Girls in White Dresses - JENNIFER CLOSE [12]
“What can we do?” they asked each other. They shook their heads in disappointment. Why couldn’t she just let it go?
They all got tickets to a concert at the old steel factory down the street, to see a young, handsome singer who wrote tortured love songs and whined about the troubles of being twenty-five. Their friend Isabella was visiting from New York, and she came over before the concert to drink beers on the porch, but all she did was wander around and say, “This place is huge. Your apartment is huge.”
“Yeah, we like it,” Lauren said.
“No,” Isabella said. “You have no idea. You should see my apartment in New York. It’s teeny. And expensive. This place is a mansion.”
“Then move here,” Lauren told her. “Move to Chicago!” Isabella just smiled and continued to look around in wonder.
Lauren and Shannon were in a fight that started when Shannon called Lauren a slob. “Isabella, don’t you think it’s disgusting when someone leaves Q-tips on the sink?” Shannon asked. Isabella shook her head and kept quiet.
“You’re the one who sits in that bathroom for an hour and plucks your hairy eyebrows,” Lauren said. “If anyone’s a pig, it’s you.”
Isabella just smiled and looked happy that she didn’t have to weigh in. Now Lauren and Shannon were sitting on the porch, sighing and scoffing to let everyone know that they weren’t speaking to each other.
Ellen was in the kitchen pouring wine when Isabella asked her, “So, have you seen Louis since he’s been back?”
It was like a movie: Ellen spilled her wine, Isabella jumped, and Lauren and Shannon forgot they were ignoring each other and looked at each other with wide eyes.
“Louis is back?” Ellen asked.
“Yeah.” Isabella made a face. “Sorry, Ellen. I thought you knew.”
Ellen shook her head and swallowed some wine. “No,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“Sorry,” Isabella said again. “I just assumed he would have called you. I saw Phil last weekend and told him I was coming here for the weekend and he mentioned it. He just got back a couple weeks ago. I’m sure he was going to call you.”
They all looked at Ellen, who was now calmly drinking her wine. Lauren could tell that she wasn’t upset. Surprised, yes. But not upset. They’d known Ellen long enough to be able to read her mood by the way she held herself, and right then, she was as straight as a pole, alert, and excited.
“Fuck,” Shannon said softly.
“Yeah,” Lauren answered. “I know.”
They went to the concert, where Lauren and Shannon made up, then got in a fight again when Shannon forgot to watch the Porta-Potty Lauren was in, and let a man open the door, which had a broken lock. “Everyone in line saw me with my pants down,” Lauren screamed.
“So what’s new?” Shannon asked.
They went to a bar called Life’s Too Short near the old Cabrini-Green buildings. The whole area was under construction and the streets were lined with half-built condos and shells of townhouses. Because nothing was around it, the bar paid no attention to the city’s rules about shutting down by four a.m. The bartenders let everyone stay in the bar’s outdoor area. Nothing good ever came of this, but they kept going back.
They sat in a corner of the patio where they could see everyone that walked in. They were fascinated with watching Margaret Applebee, a girl they knew from college. She’d always been kind of fat, but had dropped about forty pounds that year and was, according to Shannon, “whoring it up all over town.” She was talking to their friend Mitch McCormick, pressing herself against his arm, and they were all waiting for him to tell her to go away.
“Who does she think she is?” Shannon asked. “Like Mitch would ever be interested in her. It’s so embarrassing.”
“She’s persistent, though,” Lauren said. “You gotta give her that.”
“I don’t even recognize her,