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Needing answers and a sympathetic voice, I give Mickey a call. It’s 7:30 in New York and she’s awake. She picks up pretty quickly with a cheerful, “What’s up, gorge?” In the background I can hear the sounds of Manhattan traffic and pedestrians, all starting the work day.
“I’m coming home,” I say. I try to be cheerful but even to my own ears I sound like death.
“What happened?” she asks, instantly serious.
I hesitate. What had happened? Too much, or maybe too little. But Mickey is waiting, so I give it a shot. “Cheryl apologized to me for screwing me over and then turned around and fucked Kara’s boyfriend and tried to blame it on me and I almost lost the deal and Nick and I are breaking up, but I don’t know if I can say that because were we even together?” I projectile vomit my issues all over Mickey in a putrid wave.
Thankfully, Mickey is the kind of friend who isn’t afraid to roll up her sleeves and hold her bestie’s hair.
“Okay, slow down. One thing at a time,” Mickey says. “First, did you lose the deal?”
I twirl a strand of hair tightly around one of my fingers until the circulation starts to get cut off. “No,” I admit. “But it was close. Nick had to come behind me and sweep everything up.”
“Well that’s why he makes so much damn money,” Mickey says. “And besides, he would have screwed the deal if you hadn’t convinced him to go to Europe in the first place.”
“You’re right,” I admit.
“Okay so now on to Cheryl. What?”
“I’m still asking myself the same thing,” I groan. “It felt like we’d kinda reached a… Well I wouldn’t go so far as to say we mended things, but we weren’t on such horrible terms. Now things are just as shitty as they were before.”
Mickey sighs. It’s not exasperated, more like she just wants to figure out the best way to say something that I’m not going to like to hear.
“Okay, okay,” I say. “Just get it out.”
“I’m not trying to be insensitive,” she says. “But shouldn’t you be a little past caring about your relationship with Cheryl?”
Logic screams yes! Unfortunately logic doesn’t rule my life. “It’s more complicated than that,” I say. “We had a lot of good times together. She was my friend for years.”
“She stole your — albeit shitty — man and went on your honeymoon. That’s not something a friend does. No, Evie, you two merely existed together for a lot of years. Don’t mistake nostalgia for happiness.”
As usual, Mickey’s right. I am upset about Cheryl, but that’s not the root of the problem. “Am I just an absolutely terrible judge of character?” I ask weakly.
Mickey snorts. “Well considering the fact that we get along famously, I want to say no.”
“But I was so ready to forgive Cheryl, and was somehow just as blindsided when she betrayed my trust again. How could I be so stupid?”
“Listen to me, Evie. You’re not stupid. You’re kind and forgiving. You’re willing to take a chance on people. I don’t think that’s stupid. I think it’s incredibly brave.”
“I don’t feel brave. I feel like shit.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what being brave feels like. That’s why it’s so commendable.”
I chuckle slightly, the first time all day. “You should embroider that on a pillow.”
She laughs too. “Look, can I go out on a limb and say this sounds like it’s more about Nick than Cheryl?”
Any lightness plummets at the sound of his name. “No,” I insist. “They’re completely different issues.”
“Are they?” she asks. “Or are you wondering that if you put your heart out there it’ll just get broken again, and this time by someone you like a hell of a lot more than Brent?”
I open my mouth to refute her and then can’t. “Have you considered being a therapist? You’re a little too good at this.”
“The product of many years of comforting in drunk girl bathrooms,” she says. “But I’ll take the compliment and redirect you to my question that you’re not going to avoid answering.”
I sigh. “First, a bit of history,” I start. Then I fill her in on the mistaken mention of “love” a couple days ago. Not one to save my feelings, Mickey hisses when I reach the climax. Other than that, she’s silent through my description of Ibiza, and how we’ve gone from having sex every day to only kissing while we’ve been here.
“And now he’s been gone for like, an hour. He said he’d be right back, but I’m starting to think he decided that he’d rather rent a rowboat than sit next to me on flights for the next ten hours.”
