“Nice little room,” she said as she gazed at the posters on the wal s. I grabbed my robe from behind the door and told her to stay put while I had my shower. I didn’t need to impress Rebecca but I didn’t want to smel like a dirty gym sock either.
When I was done, feeling refreshed and more able to handle my unexpected visitor, I emerged from the steamy bathroom to hear a few strange squeals and giggles. I walked down the hal to Ada’s room and pushed her door open.
Rebecca was sitting on Ada’s fluffy bed, watching her bring out various amounts of clothes from her closet, an impromptu fashion show.
Ada swirled on the spot, the fringy dress she was holding swaying with her movement.
“Hey!” she said to me with an excited grin. “I was just showing your friend here my closet.”
I tightened my robe and leaned again the doorframe.
“Your entire closet? She’s not staying for a week, Ada.”
“Perry’s right, I just popped by to say hel o,” Rebecca put in.
Ada placed the dress in Rebecca’s hands, who in turn played with the silky fringes.
“Popped by to say hel o and check up on her,” Ada said knowingly.
Rebecca and I exchanged a look. Had Ada been listening to our conversation outside?
Ada shrugged, swung her bleached hair over her shoulder and went back to peering at her overflowing walk- in. “What? Rebecca’s your friend, right Perry? If I were your friend and I heard what...” she lowered her voice “...happened to you, I’d come check up on you too.”
“You’re not my friend?” I asked wryly.
She stuck her tongue out at me. “Only because I have to be. Bound by blood and all that.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
“So, thank you for showing me your clothes,” Rebecca said as she got up and handed the dress back to Ada. “But Perry and I have got some catching up to do and I real y can’t stay long. And I am checking up on her, natural y. But I just had to come visit her famous fashionista sister as well .”
She sure knew the right things to say because a pink flush appeared on the apples of Ada’s cheeks and she waved at Rebecca bashful y. Rebecca nervous, Ada bashful; what was going on with people today?
We went back to my room and I shut the door behind us.
I sat on the chair at my desk, feeling a little too exposed, while Rebecca perched graceful y at the edge of my bed.
My bedroom seemed incredibly juvenile with her presence in it.
She drummed her magenta nails across her knees.
“Your sister seems lovely.”
“She can be.”
“You told me you guys weren’t all that close, no?”
I cleared my throat, wanting Rebecca to get to the point, why she was real y here.
“No, we weren’t. But we’re getting better.”
She got the hint and sat up straighter.
“I know you think I’m here because of ulterior motives,”
she began, “like Dex hired me to come here or something ridiculous, but just know it’s not true. Natural y he knows I am here, or that I was going to try and see you, but it was all my idea. I’ve been real y worried-”
“You’ve said that. And you obviously don’t need to be.
Look at me, I’m fine.”
She nodded. “I know. You look…good.”
I could have sworn there was a slight hesitation before “good.”
“Wel , I just got out the shower,” I protested.
“You look fine, Perry.”
Ah, downgraded from Category Good to Category Fine.
What was next? Category OK?
“I wanted to see how you were handling things.”
I opened my mouth to say something but she continued.
“Come on, we both know what Dex did was a terrible, terrible thing. When I found out, I was livid for weeks. I knew how he felt about you-”
The anger built up in my abdomen again and caught the edges of my chest.
“Felt about me?”
“Yes. I mean, he didn’t mean to hurt you. He meant to hurt himself.”
I sprang to my feet, knocking the chair backward.
“I hope he f**king did hurt himself! Look, I don’t care about what Dex did and why he did it. OK? That’s in the past here. We were both to blame. I shouldn’t have been so stupid and I shouldn’t have believed for one minute that he thought of me more as more than a friend.”
“But he does.”
“Bul shit! Friends don’t f**k each other over. Or f**k each other and then f**k each other over!”
“I know, I know, but he’s a messed-up little bugger and he made a terrible mistake.”
I took a step closer to her and wagged my finger in her face. “Are you defending him? Did you think you could come here, to my house, to my life, and start defending him? Fuck you, too.”
She reached for my hand but I snatched it out of her way and glared at her. She gave me a steady look.
“I am not defending him,” she said with forced calm.
“Dex is an idiot and he has his issues. I just thought you‘d like to know that he lost the most out of this.”
My mouth dropped open and I let out a gasp.
“Let me finish!” she raised her hands. “Let me finish before you kick my bottom. I didn’t come here to tel you about Dex or try to make you feel sorry for him. I’m just tel ing you the truth, even if it’s the truth you don’t want to hear or want to believe. What happened, even though it was his fault, destroyed him total y. He was so far gone-”
“Rebecca!” I howled at her, the madness fil ing my face with heat. “I said I don’t care! I know Dex is stil your friend and that’s fine, but it’s all over. The show. Whatever thing we had going on. Even you and me. I have a new life now. I have a new job, I have new friends and I have new dreams.
You say you were worried about me; well all I can say is that I’m fine. I wasn’t fine for a while there, but I am now. It’s over. OK?”
She looked down at her immaculately manicured nails. I was breathing hard and starting to feel faint again. I felt bad for blowing up at her but she should have known just what she was walking into when she showed up here.
“OK,” she said, then sighed. She looked around the room again, avoiding my eyes. “I’l get going.”
She got up and made her way for the door. A small part of me wanted her to stay, to tel me more about how miserable Dex was and about how far he’d fal en. But that was the part of me that stil cried over love songs sung by a bug-eyed pianist and I was pretty good at burying her needs and wants.