Frenemies(40)
Georgia stared at me for a moment, as if she couldn’t quite understand what I was getting at. Then she let out a laugh.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “I forbid it.”
Now it was my turn to stare uncomprehendingly. “You forbid what?”
“You and Chris Starling,” she said. “I didn’t bring you here so you could hook up with my weird, old boss. That’s like trading in crazy for an entire asylum. Forget it, you can’t have him.” She patted me on the arm. “You’ll just have to find a nice guy your own age, and look! There’s a whole pack of them by the bar.”
“First of all, he’s what? Forty-five at the most?”
“Old,” Georgia repeated. “And off-limits. Seriously.”
“I don’t want him!” I snapped at her.
“Glad to hear it,” she said. She frowned at me. “What is your problem?”
I shook my head to clear it, and frowned back at her.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just kind of stunned that you created this whole version of him that isn’t even remotely real!”
That hung there for a moment, taunting me. I felt as if I’d somehow ejected myself from my own body and was hovering outside it, watching myself say that out loud.
I almost wished Henry were there to witness it himself, since he’d be the one to enjoy it the most, given my daily assassinations of his character.
I was so taken back that it took me a moment to notice that Georgia wasn’t paying me the slightest bit of attention. She was looking off across the room, and she was smiling. A big, relieved smile.
“There he is,” she said, in the voice that meant Jared. “I wasn’t sure he would come. Stay here,” she continued, finally glancing at me. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
She took off across the room, and I was left to stand there and really bask in the full extent of my hypocrisy. I was amazed that you could become a hypocrite without even meaning to—just like that. That it was so simple. That you could look into someone else’s life and see the things they were doing with such clarity, even as you ignored those same things when you did them yourself.
The sad thing was, with a cocktail, it didn’t sting nearly as much as I thought it should.
chapter fourteen
The six ways I was able to tell that the Cocky Arrogant Jackass Jared, also known (briefly) as Georgia’s latest “boyfriend,” was completely unworthy of a woman like Georgia and would inevitably crush her heart in some callous manner, which (surprise, surprise) happened sometime later that Friday night, long after I’d bailed and taken a cab home, were the following:
First, he was sullen and disrespectful when Georgia introduced him to me, because (as he claimed later during the dramatic this is why I will never love you portion of the evening) she was basically claiming him by towing him around her party like that and he was independent, man, and she should have respected him and not tried to play him like that.
Second, he made it very, very clear that his presence at the party—which had provided him with free food and an open bar, so wasn’t exactly a great hardship—was a favor. A favor of such enormous proportions it was unlikely Georgia could ever repay it. He was therefore under no obligation to be polite to her, or even terribly nice, because hello—he was there, wasn’t he, what more did she want?
Third, he was caught checking out the breasts and/or asses of at least four different women, none of whom were Georgia. And caught meant both Georgia and I watched as young Jared drooled over a succession of cheesy, possibly augmented and almost certainly anorexic trophy wives of the partners, which Jared made no attempt to do subtly, and which he then acted all “What?” about. Loser.
Fourth, he was happy to talk about his blond highlights and his many hair products, but sneered when Georgia mentioned her own beauty regime, and then made some ridiculously clichéd comment about women and bathroom time which was so clichéd that my inner raging feminist—usually quick to wave her fists in the air—couldn’t even bring herself to respond. (Possibly she was drunk and looking for Prince Charming after all.)
Fifth, when Georgia left us to fetch him a drink, he felt compelled by the uncomfortable silence between us to ask me what I did. When I said I was a librarian he laughed. Loudly. Then he said, “No, for real.” Then, when I assured him it was true and I had the librarian action figure to prove it—matronly figure, shushing action and all—he snorted and said, “Bet that’s a real growth industry.”
And finally, as the kiss of death, Georgia had to explain. Homophobic remark, *-ish story, snotty behavior? Georgia used all the excuses she could come up with: Jared didn’t mean that, Jared has his own sense of humor, ha ha, Jared likes to push people’s buttons for fun, he’s just tired tonight because he works so hard all the time, etc.
I ran through the list about sixty trillion times before it finally penetrated.
“I really thought he was different,” Georgia moaned. This was an improvement over the wailing and the what did I do, what’s wrong with me part. A breakthrough, really.
She hauled her comforter up around her neck and sniffled. She was sprawled out across her king-size bed, from which she moved only to visit the bathroom or let in the takeout Thai delivery guy.