Girlfriends (Patrick Sanchez) (20 page)

“Well, you take care of your mother, Gina, and we’ll see you tomorrow,” Liz responded in a concerned tone before adding, “And I’m sorry to ask, but please bring some sort of doctor’s note or something just to verify your story.”

“Okay, I’ll ask for one.”

“Thanks, Gina. Good luck.”

“Hey, can you transfer me to Linda? I just want to let her know what happened.”

“Sure,” Liz agreed, and hit the transfer button.

“Premier Bank of Arl—”

“Linda, it’s me.”

“Where are you? Are you crazy? Liz is livid!”

“Screw her . . . that bitch. I’m at the hospital with Shirley, and do you know what that cow had the nerve to ask me?”

“Whoa . . . back up, girlfriend. What are you doing at the hospital? Is Shirley okay?”

“She is now. She had an asthma attack and didn’t have her inhaler with her.”

“But she’s okay now?”

“She’ll be fine . . . if I don’t kill her. Anyway, I explained the situation to Liz, and she acted mildly concerned but then told me to bring a doctor’s note to substantiate my story. Can you believe that?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Linda lied. In fact, considering Gina’s track record at the bank, Linda didn’t think it was unreasonable at all.

“Are things crazy busy?”

“They were insane for a few hours, but it’s quiet now. Guess what? I have a date for Saturday night.”

“Really?” Gina said, trying to sound enthused.

“Yes, with this woman who came to open an account today. She’s very cute.”

“Cool, you’ll have to tell me all about it later. I’ll give you a buzz tonight.”

Gina hung up the phone, feeling a little unsettled. She always tried to be happy for Linda when she had a potential romance, but it made her feel somewhat apprehensive. The last time Linda had a steady girlfriend, she had very little time for Gina. Things got so bad, Gina joined a local church for its active young adults group just to try to make some new friends. She went on several outings with the group, going to local festivals and group dinners. She didn’t find anyone in the group terribly interesting. In fact, between the girl who offered her some bizarre sugar substitute to put in her iced tea and the guy who thought it was oppressive to comb his hair, she found most of them downright weird.

During one of their dinner outings to a local Thai restaurant, one woman spent the better part of a half hour talking about milk. She explained that once milk is pasteurized and processed, if a baby calf were to drink it, he would die. Somewhere during this spiel, Gina sat there thinking, My God! This is what it’s come to—spending a Friday night with a bunch of geeks, talking about milk. Shortly after this revelation, she excused herself from the table, said good night, and left the restaurant. She never saw anyone from the group again. Luckily, Linda and her girlfriend broke up a few weeks later, and things were back to normal.

Gina felt guilty about being apprehensive about Linda’s date. Linda was her best friend and she really did want to see her happy. Linda in a relationship would have been much easier to swallow if Gina had a relationship of her own. She had seen a few guys here and there since the breakup with Peter, but nothing ever seemed to work out. She hadn’t seriously dated anyone in years. She hadn’t even met anyone who interested her in years, at least not anyone attainable. There was one guy she had really fallen for a while back. His name was Richard, a man she had met at a party at a friend’s house in Rockville. She had scoped him out when he first walked in the door. He was cute but not overly cute, which was something Gina looked for in a guy. She certainly wanted to be with someone who was attractive, but not so attractive that she would feel inferior or unworthy. She had a mutual friend introduce her to Richard, and they ended up chatting for most of the evening.

They had a great first date when they went to dinner at the Carlyle Grand Café in Arlington. After dinner, at Gina’s suggestion, they drove back into the city and walked around the Jefferson Memorial. Gina had never found a more romantic place than the Jefferson Memorial on a balmy night. They walked along the Tidal Basin and talked and laughed and got to know each other. When he dropped her off, he’d given her a long kiss good night and said he would call her.

Gina was so excited following her date. They had really hit it off and he obviously liked her. She jumped every time the phone rang for a week. When he didn’t call, she was furious. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had had a lousy date, or he gave her a few clues that he wasn’t interested. But every signal he sent, everything he said and did, led her to believe there was a mutual attraction. Of course, she thought about him possibly losing her phone number, but she was listed and they also had acquaintances in common. He could have tracked her down if he had wanted to. To this day, every time she heard Reba McEntire’s “Why Haven’t I Heard from You,” she thought of Richard.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later, when she ran into Richard, that she found out why he hadn’t called. She saw him walking out of the Cheesecake Factory in Friendship Heights—he wasn’t alone. He was holding hands with a woman who appeared to be a little older than him, maybe in her early thirties. She actually looked somewhat like Gina. She was tall and had a slender build and attractive blond hair. But she had something Gina didn’t—boobs the size of honeydew melons.

Richard walked right by Gina and had the nerve to smile at her and say hello. Gina looked at him, took an obvious look at the woman’s breasts, then lifted her eyes back to Richard as if to say “so that’s what happened” or, more appropriately, “so
those
are what happened.”

Something about the meeting actually made Gina feel better about Richard not pursuing her. At least it offered her some closure and explained a few things. She had thought about getting a boob job herself on numerous occasions and figured the woman on Richard’s arm had done more than just think about it. Gina had even gone as far as making an appointment with a cosmetic surgeon. She figured if it was good enough for half the cast of
Beverly Hills 90210,
it was good enough for her. But she eventually canceled the appointment and decided to abandon the idea. The thought of having little bags of saline shoved in her chest was just more than she could stomach. She was going to have to land a man with the boobs the good Lord gave her.

Now, as she was walking down the hospital corridor back to Shirley’s bed, she tried to forget about the Richards and the Peters of the world and force herself to be happy for Linda.

I’m glad she has a date, Gina tried to tell herself, and part of her was happy for Linda. It just made Gina a little anxious. Linda was pretty much the only single friend Gina had left. If Linda found a significant other, it would leave Gina all alone. Girlfriends had been in short supply lately—real ones anyway. Five years ago, Gina easily had five to ten girlfriends to hang out with or go shopping or on another outing of some kind. Most of these women were still friends in some way, but they were now toting a husband and some even had kids.

A few months earlier, Gina had called Rachel, a friend from college who had gotten married a year earlier but still went out with the girls from time to time. Gina was calling to see if Rachel wanted to go out dancing to Nation with Gina and a couple of others. Before Gina had a chance to ask her, Rachel mentioned that she was pregnant with her first child. After Rachel announced the news, Gina offered her congratulations and said she was just calling to say hello. Gina couldn’t bear asking Rachel about going out to a bar. She felt pathetic. Here was her friend, getting ready to bring a new life into the world with her husband, while Gina was looking for someone to go to a bar with and get drunk. She couldn’t stand the thought of Linda becoming a Rachel or a Penelope. Linda was all she had left. If Linda landed a relationship, Gina was truly on her own, and the thought terrified her.

No Big Deal

A
fter a long lunch, Cooper offered to drive Cheryl home. Not wanting to be the eager beaver, she said it was only a few blocks and she could walk.

“Well, how about I walk you home, then?” Cooper asked.

“If you want,” Cheryl said, trying to seem somewhat uninterested, when she had actually really enjoyed the afternoon with Cooper. They had some lively conversation over lunch and even debated over politics. Cheryl was a staunch Democrat while Cooper attested to being one of the few black Republicans. During their meal, they discussed everything from abortion to tax cuts to affirmative action. At first, Cheryl tried to avoid any controversial subjects, but their conversation seemed to naturally move toward contentious topics. She ended up enjoying these discussions with Cooper and getting his point of view. It sure beat sitting there with someone who agreed with everything she said.

She decided she liked that about Cooper—that he had strong opinions. She couldn’t stand dating men who went along with all of her ideas just to avoid an argument. Cheryl liked to argue on occasion, and the heated discussion she and Cooper got into over lunch was actually kind of fun.

“You were just going to walk all this way by yourself?” Cooper asked as they approached Cheryl’s building.

“Sure,” Cheryl said.

“You don’t walk around by yourself at night, do you?”

“Sometimes. There are always tons of people around, and streetlights are all over the place.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s safe. But what can you expect in such an overwhelmingly Democratic city.”

“Oh, please! Every city in the country has problems with crime. What does people voting Democratic have to do with anything?”

“Because Democrats are so wishy-washy and easy on crime.”

“Just because we don’t execute people for jaywalking doesn’t mean we’re easy on crime,” Cheryl said with a smile, realizing Cooper was trying to start something with her again.

As they made their way to the lobby entrance of Cheryl’s building, she thought about asking him up for a drink but decided against it. She actually kind of liked this guy and wanted to play a little hard to get.

“Thanks for walking me home,” she said.

“No problem. Maybe I can call you sometime?”

“Sure,” Cheryl said. “You have my phone number. Maybe we can do something later this week.”

“Absolutely,” he said before lightly touching her arm. “I had a good time.”

Oh, kiss me already. “Me too.”

“Take care,” he said, and turned to leave.

“Sure. Bye,” Cheryl replied, annoyed that he hadn’t even tried to kiss her. Cheryl walked through the lobby to the elevators, and the flood of postdate thoughts began. She wondered if she had put her best foot forward. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so opinionated during their discussion on politics. But, then again, maybe he liked that about her. She wished she had sat up straighter during lunch, and she hoped that she hadn’t eaten too much. Should she have offered to pay the check when he pulled out his credit card? She didn’t want him to think that she was cheap, but she didn’t want him to think she was such a feminist that she wouldn’t let a man buy her lunch. And why hadn’t he kissed her at the end of their date? He seemed to really like her, and he wouldn’t have offered to walk her home if he hadn’t been interested. Would he have?

He said he was going to call. She wondered if he really would. She hated that about being a woman. Today’s women could manage multimillion-dollar companies or even run for the presidency, but it was still taboo for her to be the first to call a guy after a date. She had to wait for him, if and when he chose to call.

She promised herself that she wouldn’t think about it.

If he calls, he calls. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t. No big deal, she thought to herself as she walked into her apartment and went immediately over to the phone to make sure it was working.

The Ole MJ

B
y the time they released Shirley from the hospital, it was after nine
P.M.
, so Gina took her straight home. She would have to take Shirley back to the bank in the morning and get her car.

“You want to stay the night, sweetie?” Shirley asked as they walked into her apartment with Gomez, who had been cooped up in the car the whole time Shirley was in the hospital. Considering her financial situation, Shirley’s apartment was actually fairly decent. It had a spacious living room, a small kitchen, and two master bedrooms with private baths. It was old and creaky, and the furnishings left a lot to be desired, but, nonetheless, it was large and quite comfortable. The only way Shirley could afford it was to share the place with a series of different roommates. Most only lasted a few months. The last one left after only two weeks. Shirley lied to her initially and said she didn’t smoke. When the new roomie came home to a living room full of cigarette fumes, she was furious and moved soon after.

Her current roommate was a guy of about twenty-five. Shirley knew very little about him. He worked as a bartender at Fridays for only three days before he was fired for leaving one night with a duffel bag full of vodka and tequila bottles. But he was cute and young, and Shirley needed a roommate to help her make the rent.

“I don’t know, maybe,” Gina replied before crinkling her nose. “What’s that pungent smell? Wait a minute . . . that’s pot. Shirley, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, Gina. You know I don’t mess with drugs.” Shirley messed with virtually everything else—men, booze, cigarettes—but she never did get into drugs.

“Sammy?” Shirley called toward the closed door of Sammy’s bedroom. “Are you in there?”

“Hi, Shirley,” he said, opening the door, which only spewed the smell of marijuana farther into the living room. He was a lanky young man with shoulder-length hair and was only wearing a pair of faded jeans.

“Sammy, honey. We had a deal—no drugs.”

“What deal was that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It just sounded like the right thing to say,” Shirley said with a giggle.

“Want a hit?” he said as he offered the smoldering joint to Shirley.