Everyone has a friend like Allie.
No one deserves one, mind you, but we've all got one. Always canceling plans at the last minute, always making everything about herself, the roommate who not only eats your cereal but doesn't even close the box when she's done, and of course she's mystified at just why she has so many former friends. You know the type as well as I do. And I knew it about her long before she married Jeremy - back when the three of us were inseparable friends and nothing more.
Yes, yes, I know: why were we still friends if I knew that so well about her? I could toss out all sorts of cliches here - sorority sisters are forever, "she does have redeeming qualities", thinking she would change after college, or some silly anecdote about sharing her sandwich with me once on a trip where I forgot my lunch - and every last one of them would hold some water. But, really, a decade out of college and old enough now to know better, it's got to be something bigger than that, hasn't it?
Yes, it's got to be, and yes, it is. We'll get to that!
Neither Allie nor that big reason were on my mind that morning, when I woke up wearing last night's makeup in my third-floor downtown walk-up. Feeling once again like the lucky single lady I am, I ambled off to the bathroom and enjoyed a long shower and wondered what I ought to do with my day off. It was a bright autumn day out there, no one to meet and my last boyfriend gone long enough for me to think of looking for someone new, and I had a stack of paperbacks I hadn't yet devoured. By the time I turned off the water, it was settled. Put on something pretty and it'd be off to the coffeeshop for some reading and seeing and maybe being seen.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd worn the blue and green print dress I chose, but I figured it would stand out a bit against the earth tones of the season without looking too outrageous. I had it laid out beside me on the bed and was pulling my black stockings on when I heard his rap at the door. "Sarah?"
"Jeremy?" I stood up and grabbed up the dress, and wondered just what Allie had done to him now.
"Yes, can I come in?" He was trying, but the anguish in his voice was unmissable - or at least for me it was.
"Of course! I'll be right there." As I pulled the dress on and zipped it up and gave myself a very quick once-over in the mirror on the bedroom door, I told myself the same thing I told myself every time Jeremy came by.
It's wrong. Don't do it. Don't even let him in.
But as usual, there was no sense in even trying to convince myself.
Why was I still friends with Allie? One word: Jeremy. Call us Betty and Veronica if you want, but it was more complicated than that.
Eleven years ago he'd chosen her, and in retrospect I was not surprised. Smart is sexy, I guess, and Allie was top ten in our class and she did look undeniably cute with her thick glasses and her ever-preppy clothes. Her nerdy appearance never betrayed what an absolute genius she was at manipulating guys, either. "They lap up emotional intimacy like you couldn't imagine, Sarah," she'd explained to me right after she and Jeremy had become official. "You treat him like just one of the girls for one rainy afternoon somewhere and he'll be putty in your hands. Maybe I shouldn't have duped Jer into falling for me like that, but I did give him three years to do it on his own."
I had done my best to be a gracious loser. I knew then and now how logic didn't apply when you were in love, and that there was nothing I could do to help Jeremy until he saw Allie's true colors. I'd promised myself way back then that on that inevitable day, I would be there for my old friend in his hour of need.
Let's just say, I had since kept that promise and then some.
All that was in the back of my mind as I rushed through the kitchen to answer the door. What was at the front of my mind? What do you think?
I flung the door open, but Jeremy lingered on the doorstep. Just as I'd anticipated, he looked as pathetic as he sounded, almost like he was afraid of me. His eyes were red and damp, and his freshly-shaven cheeks were flushed. "I'm sorry, Sarah, I didn't know where else to go at this hour," he said, still making no move to come in even as I was holding the door wide open for him.
"Don't be ridiculous, Jeremy, you know you're welcome here!" I reached out a hand to pull him inside and took him in my arms, leaving the door open for the moment. "Come on in. You can dry the tears on my dress." And to my delight, he did just that. "She's hurt you again, I can tell," I said, stroking his hair with one hand.
"It's never going to stop, is it?" he said.
"No, it isn't!" I admitted. "She's always been a malcontent and she's always been selfish, you know that. Do I even want to know what it was this time?"
"Probably not," he sniffled. "Well, then again, maybe you do. I'm not sure. What I mean is - oh, I really shouldn't have come here at all, we both know that, but..."
"Don't be shy, Jeremy," I said. "You've been here before. Listen, I was just about to make breakfast anyway. Go take your shoes off and lie down, and tell me or don't tell me when you're ready." I reluctantly let him go, and shut and locked the door. "No one needs to know you've come here again, all right?"
"If you're sure, Sarah."
"Don't I sound sure?"
He nodded, and I caught the first glimpse of a smile on his face as he kicked his shoes off and headed for the bedroom.
It was a mad dash to scramble the eggs and grill the bread and mix the muesli and chopped apples in with the strawberry yogurt, but it was a labor of love. I could feel the electricity right out to my fingertips as I spooned the coffee into the French press and waited for the water to boil. I felt a lot like I just might boil, too. Every time Jeremy came here might well be the last, after all. Or it might be the time he finally figured out it was never going to get better with Allie, and just maybe we wouldn't have to hide anything anymore! I had learned not to get my hopes up about that. But nothing could tamp down my hopes for what was to happen after breakfast!
As I picked up the tray to carry it into the bedroom in my stocking feet, I got an idea. I set the tray back down and reached under my dress and pulled my panties off.
They were as wet as the dew outside. But we've all got to eat.
I was hoping Jeremy might have taken the liberty of undressing and getting under the covers. But the smile on his face as I carried the tray in was a more than welcome concession prize. "Oh, that looks wonderful, Sarah," he said as I set the tray down beside him and then climbed onto the bed. He leaned over and kissed me, and then stammered, "I...uh..."
"You don't have to say you love me," I said as I poured us both some coffee.
"I do. But thanks."
"Now then," I said as I spooned out some yogurt for each of us, "If you want to talk about it..."
"I'm surprised Allie didn't tell you already," Jeremy said. "We had..." He stopped for a sip of coffee, but I could tell he was still working up the courage to say whatever it was. Closing his eyes as he swallowed, he finally got it out. "We had a pregnancy scare."
"A scare?" I asked. "Don't you want kids?"
"I did," he said. "Past tense.
Did
. First of all we can't afford it until we pay off our student loans and that's a few years off yet, and besides...what if it's a boy? Can you even imagine Allie raising a son?"
"She'd turn him into the worst sort of misogynist pig," I agreed. "But I take it that's not what the fight was about?"
Jeremy shook his head as he swallowed his latest bite. "No, she didn't want it now any more than I did, that's right."
"But she found some excuse to be upset with you when you found out she wasn't pregnant, didn't she?"
