“You hooked up with him, didn’t you?”
“No!” Then I sigh. “Yes.”
“I knew it! Was he good? Did you come?”
“Phoebe!”
“Come on. Let me live vicariously.” Abigail brings another malt. Phoebe looks at it, stirs it with a straw, and turns on her. “This one has shit in it too!”
“I’ll take it,” I say, pulling the malt toward me. I give Abigail an apologizing look, but then the dark-haired waitress shouts again, and she scuttles off.
“So? Was it good?”
I consider lying. But then I say, “Yes.”
“One-night stand kind of thing?” She eyes me. “No. No, he hooked you.”
“He did not hook me.”
“He did. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Bullshit.”
“Hey!” She throws up her hands. “Who knew you’d fucked him?”
“Keep your voice down!”
“I’m sorry. I’m just excited.” She pats my hand. “It’s okay. You can like him. He seems really great.”
“You just like his six-pack.”
“I want to scrub my laundry on it,” she says. “But no. I mean, he seems like a great guy.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to stay away to prove something to your dad.”
“It’s not that.”
“Sure it is.”
I narrow my eyes. “When are you going to stop telling me what is and is not going on in my own life?”
“As soon as I stop being right. Am I still getting it right?”
Another sigh. “I guess.”
“So, there you have it. You’re a big girl. You’re already proving yourself. Based on what you’ve told me, it sounds like you’re on your way. Like Laverne and Shirley.”
“Were they on their way?”
“I don’t know. My grandma used to watch it.”
I sip the malt. It’s delicious. I have a rather existential thought about how everything goes in circles: the Nosh Pit specializing in malts and hence establishing itself as a malt shop instead of just a diner. Phoebe mentioning Laverne and Shirley, which I only know by name. It’s like there’s nothing new, and everything plays on a loop.
“He’s just so different from me,” I say.
“I don’t know about that. When I used to ogle him, he was just a digger. Now you say he’s going to be vice president.”
“Yeah. Dad’s back onboard the Brandon train. Just about the only thing that could screw it up for him now would be if he started nailing the boss’s daughter.”
“You’re both adults.” Phoebe sips her malt then says, “Someone’s got to nail you.”
“Not as far as my dad thinks. I’m still fifteen years old to him.”
“Except that you’re now running a division of his company.”
“I’m an intern.”
Another sip from Phoebe. “Same difference.”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s ambitious. How many people you know have a man like that, who won’t just lie around and accept what comes to him? So there’s that. But he’s also totally hot.”
“Except that beard.”
“You don’t like the beard? I think it’s manly. Like that’s brown testosterone coming out of his follicles.”
“Gross.”
“Do you know why he has it? The beard, I mean?”
I smirk then take my malt back. Phoebe has drained it by a quarter. So much for her not liking the powdery stuff. “I suppose this is part of you being a town gossip.”
“Life coach. Who knows a lot about everyone. Because I network.”
“Whatever.”
“No, Ri. This is just me knowing because a lot of people know. It happened while you were gone.”
“Bridget told me,” I say, sipping. I say it dismissively because I really don’t care. He’s wrong for me. He’ll ruin what I have going with my father and his new faith in me. I’ll ruin what he has going with his vice presidency. And just now, we didn’t exactly part on good terms. I was supposed to go back to the office, but Phoebe called me during my ride, and I asked the car to take me here instead. I guess this doesn’t make me the picture of responsibility, but it felt right. I left the Stonegate site feeling annoyed at Brandon’s self-centered arrogance and bitchy attitude, but for some reason I feel closer to heartbroken.
Phoebe nods. “And that doesn’t tell you all you need to know?”
What? That he got cut in a bar fight? That he has a scar on his cheek that he wants to hide? So what? It doesn’t change anything.
Phoebe’s head bobs. “Oh. I see what’s going on here.”
“What’s ‘going on here?’”
“You’re afraid of leveling up.”
I don’t even know how to respond to that.
“You’re trying to have it both ways,” she says, nodding harder, as if gaining conviction from her words. “How did you feel when you came home from college?”
“Stop life coaching me, Phoebe.”
“Just tell me, bitch.”
“I don’t know. Eager to start putting my degree to work at Life of Riley?”
“And?”
“And what?”
“And sad, right? Like you missed school? Missed your college friends? Your old life?”
“Well, sure. Of course. But … ”
“You’ve always been taken care of by Daddy. Now you’re on your own, but not really. You’re somewhere in the middle. You say you want to be taken seriously, but you still live at home.”
“Only until I find my own place.”
“And you want your dad to treat you like a serious businesswoman, but you’re still worried about disappointing him. By being with his veep.”
“I’ve been with lots of guys my dad didn’t want me with.”
“Not like Brandon. He’d be ‘leveling up.’ He’d be a serious boyfriend. The kind you marry because he’s a real man, not a kid. But doing it doesn’t just challenge your relationship with your dad; it also represents — ”
“Please don’t tell me what my actions ‘represent.’”
“It also represents your first step to settle down.”
“Settle down!” I bark laughter and nod sarcastically. “I see. And you’re getting this because I had sex with him once.”
“Your womanly instincts are kicking in. You know he’s a good catch, and you want him. You want to marry him.” She says “marry” the way we used to say it in grade school, when mocking someone for being into someone we deemed ridiculous. Except that this time, she’s using the same tone to make the opposite point. I consider “life coaching” Phoebe by pointing this out, but she darts for my malt and I lose momentum defending it.
“You’re retarded,” I say. Not the kind of thing I’d say as a woman. It’s the kind of thing I’d say as a girl.
“Not retarded,” Phoebe retorts. “You know he’s good material. Which is why you’re so smitten.”
“I’m not smitten!”
“And the smittenness,” she says, drawing a line on the table with her finger that is probably supposed to represent a profound truth, “is why you’re sad right now.”
“I’m not sad.”
“You said you were sad.”
“I did not!”
“Husband material,” she says. “Fuck now. Marry later.”
I laugh again. I was wrong about Phoebe. She is making me feel better, but just because this is so stupidly funny.