Lana sniggered at Emilie’s imperious tone.
Emilie pressed the phone to her ear when Kate began to speak fuzzily into the phone. “I don’ think you’re gonna like it, Emmy,” she slurred.
“I’m entirely certain I won’t like it,” Emilie agreed. “But you need to tell me anyway.”
“Ooookaaay,” Kate mumbled. “Here it ish. I haf this teensy weensy lil’ problem, ‘kay? And I’ve wanted to tell you guysh, but I jus’ couldn’ sooo—”
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Emilie snapped. “Spit it out, Kate.”
“HaHaHa — you’re funny, Emmy-lee!”
“Gee, thanks.” Emilie closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Can you tell me where you are and what you are doing, Kate? Now.”
“O000kay, Emmsy. Where I am is in a bathroom, at this motel we like to come to sometimes—”
“Who is ‘we’?” Emilie was getting a sinking feeling in her stomach.
“We is me and Jase. You ‘member Jase, doncha, Emmy?”
Emilie wearily pinched the bridge of her nose. “Uh, didn’t you date him in college?”
Lana was now sitting up and listening to Emilie’s side of the conversation with a rapt expression on her tired face.
“Yep. And now we’re doin’ it again.”
Emilie’s brows furrowed even more. “Dating?”
“Pshaw!” scoffed Kate. “I can’t date him, Emmy — I’m engaged. You’re silly.”
“So you’re not dating him,” clarified Emilie.
“Nope,” said Kate with a smack of her lips. “We’re jus’ having the sex. Lots and lots of the sex. We jus’ had it, and it was — a’chly it wasn’ so hot to tell ya the truth—”
“Stop! I don’t want any details, okay, I — ow!” Emilie looked down to where Lana was poking at her hip and glared. “What was that for?” she demanded.
Lana gave her a meaningful look. “Of course you want the details! What’s the matter with you?”
Emilie lightly smacked Lana’s thigh. “She is far too drunk to tell me anything good.” She turned her attention back to Kate, who was now singing “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts, Dee Dilly Dee” at the top of her lungs. “Kate? Kate!”
“Huh? Oh, hi Emmsy! Wus’ up?”
“You were telling me about you and Jase, how you just had the sex?”
“Oh yeah!” Kate said brightly. “Yesh, lots o’ the sex — and vodka! That wush yummy. Now I’m sleepy. I’m always sleepy after the sex.”
“You mean this isn’t the first time?” asked a genuinely baffled Emilie. “Have you and Jase been having sex on a regular basis? Like, recently?”
“Yep!” Kate giggled. “For months now.”
“Katherine, do you mind telling me why you decided to have sex with Jase despite the fact that you are currently engaged to another man?”
“Are you mad at me now, Emmy?” Kate asked in a small voice.
Emilie’s first response to Kate’s announcement that she had decided to sleep with yet another guy who, if Emilie recalled correctly, smelled faintly of cheese was to tell her to break the cycle. Jeez.
Instead, she took a deep breath and attempted to calm Kate’s drunk-ass down. “I’m not mad at you,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure this is not the best way to start off your marriage to Will.”
Kate howled with laughter. “Emmy, you are so funny!”
At the sound of Kate’s continued drunken giddiness, Emilie’s temper snapped. “Katherine, I am not trying to be funny! What the hell are you thinking?” She stopped short when Kate’s hysterical laughter quickly turned into loud bawling. “Kate, don’t cry.”
Emilie absently chewed on her lower lip. Who was she to tell Kate what to do? Her chin dropped to her chest as she forced herself to accept the fact that she was completely useless when it came to relationship advice. The only guy she had ever really wanted to be with had disappeared again about two seconds after she had decided she might be ready to trust him again.
Her instincts about men sucked, so she had no business lecturing Kate about them. She clumsily shoved the phone at Lana. “Take it, Lan. I just… I can’t.”
Emilie began pacing around her room and gnawing on her bottom lip, a sure sign that she was about to cry. Lana contemplated the possible reasons for this while she tried to make sense of Kate’s garbled mumbling. She was now worried about both Kate, who was chattering like a chimp on crack, and Emilie, who was quivering like a leaf in a windstorm.
Tackling Calamity Kate’s issues first, Lana cut off the muffled rambling and crying with a forceful, “Kate, shut your mouth!” There was an abrupt, pronounced silence on the other end of the line. “I need to know if you are safe right now. Do you need a ride?”
“No,” Kate sniveled. “I’m gonna sleep here… I only wanted to say hi to you guys.”
“Okay, Kate.” Lana heaved a longsuffering sigh. “But do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, get behind the wheel of a car. Comprendé?”
“Yeah,” Kate sniffed loudly. “Can I come over tomorrow and hang out with you guys?”
“Don’t be stupid.” Lana bit back a rueful smile. “You can come over anytime you want. But isn’t Will going to be wondering where you are?”
“Oh him,” Kate scoffed. Her voice was drifting in and out, so Lana pressed the phone closer to try and hear better. “I jus’ told him I was spendin’ the night with you all. That’s wha’ I always tell ‘im.”
Lana felt a twinge of pity for Will — just a twinge though, because he was still awfully icky.
“Kate, you need to rest now. Okay?” There was silence on the other end. “Kate,” Lana whispered hesitantly. “Kate?”
Lana sighed into the phone. Kate must have passed out. Lana hoped she had at least had the presence of mind to put some clothes on when she snuck off to the bathroom to make her call; otherwise, she was going to be all kinds of dirty tomorrow.
Gently placing the phone back in its cradle, Lana confronted her second crisis. “She fell asleep.” Emilie’s eyebrows lifted at that not-so-stunning revelation as she continued to pace. “Are you okay, Em?”
Lana knew Emilie had been on edge the last few days and right now she looked like one wrong move could push her over.
Emilie drew a shuddering breath. “I am so mad at her, Lana.”
“So am I,” Lana said patiently. “I can’t believe she’s been lying to us all this time. I really can’t believe she had the nerve to scold us about our screwed up personal lives. It’s okay to be pissed, Em…”
Alarmed by how hard Emilie was trembling, Lana hurriedly stood and put her arm around her friend to shepherd her back to the bed, sitting beside her to wait for Emilie to explain what was really wrong.
“I don’t have any right to tell her she’s wrong.” Emilie hiccupped pitifully, meeting Lana’s stare even though her eyes seemed far away. “My relationship skills are nonexistent, and it’s hypocritical of me to pretend like I can help her —especially since I’m such a wimp where men are concerned.”
“What on earth are you—”
“I don’t know if I can do this, Lana. I don’t know if I can be happy with Ethan when I’m so afraid it’s going to be snatched away at any moment.”
“Emmy,” Lana said soothingly. “It’s normal to be a little apprehensive after everything you guys went through.”
“I’m not apprehensive, I’m terrified.” Emilie laid her head on Lana’s shoulder and started to cry. “Why am I like this?”
“You’re human, that’s nothing to be ashamed of, sweetie.” Lana rubbed Emilie’s back as she quietly sobbed. “You just have to learn to trust him, that’s all.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Emilie asked on a broken gasp. “Every time I think I’ve gotten past my admitted trust issues, he does something to show me how wrong I am to even try!” She shoved her hair off of her face and sniffed. “He flits in and out of my life whenever it’s convenient for him.”
“He has a new, high-p
ressure job, Em.” Lana sighed and did her best not to disparage Emilie’s obviously real fears. “Didn’t he say he was working on a complicated assignment? He’s probably too busy to sleep, let alone call you.”
“That’s not the point!” Frantically brushing a few stray tears from her cheeks, Emilie seemed to be having a hard time getting her breathing under control. “If I’m this much of a wreck now, what’s going to happen the next time he has a big important job somewhere exotic and decides not to come back at all? I don’t think my heart can take it if that happens. I know it can’t.”
Absently massaging her forehead, Emilie looked up with the most forlorn expression Lana had ever seen. “I hate feeling this needy,” she said plaintively.
Lana winced sympathetically. “I know you do.”
“What am I gonna do?” Emilie whispered.
Lana hugged Emilie closer as the tears began falling down her cheeks again in a steady stream. “We’ll figure it out, Em. I promise.”
She let Emilie cry for a few minutes and sighed. Being in love with Ethan was clearly not a position Emilie was at all comfortable being in. It didn’t help that Ethan was a man, and therefore chromosomally incapable of understanding that it was just as important to make a phone call to say “hey” the second time you’ve bedded a girl you claim to love as it was to call (or, in Ethan’s case, harass incessantly) the first time. Lana had no doubt that his behavior was the result of ignorance rather than neglect, but Emilie had been burned by him too much in the past to convince her of it now. Next time she saw Ethan, Lana was tempted to do him serious bodily harm for being such a dimwit.
When it seemed like Emilie had no more tears left to cry, Lana grabbed the box of tissues on the nightstand and handed her a handful. “Better now?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Emilie smiled gratefully and blew her nose.
“Anytime. That’s what BFF’s are for.” Since Emilie was in no condition to properly discuss Ethan now, Lana allowed her mind to move on to the other problem that had arisen tonight. “What on earth are we supposed to do about Kate?”
“I don’t know.” Emilie tossed the soggy tissues into the wastepaper basket by her bed. “But if I made two hundred and fifty four individual wedding favors and gift bags for nothing, I am going to strangle her with the leftover tulle.”
Lana stared at the dead serious expression on Emilie’s face and burst out laughing. “You really will, won’t you?”
“Absolutely,” she confirmed with a weary nod of her head. Rubbing at her now puffy eyes, Emilie smiled and ran a hand through her hair. When she looked at the clock to find that it was well past three a.m., she let out a low snarl. “Wanna help?”
Lana, who had observed the time as well, let out a frustrated groan. “Absolutely.”
Emilie groggily held out her hand and Lana gave it a lethargic shake. Lana followed Emilie down onto the middle of the bed and curled up beside her. They fell asleep right there, without even bothering to pull the covers over them.
Chapter 20
She knocked on their door the next morning with rumpled clothes, frizzier-than-usual hair, and a deep red checkerboard imprinted on her left cheek. Upon closer inspection, Lana decided it must have been the pattern from the bathroom floor Kate had slept on the night before. Instead of mentioning it, Lana simply left the door open and silently went back to the couch where Emilie was nursing a cup of tea.
Kate trailed behind Lana and moved to sit on the end chair. Emilie promptly gave her a dirty look.
“I know, I know.” Without even bothering to feign innocence, Kate threw her hands up in front of her in a show of surrender. “I’m a jerk.”
Lana raised her eyebrows and popped open a new can of diet coke. “At least you can be honest about something.”
“Just tell me exactly what I said last night and how pissed off you guys are. Please?” Kate asked with a grimace.
Emilie took another sip of tea and observed Kate over the rim of the mug. “You basically informed us that you’ve been having an affair with your ex for the last few months. And that you’ve been lying to us about it. Does that cover it, Lana?”
“I think that about sums it up.” Lana pretended to ponder Emilie’s remarks before snapping her fingers, causing Kate to jump. “Though you forgot the part where she told us she’s been using us as an alibi when she sneaks away from her fiancé, despite the fact that she has recently made it a point to ridicule and chastise us on numerous occasions about our love lives.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you, Lana; I would definitely be remiss if I ignored that salient portion of the conversation.”
They turned their accusing gazes towards a decidedly green-looking Kate.
“If it helps at all, I’m really sorry.” Kate placed her head in her hands and moaned in resigned defeat. “It’s not like I haven’t wanted to tell you…it just never seemed like a good time,” she said lamely.
Emilie pursed her lips. “Perhaps you might have found a good time during any one of the thousands of hours we have spent together planning your wedding.”
“Or here’s a thought,” added Lana. “You might have told us during one of your condescending speeches detailing the stupid decisions we were making.”
Kate groaned again and clasped her hands in front of her in supplication. This made Emilie and Lana bite their lips to disguise their amusement. They had agreed to make Kate fully own up to being a jerk for lying to them, and she still deserved to squirm a little.
“Please, don’t be mad,” pleaded Kate. “I said I was sorry. I know I should have kept my mouth shut about your love lives, I know I was a total witch, and I know I lied. I didn’t want to, I swear, it’s just that I didn’t want to admit it to anyone, not even myself. And I for sure didn’t want to be told how mean and heartless I’m being to Will.”
“Well, you are being mean and heartless to him,” Lana pointed out. “But you’re our friend. We would have listened and supported you no matter how stupid you were acting.”
“You should have known that.” Though Emilie’s voice was soft, the accusation in her tone was unmistakable.
“I do know that. But it was complicated and I was ashamed and…” Kate broke off with a sigh. “I don’t know what else to say.”
There were tears in her eyes, a rarity for Kate, so Emilie reached forward to gently squeeze her hand. “We just wish you could have been honest with us without the help of what I presume must have been a gallon of alcohol flooding your bloodstream.”
“I do, too, believe me.” Kate shuddered as she sat back in her chair. “I have never felt as ill as I do at this moment.”
Lana pushed an unopened pop can into Kate’s grateful hands and the three sat in companionable silence for a few minutes as Kate gingerly sipped on the carbonated caffeine.
It was Emilie who finally broke the quiet. “So what are you going to do about Will?”
“What do you mean?” asked Kate.
At Kate’s blank expression, Emilie rolled her eyes. “Well, you’ve been sleeping with another man, so I guess we were wondering if that meant the wedding was off.”
Kate’s jaw dropped with genuine horror. “Of course it’s not off! Jase is just a fling, completely meaningless. It doesn’t mean I don’t still want to marry Will.”
“It doesn’t?” Lana asked dubiously.
“No!” Kate stated emphatically. “This is like my last hurrah before I tie the knot. It has nothing to do with Will.”
Emilie and Lana shared a skeptical glance. “I’m not an expert on this type of thing,” Emilie said softly. “But it seems to me that you wouldn’t want to be with another guy, however brief or meaningless, if you were actually happy with Will.”
Lana nodded in agreement. “I’m with Em on this. You can’t seriously think it’s normal to cheat on your fiancé without any apparent remorse. Why would you do that if you really wanted to be married?”
“You’re both wrong,” Kate insisted with a firm shake of her head. “
I’m getting married next week, and I am not backing out of it.”
“What about Jase?” Lana asked hesitantly.
“Jase knows I’m engaged. He’s cool with it.”
“How very modern of him,” Emilie said witheringly.
“I realize I’ve made some rash choices, but they don’t change anything.” Kate pointed her nose at the ceiling and closed her eyes, reciting what seemed to be an oft-repeated mantra. “Everything is fine, everything is good. I can do this. I am getting married in six days, and everything is going to go according to the plan.”
Despite their misgivings, Lana and Emilie ultimately chose to hold their tongues. There seemed little point in trying to argue with Kate about her wonky attitude, especially since she was so doggedly determined to carry on with the wedding. Kate’s ingrained stubbornness was driving her to make a mad dash for the altar, no matter what. All they could do now was hope that Kate snapped out of it on her own before she crashed and burned.
As they stood in the brightly lit bathroom getting ready, Lana and Emilie tried to put their disturbing early morning conversation with Kate out of their minds by reminiscing over how much fun they used to have getting ready for big events — back before life had become complicated by boys and weddings and stupid relationship drama.
“Remember Junior Banquet?” Lana giggled as she applied smoky black eyeliner to her bright pink eyelids.
“Ugh, yes!” Emilie laughed. “Edgar was such a stick in the mud. He kept calling every ten minutes asking if we were ready to go, and then he told me my hair was too sexually suggestive when he finally picked us up.”
Lana snorted. “Didn’t he try to make you go back in and straighten it so the curls wouldn’t be so reminiscent of —what was it— the snakes on Medusa’s head?”
“Yeah he did,” Emilie said with a scowl. “What an ass.”
“He sure was!” The high pitched shriek from the kitchen caused the girls to flinch. “What were you thinking?! HaHaHa!”
Lana and Emilie shared a look of mild concern when they heard the blender mixing up margaritas for the third time that evening — Kate had decided to start her party early.
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