Second Chance

I was staring at my glass of water wishing I had never promised Anna I’d hang out with her and Elise. We had reached our fifth extremely awkward silence within twenty minutes of sitting down for lunch. I could see the despair at how badly things were going slowly covering Anna’s face.

“Elise…when’s you’re next photoshoot?”

“Next week. It’s nearly swimsuit season.” Elise took a sip of her water and began tapping her foot on the table leg.

Another awkward silence.

“What’s good here?” I asked while looking at a menu. Our waitress was extremely busy it seemed, it took her 15 minutes just to give us our water glasses and take our drink orders.

“I don’t know….I’ve never been here.” Anna said.

“Me either.” Elise said while reaching for her menu.

We perused the menus in silence until our waitress came back, set down our drinks, and asked us what we wanted. I ordered a turkey melt sandwich with fries and a pickle while Anna ordered a warm chicken pita with a bowl of potato and cheese soup and Elise ordered a strawberry and chicken salad with toasted garlic croutons and a dinner roll. Once our waitress left we were left in silence again.

“I felt the baby kick last week.” Anna said looking from me to Elise.

“Cute! Did Theo get to feel?” I asked genuinely.

“No, I was at work but it kicked later that night before we went to bed and he got to feel it then. He was so funny.”

“That’s awesome.” Elise was trying too hard to pretend to care and it oozed from her voice.

I had to keep myself from rolling my eyes and leaving, but I stayed for Anna’s sake.

“How’s Sean?” Anna asked.

Elise shifted in her seat and looked at me with a bored look.

“He’s alright. He’s been fighting with his manager, though, which has been causing him a lot of pressure. But let’s not talk about Sean…” I trailed off and looked down at my napkin.

“How about you Elise? Are you seeing anyone?” Anna asked.

“I’m seeing about five different guys. Casually.”

“O-Oh.” Anna looked socked but covered well and recomposed herself.

“Wow. I guess we’re really lucky to have been able to hang out with you today. You’re probably really busy going out on dates and working and stuff.” I said trying to salvage our quickly spiraling lunch.

“Yep.” Elise gave a bitchy sigh and I lost it.

“Okay, you know what? That’s it!”

“Faith…please don’t-” Anna started but I cut her off.

“What is your problem? I know you tried hit on our friend’s boyfriend. Can we move on please? This attitude is not cute and I’m SO over it.”

“Ugh, please Faith, get over yourself.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean, Elise?”

“It means that you are so judgmental of my life choices and you have no room to talk.”

“Elise, I don’t think Faith was say-”

“Stay out of it, Anna.” Elise snapped. She crossed her arms and fell back into her chair.

Our waitress arrived with our food and we started eating in a frosty silence.

“This food is great.” Anna said a little too brightly.

I nodded and stuffed a French fry in my mouth.

“I don’t know what you want from me.” Elise said quietly.

Anna and I froze and I gave Elise a skeptical look.

“Did you know what you were doing?” I asked her.

“I knew I was flirting with him, yes. I realized why I was doing it later.”

“And?”

“And it was uncalled for.”

“Are you going to do it again?”

“Obviously not.”

“Okay then. I won’t tell Zoey.”

“Just like that?”

“I’m going to need some time to trust you again, but yeah, just like that.”

Almost instantly the three of us were able to move on and salvage the rest of our day. After lunch we stopped at a book shop and I said good-bye to them and then went to meet Molly for our shopping trip. I had a blast! Molly is so much fun to shop with. She’s an actress and is extremely funny. We went to a bunch of thrift shops and found so many vintage dresses.

“That’s really big, I don’t know if you should buy that.” I said when Molly stepped out of a dressing room in what looked like an emerald green wrap-around moo-moo.

“I can take it in. I have awesome sewing skills. Just you wait.”

“Really? I wish I could sew, but I just don’t have the patience.”

“Repairing clothes and taking them in or letting them out is actually how I make money on the side. I learned how in high school and offered to fix things for pay in college and I made a ton of money that way. So when I moved here I got a part-time job at a tailor shop and it gives me a great schedule that lets me audition and work on shows at night. It really worked out great.”

“Wow. Well, now I know where to go to when my fat jeans become my skinny jeans.”

We went to see a movie and while we were waiting for it to start I decided to ask Molly for her advice.

“Have you ever had a friend try to steal your boyfriend?” I asked.

“When I was in high school my best friend did. It ruined high school for me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But he turned out to be gay, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“One of my friends hit on my best friend’s boyfriend and I don’t know what to do. I told her I’d move on but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust her again.”

“I see. That’s understandable, though. I mean, what if she hits on Sean?”

I was kind of shocked. That thought had never crossed my mind, maybe because I’m so secure with Sean and his feelings for me, but I had never even thought that Elise might go after him.

“I don’t think she’ll do it again. It’s the first time she’s ever done this and we’ve been friends for two years. Wouldn’t this have happened already if it was something she made a habit of?”

“I don’t really know. Does your other friend know what she did?”

“No…and I said I wouldn’t tell her about it because I think it might be a one time thing.”

“Well…everyone deserves a second chance, right?”

I nodded.

“Right.”