“Holy crap, Tess. I feel like my mind is spinning with all this information. Let’s break it down.” She takes a sip of her coffee and then puts the cup back down on the table. Looking me dead in the eye she goes for it. “How in the hell could you ever think Barrett… Barrett of all people… would ever even look at another woman? And seriously, haven’t you noticed Keri sitting at MaryEllen’s old desk? Don’t you remember we had the retirement party for her?”
I groan into my hands, mortification of my selfish behavior lately setting in. “Truth? And this is where it gets worse. Way worse,” I tell her, pleading with my eyes to be understanding. She circles her hand in the get on with it gesture, rolling her own eyes. “Ok, don’t judge me. I had a design trade show the weekend of the retirement party. I remember asking Barrett if I needed to do anything for it, and he seemed a little, I don’t know, indifferent. Now that I look back, he was probably pissed that I was choosing the design show over him, and, truth be told, he has a right to be pissed. And the reason I haven’t seen Keri is because I haven’t been to the office in four months.” I mumble the last part quickly as I begin to take a drink of my coffee and divert my eyes from hers.
“Say what?” she asks, her eyes squinting at me, eyebrows bunched together.
I set my coffee cup down and clear my throat and tell her a little more clearly this time. “I haven’t been to the office for four months.”
She looks at me blankly then blinks a couple times. “How is that even possible?”
I shrug my shoulders in response and look away, tears building in my eyes. I’m ashamed that I’ve let our relationship come to this. I don’t think either of us even realized it, to be honest. It just kind of happened. We both started letting things slip and slide until it got to this ugly point.
“Tess. Sweetie, this isn’t like you. You used to show up unannounced at the office all the time. Trust me, I know this all too well,” she says with raised eyebrows, no doubt thinking of the few times I’ve walked in on her and Josh in the middle of gettin’ some.
“Yeah, I can never un-see that, thanks very much.”
She grins unashamed and shrugs her shoulders. “Tess, you need to end that. Make sure you go and meet Keri. She’s really sweet, and she has a boyfriend — a boyfriend she’s planning to marry as soon as he proposes. There’s nothing you can do about the past four months, but you can change the present and future.”
“Right. But the guilt…” I shake my head and scoff. “It’s killing me. I feel awful for the way I’ve been allowing myself to get so wrapped up in life I forgot he has his own things going on, too. It’s been four months since I’ve been to the shop. Four months, Lauren. That’s a long time. I feel bad enough for that, but the Keri-thing. I can’t believe I accused him of even looking at another woman that way. What was I thinking?”
“You weren’t. Your emotions are getting the best of you.” She gasps dramatically and puts her hand to her chest before whisper shouting to me, “Do you think… Are you going through the change!?” Her voice is a mix of horrified and teasing.
“You’re such a brat,” I say, to which she smiles.
“You love me. But, I’ll repeat, there’s nothing you can do about the past. You can make the rest up to him. Get back to your roots. Now, I’m gonna ask… Why is it that you’re both so hard up? I’ve seen you two around each other. You don’t seem the type to be low on sex drive.”
“It’s definitely not lack of sex drive that’s the issue. Well, sort of. The desire is there, but we’re also exhausted, or we have Harper barging into the bedroom. Or Grady coming home at whatever time of night from Bri’s or Brandon’s house. Or so many other things that seem to keep popping up that we’re deeming more important that I know aren’t. We need… I don’t know. I was going to say a break from life, but neither of us are willing to miss the kids’ games and just. Gah! I’m whining. What’s up with you?” I shoot her a fake smile to stop my own rambling.
“You are so weird.” She chuckles while shaking her head at me. “First of all, that’s not whining. That’s venting to your best friend. You could have ranted on BookFace. That would be whining and trying to get everyone’s sympathy.” She grins cheekily.
Lauren — and our husbands — have a huge pet peeve with Facebook. The guys started calling it BookFace because they’d rather take a book to the face than engage on Facebook. But in her opinion, no one is ever honest in their posts. The way she sees it, everyone has to make sure they look perfect, only show their kids in their best light and their husbands doing awesome things. They never mention that it took them twenty practice shots for the selfie to turn out just the way they wanted it to, that they had to bribe their kids with ice cream in order for them to behave for the picture or video clip. Never admit that the husband was bribed with some lovin’ just so he would cook dinner or go to the grocery store. But they still post the picture for all the world to see so they have proof that their family is better than yours. Her words, not mine.
She’s probably fairly on point in her opinion, but it still cracks me up. I think the only reason she even has a Facebook profile is so that she doesn’t miss out on what fiction — again, her words, not mine — everyone posts. It’s hilarious. And it’s one of the reasons I love her so much.
“Come on, Lauren. Tell me what to do. I’m being serious now.”
“I’ll being serious, too. Exactly how long has it been since you’ve had a chance to bump nasties, do the oompa loompa, the horizontal mambo, gotcha some, hit a home run, played a little slap and ti…”
“Oh my gosh!” I interrupt her and look around to make sure no one heard us while my face is flaming red. “Shut up! You’re so ridiculous,” I say, barely able to hold my laughter to a dull roar.
“What? Saying ‘When was the last time you made love’ is so boring and so nineties,” she somehow says with a straight face, meanwhile making an obscene gesture with her hands, since apparently we’re sixteen again.
I laugh so hard I almost pee. “You’re such an idiot. Where do you come up with this stuff?”
She taps her temple and proudly says, “It’s all stored up here. Awesome, right?”
“It’s something, all right. I can’t even have a normal conversation with you,” I tell her.
“Sorry.” She visibly shakes her body like she’s shaking out the crazies. Good luck with that. “So are we talking weeks? Months? How long, babe. Give me a timeline so I know if we’re in like a DEFCON 3 situation, or if it’s a Charlie Brown problem.”
“So it’s definitely more serious than a Charlie Brown problem, whatever that is, but I’m assuming you mean not serious. But it’s not as extreme as calling in the National Forces. I don’t know. It depends if you’re including the number of times we’ve tried but couldn’t get any downtown action happening because we got interrupted.” I sigh.
“It’s been a few months, huh?”
I really wish I could lie and tell her she’s wrong. It’s not like we haven’t tried. The interruptions seem to be endless. Tears threaten to build in my eyes, which is stupid. It’s sex. But really it’s more than that, obviously. It’s not just the sex that I miss. It’s him. It’s us. We don’t get time together like we used to, sure. But that’s no different than any other married couple with active kids. We’re all busy. I get that. That’s also why I feel stupid whining about it, but I can’t help it.