Girls in White Dresses - JENNIFER CLOSE [11]
“I hate that guy,” Lauren said later that night. “He’s such a dick.”
“Relax,” Isabella said. “It won’t last. They never do.”
The first time Louis dumped Ellen, they silently cheered. But a week later, the couple was back together, and Louis showed up again in their apartment, smoking cigarettes and making comments about how silly girls were in general. Louis broke up with Ellen over and over again, and she kept going back to him. None of them understood it.
“He looks like Ichabod Crane,” Lauren said once. “I mean, what I think Ichabod Crane would look like if he wore the same pants for a year, you know?”
“I just don’t understand when he has time to wash those pants,” Mary said. “He wears them every day. That’s just so gross.” They all agreed.
After graduation, Louis broke up with Ellen again. He told her that he couldn’t be tied down, that he was going to travel through Europe alone and needed his freedom. “Please let this one stick,” they said to one another. Sure, Ellen was devastated now, but she’d meet someone else, someone who would make her happier. They were sure of that. It was all for the best.
They all spent a year after graduation living with their parents in their respective suburbs, saving money and looking for jobs. It was miserable, sleeping in twin beds in their childhood rooms, sending out millions of résumés, and trying not to get annoyed when their parents said things like “What time will you be home?” and “No drinks upstairs.”
Lauren, Ellen, and their friend Shannon all moved to Chicago that summer. Ellen had gotten a job offer in Boston but had turned it down, claiming that she had always wanted to live in Chicago. “It’s such a fun city,” she said. “The lake is so great.” Lauren and Shannon rolled their eyes at each other. They knew she was lying about the lake. Louis was from Chicago and Ellen was just hoping he’d come back there soon. It was sad, really. Even a little pathetic, they thought.
But they didn’t really care that much. One year after graduating, they were finally on their own. They rented an apartment on Armitage with two and a half bedrooms, one tiny bathroom, no air-conditioning, and a giant deck. It was almost like college, except they had to get up and go to work every morning.
It was so hot that summer that no one could stay inside. They tried (for the sake of being grown-ups) not to go out every night. They sat on the deck in ponytails and shorts, reading magazines and painting their nails, trying to imagine a breeze from Lake Michigan. Eventually, someone would suggest having a beer or a glass of wine. They’d sit awhile, and someone would suggest going to the bar below them, just for one drink, just to sit in air-conditioning for a while. And before they knew it, it was two in the morning and they were listening to Karen, the crazy bartender with missing teeth at Shoes Pub, tell them about Craig, the asshole who broke her heart.
Lauren blamed the weather for a lot of what happened that summer. It drove them out of their apartment, to bars and street fairs and concerts. It made them restless and irritable while they waited for something to start. They all knew they ought to feel different in their new lives, but they felt the same and it put them on edge. Hot and impatient, they fidgeted in the heat, grumbling and asking each other, “What next? What next?”
Ellen was at a loss without Louis. She hadn’t so much as flirted with an ugly boy since he’d left for Europe. He sent her postcards from Paris and Florence that said things like Be yourself or be nothing and Live humbly but live true.
Lauren and Shannon snatched these cards from the pile to read them before Ellen did. It was one of their greatest sources of entertainment.
“Live humbly?” Shannon said. “Uh, yeah. I’m pretty sure his parents are paying for his humble trip around Europe.”
They always put the cards back in the mail so that Ellen could take them to her room and read them over and over again. They knew she was pining over him in there.
“We’ve got to get her over this,” Lauren said.