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That sounded suspiciously like an invitation for a date, but I wasn’t sure how else to phrase it, so I sent the damn thing anyway. She responded immediately.
Sounds great! How about Zukos?
I couldn’t help but smile. Zukos was the pizza place that we always used to go to when we were kids. More than one pizza party had taken place under that roof. What a throwback.
Sure. Is seven okay?
My hands trembled a little as I sent the message. Why was I flipping out? I was still angry, but it had cooled somewhat. Now I was nervous and curious. Curious enough to actually go through with it.
Sounds good. Meet you there. I’m really looking forward to it.She added a cute little winking emoji that was at odds with the tone of our conversation earlier. Huh. Seemed like she was trying to mend fences or bridges or however the saying went.
Now I just had to fret about everything until tomorrow night. I even got out the photo album my mom had made. Molly was in a lot of those pictures. Birthdays and sleepovers and trips to the beach. We both smiled with missing teeth, arms around each other.
Best friends forever. We’d even had those heart necklaces.
I sighed. Funny how things could change. Lives changed. People changed.
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I had to rush home after work the next night so I’d have enough time to shower and get myself presentable before seeing Molly. I didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard, but I didn’t want to look like a slob either. Was there something between fancy and not fancy at all? I wasn’t sure. Usually I just wore clothes I didn’t care about getting covered in chocolate and jam and baking powder. Not that I didn’t dress up every now and then, but as I looked through my closet, nothing really jumped out at me as something I wanted to wear.
Finally, I settled on a pair of jeans, my most comfortable sandals, a cute tank top, and a few silver rings. Simple. I kept the makeup light and brushed out my hair and dried it until it was straight. I wasn’t a bombshell, with my brown eyes and brown hair and average everything else, but I could clean up okay.
Why was I thinking about that? This wasn’t a date. I mentally smacked myself.
Of course I arrived five minutes early, but when I walked in, Molly was already sitting down in one of the booths, tapping her fingers on the table.
She rose when she saw me, rocking another beautiful dress. She’d always loved wearing dresses when we were kids. Guess that hadn’t changed.
Her cheeks flushed and I tried not to think about how pretty she was.
“Hey,” she said, reaching her arms out. Probably for a hug. I ended up just sort of walking into them and she wrapped them around me. She’s only about three inches shorter than me. Growing up, we’d been evenly matched in terms of height.
She let me go and let out a tiny little sigh and then sat back down.
“I thought you were going to bail on me,” she said, putting her fingers on the table and softly drumming them again. I wanted to reach out and make her stop, but I didn’t want to touch her any more than was necessary.
“I wanted to. I thought about it.” I figured honesty was the best policy, right?
“I thought that you might. I know . . . we have a lot to talk about.” The waitress came and asked what we wanted to drink. I figured why the hell not have booze, and ordered a mojito. Molly does too. As soon as the waitress left, I busied myself with the giant menu so I didn’t have to look at her and trace the sweep of her eyeliner with my eyes, or look at her lips as they moved as she talked.
The words on the menu swam in front of my eyes and she coughed. I looked at her over the top of the menu.
“So, um, what are you gonna get? I thought maybe we could share a pizza? Or something?” She was really giving this a lot of effort, I had to give her that.
“Sure. Tomatoes and olives?” I said and she smiled.
“Tomatoes and olives.” Guess that hadn’t changed either. We still liked the same kind of pizza.
“So, you’re in PR and marketing?” I asked after we shared a moment of super intense eye contact that made me blush a little.
“Uh, yeah. I ended up going to the University of New Hampshire and majoring in communications, and then got more into advertising and social media when that started taking off as a marketing tool. I guess I’m pretty good at it.” She shrugged one shoulder. Modest. Always modest Molly.
“That’s great. And you like doing it?” I asked. She nodded.
“I do. I know some people see it as superficial, but it’s a lot of hard work. It’s a lot of figuring out why people click on the things they click on and how to get them to click on something.” That made sense. She asked me how long I’d been working at the café.
“Well, I went to college and tried out a few majors, when I started working in a grocery store bakery doing the graveyard shift and I found that I liked it better than I liked going to school. So I dropped out and I’ve been bouncing around ever since.”
