ed your name wrong?” El en asked.
“He didn’t even put an exclamation point after ‘Happy Birthday,’ ” Shannon said. She frowned at the card. “So serious. Happy Birthday—period.”
“I’m just cal ing because I’m bored,” Lauren explained to her friends when she dialed his number.
“You must be,” they answered.
Chicago was smal that summer. No matter where they went, they ran into people they knew: Tripp, Louis, and even Margaret Applebee were always around. If they didn’t see them at Shoes or Kincade’s, then they saw them at Big John’s or Marquee Lounge. And if they didn’t see them at any of those places, they always found them at Life’s Too Short.
Every once in a while, El en would announce that she wanted to meet someone. She’d talk to the first boy who offered to buy her a drink. They would smile, encouraging her from across the bar. Then Louis would show up and El en would stop talking to the boy and come back to them.
“Ignore him,” they’d tel her, and she would nod. About thirty minutes later, she’d decide to just say hel o to Louis. “I have to be civil,” she would say.
She would cry a little and tel him that it was hard to just be friends with him. Some nights he would enjoy the attention, pul ing her aside and talking closely to her. Other nights he would get angry and tel her that he couldn’t deal with her, then storm out of the bar. Almost always, she’d cry back at the apartment, while they drank beer and ate late-night macaroni and cheese.
“You can find someone else,” Shannon would tel her as she chewed the bright orange noodles.
“This whole thing is getting real y predictable,” Lauren would say.
They could have changed their patterns, Lauren thought later. They could have tried to go someplace new so that they wouldn’t see the same people over and over again. It just never real y occurred to them at the time.
Their new favorite thing to do on Sundays was to sit on the back porch, drink Bloody Marys, eat summer sausage, and talk about the weekend.
Shannon was mildly obsessed with Margaret Applebee, and wanted to talk about her al the time.
“Just because she’s not fat anymore, she’s a huge slut? I mean, come on,” Shannon said.
“Maybe she wants a boyfriend,” El en suggested. “I don’t think she’s ever real y had a boyfriend before.” She didn’t like it when they talked about Margaret Applebee.
“Wel , she certainly doesn’t have a boyfriend now,” Lauren said. “She probably just has herpes.”
“Oh, Lauren.” El en looked at her like a disappointed mother and shook her head a little. “What’s going on with Tripp?” she asked, to change the subject.
Lauren shrugged. “Not much. We see each other when we see each other.”
Tripp and Lauren sometimes went days without speaking. She kept thinking they would either decide to start real y dating or stop seeing each other altogether. But things just kept going like they had been. Most of the time, she saw no reason to change this. Once, she saw him go home with another girl from Life’s Too Short and it felt like someone slapped her. It was over, she decided. But then a week or so later, she saw him and made no mention of it. She would ignore it, she decided. After al , it’s not like they were exclusive or anything. He was just a good way to pass the time until something better came along.
At the end of July, their friend Sal ie cal ed to tel them that she was engaged and getting married in a month. And also, one more thing: She was pregnant. They weren’t sure what to say, so they told her congratulations. They couldn’t believe it. Sal ie and Max had dated in col ege, where Max was known for doing keg stands until he vomited and Sal ie sometimes forgot she had a boyfriend and kissed other boys at the party. They were getting married? They were having a baby?
“I think it’s exciting,” El en said.
“You think it’s exciting that their lives are over?” Lauren asked her. She was appal ed.
“But you know them,” El en said. “They’re in love.”
Lauren snorted. “They’l be divorced in five years,” she said.
“I hate to say it,” Shannon said, “but I kind of agree.”
Lauren learned something important at Sal ie and Max’s wedding: You never want to be the first one of your friends to get married. If you are, just resign yourself to the fact that your wedding wil be a shit show. Most people are stil single, open bars are a novelty, and no matter how elegant the wedding was planned to be, it wil wind up looking like a scene out of Girls Gone Wild.