Between Friends (19 page)

When I push open the doors of the Spa,
a lady no more than five feet tall with frizzy black hair greets us
with a warm grin. “Welcome to the Spa, who is the
bride?”

“
That’s me!” Jessica
exclaims shooting her left hand in the air and showing off her
sparkling diamond.

“
Wonderful.” The little
lady exclaims, “My name is Nadia, and I will be taking care of you
this morning.” She spins around and pulls a shiny metal tray off of
the counter with four champagne flutes. They are filled with a
bubbly pink liquid and a few raspberries are splashed inside each
one. Jessica politely takes the first one, and hands one out to the
rest of us.

The Spa is fantastic, and nothing
short of a small paradise. Nadia leads us through glass paned
double doors out to the hydrotherapy Jacuzzi pool. The deck looks
like marble, and there is a gigantic mural on one of the outdoor
walls made of colored glass to resemble the sea. There are four
perfectly aligned brown cushioned lounge chairs with three dividing
umbrellas of perfect symmetry. Plush white towels and a view into
the greenest foliage I have ever seen surround the perimeters. It
is absolutely breathtaking.

“
Do we get to go in the
pool?” Jessica asks.

“
We are getting almost
every treatment you can at this Spa.” Stephanie says with a
smile.

“
You guys are the best
friends ever!” Jessica says and claps her hands
together.

Nadia opens another door and leads us
inside to another section of the Spa, and it is just as beautiful
as the outside. Rich warm colors, lavish and plush furniture, not
to mention clean and tidy. Nadia invites us to remove our sandals
then head over to the wall of nail polish to select our color of
choice. Right away, Jessica makes a stink that we all have to have
the same color nails, and of course, it must be a color of her
approval. So as a joke, Michelle picks a metallic royal
blue.

Jessica rips it out of her hands, “Do
you guys think this is a joke? Because it so isn’t. This is a big
deal.”

We chuckle and watch
Jessica meticulously debate over two light pink shades that
look
exactly
the
same
.
Finally she
makes a decision, handing each of us a bottle called “Princesses
Rule”.

Nadia directs us into a new room with
four manicure/pedicure chairs formed in a circle. Four young girls
who work at the Spa appear behind her from a long brown curtain. I
hand my nail polish to tall dark girl named Adriana, at least
that’s what her nametag says. She smiles and asks me if I want my
hands or feet done first. I opt for the manicure, saving the
pedicure for last, because it’s definitely the better of the
two.

Once we are getting pampered, we start
chatting about the wedding tomorrow. Jessica says she can’t believe
how long she has been with Michael, and that she is so happy they
are finally getting married.

“
How did you guys even
meet?” Stephanie asks, “It was so long ago I can’t
remember.”

“
We went to high school
together.” Michelle snorts, “That’s how.”

“
Yeah I know that.”
Stephanie snaps, “But
how
did it happen?”

“
Oh, I have Megan to thank
for that.” Jessica chuckles.

“
Me?” I say with surprise.
I didn’t know I had anything to do with this match made in
heaven.

“
Yes you.” Jessica says,
“You were such a keener back then and took all the advanced science
courses because you wanted to be a marine biologist.”

I laugh, “Yeah, so. What does that
have to do with Michael?”

“
Well, do you remember how
I would meet you every day when your biology class was
done?”

“
Yeah, we would walk
together to our horrible English class with Mr. Henderson the
creep.”

We all share a laugh, because Mr.
Henderson was so slimy and made really inappropriate comments to
all the girls. Stephanie even adds that she heard he slept with a
student a few years after we graduated.

“
Anyway,” Jessica
interjects, “Michael was in that biology class.
Remember?”

I think back to my freshman year at
Lake View high, and try to envision the dirty old lab based
classroom. Somewhere in my memories, I vaguely remember Michael
sitting at the back, “Yeah, I remember.”

“
Well, one day you went
home sick and didn’t tell me. So I showed up to your class and
waited for you, but you weren’t there.” Jessica smiles.

“
Wow, how do you remember
all of this?” I interrupt, but Jessica shushes me.

“
Michael was the last one
out of the doors and he said, ‘Are you looking for your friend?’ I
said ‘yes’, and he said
you
weren’t in class today.” She points to me and
continues, “Then he paused and asked me what my name was, and I
told him Jessica Ellis. I pretended like I hadn’t noticed him
before, but how could I not have noticed him?”

We all nod in agreement. Michael was
and still is quite the stunner. Wavy honey brown hair and piercing
blue eyes like his don’t go unnoticed.

“
So, he asked me if he
could walk me to class. I didn’t even tell him where I was headed,
but he already knew, which meant he had followed us before.”
Jessica gets all giddy and says, “Then later that day, I saw him in
the cafeteria, and he asked me if I wanted to go on a date with him
on the weekend. I of course said yes, and ta-da it’s been love ever
since.”

“
So basically, if Megan
hadn’t been puking her brains out at home on the toilet, you and
Michael wouldn’t have met?” Michelle chuckles.

“
I am sure we would have
met eventually.” Jessica smiles.

“
Well, you’re welcome.” I
laugh.

“
Why can’t I meet someone
great?” Stephanie pouts.

“
You’ve dated a lot of
great guys.” Jessica says “What about your last boyfriend? Davis
right? What was his last name?”

“
His name was Andrew and
his last name was Davis.” Stephanie moans, “He was a jerk with a
crummy bartending job, living in a shitty apartment.”

“
I guess so.” Jessica
agrees.

“
It isn’t fair. Michelle
has a boyfriend
and
Matthew on the side. You have Michael, and now Megan has
Steven. But I have no one.” Stephanie cries.

“
Okay, I do not have
Matthew on the side.” Michelle says with disgust.

Stephanie rolls her eyes and mumbles
“Yeah, okay.”

“
What about Eric?” Jessica
suggests before Michelle can continue to protest.

“
Ewe no!” Stephanie shouts
flailing her arms.

“
What’s wrong with Eric?”
Jessica says, “He’s cute.”

“
Yeah, but have you seen
him drunk? Come on Jessica. He has the worst Peter Pan syndrome
ever. He should really see a therapist.” Stephanie says.

We all nod in agreement and Michelle
pipes up, “What about that guy who works with you at the bank? Phil
something?”

“
Ohmigod, I already slept
with him one night after work. He was a sloppy lay. Gross, no.”
Stephanie says, and we all laugh.

Jessica gasps and covers her mouth
with her hand. Her eyes light up when she says the last three words
I ever want to hear, “What about Ben?”

I am silently praying Stephanie will
shout her usual no, ewe, or yuck. But instead she contemplates the
idea in her head and places her index finger over her lips. Those
few seconds feel like hours before she gushes with a wicked smirk,
“I have a confession.”

I feel a lump form in my throat and my
stomach clenches. No. I do not want to hear anything she is about
to say.

“
I have slept with
Ben.”

Whack! There it is. A blow so hard it
renders me speechless.

“
What?” Jessica squeals,
“No way? Recently?”

My heart thumps painfully in my chest
as Stephanie continues, “Yeah, like less than a month
ago.”

“
When was this?” Michelle
shouts forcing her hands to her hips.

“
The same night Megan had
us over at her place to go over wedding stuff. That night, and a
few other times after that.” Stephanie says smiling proudly to
herself.

“
Megan did you know about
this?” Jessica asks in a high-pitched voice.

“
No.” I say feeling angry
tears stinging my eyes. I take a deep breath and blink them away. I
think of that party, that night, and I want to scream. I remember
them flirting on my couch and Ben loving every minute of it. I
remember them leaving together and Stephanie dangling off his arm
as they drunkenly stumbled out of my condo and into a cab. Little
did I know, they weren’t going separate ways.

“
Oh, Megan wouldn’t have
known” Stephanie casually says and admires her nails. “Ben asked me
not to tell anybody, and pulled his typical shit by sleeping with
some other chick the next weekend. You know what he’s
like.”

“
I can’t believe you never
told me that!” Michelle exclaims with her jaw practically on the
floor.

I am trying hard to force air into my
lungs and not freak out right now. I want to hate Stephanie, slap
her across the face, and rip her hair out. But it is not her I
hate. It’s Ben.

I look up at the girls, feeling like
such an idiot. I should have known. He is a player, and always will
be. I take a deep breath, and wish I didn’t care that Ben and
Stephanie had a secret romp together. I try my hardest to not
imagine them kissing, touching and humping. But images of them
together pollute my brain, making me feel slightly ill. I hate that
I can’t even wail over my heartbreak and humiliation after finding
out I’m his sloppy seconds. I am never speaking to Ben EVER again.
Now our friendship is over and so is our secret affair.

I wince when I hear Michelle ask
Stephanie what he was like in the sack. I try to block them out, so
I hum the tune of “Don’t Worry Be Happy” in my head, but that
doesn’t work. Instead I find myself being sucked right back into
their conversation. I listen to her graphically describe his
impressive length, and she even mentions the birthmark on his
shaft. Then she starts talking about how great he was, how intense
their sex was, and by this point I think my chest is going to
collapse. I want to burst into tears, but I won’t.

“
So why don’t you try and
see if something’s still there? Ben needs to be tamed, like badly.
Maybe you are the just the girl to do it.” Jessica says with a
wink.

Breathe Megan. You can do
it. Just breathe.

“
Well the other night when
he was in our villa, hanging out with Megan, he looked mighty
fine.” Michelle says biting her lip.

“
Oh God, he’s so hot.”
Stephanie says with a chuckle, “There is no doubt about
that.”

“
What better timing, than
in a tropical paradise at a wedding reception to see if something
is still there.” Jessica squeals.

Okay, it’s official. I think my heart
just exploded in my chest.

“
Would you care Megan?”
Michelle says looking at me with all the seriousness in the
world.

But before I can respond, Jessica
interjects, “She’s with Steven, why would she care?”

“
Well, you know…” Stephanie
smirks and waves her freshly manicured hand in the air.

“
No, I don’t know.” I say,
now completely flippant.

“
But Megan’s with Steven,
and her and Ben are just friends.” Jessica persists, once again
adding her two cents.

“
I am not with Steven, so
drop it.” I shout looking over at Jessica.

Jessica makes a shocked sound and
crosses her arms in front of her chest. I don’t care if she’s
pissed at me. She needs to know when she has crossed the line, and
she needs to stop speaking for me all the time. I have had
it.

Then I dart my piercing blue eyes at
Stephanie, “I don’t care what you do. Ben doesn’t belong to me. He
never has and he never will.”

Chapter 15

I have to keep on telling
myself that seriously, I’m
fine
. I even take deep breaths,
and convince myself I don’t care in the slightest that Ben and
Stephanie, once (maybe twice or worse thrice) slept together. I
make myself believe I don’t care that Stephanie’s eyes lit up when
she rehashed their secret sex-escapade, or that she looked flushed
and giddy when she provided us with the graphic details about his
package. I try not to care that Ben hid all of this from me, and I
try even harder not to pass out from the pain in my heart, but I
should have known. It was so obvious…

Stephanie constantly looks to Ben for
attention, and annoyingly so. Batting her eyes, using a baby voice,
and jumping at any chance to touch him with her perfectly manicured
nails. Not to mention her sexually aggressive behavior, coupled
with her natural beauty (cat like eyes and super-model body), makes
her 100% Ben material. I could just see her swaying her perfect
hips from side to side and seducing him with no problems at all. I
gag at the thought of them being intimate together and it makes me
sick with jealously.