Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [36]
Hope’s face fell. “I’m sorry. I should have called….”
I waved away her apology. “It’s fine. Really. You have so much you need to do.”
“Really? Because…” I could tell from her voice that she was relieved.
“It’s fine.”
She stuck the MetroCard in her deep front pocket.
“And besides,” I replied, “if we’re going to talk about Marcus, we need more than just a few minutes.”
“You do want to talk about it!”
“Just go, Hope,” I said. “Really. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
Then I made kind of a dick move. “Yeah. I’m having brunch with Bridget this morning, anyway.”
“Right,” Hope said, trying to keep it light. “Because you tell Bridget everything.”
I once made the mistake of telling Hope that Bridget had become my best friend after she, Hope, moved. Of course, by definition there can only be one “best.” So Hope, who is not one who usually gets involved in these types of power struggles, gets passive-aggressively pissy about it. I don’t see it as choosing one friend over another, because each plays a unique role in my life. Bridget is the careful listener. Hope is the carefree talker. And I value them both, just at different times, and in different measures.
Bridget was my best friend in the years before Hope entered my life in middle school, and then again after she left. For too many years, I denied that Bridget was anything more than a superficial replacement for Hope. But Bridget has proven to be more than just a fallback friend. In those years that I didn’t see Hope very much, Bridget was the first person I turned to whenever there was a major shake-up in my life (mostly involving you). There have always been fundamental differences between us, and not those unfair assumptions based on her beachy beauty and how she once put it to use as a professional catalog model and football player’s girlfriend—the latter pursued with more go-getter grit than the former.
Our differences unite rather than divide us. She provides alternative insights that expand my myopic pessimism. As such, Bridget has offered more comfort and shrewd advice than any other friend (including Hope). However, when I’m not in crisis mode, and Bridget and I are just blithely shooting the shit on an ordinary day, our talk, while perfectly pleasant, lacks that certain urgency for more. I say good-bye feeling all talked out.
My relationship with Hope is simpler, and paradoxically more complicated. With Hope, there is an immediate intimacy and ease to our conversations that I have not found with anyone else. (But you. On our best days. When we used to talk, or rather, when you used to talk to me.) Hope and I share a love of wordplay, an appreciation of low culture, and above all, a fascination with the tragicomedy of life. We banter playfully and energetically; I always feel happier afterward than I did before. When I’m in her company, I laugh loud and long, which is something I don’t do nearly enough.
Our ability to enlighten and entertain each other is based on a deep understanding of the way each other’s mind works. However (there always seems to be a “however”), no matter how close Hope and I are, there always seems to be certain taboo subjects that I can’t discuss with her (mostly involving you). And these gaps in confidence are usually filled by Bridget. Why should this time be any different?
Hope’s eye caught the stack of boxes still taking up too much floor space.
“I thought you stayed in all day yesterday to unpack,” she said.
“I started to,” I said lamely. “But I got distracted.”
“You were distracted.”
And simple as that, we both giggled at the shorthand joke that only we could understand.
Only we knew I was referring to that last morning before Hope moved to Tennessee. Her parents were waiting in the driveway, glancing at their watches, tapping