Your Perfect Life

“She’ll be here,” I say simply, a little taken aback by the way Jose’s been acting. I’d come here for years and was always treated like a long-lost friend, met at the door with a flute of Veuve Clicquot and chocolate-covered strawberries. Swept through the waiting area to an available chair and the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly. Jose fawning over whatever I was wearing or what celebrity I had profiled on the show the night before. Sometimes we’d even go for drinks afterward at his favorite gay bar, him parading me around to all his friends. Me, dancing the night away with a bunch of incredibly handsome men with six-pack abs. I’d loved every minute of it.

But now, standing here as Rachel, things look a lot different. We waited stiffly for over a half hour in a tiny room in uncomfortable black modern chairs without as much as a tattered copy of InTouch to glance at. Not that Audrey noticed or cared; she was so excited about the winter formal tonight that nothing could bring her down. Finally, a sour-faced assistant escorted us over to Jose, who looked us up and down and shook his head slightly before pulling Audrey’s hair out of a ponytail while rapidly speaking Spanish to his assistant. “Sit,” he ordered before disappearing for another ten minutes, finally returning as if he were doing us a favor by coming back at all. I sat in disbelief at the way he would treat my best friend when I wasn’t around and mentally planned the scathing email I’d write to him once I was back in my own body.

Finally, I hear Casey before I see her. She’s led in like royalty, Jose practically shedding tears of joy upon her arrival. Champagne suddenly appears on a gleaming silver tray and Jose painstakingly explains exactly what he has in mind for Audrey’s hair, even though when I’d asked him the same question earlier he’d waved me off and instructed me to sit down and let him “make the magic.”

“Hi, all,” Rachel says, giving Audrey a tight hug before sitting down next to me. She adjusts her skirt, one of my favorites, a pencil skirt with soft gray pinstripes, and fidgets in her seat as she tries to get comfortable.

“What?” she asks, catching me watching her. Her hand flies up before I can answer. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking, I’m sorry.” She inches closer to me. “I’ve gained five pounds.”

“Where?” I scrutinize my thin frame, not able to detect exactly where the extra weight is. Maybe in my face? Maybe it does look a little fuller?

“This skirt is a little tight,” she says and frowns, running her hand over her stomach.

“I think you look great. I needed some meat on my bones; I know that I was too skinny.” I thought about this that morning as I put on Rachel’s jeans and studied her figure in the mirror. She has hips. She has soft curves in all the right places. She’s feminine. The way I wish I was allowed to look. But I can’t have both a career and a healthy body.

“Sorry I was late,” Rachel says, changing the subject.

I nod toward the firm grip she has on her BlackBerry.

“Work?” I ask.

“Something like that,” she says vaguely, as if I wouldn’t understand. Is that how I used to talk to her? Like my job at GossipTV was so complicated that she wouldn’t understand even the slightest detail? I think back to how I would grasp my cell phone tightly at all times, one time choosing to drop an entire plate of food when I slipped at a party rather than unclasp my grip on what I thought was my lifeline to the rest of the world. The old me would probably die if she knew that my phone lay buried in the bottom of my purse on silent most days now, the people needing my attention most always right in front of me.

Rachel had been vague with me about everything in her life (my life!) since returning from Santa Barbara. I had tried several times to get more information out of her about that trip, both dreading and dying to know what really happened. When I asked where they had dinner, I fought back tears as she told me they went to our spot. Rachel seemed to sense that information would hurt and quickly changed the subject to John’s upcoming surprise party. I didn’t press and assured her that we were all set, the RSVPs were trickling in and aside from a few minor details I was pretty much done planning. I knew she was trying to spare my feelings by not gushing about her time with Charlie, but it still felt like she was hiding something. I prayed she hadn’t figured out what had really happened between us, although I can’t imagine how it wouldn’t have come up at dinner. I didn’t want her pity. Or her disapproval for not coming to her in the first place, although I think she’d be able to understand why. And why, now, I realized how incredibly wrong I had been.

“You’re hanging out with us the rest of the day, right?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says and glances over at Audrey. “You’d think I’d miss this?” she says loudly so Audrey can hear, and in return gets a beaming smile from her.

“Of course not,” I say sarcastically and Rachel gives me a sharp look that I hold until she’s forced to look away.

“Sophie’s play was awesome,” she finally says, breaking the silence a few minutes later.

Liz Fenton , Lisa Steinke's books