another wave of shouting kids threatened to trample us in the pursuit of sour Nerds. I could not let her get away again.
“It was great to see you!” she said, drifting toward the sidewalk. Why has age made me better at so few things? I thought getting older was supposed to make me wise and good at stuff?? Should I ask her if she has trouble emptying her bladder all the way? Invite her to an early afternoon book discussion at the local library? HOW WOULD YOUR MOM DO THIS? “I’m gonna friend you on Facebook!” I blurted at the back of her red shirt and mom jeans feeling my bones weaken and my arteries calcifying as I aged forty years in one second. “We should get together! We could eat some black licorice and watch God Friended Me!”
We settled on lunch. Lunch is a good friendship-testing situation, because nighttime feels too much like a date and doing anything during the day makes it easier to pretend you have something urgent to get to if it fucking sucks. “Hate to eat and run, I have a meeting!” Bitch, you don’t have a meeting. But no one can prove that you don’t have a meeting, especially since it’s noon. Also, pro tip: if you’re friends with someone who has a kid, you better learn to love a daytime hang; otherwise you’re going to find yourself sipping Juicy Juice and saying nonsense words like, “Girl, you are not gonna believe this, I found a fu— I mean, a frigging boo-boo on my hoo-ha,” while a six-year-old who should’ve taken his little bad-frigging-ass to bed two hours ago screams, “WHAT?!” and throws peas at your face.
I picked a sushi spot even though I don’t love sushi, because the restaurant is really sunny and cute, and I wanted to make a good impression. Which, in hindsight, is fucking misleading, because I am 100 percent the kind of friend who wants you to pick me up so we can go to the drive thru and gossip over Big Macs in the McDonald’s parking lot. All my real friends are like, “Sushi? Table service? In daylight? I once had to watch you eat a hot dog on the bus!”
I don’t dress up anymore, ever, for any reason, so I’m sure I just wore a dumb T-shirt and high-waisted pants, but I put on some blush because it’s a quick and handy way to make you look like you care about yourself, even when you don’t. Never leave home without something you can blindly rub on to your cheeks in a public bathroom stall. I keep a grimy, dusty NARS multipurpose stick in the bottom of my bag just in case I run into someone who knows me and might ask, “Damn, are you sick?” all loud and shit in the middle of the mall.
Emily showed up to the empty restaurant, and I heaved a huge sigh of relief. I mean, that’s the biggest hurdle, right? Just getting someone to put on pants for you? I don’t remember what she ordered, but I do remember that I was brave enough to order edamame with sriracha salt to start, and by “brave” I mean “foolish,” because it was way too hot for me and I had to fake that I actually enjoy eating flavored foods. She was talking to me about her life, and I was thinking about how to excuse myself to the bathroom and fake my own death. Sriracha salt?? We talked and ordered rolls and laughed and ordered tempura and laughed even harder, and I resisted drooling over the dessert menu, and then the meal drew to a natural close and our waiter, a young man I don’t think was even old enough to serve us alcohol, hovered nearby with the check. I pulled out my debit card and waved him over. It had been my invitation, plus I really wanted Emily to like me and I don’t believe I can win anyone over with charm alone, so I was going to pay. That is another benefit of asking someone to lunch: THAT SHIT IS CHEAP. The waiter took my card and vanished.
I had checked my bank account before I even left the house, because I don’t fucking play that. Chase Bank is not gonna