Vintage Lisa, so ready and willing to forgive. I hadn’t even apologized yet, but all she ever needed was for me to just show up. She was always the bigger person, dammit, always so much more grown-up and thought-out and cool. It made me wonder what her payoff was for staying friends with me all these years.
“Okay, I deserved that.” I decided to just lay myself out on the altar of humility. “But Lisa, Oh, God. I’m just so, so sorry for everything I said. I was selfish and rude and I don’t know what got into me.”
I sank down on the floor across from her as she said, “A little of the ol’ bitch, that’s what.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“Maybe a pinch of jealousy?”
I hadn’t realized it until she said it, but there it was. No way could I even dream of taking off on such a huge adventure. “Yeah. That too.”
“And maybe a big old dose of Trip Wilmington’s man-goo?”
That one threw me, made us both start laughing. “Are you insane? What is wrong with you, perv?” Then, in answer to her ridiculously phrased probing, “And no, unfortunately. Virginity still very much intact, you freak.”
She picked up a green piece of fabric and threw it at me, but I managed to dodge to the side and catch it in my hand.
“Look at you with the catlike reflexes!”
I was busy inspecting the Girl Scout sash in my hand, checking out all her badges. I had a similar one somewhere at home, with most of the same achievements. Except that Lisa’s were lovingly sewn on in perfectly aligned rows, whereas mine where stuck on haphazardly with Krazy Glue. Needless to say, I didn’t earn my sewing patch that year. “Where’d you dig this thing out from? You’re not packing it, are you?”
Lisa reached out and I handed it over, watching as she ran her fingers over the embroidered disks. “No. I already packed my stuff for...” the word California had become a four-letter obscenity between us, and I sensed her hesitation to say it aloud. “...for the car. I also have a stack of boxes downstairs in the dining room which need to be shipped, but those” she pointed to a pile of clothes in the corner, “need to go to Goodwill, and this” she swept her arms around the scattered remnants all over the floor, “needs to get packed away for the attic.”
“My God, Lis. Looks like you’ve categorized every single thing you own!”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
I hopped up and grabbed one of the black garbage bags from a roll on the bed and started stuffing the Goodwill clothes in it. Lisa tried to protest, but it was easier to talk while we were both preoccupied with busy hands.
“So, when are you leaving?” I asked.
Lisa stopped sorting and answered, “Tonight. Midnight.” She sounded resolute, doing that convincing-herself thing again.
“That’s a weird time to start a trip.”
“It was my idea, actually. It was the last possible minute that we could leave and still get there in time for class registration.”
“But why? What were you wai-”
Oh.
I saw the look on her face and realized she’d been waiting for me. There was no way she was skipping town without us saying a proper goodbye.
“You knew I was coming today, didn’t you?”
She laughed out, “I knew you couldn’t leave without doing so first.”
“Oh, you manipulative witch!”
I picked up her Cabbage Patch doll and went to hurl it at her big, poofy head when she stopped my act with, “No, not Cassidy! Don’t do it!”
I was cracking up, even before looking into the dirty face of Cassidy Cleopatra Pink Poopypants Bourgeois. Obviously, we’d taken full advantage of the Rename-Your-Kid option on her birth certificate. I remembered that we’d also given her my mother’s birthdate. That was back when Kate was still around and I liked her enough to bestow such an honor.
“You’re right. That would just be taking things too far. Sorry, Cass.” I laid her in a box near where Lisa was sitting, thinking that poor Cassidy had better be prepared for a very long hibernation.
“You know,” she started in, suddenly intent on ripping off the Band-Aid. “Deciding to do this wasn’t easy.”
I acquiesced. “I know. I know that now.”
She gave me a small, grateful smile, then continued with her explanation. “When Pick first suggested the idea-down at the beach, by the way, after grad-When he first asked me to go with him, I was ecstatic, thinking that he must really and truly love me.” She absentmindedly tossed a few things into the box, adding, “But then, on the other hand, I almost immediately became... resentful. And angry. And scared. I mean, there was no way I could actually tell him yes, right? I just put my blinders on and focused solely on The Plan, you know? You and me. New York. End of story. It took me weeks of fighting Pick before I finally realized I didn’t know why I was even fighting him in the first place.”