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“What’s been going on? And what did I just interrupt down there?” she asks.
“Nothing exciting, Ames. Just another Lilly incident that Oliver had to rescue me from.” I fill her in on all the details from the Frankie situation last night, telling her about the ride home with Emma and the bike ride here this morning.
“Ugh, that Emma is the worst!” Amy declares when I am finished. “Why is she always so condescending? And rude? She seemed so nice when they got together, and now she is turning into a real cow!”
“Beats me,” I say. “I don’t really know her all that well. All I know is that she’s with Oliver. She has nothing to be upset about.”
I shut my mouth at this as I realise what I have said, and Amy gives me a knowing smile. She has always suspected that I have a tiny crush on her big brother, but being the good friend that she is, she is kind enough not to bring it up very often.
“She’s jealous of you, Lil. That’s why she is extra mean when you’re around.”
“Jealous? Of me? I’m a hot mess. That makes no sense.”
Amy huffs in frustration as she stands up and grabs me, pointing me to her full-length mirror.
“Yes, Lilly. Jealous of you. Look at you. You are pretty without even trying. I know you hate your ‘frizzy’ hair,” she says, putting air quotes around the word frizzy. “But it is the sort of beach hair that women spend tonnes of money to get. And you have the nicest blue eyes, so much better than my boring brown ones. And don’t get me started on that little body of yours, small waist, big boobs, skinny without needing to exercise. If I didn’t love you so much, I’d hate you for that alone.” When I go to interrupt her little pep talk, she puts her hand up to stop me. “And in addition to all the physical stuff, you have the sweetest heart of any person I have ever met. You know that if you weren’t so amazing, Madi, Sammi, and I wouldn’t still be friends with you after all these years!”
Amy is referencing Madeline Russell and Samantha Brown, the other two members in our small but mighty friendship group. The four of us have grown up together, and though the pressures of adulting often keep us from seeing one another regularly, like we did when we were in university, we still talk and text almost every day. We are ride or die friends, there for each other through the good and the bad.
As I take in what Amy has just said about my appearance, I look at myself in the mirror, filled with self-doubt. My so-called beach hair is now in a lopsided ponytail, having not survived unscathed the bike ride from hell. And, even after Oliver’s attempts to help, my eyes still look like those of a racoon!
With this reflection in my sight, knowing that Amy perhaps has exaggerated somewhat my “pretty without trying” appearance, I look back at Amy with gratitude. Only a best friend could believe something so untrue. She has her biased best-friend blinders on.
“Thanks, Amy. But if I looked like what you have just described, wouldn’t I have men clamouring to be with me?” I gesticulate with my arms. “And yet here I am, almost twenty-four and chronically single. No clamouring in sight.”
Amy looks at me with sympathy and replies, “I think the men are clamouring, but you are too blinded by something, or someone, to notice them.”
I think about this for a moment and then shake my head in disagreement.
“I just think that maybe I am not the type of girl that men want to settle down with. My life is such I mess, I have no actual career, and in general, I am surrounded by chaos. Who would want that? From where I am sitting, men seem to want women who are well put together, with their life in order.” And as I glance in the mirror again, taking in my crazy hair, thinking of Emma’s dead-straight, humidity-defying, shiny blonde hair, I add, “And with straight, tidy hair.”
As Amy goes to answer this, no doubt with more compliments and encouragement over what is a hopeless situation, I change the subject. “So how is work going? How are things with Dr McHottie?”
Amy has a contentious relationship—some may call it an almost full-out war—with the doctor who works in the emergency department with her, the one she was hitting on the fateful night of my twenty-third birthday, and the tales of their bust-ups are legendary. He went from a potential hook up to 100 percent nemesis in no time at all.
Amy looks at me, knowing I am attempting to distract her, and takes pity on me. “Not great,” she says. “He’s still always around. Micromanaging me like he is my boss. We established early on that the nurses do not report to the doctors, yet he finds reasons to be all up in my face all day long.”
I smile, looking at my gorgeous friend with her long brown hair, high cheekbones, and almond-shaped, big brown eyes, so like Oliver’s, and can take a guess why this doctor wants to be in her face all day long. And remembering his enamoured look at the bar that night, I think maybe the good doctor is happy to be close to Amy, even if it means constantly fighting.
“He wants to shake up the way we work down in the emergency room,” she continues with exasperation.
“What’s wrong with how you work in the emergency room?” I ask as I plunk myself down on Amy’s bed and roll over to face her, giving her my undivided attention.
“Nothing! There is nothing wrong with the way we run the department. He is just another man who thinks he knows better.” I note that Amy, my very relaxed, nice-to-everyone, sometimes crazy but never angry best friend, is getting pretty worked up over this guy, a guy she claims to hate, but decide against saying anything to her about it. Who am I to give advice on matters of the heart, anyway?
“Do you want me to go so you can sleep?” I ask instead, sitting up, knocking over the tower of books resting precariously on her bedside table. As we both work to pick them up, Amy’s face lights up with inspiration.
“No! Let’s go swimming instead. I know I need to catch up on some sleep, but it’s too nice today to be stuck in a dark room. Besides, we both need some sunshine to increase our melatonin levels and help synchronise our circadian rhythms.” When Amy speaks like this, it is a stark reminder of what a little genius she is. She is like a walking, talking encyclopedia of random facts. It is the reason my parents love her so much; she is more suited to be their daughter than I am.
I shake off this unhappy and potentially unfair thought and look out of the window. The Harlow house has a gorgeous kidney-shaped pool in the backyard, where it is now sitting pretty with its blue water glistening in the sunlight, beckoning for me to come in.
“I don’t have a swimsuit,” I remind Amy.
“You can borrow one of mine.” She gets up to rummage through her drawers.
“Umm, Ames, I hate to point this out to you again,” I say as she holds up a hot pink bikini in front of her face, looking at me and then back at the bikini. “But my C cups will not fit in those wisps of triangles.”
“Who cares?” she replies. “It’s just us. I’ve seen you in less.”
