Chapter 78
And being back with Bethany again, so was she.
They picked up right where they had left off, as if Dana had only gone home to visit for a weekend and hadn’t walked away without saying goodbye for a good month or so before Bethany came after her. There were some subtle changes, of course, things that only helped their friendship grow. Bethany started to stand up for herself at work, so she had more normal hours and was no longer gone all the time. Now Dana knew she’d leave in the mornings by seven thirty and be home no later than six. And Dana didn’t beg or grovel for her old job at the coffee house back. Instead, she found a position at a bookstore and loved it more than she thought she ever could.
Plus, with the new year, she promised herself she’d finally seriously consider going to graduate school, and spent the first few weeks back in New York visiting the colleges closest to their apartment to see what programs they offered that might interest her. In the end it turned out Library Science really wasright up her alley. The only problem? The school she wanted to attend was in Queens, a good forty-five minutes away from where they lived in Manhattan.
“This is New York, honey,” Bethany told her one evening as they sat on the couch sipping wine. “A forty-five minute commute is nothing. If that’s where you want to go, then go. Don’t settle for anywhere else.”
Dana shook her head as she leafed through the brochure. “I don’t know. It seems so far away. I thought there’d be something closer, but…”
Bethany rested a hand on Dana’s thigh; they sat so close, their legs were already pressed together anyway, but the added warmed of her fingers curling around above Dana’s knee added to the intimacy of the moment. “Look, think of it this way. One, it’s grad school, so you aren’t going to be going to classes every day. You can do the commute once or twice a week no problem. Two, you’ll be on the subway, so the extra time can be spent doing schoolwork and won’t be wasted. Three, you like this school, right?”
“Better than any of the others.” Dana indicated the other brochures she had fanned across her lap.
“Then do it,” Bethany said. “You have my blessing. It’s only for what, two years? Then you have a master’s and you can get a better job.”
“But I got so mad at you last year for being gone all the time,” Dana tried to argue.
Bethany shook her head. “You won’t be gone all the time. This isn’t undergraduate. You’ll take two or three classes a semester, tops. I know, I looked into it a few years back before I got my job at the Consulate. The coursework is a bitch, and you’re supposed to do an independent study or write a thesis or something your final year, that’s why you aren’t bogged down with general ed courses. There aren’t any filler classes in grad school. You only take what you need to graduate.” Her hand moved up Dana’s thigh, rubbing through Dana’s thin yoga pants. “Just apply and see what happens. You can always change your mind.”
True. So Dana spent the next month or so completing the application, tackling it as if it were just another class assignment and not letting herself dwell on it too much. She didn’t want to think about it until she psyched herself out. Instead, she let her mind drift to Bethany and where they stood on things, because since she’d returned to New York, she wasn’t quite sure what the answer to that was. Sure, they were friends, and sure, Bethany had said she might be interested in being something more, but did that mean Dana was supposed to make the first move? Or should she wait for Bethany to do it?
At the rate they were going, she thought if she waited for Bethany, she’d be an old maid who’d never done anything more than kissed a girl once while drunk before her friend got around to taking their friendship to the next level.
So she was more than pleasantly surprised when she woke on Valentine’s Day to find a heart-shaped box of chocolates waiting for her on the kitchen counter. The note on top read, I’ve made plans for dinner. See you then! xoxo Bethy
Dana had to work at the bookstore from ten to four, but on her way home, she swung by a bodega for flowers, then stopped for a bottle of Bethany’s favorite wine. After a moment of hesitation, she picked up a second bottle, too. Their first kiss had needed a boost of liquid courage, so their second might be fueled with some, as well. She hurried home to uncork the first bottle so it could breathe a little before Bethany arrived. Then she changed out of her work clothes, a flowing skirt and oversized cardigan—which she always felt made her look like a librarian and decidedly unsexy, and into something that might end the night with a kiss. Tight jeans and a clingy black sweater did the trick.