It was one of those dinners where you don’t know the adults who are taking you out too well, but you know to drink enough because at some point they will call you out for spending too much time on your phone and ARE YOU BORED and NO OF COURSE NOT and HAVE ANOTHER BEER becomes MY GOD ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME YOU OLD PEOPLE?
So by the end she is all, MEAGHAN I didn’t get to TALK to you and I’m all frowny and i know and next time and I’m all stuck at the end of the table, see.
“WHAT IS THAT RING ON YOUR FINGER?” she’ll say,
and “Not that kind of ring!” you’ll say, you who are always forgetting about this fucking ring and how you wear it on your left ring finger from such a place of aloofness that even that is hilarious.
“WELL WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?”
she yells and laughs and you laugh too and hit the table with your fist while a hundred thousand things you are waiting for run through your head, so quickly and beautifully you are not pull one of them down and say it out loud.
“Don’t wait for Prince Charming,” she says and you nod and wink at your best friend across the table who you aren’t sure they know is gay yet.
“Right,” you say and gulp your beer and,
“He isn’t coming,” she says gravely and oh lady don’t I know it, you think, but instead you smile gracefully and wrinkle the corner of your eyes at her to show her you mean it and ask her to keep going if not just out of morbid curiosity and she says, “You find someone who is your friend and you MOLD him,” and she gestures the way they do in grease during Summer Lovin’ and they want to show you what a woman’s body looks like-out and in and out.
You mold him! We laughed and pretended this wasn’t sacrilege. Now here was mercy.
“You find a man who you can be friends with,” I lit up a little bit because this I could accept, “you find someone with similar interests because the rest will fade.”
On the walk home, Halle, So we just need to find someone we can be friends with for the rest of our life. Okay, we’ll let you know. We’ll keep you posted.
And we laughed and laughed and talked about all the things we were waiting for.
