Frenemies(20)

“Can we talk?” Helen asked, leaning way over into my personal space. The only place to go was back into the actual toilet, which, while appealing, was hardly dignified. I chose to stand where I was and suffer her closeness.

“Well …” I hedged.

I couldn’t imagine what Helen wanted to talk about this time, but I was betting I wouldn’t like it. It was unlikely to be something I might care to discuss—like, to pick a subject at random, the ethics of boyfriend-poaching from women you were supposedly long-term friends with.

“Please,” Helen pleaded with those anime eyes of hers that turned men into fools. I wasn’t immune, either, and it made me cranky.

“Um, I guess so,” I said, because what else could I do?

Helen sighed then. Heavily. Signaling that this time, she wasn’t planning an intervention.

Again, I felt the dizzying urge to slap her, so I looked away—toward the far more dizzying reflection of my vast blueberryness in the mirrors behind her.

I dragged my attention back to Helen, and waited. She had about three more seconds, and then I was breaking for the door. One. Two—

“The thing is,” she said, staring at the hands she’d folded in front of her, “I thought we were friends. I just … I wish …”

Again, she turned her eyes on me.

“What?” I asked, a little alarmed.

“Gus,” she said, as if saying my name made her sad.

“Why do you hate me?”


No, really.

She meant it, too.





chapter seven





Why did I hate her?

Because when we were eighteen years old you grabbed my hand the first time either one of us got drunk at Freshman Week and swore you would never forget that I held your hair back, I could have said. Because when we were twenty-five you announced you were having a quarter-life crisis and demanded I drive with you overnight to Acadia National Park, where you were sure the first rays of summer sunshine to hit the United States on Cadillac Mountain would show you what to do with your life. Because neither of these memories mean anything to you. Because it turns out you are all of the things I have spent years telling people you are not.

But I didn’t say anything like that.

The desire to punch her in the face got tangled up in the desire to behave like a grown-up, somehow, and I choked.

I turned red in the face and let out a strangled sort of cough.

“Um … what?” I asked. As if I misheard her. It was pathetic.

“Why do you hate me?” she repeated, her eyes trained on me. I avoided looking at them directly—the way you avoid looking into the sun—and looked to the side instead, where her frilly bra strap had worked its way down over her shoulder.

“I—uh—I don’t hate you,” I stammered. I couldn’t believe she had the nerve. I mean, of course she had the nerve, but it was still unbelievable.

Helen sighed.

“We used to be friends,” she said. “Good friends, or anyway, that’s what I thought.”

And for some reason, I found I was unable to open my mouth and let Helen know what I thought of her, or point out that this woe-is-me act was at odds with her I’m-telling-you-this-as-tough-love act from the Halloween party. I wasn’t afraid of what I might say, I was afraid I’d start crying again, and even though Helen seemed to have just remembered that we were friends once I still thought I’d rather maim myself than let her see how much that hurt me. I suspected this sort of conflict-avoidance spoke to flaws in my character, but mostly I just wanted to escape her and those wide eyes of hers that tugged so expertly at the heartstrings. Even mine.

I looked around for a way out, but there was nothing. Only a row of sinks, my ugly dress in the mirror, and the party beyond. In a pinch, I supposed I could hurl myself back through the stall door and bar myself inside, but that seemed overly dramatic even for me.

“Well,” I said, because she seemed to want some kind of response from me and I couldn’t stand the silence. “Things certainly got a little awkward.”

If by awkward I meant painful, uncomfortable, and fodder for years of therapy.

“I just don’t understand you,” Helen said softly. “I thought maybe if I could introduce you to some nice guys at the Halloween party, you wouldn’t feel like you had to act out again. It was supposed to be a gift.”

Was that how she was spinning her little act of aggression? She had to be kidding me. Some of my outrage must have shown through, because she hurried on.

“I was just trying to be nice by introducing you to Robert and Jerry,” she said, her eyes so very big and full of shit. “Georgia didn’t have to threaten me.”

“The thing is, Helen,” I bit out, “it’s hard to see how publicly humiliating me was actually you trying to be nice.”

“Henry said you were mad,” Helen said. Sadly. As if Henry had advanced the theory and Helen had dismissed it as impossible until this very moment, when I’d confirmed her worst fears.

Why did everything always have to involve Henry? Why couldn’t I get away from him?

“The problem is that you’re dating Nate now,” I pointed out, shoving the Henry issue aside. “It makes things difficult.”

Talk about understating the obvious.