She's With Stupid Page 14

  Lana relayed this information to Kate and was rewarded with a piercing screech in her ear. Closing her eyes, she again covered the phone to talk to Emilie. “I guess Will’s cat got in there and tore everything up. The tulle’s trashed, the pillows pummeled, and Will used the candle in the bathroom to deodorize after…well, I’d really rather not recount that.”

  Emilie burst into a fit of giggles at Lana’s disgusted expression.

  Biting her lip to keep from laughing too, Lana spoke into the phone again. “Kate, you need to calm down, okay? We can get that stuff anytime, so — yes, Emilie’s here — no, she’s not laughing at you — yes, I promise. You what? Well, um, let me ask her.”

  Lana looked at Emilie, who was trying to muffle her laughter in a couch pillow. “Em, she’s freaking out. She says she needs to get the stuff tonight, right now. And she wants us to go with her.”

  Emilie pulled the pillow off of her face and looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. “It’s nearly eleven o’clock! The place where I got all that stuff is closed. Why can’t she wait?”

  Lana shrugged. “I think she just wants to get out of that house. I can hear him and the cat whining in the background and Kate keeps shouting at him to grow a pair.” She rolled her eyes sarcastically. “It’s just another day in paradise for the happy couple.”

  After a long pause, Emilie grudgingly sighed. “The things I do for that girl,” she muttered. “I should be granted sainthood.”

  Lana smiled. “Kate? Kate, shut up for two seconds! Em and I will swing by and pick you up in twenty minutes, okay? Try not to kill Stupid before we get there.”

  She placed the phone back in the cradle and glanced at Emilie, who looked less than thrilled. Lana felt the same way, but she reached over to tug on Emilie’s hand anyway. Groaning in unison, they heaved themselves off of the couch and moved to change their clothes for what they both sensed was going to be a very long evening.

  An hour later, Emilie was cringing inside at the cruel turn of fate that led her to be sanctioning the purchase of wedding supplies from a store that contained a grocery, a clothing department, and a fast food restaurant all under the same fluorescent-lit roof. Kate was her friend, her very distraught friend, and if she wanted to buy her wedding accoutrements at a super store, then so be it.

  Emilie would just have to hold her tongue, sip her lukewarm latte every time she felt like interrupting Kate’s shopping binge, and be sure to keep the receipt so that she could return all this crap tomorrow. Kate was simply too far gone to reason with tonight.

  “I cannot believe he let that stupid cat into my closet!” Kate had recently moved on from bashing Will to bashing his cat with alarmingly strong hatred in her voice. “How many times do I have to tell him that animal is a menace? How many times do I have to tell him to keep her away from my stuff? Is there any limit to how utterly dense a person or a cat can be?”

  Lana and Emilie let her vent, murmuring occasional sounds of support. Emilie thought she was doing an excellent job maintaining her silence — at least until Kate picked up a bag of Valentine candy and suggested they purchase them now, while they were on sale, and use them as favors for a wedding that was not set to take place for three and a half months.

  Grabbing the bag out of her friend’s hands with an appalled groan, Emilie put the chocolate back on the shelf and pushed Kate out of the candy aisle with Lana trailing quickly behind.

  “Okay, that’s it,” Emilie said firmly. “Kate, we have listened to you rant for the last forty-five minutes about a cat, and I feel I must ask: have you recently hit your head on a large rock or are you really this oblivious to your own feelings?”

  Kate wrenched her arm out of Emilie’s grip. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am completely in touch with my feelings of loathing for that cat.”

  Sighing, Lana placed a soft hand on her shoulder. “Kate, if you honestly believe you’re this upset because of a cat, then you need to think about giving back that spiffy psychology degree.” At Kate’s blank look, Lana threw her hands in the air. “All you and Will do is argue over grocery lists and how late you’re allowed to stay out and what color you’re going to paint the kitchen. You’re not even married yet and you’re miserable!”

  “This has nothing to do with me and Will! I just hate his cat. And don’t be naïve, Lana—everyone argues over stupid stuff like that. That’s marriage.”

  Emilie snorted into her mocha latte, and Kate gave her a look that said, “Spit it out!” After a brief struggle to forever hold her peace, Emilie gave in, put her hand on her hip, and let Kate have it.

  “Katherine, every time we’re together, you tell us another weird and/or nauseating thing that the Incredible Cheese has done. It’s clear that even you are fed up with his oddball behavior, but let’s set that issue aside for the moment and focus on this: do you honestly think marriage is nothing more than a never-ending argument over things like laundry detergent?”

  “Don’t look at me like that, Emilie,” Kate said with a glare. “I do think marriage is basically boring and full of daily irritants, yes. And you’re the one who’s naïve if you think it’s anything more.”

  Emilie’s gaze sharpened on Kate’s mulish expression. “Kate, that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. I realize that none of us experienced the perfect example of married life from our parents, but didn’t you learn anything? Maybe bad marriages are about constant squabbling and sniping, but a good one should be more than just a constant source of irritation.”

  Kate harrumphed, but she did not instantly dispute Emilie’s hypothesis because they all knew she had a point. Emilie’s parents had split when she was seven; Kate’s when she was twelve. Lana’s parents were the only ones still together, probably because Lana’s mom found divorce to be a sin on par with first degree murder. This had perhaps skewed their view of wedded bliss.

  However, Kate failed to see how that had anything to do with her and Will.

  “I don’t see how that has anything to do with me and Will,” she insisted, rolling her eyes for added effect.

  Emilie rolled her eyes right back at Kate. “Now who’s being naïve? You can lie to yourself all you want, but there is a deeper reason than mere boredom that has you so all-fired determined to marry someone I don’t think you even like.”

  That stung —probably because there was a big fat grain of truth to it— but Kate was not in any way prepared to admit that to Emilie. Instead, she gave her a snarky smile. “Well, then please explain it to me, Wise One. I forgot that you were the authority on perfect relationships. All you and Leo have to argue about is, hmm, let me think, his fiancée!

  “Then there’s your long-suppressed love for Ethan, which you refuse to acknowledge.” Because Kate was on a roll, she didn’t even pause to note the stricken look on Emilie’s face or the warning one on Lana’s. “It might even work out happily if you could stop being a robot, move past something that happened when you were teenagers, and admit to yourself that you still love him. But you won’t let yourself. You’ve been too busy holding on to a man who wasn’t even available because you think you’re less likely to be hurt with someone you don’t really want than with someone you do, which, by the way, is nuts!”

  The second her mouth stopped moving, Kate regretted her words. Emilie looked as if she had been punched by a jackhammer, and Kate reflexively reached for her. When Emilie stepped back, Kate felt like she, too, had been hit. “Em, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say that! I didn’t even mean it, I just—” She stopped speaking and looked miserably at Lana for help.

  “You felt backed into a corner and you lashed out,” said Lana. She put her arm around a shaking Emilie. “Kate didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Em.” Lana considered Kate’s guilty expression for a moment before sighing. “And we didn’t mean to hurt yours, Kate. But if we can’t be honest with each other, who can we be honest with?”

  “No one,” said Emilie. Taking a deep breath, Emilie offered a small conci
liatory smile to Kate. “But you’ve got to stop bringing up Ethan at every opportunity, Kate. It’s been weeks since that dumb party and I haven’t heard a thing from him, which only cements in my mind the unfortunate fact that he hasn’t changed at all.”

  Kate opened her mouth to contradict that, but Emilie held her hand up to stop her from interrupting. “As for Leo, I fully admit that was an exercise in stupidity. I should have known better,” she said in a voice that was low and despondent.

  Glad to be off the hook, and glad to be talking about someone other than Will, Kate refrained from again pointing out Ethan’s obvious interest in Emilie and instead jumped to her defense. “Frog Boy has serious psychological —and psycho— problems. You know that, right? You are way too special for someone like him!”

  Emilie shook her head and smiled sadly. “I know he’s an ass, all right? What I don’t know is why I was so determined to keep the idea of us going.” She held up her hand. “Before you start, yes, I know I have unresolved issues regarding Ethan. I’m just too tired to face them right now.”

  Everyone got very quiet after that. Lana looked at both of her friends, standing in the middle of the cereal aisle with their heads down. Something had to be done, and it appeared as if it was now up to her to save the day.

  With a sigh, she reached out and lightly smacked both of them on the back of their heads. In unison, Kate and Emilie touched their heads and said, “Hey!”

  “Guys, do you know how pathetic we are?” Lana asked unapologetically. “It’s Friday night, and we are standing in the middle of a superstore holding Jordan almonds and tulle. We are way too young to be brought this low!”

  Kate pouted sullenly. “What else are we going to do?”

  “This is the first social outing I’ve had in a week,” Emilie said. “I think I’m doing well.”

  Lana looked doubtfully at them both. “You are not doing well, Emmy. Neither of you are doing well if this is your idea of a good time. Brian’s friends have a show tonight. Why don’t we go? It could be fun — at least we won’t be under this depressing lighting.”

  “Will there be alcohol?” asked a hopeful Kate.

  “Lots. Plus, I know the bartender so I bet we’ll get a discount.” Lana wiggled her eyebrows temptingly.

  Seeing Lana’s eagerness and Kate’s sudden keen interest, Emilie heaved a put-upon sigh. “Fine. Let’s go have fun. But I’m going to need a lot of liquor if this bar is anything like the ones you frequented in L.A.”

  It turned out that the bar was about a thousand times worse than Lana’s L.A. haunts, not having the minor saving grace of actually being in L.A., and Kate and Emilie found themselves sticking close together as they made their way towards the bar. Both would have preferred the relative peace of the Pub Hub, but Lana insisted that this place was super-fun.

  The super-fun place was actually a bar/dry cleaning mat, which was disturbing to Emilie on several levels, not the least of which was how many diseases must be constantly transmitted through those washing machines of death.

  Resolved to put on a happy face, they sidled up to the end of the relatively clean bar. “Four shots!” Kate yelled to the bartender.

  “Kate, I don’t know if my body can handle that much tequila.”

  “Just do it.” Kate shoved two shot glasses into Emilie’s hand.

  Emilie dubiously eyed the alcohol before downing first one, and, gasping for breath, then the other. She was frantically sucking on a lime slice when Lana emerged from the smoky haze by the stage and slapped her on the back.

  “Having fun yet, ladies?” She grinned as she motioned to the bartender to bring more tequila.

  “Oh, sure, loads of fun.” Emilie was aiming for a sarcastic tone, but it ended up sounding kind of slurry.

  “I, for one, am having a blast,” Kate declared. “Anything is better than sitting at home watching Stupid Will play video games.”

  Kate took another shot and, by Emilie’s count, was on her fourth shot in as many minutes, and Lana was presently doing her best to catch up to her. Trying to keep up with her friends, Emilie sipped another shot and then abruptly sat down on the nearest bar stool. Having spent the better part of high school and college actually studying as opposed to partying, she found intoxication to be far more troublesome than she had previously anticipated.

  Blinking furiously to clear her blurry vision, Emilie gave Lana a curious glance. “Where’s Brian?”

  “Oh, he’s around here somewhere. He’s in a foul mood tonight.” Lana shrugged, trying to look casual, but she failed to disguise her frustration. “What else is new?”

  Emilie reached out to pat Lana’s shoulder, miscalculated the distance, and unexpectedly found herself flat on her back on the decidedly dingy floor of the bar.

  “Ow,” was her first response. “Eww!” was her second as her friends giggled and tried to pick her up.

  “Whoa there, babe! Slow it down.” Kate cackled as she and Lana hauled Emilie off the floor and back onto the stool.

  Lana tried to ascertain if there were any injuries by running her hands up and down Emilie’s legs, but she was too busy laughing with Kate to do a proper job of it. A disgruntled Emilie shoved Lana’s hands away before they could goose her.

  “Hey! I didn’t fall on that, okay? Sheesh.”

  Mortified, Emilie pushed her long hair out of her eyes and risked a glance around. She was relieved, and slightly annoyed, that no one in this dive had even taken notice of her plight. She snorted at her apparent invisibility. It really figured.

  “See,” said Kate, “this is definitely better than staying at home and moping!”

  Emilie stuck her tongue out at Kate and started sucking on another lime to get the taste of alcohol out of her mouth.

  They passed the next hour in general merriment, though Emilie decided to lay off the sauce in the interest of self-preservation. Lana slowed down as well and began periodically craning her head around to view the rest of the bar.

  “Am I boring you?” asked Kate, interrupting her poetic musings on the potential merits of performing legally sanctioned, mandatory castrations on men who cheat and/or lie to their significant other.

  Lana shook her head in denial. “Not at all, you know how fascinating we find it when we get a glimpse into what kind of criminal mastermind you will eventually become.” She smirked at Kate’s faux-offended expression. “I was just checking to see if Brian was around.”

  Emilie gave her a sympathetic look. “He’s been MIA tonight, huh? What’s his deal?”

  “Honestly, I have no clue. I wish—”

  Lana was interrupted by greetings from a guy with unkempt dreadlocks and very dirty pants. She turned to hug him (thus causing both Kate and Emilie to scrunch their noses in mild disgust) and assured the girls she would be right back. She hopped off of her stool and disappeared into the smokiness of the bar with Bob Marley-lite, who wanted to introduce her to some of his friends, who they could only presume were as dirty as he himself was. Lana had quite an eclectic collection of acquaintances.

  Scooting over a seat, Kate sloppily threw an arm around Emilie and grinned. “Are you feeling any better about the Stupid situation?”

  “Oh, sure, getting sloshed and falling off bar stools really boosts my self-esteem.”

  “Aww, poor Emmy.” Kate stuck out her lower lip and batted her eyes. “It’s so hard being a redheaded vixen with no man tying her down.”

  Emilie sighed with affection. “Don’t you start whining, now. We both have pretty dismal love lives and it’s nobody’s fault but our own.” She glanced surreptitiously around the bar before whispering, “Um, do you think it’s safe to use the bathroom in this place?”

  Kate’s gaze circled the room. “Probably not, but I’ll go with you to make sure one of these freaks doesn’t accost you and throw you down the cellar.”

  After Kate finished her drink they rushed to the back of the bar, behind several washing machines and down one very dark corridor. Once they fou
nd the tiny restroom, they held their breaths and did what they needed to do as quickly as was humanly possible. As they headed back towards the hum of people in the bar, they snickered and reminisced about the strange places they had allowed Lana to drag them to. They came to the conclusion that this particular one took the cake for general weirdness, but definitely scored points on originality.

  Because they were chuckling so hard about getting too old for places like this, Emilie and Kate neglected to look where they were going. As a result, Emilie turned the corner and smashed right into Brian Connelly, who appeared to be working his way through the bottle of bourbon in his hand all by his lonesome.

  Though he and Lana had been dating for awhile now, this was the first time Emilie and Kate had actually seen him since high school. Presumably, Lana had been trying to hide the fact that, although he was still just as cute as he had been ten years ago, he also appeared to have become a raging alcoholic.

  Brian staggered back at the impact and Emilie reached out to steady him, splashing liquor onto her new Prada boots as a result.

  As recognition dawned, Brian’s face split into a silly grin and he launched himself at her, engulfing her in a suffocating hug.

  “Emmy-lee-lee! It’s you!”

  “Clearly,” she replied.

  Ignoring her tone, Brian laughed and hugged her tighter. “How you been, sugar?”

  Since he seemed about ten degrees past stupid with drink, Emilie patted his back and attempted to dislodge him. She was going to need to breathe soon. Kate helped by simply kicking Brian’s leg and pulling Emilie out of his reach when he began hopping around in pain. Looking up from his sore shin, Brian caught sight of Kate.

  “Oh, it’s you.” He glowered at Kate for a moment and continued rubbing his leg. “I forgot what a pain in the ass you two were.”

  Kate smiled and nodded. “Glad to reconnect with you, too, Asshat. We were going to look for Lana. Wanna come with us?”