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“Yeah. Weird, huh? This is my girlfriend, Margie, by the way. Margie, Nicole,” said Brianne casually.
It was like there were fireworks inside my chest. She’d referred to me as her girlfriend! It was an amazing occurrence, and one I hadn’t anticipated. Maybe she was doing it just to make Nicole jealous or something, but I didn’t care. Now it was official.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, unsure of how to behave.
“Yeah, you too,” said Nicole. “So, Brianne, you in EAC? I haven’t seen you at parties or meetings.”
“No, Margie is,” said Brianne.
“Yeah, I don’t go to the parties that often,” I said. “I’m hoping to change that.”
“Nice, nice,” said Nicole, but I got the sense she was seeing right through me and didn’t care what I was even saying. Which was fine, because surely she was as surprised to see Brianne as Brianne was to see her, but… The way she was directing the conversation made it seem like she was excluding me.
When you were socially anxious like me, you noticed these things. I’d become pretty good at it, in fact. And I worried that Nicole was going to steal Brianne’s attention away. I worried about this specifically because Brianne seemed nervous—her normal unflappable demeanor had changed into something unfamiliar, and it was putting me on edge.
“So… graduation, huh?” said Nicole, chuckling easily even though she’d made a completely mundane comment.
“Yeah, dude. Can’t believe it’s happening. Time flies, right? What are you going to be doing?” said Brianne.
“I got accepted to a managerial position at Robinson,” said Nicole.
“Uh, what?” Brianne looked almost scared now, which I couldn’t fathom at all.
“Yeah. Remember that internship we both did after freshman year? I guess they really liked me. They called me before I even called them and offered me the position, since they liked my work with the soccer team,” said Nicole.
“I see,” said Brianne. “Well, I’m still looking at all my options.”
“You should probably get on that,” said Nicole. “Rosebridge is a small town.”
“Uh huh. Well, we’ll probs get another round of food, right, Margie?” Brianne turned to me.
“Sounds good,” I said, even though I’d barely touched my food.
I eagerly followed her out of the kitchen and to the table where all the dishes were set up. I was glad to see that people had taken generous helpings of my roast vegetables, and most of the dish was gone already.
“You okay?” I asked Brianne.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. “I just… Ugh, I’ll explain it later.”
Brianne was in a snit for the rest of the potluck, but she put up her cool façade—that I could now recognize as a façade—and was able to interact with everyone else just fine. I managed to have a couple of good conversations with some of the quieter EAC members, and started to see how I could start to fit into this organization. Coming to the potluck had been a good idea—though I wasn’t sure it had been a good idea for Brianne.
When the party started winding down, we were quick to leave, and I walked with Brianne back to her apartment so we could talk.
“Um, what exactly happened with Nicole?” I asked. I didn’t like prodding her, but it was clearly bothering her deeply.
Brianne sighed. “So… we both did a marketing internship at Robinson Communications during the summer of our freshman year. After that, I ended up majoring in marketing and she went into something completely different, kinesiology. But now I just learned that she somehow snagged a senior-level position at Robinson, and I’m hoping I can get any job there. My mom was pressuring me to get something above entry level, which I thought was impossible, since I was just an undergrad, but then they go and give a good job to a kinesiology major? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Brianne turned the key in her lock and we entered the apartment. It might have sounded a little weird, but I liked the smell. It smelled fresh, with a hint of her perfume. She plopped down on the couch and I followed suit.
“That blows,” I said, now able to understand why she’d been so rattled. “That’s really fucked up.”
“It totally is. I guess being the captain of the soccer team for two years impressed them that much? I had no idea they even paid any attention to Beasley soccer. And now I don’t even want a job at Robinson, because what if fucking Nicole is my boss?” She put her head in her hands.
I hated to see Brianne so upset, but I was also admittedly relieved that I wouldn’t have to worry about anything happening with her and Nicole. Even though she’d said she and Nicole had ended things on good terms, Nicole had seemed a little condescending. I wasn’t sure I liked her.
“So now I’m going to have to look for other options… and I feel so lost,” said Brianne, now leaning back on the couch.
I took her hand, unsure of how to comfort her. I was a junior, one year away from being in the same predicament as Brianne. I wasn’t sure what I wanted as a career, and it was a little frightening to see Brianne so worked up about it. That could easily be me in a year, I thought.
