Anything but Ordinary(21)

After Carter walked away yesterday, Bryce had felt powerful. She had felt full of good things. Only good things, she had declared, and she had gone straight inside to call Gabby, eager to tell her that everything was going to be okay.

Gabby picked up on the first ring. “Bryce.”

Bryce’s confidence had faltered at the sound of her voice. It was easy enough to forgive her best friend when she was thinking of the Gabby whose perfect fishtail braid she used to mess up, the one who she could tease about being a hopeless romantic because she was too wrapped up in a soap opera plot to notice.

But this wasn’t quite Gabby. Her voice had an edge now.

“So what’s the deal with the bridesmaid thing?” Bryce had asked.

“Oh,” Gabby said, and Bryce could hear the surprise in her voice. “So you don’t want to talk—?”

She had looked at the storm outside, thinking again of Carter as he walked away. She swallowed her fear.

“Let’s meet up!” Bryce said, before Gabby could say anything else. “If I’m going to be your maid of honor, I’m going to need a dress, right?”

They agreed Gabby would pick her up for a trip to the mall. “Just to start,” Gabby had said. “Because you also need regular clothes.”

“How did you know?” Bryce said.

“Believe me, I recognized your mom’s old pajama top.” Bryce had to smile.

A black VW pulled up. Different from the van Gabby usually drove. Used to drive, Bryce corrected herself. But then Gabby honked twice, like she always did, and Bryce made her way down the walk.

“Hi, gorgeous!” Gabby called as she leaned to open the door. The air-conditioning was blasting. Gabby’s lavender shampoo filled Bryce’s nose, and suddenly they were sixteen again, driving to practice, to a football game, anywhere. “How are you?”

“Went to Belle Meade yesterday,” Bryce started. “Sydney was hung over, as usual.”

“Oh god.” Gabby glanced from the road. “Sydney’s one of those girls?”

Bryce knew exactly what she meant—the girls at their school who mixed vodka into gas-station slushies at football games, who partied every weekend while she and Gabby trained or went to meets.

Bryce shook her head. “I mean, she wouldn’t be part of, like, Renee Sutterlane’s clique. She’s a little too punk-goth-whatever for that. Those girls always pretended to be Christian.”

“And they all got pregnant, like, right out of high school,” Gabby said, shaking her head.

“What? Really?”

“Renee has two kids now. Kat O’Hare has a baby with Chris Driggs. Kylie Timmons has one with who knows who.”

Bryce laughed in disbelief. “Wow. That sucks.” She could barely take care of herself, let alone a baby.

“I don’t know, Bry.” Gabby looked thoughtful. “They look really happy on Facebook. They dress their babies in these cute little outfits.…”

“Gabbyyyyy—” Bryce chided. “Don’t get any ideas.”

Gabby pursed her glossy lips. “Come on, wouldn’t it be fun to have an adorable little baby?”

“No!” Bryce shook her finger at her friend. “Just say no!”

“Fine,” Gabby said, her lips still pursed, but then she smiled.

Bryce smiled into the rearview mirror, watching suburbia shrink as they got closer to downtown Nashville.

Gabby sighed as they pulled up to a red light. “Besides, Greg is not ready to be a father.”

Bryce’s chest tightened. She had been lulled by the comfort of Gabby’s familiar smell, the feeling of sitting in the passenger seat. For just a moment, she had forgotten.

Gabby glanced at her. “I tried to get him to come with us today, maybe try on some tuxedoes, but he said, ‘Nah.’ That’s exactly what he said. ‘Nah.’”

Bryce’s jaw clenched. The cars around them started to move. This was the part they should glaze over. This was the part that would make her pissed off. But they were going dress-shopping, and he was the groom. Did she think she could avoid it forever?

They jerked forward. Silence. Greg’s name was ringing in Bryce’s ears.

Finally, Gabby broke the silence. Her voice was grave. “Bryce, I have something to tell you.”

Bryce’s stomach was in knots. What now?

Gabby opened her mouth, but instead of speaking, she hit the CD player’s ON button. A few chords filtered out, and Bryce recognized the song instantly.

“Yeah, B. Talk your shit,” Gabby said in her best Jay-Z impression.

Bryce always played the Beyoncé part, because then Gabby could call her “B.” She let out a throaty, “Partner, let me upgrade you,” and immediately giggled with embarrassment. Like most things these days, Bryce was out of practice singing like an R&B star.

As they pulled into the mall parking lot, Bryce and Gabby danced Beyoncé-style in their seats, swinging their hips and flipping their hair. “Upgrade U” was the first track on their warm-up CD. This was what they pumped from Bryce’s basement speakers as they practiced tucks at her house. This was what they sang to as they rolled into Hilwood High in the mornings. The CD even skipped at the right place.

Bryce yelled over the Jay-Z part, “Where did you find this?”