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1
Sam Kohler could count the number of birthday parties she’d had on her two hands, and even though she was alone in her room, with only her three best friends on Zoom, this one was toward the top.
“Can you turn down the volume of your music? I can barely hear you,” Bronte said from the upper right corner of their chat.
“Yes, Miss Hollinger,” Gem droned, her chin in her hands in the bottom left.
Laney snorted. “You can take the teacher out of the classroom, but ya can’t take the classroom out of the teacher.”
Sam shifted from the floor where she had her laptop on her legs to sit at her hand-me-down desk and chair in the corner of her bedroom before lowering the volume of the Alabama Shakes. “Better?”
Bronte nodded. “How’s the cake?”
Dipping her fork into the colorful “unicorn confetti” cake that had been delivered a few hours earlier, Sam tried it. When she had arrived home from school to find it, she’d read the card and promptly teared up.
Cheers to 27 years!
XOXO,
Bronte, Gem, and Laney
The foursome hadn’t been in the same place together since the fall, when Gem married Jason, her real-life Ken doll and father of their child, almost six months ago. Seeing the gift basket from her friends had Sam’s chest filling up with bittersweet melancholy.
“It’s good,” Sam said, swallowing down a bite of the cake. Although it was a tad on the dry side, she’d eat the whole damn thing because this was her birthday party, and cake always tasted better with champagne. She popped the cork of the little bottle, enough for a single serving, and poured it into the coffee mug Gem had gotten her last Christmas that readDon’t Be Awith a picture of a rooster underneath.
“Well, cheers, ladies. Happy birthday, Sammy,” Laney said, raising up her own glass of champagne. Gem and Bronte followed with theirs, and Sam smiled, lifting her mug.
“May it be a good year.” Gem clinked what looked like a child’s cup against her computer screen.
Bronte fixed her glasses on her nose, grinning in her Zoom box. “Filled with fun and romance!” When Sam pointedly ignored her, Bronte said, “I’m an eternal optimist.”
To which the other three girls all said, “We know.”
“I have enough romance in my life, thank you very much.”
“You still hooking up with Eli?” Gem asked.
Sam nodded and scraped the overly sweet pink and purple icing off the cake and was met with a chorus of curious hums. Because while the other three women were in committed relationships, Sam wasn’t looking for one of those. Eli was a postdoc in the math department at school, another commitment-phobe who didn’t mind the random late-night meetups. It was easy come, easy go, exactly what Sam liked.
“I’m sorry we can’t be together today,” Bronte said after a few moments.
Sam scooped up another piece of cake. “We’ll be seeing each other plenty soon.”
Laney held up her cell phone with some kind of countdown app open. “Eighty-one more days.”
Gem whooped. “Mama’s getting drunk!”
“You’re drunk right now,” Laney said with her signature booming laugh. “Me and you used to close down the bars, and now you’re passed out after one drink.”
“I know,” Gem moaned with a pitiful pout. “Willow stole all my tolerance.”
“That’s okay. She’s cute,” Sam said, referring to Gem’s daughter, who was about a year and a half now. The first kid to be born out of their little friend group.
Bronte sipped her champagne from a real glass flute. “Where is the little chicken?”
“She wanted her dad to put her to bed tonight. They’ve got a whole routine now, where he sings ‘Old McDonald,’ like, eighteen times. She saysmore, more, and he does more, more.”
“She’s a daddy’s girl,” Laney said, and Gem nodded.
