Frenemies

by Megan Crane

  “I’m not sure we’re doing anything,” I replied around a yawn. “It’s snowing and it turns out, I don’t think I care.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Georgia said. “I’ll be over around eight.”

  She arrived at seven-thirty, bearing drinks and accompanied by Chris Starling—who seemed perfectly at ease in my living room and with Georgia, I was pleased to see. Even more exciting, though, was the fact that Georgia seemed just as laid-back around Chris. I’d never seen her relaxed around a new guy. Ever.

  “That seems to be going well,” I murmured to Georgia in the kitchen, while Chris poked around in my books.

  “We’ll see,” Georgia murmured back, sounding totally noncommittal, but she was practically radiant.

  Amy Lee and Oscar turned up about fifteen minutes later, also with drinks, although in their case the drink was sparkling cider.

  “I’m quitting alcohol, too,” Oscar told me. “In sympathy.”

  “That’s really sweet of you!” I told him, containing the aw.

  “It’s called survival,” Oscar retorted, and only grinned when Amy Lee made a face at him. Then they were caught up in meeting Chris Starling, making noise about the redecoration, and ordering pizza delivery.

  “I can’t believe this place!” Amy Lee said. She jerked her chin toward Chris Starling and mouthed: So cute! “I thought you were going to do the dormitory thing for the rest of our lives. This is just amazing!”

  “There’s more to do,” I said, grinning. I mouthed: SO cute TOGETHER! “But it’s definitely a good start.”

  “And Irritating Irwin helped you?” she asked, lowering her voice to a whisper, as if she thought he might be pressed up to his wall with a glass tumbler.

  “He was great,” I said. “I couldn’t have done any of this without him.”

  “Does he have a crush on you?” Amy Lee asked, narrowing her eyes at the far wall.

  “Not that I know of.” It not only hadn’t seemed that way to me at the time, it sketched me out to consider it, since that would somewhat take away from the new friendship I’d thought I’d made.

  “I bet he does,” she said, settling into the armchair. “Don’t you think, Georgia?”

  “Absolutely.” Georgia waved her hands around the living room. “Exhibit A.”

  “Wait a minute,” Oscar said. “How is the room an exhibit?”

  “Why would he help Gus out if he didn’t have an ulterior motive?” Amy Lee asked, sounding perfectly reasonable.

  “Because guys can’t just be nice,” Oscar said, rolling his eyes at Chris Starling. “They have to have ulterior motives.”

  “They don’t have to,” Georgia said. “They just do.”

  “Help me out, here,” Oscar begged Chris.

  “I’m with them,” Chris replied, leaning back with his hand resting comfortably on Georgia’s leg, as if it belonged there.

  “You’re killing me,” Oscar told him.

  “I might carry a bag of groceries, but put up shelves and move furniture?” Chris shook his head. “Not unless I thought I had an in.”

  “He’s just a nice guy who doesn’t get out much!” I protested. “You all have evil minds!”

  “Except me,” Oscar said.

  “And Gus, apparently,” Georgia said, eyeing me. “I didn’t know turning thirty meant you’d go all marshmallow-centered.”

  I was saved from answering that by the buzzer for the door, and the immediate heart attack Linus underwent upon hearing it. He barked. He howled. He hurled himself against the front door as if he thought we were under siege.

  Because of this, delivery people did not come to my apartment door more than once.

  “It’s the pizza,” I said, “and you should be grateful, Georgia, because I had a withering comeback planned.”

  “I’m trembling with fear,” Georgia assured me.

  “And anyway,” I told them, grinning as I got to my feet, “you should all consider getting over the Irwin thing, because he’s coming over at eight-thirty.”

  I slipped into the hallway, and headed for the front door below, flicking a glance at Irwin?/?Steve’s door as I passed it. I didn’t think he had a crush on me—and I also didn’t care to rip apart his motivations. If our sudden friendship was going to blow up in my face, I didn’t think there was much I could do about it in advance. It occurred to me that this mind-set was a significant step away from the norm for me.

  Maybe I really was growing up.

  I hurled open the door to the outside and froze as the snow whirled around me in a cloud, but not because I was cold.

  It was Henry.

  “You’re not the pizza man,” I pointed out.

  Unnecessarily.

  He stepped inside, and let the heavy door fall shut behind him as he brushed the snow off. He didn’t look like GQ tonight, he looked a little wild and significantly snow-covered. His jeans and parka were caked in it. But his cheeks were flushed with the cold and the color made his eyes seem as impossible as summer.

  “I like the snow,” he said with a hint of his usual smirk. “So I went for a walk. But then it turned out that I was here.”

  “What a coincidence,” I said.

  “Not really,” he said. “I talked to Helen. She told me a few things.” He looked particularly intent. “She seems to think you’ve moved on from the Nate ordeal.”

  This, then, was my favor. She moved fast.

  “And then Nate talked to me,” Henry continued. “The whole way back from the Cape, in fact. He explained in excruciating detail how and why you and I could never be together, and how he’d explained this to you, too, but you seemed—how did he put it?” Henry smiled slightly. “Unconvinced.”

  “Nate and Helen talk a lot.”

  “They do. I’m hoping they’ll move in together and leave me in peace.”

  “Today’s my birthday,” I felt compelled to tell him. The foyer was small and damp, with a cold draft, but I didn’t feel the chill. I wasn’t sure I was breathing. “I’m thirty. An adult. I have big, extremely adult plans.”

  He fought a grin.

  “What does that mean? A mortgage?”

  “Please. I just redecorated my apartment. I’m in no position to buy a seat cushion, much less something requiring a mortgage.”

  “So only partially adult plans, then.”

  “I thought you were mad at me,” I said in a voice that started off strong but ended closer to a whisper.

  “That’s because I was,” he replied easily. He pulled off his heavy ski gloves, one by one. “Do you realize that you always think the worst of me? Is that deliberate or what? You take anything I do or say and twist it into something ugly.”

  I opened my mouth to snap back that he was the one who did the ugly things, no twisting necessary, but stopped myself.

  All of the things I had been angry at Henry for could be looked at in a totally different way. He’d let me into the house because he thought I should know what Nate was doing—and in so doing, he’d violated the Guy Code, which was no small thing. (Or so Oscar assured me.) And sure, he’d rejected me that night after the sleigh-ride party, but maybe (just maybe) he hadn’t wanted to repeat our first encounter—where I was an emotional wreck and accused him of taking advantage of that after the fact.

  Maybe evil, satanic Henry was just something I’d made up, to cover the fact I’d been dating the wrong friend.

  “I don’t actually know why I do that,” I said eventually, and then I smiled at him. He seemed almost surprised for a moment, and then his eyes brightened.

  “Maybe, going forward, you can take a breath and consider things before flying off the handle,” he said. “Just a suggestion.”

  “Are we going forward?” I asked, searching his face, terrified I’d see the usual mocking expression. But his eyes were clear and completely serious.

  “That’s the only explanation I can come up with,” he said, almost apologetically, though he was smiling. “Even when I’m avoiding you, her
e you are.”

  I felt something swell in me then. It wasn’t desperate, or triumphant, or any of the things I was used to feeling around men. This was quiet and thrilling, and new. It felt like it might spill out from me, and fill whole rooms.

  It felt like gladness.

  “I have people over,” I told him, still in that hushed tone. “It’s a party.”

  “Which I’m crashing,” he said at once, reverting to the stiff and formal tone I suddenly realized meant he was uncomfortable. “Okay. Well—”

  “I’m just telling you so you’re prepared,” I interrupted him. “Because I’m asking you up again.”

  “Oh,” Henry said. It took a moment to penetrate and then he said it again, in a different tone.

  He swallowed, and it astonished me that someone so gorgeous could be as nervous as that little motion suggested.

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling at him. “Oh. It’s Amy Lee and Georgia and their men, so it might turn ugly for you. I’m assuming you can handle it.”

  “As you know,” Henry said with a lazy grin, “I can handle ugly. I live for it, in fact.”

  Halfway up the stairs, I reached over to grab his hand, and curled my fingers around his like they belonged there.

  He smiled down at me, and held on like he’d never let go.

  Which, in that moment, I believed.

  about the author

  MEGAN CRANE: Frenemies came about because of the movie Mean Girls. Seriously. I went to see it with my boyfriend, who squirmed through the entire thing and couldn’t believe how nasty all the girls were to one another.

  Oh please, I thought. They toned it down for nationwide distribution. The reality was much worse.

  Which got me thinking. I love my women friends. I literally wouldn’t have a clue who I was today if it weren’t for the friendship, guidance, and support of the women I know. My mother, my sister, my grandmothers, my aunts, my cousins, my friends, my coworkers. They’ve all helped me create this creature I like to call me. (They also make me laugh so hard it makes my stomach hurt, which I believe to be a key ingredient in lifetime friendships.) But as Mean Girls made me consider, the women I love are only half of the story.

  What about the other women? The ones that we don’t get, who seem to inhabit some other universe with alien social rules. The ones we think are really amazing and we’re so close to them and then they stab us in the back without blinking an eye?...?or whatever, that could be my issues talking.

  As women, we’re attuned to the undercurrents of interactions. I’ve been as angry and hurt by a rolled eye as men I know have been from a fist to the face. Everyone knows that girl. Everyone’s had a best-friend breakup with her.

  I wanted to write a book about all that crazy girl stuff.

  Let me know what you think.

  You can find me at www.megancrane.com. Or www.welcometothe5spot.blogspot.com. Or just e-mail me at megan@megancrane.com and tell me all about that girl in your life!

  Thanks for reading!

  5 Reasons to Suspect Your Friends

  Have Turned Into Grown-Ups

  (or Maybe Just Turned on You):

  1 Your best friend gives you a very long lecture concerning china settings, table placement, and the importance of “couple friends,” but what it boils down to is that you’re single and thus not invited to her dinner party.

  2 Nights out now require consultations with date planners/significant others, and extensive plans involving concrete destinations. “Let’s go out” is no longer sufficient.

  3 Speaking of which, when your friends discuss drinking, they’re actually talking about proper hydration for maximum health benefits. Not last night’s shenanigans.

  4 When she plans to stay with him forever, buy a house, have kids, celebrate anniversaries, etc., it turns out that she’s unwilling to have those historically graphic conversations about his sexual prowess. It also means you should stop asking.

  5 It’s not that she’s screening her calls. It’s that her secretarial staff has strict instructions to do so on her behalf.