Chapter 71
Just friends.Yeah, right. Maybe before, but now? Dana wasn’t so sure that was still the case. 4: Maybe Something More
September 1999
If anything, the kiss only widened the distance already growing between them. When Dana sobered up, she wished she hadn’t—not hadn’t kissed Bethany, no, she didn’t regret that, because she recognized her only chance when she saw it, but rather wished her body hadn’t purged the wine from her system. If only being drunk was a viable career choice. She could totally give it a go.
The days stretched out indeterminately. Winter rolled into spring, then into summer. Bethany worked later and later, or so it seemed to Dana, and when she washome, little passed between them anymore. Dana no longer thought of themselves as best friends, but rather as formerfriends. They weren’t even roommates, but people who shared a common space. The number of occasions when they were in the apartment at the same time could be counted on one hand. When it happened, Bethany always looked about herself guiltily, as if caught somewhere she shouldn’t be, and was quick to retreat to her room without making eye contact.
She hates me,Dana thought. She knew it had to be true, because how could Bethany still like her when she hated herself? She’d ruined what they had together with one stupid, drunken kiss. Just call me Judas and hang me right now.
As more time went by, it became harder to broach the subject, to talk about it, until it hung over their heads like a pall, heavy and dark, smothering them. By the end of the summer, Dana could stand it no longer. If nothing was going to be said, then at least something could be done, and if Bethany wasn’t going to be the one to do it, then Dana would.
She’d leave.
And go where?
Well, back home, of course.
It galled her to do it, but it had to be done. She didn’t know where else to go. Graduate school didn’t interest her, and besides, the end of August was way too late to apply for the fall semester anywhere. She could froth milk and tamp espresso at Books-A-Million or Starbucks the same as she could on Fifth Avenue, and while she’d make less back home, she wouldn’t need all that much to live off of in the first place. Hell, if she could live at home, she wouldn’t need to make hardly anything at all. Free room and board, free meals, free laundry facilities—yeah, she might be going on thirty, but so what?
Plan A had failed. She had to fall back on Plan B now.
But the big question was, would her parents let her come back?
* * * *
Dana waited until the second week of September to call home. Watch Bethany pick tonight of all nights to come home early, she thought, sitting on the edge of the couch so she could watch the apartment door over her shoulder as she used the phone. Was it just her, or did it take forever for the line to ring through from New York to Virginia? Calls never seemed to take as long to connect when she’d lived in DC
You’re just homesick, she told herself, listening to the distant ring. Come on, pick up. Come on, come on…
After an eternity, her mother answered. “Hello?”
“Mom, hey.” Dana sighed in relief. “There you are. I thought you weren’t home.”
“I’m here, honey. What’s wrong?”
Dana felt herself get defensive. “What does anything have to be wrong? Can’t I just call and say hi?”
With a laugh, her mother asked, “When’s the last time you did that? Besides, I can hear it in your voice. I’m your mother, remember? So what’s up?”
“Are you trying to sound cool?” Dana asked. “Because it isn’t working.”
“Just tell me already. Do you need me to loan you some money again? Is that it?”
Dana bristled. “No, I don’t…actually, it’s—” She sighed. When she spoke again, she couldn’t keep from pouting, and she hated the little girl sound of her voice. “Things are going too well at the moment. Between Bethy and me.”
“Aww, baby.” The sympathy in her mother’s voice made Dana dissolve into tears. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry, too. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” she lied. “We just…I don’t know. Drifted apart, I guess. She has her own life here and I hate it. I want to come home.”
Carefully, her mother said, “Okay. It’s a bit far for us to drive up and get you, though. Can you take a bus?”
Sniffling, Dana admitted, “I don’t have the money. My job sucks, I’m broke all the time, everything’s so expensive up here—”
“Calm down, sweetie. Calm down.” She sighed, obviously gathering her thoughts, then told Dana, “I’ll buy the ticket. Do you still some checks for your account at the credit union? Your dad can put in the money tomorrow.”
Dana tried to think where the checkbook might be. Somewhere in the boxes in her room, the stuff she’d never managed to unpack in all her time in New York. “I should have them somewhere, yeah. If not, I at least have the ATM card in one of my old purses.”
The checking account was the first one she’d ever opened, back in high school, and she’d kept it all throughout college as a handy way for her mother to deposit money she could then use at school. She hadn’t thought of it in years, though. Now when she borrowed money, her mother usually mailed a check that Dana could deposit into her new account at the bank around the corner from the coffee house where she worked.