Between Friends (26 page)

Steven meshes back into the crowd of
his cousins, and I see Jessica join their circle. She shoots me a
dirty look when she catches me staring at them and wraps her arm
around Steven’s neck and pulls him in for a sympathetic hug. I
quickly look away, to see Eric waving me down. I smile over at him,
standing with Matthew and Michelle; coincidently the only three
people I have left routing for me in our quickly dissolving group.
He points to the shuttle pulled up to the front of the resort and
mouths, “Our shuttle” I mouth a “thank you” back and quickly gather
my things.

As everyone piles onto the bus,
Jessica sees me behind her in the line. We both freeze and she
immediately gives me a look of disgust. She turns away, flicking
her long blonde curls in my face. I want to call her out on acting
like such a bitch, but I don’t. Instead, I bow my head and brush
past her, avoiding her like the plague. I slide into the first seat
at the front of the bus and seclude myself right behind the driver.
I shove my headphones into my ears, and crank-up my iPod to blast a
streamline of country songs.

“
How are you holding up?
You look a little better than yesterday” I hear Eric say, as he
slides into the empty seat beside me. He tosses his bag on the
ground and holds it between his feet.

I pull the headphones out of my ears,
and feel the driver pull us into motion, “What are you doing?
Jessica is going to flip that you’re sitting with me.”

“
Oh who cares” Eric laughs
and rolls his eyes, “Megan, please. I don’t care if Jessica is mad
at me. This is ridiculous.”

“
Not to her.” I say in a
hushed whisper, “You should move.”

“
You should relax.” Eric
says leaning back in his seat, “Besides, I want to have a chat with
you.”

“
About what?” I ask,
knowing exactly what he is referring to.

“
You know what.” Eric says
and shifts in his seat to face me, “Ben was devastated when he left
yesterday. I had never seen him so tortured. Don’t think he took
off because he doesn’t care about you.” I roll my eyes and put my
headphones back in my ears, but he yanks them out, “Seriously
Megan, you can be really quick to shut people out.”

“
What’s that supposed to
mean?” I ask narrowing my eyes at him.

“
Look at how you are acting
right now.” he laughs. I let out an exasperated sigh because I know
he is right.

“
Well what am I supposed to
do? He is the one who took off.” I cross my arms in front of my
chest with a pout.

“
You are the one that ended
things with him. Why would he want to stay?” Eric innocently
asks.

“
Excuse me? I am far from
the heartbreaker here. We should have never crossed that friendship
line. Biggest. Mistake. Ever.” I say and let out a much-needed
sigh.

“
You can’t expect me to
believe that.” He laughs, “I had never seen either of you act so
love struck as you did on this trip. Besides, I suspected the whole
time that something was going on.”

“
Oh please” I say rolling
my eyes, “You knew shit.”

Eric imitates Ben with a
chuckle in his voice: “Oh Megan needs to go back and find her
purse…oh I am too tired to come out with you guys…oh Megan
let
me
order your
drink.... oh I can’t come for dinner, I promised Megan I would take
her turtle watching.”

“
We always do stuff
together without you guys. That’s nothing new.” I say
un-amused.

“
Does Ben always shave his
balls before he hangs out with you?” Eric says trying not to
laugh.

“
That’s disgusting!” I
shout and punch Eric in the arm, although I do want to share in his
laughter, especially when I think how Ben never once had an ounce
of hair down there.

“
Yeah it was” Eric laughs,
“Especially when it was all over the bottom of our
shower.”

I roll my eyes, “We were fine being
just friends you know.”

“
Friends who secretly
wanted to bang each other.” Eric chuckles.

“
I don’t think so.” I snap
back. “He just couldn’t handle that I was the only woman left in
the greater Chicago, Illinois area he hadn’t slept
with.”

“
Oh come on. You can’t
expect me to believe that. You are not just some girl to him
Megan.”

“
Really? Did he tell you
that?” I cynically snort.

“
What more do you want from
him?”

“
I want him to stop being
such a man-whore and grow the fuck up,” I shout in a hushed
whisper. Phew. That felt great to let out.

“
Don’t you dare even start
with that - you knew his past way before you decided to hop in the
sack with him.” Eric scolds tapping his foot on the
floor.

“
Whatever” I wave my hand
dismissively “It’s over anyway.” I sigh and slouch in my
seat.

“
Well I beg to differ.”
Eric says crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“
Yeah, well you would.” I
groan annoyed by this ridiculous brotherhood crap Eric is laying on
me right now.

“
Well what are you going to
do about work? You two practically share the same desk.” He reminds
me.

I wince on the inside but coolly shrug
on the outside. I had never thought of that little implication
before…

“
Well I don’t know what to
tell you.” I say.

“
You are being difficult,
you know that right?” He says and I turn red.

“
This conversation is
over.” I snap and shove my headphones back into my ears.

Eric rolls his eyes and leans back in
his seat. I look away from him and stare helplessly out the window.
He does raise a good point. What will happen once I get back to
Chicago and am forced to see Ben at work? Uggh! I want to be at
home in my condo lounging in my flannel pajamas and eating a box of
Dad’s Oatmeal cookies properly sulking in my own heartbreak and
misery. Because even though I know I should snap out of this funk;
right now, I just don’t want to.

Chapter 21

When I wake up the next morning, I am
thrilled to be in my own bed. My first instinct is to throw off my
sheets, put on a sharp blazer, hop on the subway and head off to
work. But then my second instinct rolls around about fifteen
seconds later, whacks me over the head and reminds me there is a
consequence of actually going into the office: I’ll be forced to
see Ben. I recognize I am being a tad over dramatic and truth be
told, I can’t avoid him forever. But I can’t fathom my reality
right now. I would rather hide out in my condo and pretend the
outside world doesn’t exist, and that Jessica didn’t hate me, and
that Ben didn’t dis me entirely by boarding an early
flight.

Instead I call in sick and make up
some lame excuse about having traveler’s diarrhea. Then I fumble my
way into the bathroom, brush out my bed head and wash away my
mascara ridden raccoon eyes. It doesn’t take long after that for me
to treat myself to a pity parade. I find my way into my kitchen,
chow down on a whole box of Oreo cookies and pound back a pint of
freezer burnt cookie dough ice cream. My stomach moans and groans,
then bloats up like a balloon. I walk helplessly into my bedroom,
close my blinds and bury my head into my pillows to create a world
of darkness and sob. But even after some good dry heaves, a full
box of Kleenex, and a “Big Bang Theory” marathon on Comedy Central,
I still feel like I am being somewhat of a loser. I feel guilty for
taking a fake sick day, especially after I just took a week off.
But more importantly I feel pathetic about moping around like a
heartbroken hormonal adolescent.

I decide to check in with
fellow realtor/friend, Emily Waterford, who covered for me all week
while I was away. Her chipper voice beams through the line, and
cheerfully informs me
we
closed three properties and I picked up six new
listings. But before I can even ask her any follow up questions,
Emily blurts out that one of my new properties is a
multimillion-dollar listing in the Gold Coast district. I nearly
drop my phone on the hardwood floor and grab onto my nightstand to
stop myself from keeling over.

“
Really?” I
squeal.

“
Yes really!” Emily shouts.
She’s so loud, I have to pull the phone away from my ear, “The lady
who owns the property said she heard you were the best and only
wanted you on her listing.”

I jump up and down and bite my tongue
just so I don’t let out one too many ridiculous shouts of joy. I
dance around my bedroom and celebrate in my cozy pajamas. This news
brings on my first real wave of happiness in the past few days.
I’ve come so far in my career to land a property like that! I wish
I could just hang up with Emily and call Ben to gush about this
great accomplishment, but obviously that isn’t going to happen. I
am sure he already heard about it anyway. News like that around our
office doesn’t stay quiet for long.

“
Well enough about work.
How was the wedding?” Emily asks with her bubbly British
accent.

Emily moved from England to follow her
high-school sweetheart, when he landed some high-paying marketing
job in Chicago. But last year, he left her for another woman and
she was devastated. She even contemplated heading back to England
to be with her family, but ultimately decided to stay here while
the real estate market was booming.

“
It was great.” I lie
through my teeth and take a sip of my coffee.

“
I bet.” she squeals, then
continues with a chuckle, “I’m glad you’re back. But even more so
relieved to have Ben and his sexy self floating around the office
again.”

“
Oh yeah…” I mutter hoping
Emily will catch on to my disinterest in her Ben
obsession.

She continues to ramble, “When he
strolled in this morning, he lit up the room looking so ravishing
with his tan. Thank God I had to meet a client though. I was hardly
able to stay focused with him prancing all around my
desk.”

I just want to hang up right now.
Emily has always been drawn to Ben, but it became progressively
worse once she became single. She always makes ridiculous comments
to me, like how hot Ben looks in blue or how tight his butt looks
in a pair of slacks. She inappropriately flirts with him at work,
making it border line sexual harassment. I would normally laugh at
her and act disgusted when she decided to share her Ben fantasies
with me, but now it just makes me want to scream.

“
Did you happen to get any
sun on that pasty skin of yours?” she asks filling our
silence.

“
Yeah, I guess. I think I’m
what they call sun-kissed.” I say and snuggle deep into my pillows.
The thought of Ben cruising into the office looking as sexy as ever
is making me nauseated.

“
Well I would gladly
sun-kiss all over that tanned body of Ben’s if he’d let me.” Emily
chuckles, waiting for my usual reaction of laughter, but the line
falls silent. She clears her throat and asks, “Did you meet
Jessica’s cousin? What was his name? Stanley or
something?”

“
Steven.” I mumble, “But it
didn’t work out.”

I scratch my head and contemplate
disclosing everything to Emily. Who better than a swanky
open-minded Brit to confide in? Besides, she is what I would
consider neutral. She is friends with Ben and me, and knows us
outside of our tight-knit group of friends. She shares all her
relationship problems with me (whether I want to hear about them or
not), plus she is a good listener. But even though we are good
friends, I don’t know if I can trust her not to say something to
the other people we work with. She is known to have quite the yap
on her. I hardly want intimate details of my personal life
spreading like wildfire amongst my colleagues. Therefore, I’ll keep
my mouth shut.

“
That’s too bad. Was
Jessica upset it didn’t work out? How was she anyway? Was she still
a complete bridezilla once she got to Costa Rica?” Emily asks with
a slight humor to her voice.

“
I guess she was a little
better once we got there.” I say.

“
What’s wrong with you?”
Emily asks, clearly detecting something is up, “You just landed the
listing of a lifetime and spent a whole week basking in the sun.
Did something happen you’re not telling me about?”

“
No, I’m just jet-legged.”
I lie.

“
Alright” Emily says
letting her voice trail off.

“
I’ll see you
tomorrow?”

“
I guess so. I’ll be in the
office around nine. I left your new client files on your desk. See
you then.”

“
Thanks Emily – “And she
has already disconnected from our conversation.

I toss my phone to the floor and pull
my comforters up to my neck. I roll over to hear the empty box of
cookies I ate last night crinkle beneath me. I yank it out from
behind my back, whip it to the floor and hear it crash into my
nightstand. I push my head firmly into my pillow, and get a faint
scent of Ben’s cologne still lingering on my unchanged sheets. I
moan and flip onto my back and stare blankly at the ceiling. Ugh. I
cannot face the thought of going to work. The only thing that makes
it tolerable right now is knowing I got that big Gold Coast
listing, but even that is hardly enough to excite me knowing I will
see Ben every which way I turn.