It’s like something clicks into place and he realizes this is what has been going on with me since before Thanksgiving. He says something about how friends can have fights, but that doesn’t mean they’re not friends. I accuse him of patronizing me. He doesn’t get riled up, which makes me even angrier. Eventually, I calm down, and we make up.
He doesn’t bring it up again.
I spend most of my free time with Alex, but I also hang out with Helen. We’ve grown even closer since the Ellie short-story debacle.
I start going to the Second Take Anonymous meetings and feel fully welcomed into the dysfunctional family. I go to Kimiko’s place after every meeting, and we watch TV and gossip.
I download an app for a little-known startup called Uber, but it’s nearly impossible to get a ride with so few drivers.
My separate social circles finally collide on a Sunday.
It starts at the Beverly Center, the absolute behemoth of an eight-story shopping mall in the heart of Beverly Grove. Helen drags me there so she can find an outfit for some frat party she wants to go to. While we’re shopping, she begs me to come to the party too.
“You don’t evenlikeparties.” I force my tone to stay lighthearted even though her sudden urge to party has my hackles raised. I had begun to think that maybe, without me and Madison dragging her to parties, she might not have started drinking to begin with.
I realize now that might’ve been naive of me. She’s a college freshman. Why wouldn’t she want to go to a party?
“Can’t know if I like them if I never go to one.” Helen laughs and pulls me into Forever 21. I worry about how to fix this situation the entire time she flips through racks of dresses and tries them on in the dressing room.
“Maybe we could do something chill on Thursday,” I suggest as we exit the store, her with a brand-new dress. The party is on Thursday, the day after finals end, and the theme is the End of the World—because at midnight, it will officially be December 21, 2012, which, according to some silly theories, is when the world will end. I almost forgot about that. “We could watch a movie, order pizza, that kind of thing.”
“Joey,allwe do is stay in, watch Redbox movies, and order pizza,” she counters. Which—fair. Thatiswhat our girls’ nights tend to consist of.
“Maybe we can go out and do something fun that isn’t a party.”
“Like what?” she challenges.
“Anything.”
“Okay, but what?”
I list the first things that come to mind. “We could gooutto a movie. We could…” What the fuck do college students do for fun that doesn’t involve drinking? “We could see a comedy show. Or get dinner. We could… go bowling? Or roller-skating? Play miniature golf?”
She perks up at that and says, “I don’t think I’ve been mini-golfing since middle school.”
“Great! Me neither,” I lie, because I’ve gone on a possibly embarrassing number of mini-golf dates as an adult. “Yeah, maybe we can do that on Thursday—”
“Why don’t we go today, after the mall? Alex could join,” she says, which I immediately start to protest.
“No, this is to replace the party—”
“Is thatJoey Vasquez? In the flesh, out and about at the Beverly Center?” a droll voice calls above the crowd.
Helen sees who’s calling me. “Youknowher?” she asks, a little incredulously.
I follow Helen’s line of sight and can’t blame her for that reaction.
Kimiko’s hair is an icy blue, and she’s decked out in designer clothes of the same color, a veritable ice queen fit for the season (mid-December), if not quite the actual LA weather (high fifties). I watch as she approaches, strangers’ eyes darting toward her. The drama continues when she stops in front of me and leans in for two air kisses.
“Look at us. Two babes hanging out in a mall in 2012. How quaint,” she says, then raises an eyebrow at Helen and looks her up and down with unconcealed interest. “Make that three babes.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Kimiko.”
Her lips turn down in the slightest of frowns when Helen introduces herself, and that’s when my panic sets in.
I think there are two kinds of people: people who want all of their friends to be friends with each other, and people who prefer to keep their distinct social circles as separate as possible.
I am quite firmly a member of the second camp.
As a general rule, I try to avoid the merging of social circles. Throughout my twenties and into my thirties, I had my group of college friends and various smaller groups of mostly work friends, people who came and went. In my short-lived relationships, I would occasionally hang out with the guy’s friends, and he’d hang out with mine, but I never invited my friends and his to the same event. The very idea of merging groups like that always felt too messy.
