The Professional

Chapter 2

I don’t know how long I sat there crying (It was probably only a few minutes, but it felt like hours.) before I heard my phone ringing in the distance. I really didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, but I didn’t want to be alone either. I pulled myself off of the ground and made my way over to my phone that sat on the kitchen counter next to the bottle of wine. Grabbing both my phone and the bottle of wine, I made my way over to the couch that sat about ten feet away before looking at the caller ID: Lana.

I answered the phone with a pathetically teary, “Hey.”

“Anna? What’s wrong, sweetie?” Lana sounded upset at my rather lackluster greeting.

“Oh, you know just doing the single thing and getting my heart crushed. No big deal. Look, I know that you might be mad at me and that you have a boyfriend that you would rather spend time with, but could you come over to my place? I am not feeling my best right now.” I let out a little laugh at the understatement.

“Anna, what is wrong? What is going on?” Lana sounded nearly frantic at this point. I was never one prone to waterworks, so she probably thought that someone had died. In the background, I could hear her bustling about, probably hurrying to get to me in my hour of need, and that actually made me feel a little better, knowing that even though Phillip didn’t reciprocate my feelings I still had people who would drop everything to come to my aid.

“A long-lost love showed up at my doorstep and asked me to plan his wedding, so I am a little downtrodden.” Another understatement.

“What?!” Lana sounded thoroughly aghast at the prospect. “I will be over there in like twenty minutes with ice cream, romantic comedies, alcohol, and tissues, and you are going to explain the whole thing to me--start to finish.”

I let out a watery chuckle and agreed to explain everything when she got here before ending the call. While I waited for Lana to arrive, I stared at the glass of wine that Phillip had left on the counter and took swigs of wine from the bottle in my hand. I could vaguely make out his lip print on the rim of the glass, and I wanted to keep that small reminder of him right there sort of a tribute to him.

A clunking knock on the door tore my gaze away from the glass, and I stood unsteadily from my spot on the couch to open the door. Lana stood there laden with what seemed like an army of bags in my buzzed state and eased her way into my apartment.

“Okay, so I have about ten different pints of ice cream, three kinds of alcohol, all of my romantic comedies, and the tissues as promised,” she announced as she set the bags down in front of the couch. “Now I am expecting a story. Grab the spoons and the glasses and settle in, because I am not letting you off this couch until I know everything.”

I went into the kitchen to grab the utensils and purposefully avoided making eye contact with the glass still sitting on the counter. Lana made herself comfortable on the couch and carted out two pints of ice cream--one of which was mint chocolate chip, my favorite kind of ice cream. I joined her and immediately dove into my ice cream.

“Okay, what happened?” Now that I was here in this situation, I realized how silly I was being. There was no chance that Phillip and I would ever be together, and I had known that for a long time.

“It was nothing really.” I said evasively.

“Nothing? Anna, for as long as I have known you, I have never seen you get so worked up over a guy. Who is he? What is going on? Talk to me.”

“Honestly, he is no one. He is just a crush that I had when I was a child.”

“Sounded like more than that to me.”

“Was there a point in my life where I thought that we might be ‘meant for each other’? I suppose, but I realized a long time ago that I was never going to be with him.”

“I will repeat my question: Who is he? From what you have told me, you never had a boyfriend.” Lana waited patiently for my reply, and I didn’t want to rip open all of the wounds that I had but knew that she wouldn’t leave it alone unless I told her what was going on.

“He is a friend of my sister’s--her best friend actually. Yes, I fall under the cliche of falling for your sibling’s best friend. I met him when I was in my early teens. He is four years older than me, so it is easy to see why I might have . . . idolized him when I was younger. He and my sister were inseparable when they were in high school, and I got to know him through her. I know practically everything there is to know about him. He is terrified of cats; he thinks Britney Spears is better than Christina Aguilera (We used to argue about that a lot.); he is afraid of not being needed and being used. The sad thing is that he doesn’t even know what my favorite color is. Even something as trivial as that about me, and he couldn’t tell you the answer. What would you expect though? I was just his best friend’s awkward little sister.

“Anyway, he graduated high school and went off to college. I only got to see him on breaks when he would come over to see my sister. I never told her how I felt about him because I always secretly thought that they were going to start something up. They always hung out, and everyone thought that they were going to end up married or something.

“I stopped thinking about him as much when I didn’t have to see him all the time and when I didn’t have to hear about his dating all of these girls, but he was always at the back of my mind. I already knew that we weren’t going to end up together, but knowing it doesn’t erase those feelings. After he graduated college and started medical school, I was sure that I wouldn’t see him any more. I had already moved out of my parent’s house anyway, so I wouldn’t run into him there.

“But today, he showed up in front of my apartment. Apparently, Audrey told him where I lived, and he wanted to tell me the good news in person. He is engaged, and he asked if I would help him and his fiance plan the wedding because neither one of them know what they are doing. And of course I said I would help them. Do you want to know why? Because I still freaking love him.” I scooped out a huge chunk of ice cream when I finished telling my story and stuffed it in my mouth petulantly. Lana just gave me this bewildered look, and I knew that she was judging me for how childish I was being over a boy that I hadn’t seen in almost four years. “See, I told you that I was being silly. This really isn’t a big deal. I am just overreacting.”

Lana looked at me like I was crazy. “You are not overreacting. You are underreacting! Who is this douchebag to show up at your doorstep after how long of ignoring your existence and ask for your help in planning his wedding! I am so far beyond freaking pissed off right now.”

“What?” I was shocked to say the least. I had never told anyone about the feelings that I had for Phillip, but I never expected for someone to side with me when it came down to it. I always expected a pitying look that said that I should have expected to be turned down.

“I have half a mind to go key his car or something, and I might just add your sister to the list too. What was she thinking giving your address to this guy so that he could ask for your help? I am sorry to say this, but your sister needs to get her head out of her ass.”

“Well . . . she probably didn’t know what he was going to do with my address. She might have thought that he wanted to send me a wedding invitation or something.”

“Stop making excuses for other people and stand up for yourself!”

I looked down in my lap at the melting, half-empty pint of ice cream and sighed dejectedly. “What good would it do? The only thing that would change would be that everyone would know how I feel about Phillip, and I would never escape the stigma of unrequited love.”

“I am not just talking about with your sister and Phillip. I am talking about with everyone. You always just roll over and take everything people dish out to you. You avoid conflict at the expense of your dignity.”

“Well, maybe everyone is right. Maybe I am just not enough. Maybe I do need to change. I mean, look at me! I have never had a boyfriend. The number of dates I have been on could easily fit on one had. I am twenty-three years old, and my life is heading nowhere.”

“No, I will not allow this self-pitying crap. I am not friends with wallowers. I will allow you this one night to drown your sorrows in copious amounts of ice cream, alcohol, and cheesy romances, but after that, you are getting back out there and showing the world what it is missing.”

“Ugh, does that mean more blind dates?”

“Why yes. Yes, it does, but this time I am going to find the perfect guy for you.” I highly doubted that after all the attempts that she made at finding the perfect guy for me that she would find him immediately after all of this.

“Sure, you will,” I said with a disbelieving tone.

“I actually already have someone I have been wanting to set you up with, but you always seemed so reluctant that I didn’t want to waste a good chance when you were still skeptical. I feel that part of that reluctance might have something to do with this Phillip guy, but now that he is out of the picture, you might be a little more accepting.” It still hurt hearing that Phillip was no longer an option, so I just nodded a little and continued to munch on my ice cream quietly.

For the rest of the night, Lana and I sat around watching movies back to back and eating our weight in ice cream and getting a little more than tipsy on alcohol. We started yelling abuse at the characters when they made a mistake that split the main couple up and cried happy tears when the main couple got back together a few minutes later. After almost all of the pints of ice cream were empty and most of the alcohol was gone, we dozed off together on the couch and slept until late the following afternoon.

When I woke up to my trashed living room which had empty ice cream containers and empty liquor bottles strew across the floor and DVD cases scattered across the coffee table, I smiled to myself, grateful to have such a good friend that would drop everything and come to my aid when I needed her and spend a substantial amount of money on comfort food just so that I could feel better. I eased myself slowly off of the couch, making sure not to aggravate my aching head and not to wake Lana as I stood up, and headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth to remove the horrible aftertaste of a night of drinking and to take a quick shower.

Doing a quick once-over on my teeth, I stripped out of my clothes and turned on the shower, as I waited for the water to heat up, I took a look at myself in the mirror. To say that I was not pretty would be true. Hell, I barely qualified as cute. I was the wrong kind of chubby. Some girls are chubby, but they have the hourglass figure and big boobs that make them still look attractive. I have an apple shape with most of my weight being carried in my stomach, upper arms, and thighs, and I didn’t even have big boobs to show for all the extra weight that I carried. My skin was an ungodly, pasty white that might be considered transparent, and my hair was lanky and a mousy brown color that wasn’t at all attractive.

I stood there staring at myself in the mirror until the glass was too fogged to see anything other than a distorted, white blob and stepped into the shower. I made sure to take a quick through shower and changed into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. Heading back into the kitchen while dutifully ignoring the wine glass that I had left on the kitchen island as a monument to my unfulfilled dreams, I started up a pot of coffee, making sure to make enough for both myself and Lana. I knew that Lana would need a strong cup of Joe to wake her up after all of the alcohol she had yesterday. Grabbing a frying pan from the cabinet and eggs and bacon from the refrigerator, I began cooking breakfast for the two of us. It was the least I could do considering the fact that she had dropped everything to come over here last night and console a weeping girl.

After I had finished cooking the food, I heard Lana groan and looked over at the couch and smiled gently as she slowly sat up, and I put a serving of eggs and bacon on a plate and pour a large mug of coffee. I grabbed the mug and the plate and carried them over to the side of the island that had the stools.

“Lana?” I called gently and got a groan in reply. “There is food and coffee on the island, if you want any.”

Staggering over to the island, she planted herself on the barstool with the food in front of it and laid her head on the counter beside the food.

“Ugh, someone turn off the sun. It is burning my eyes.”

“Just drink your coffee and take a shower, and you will be fine. I will get you some aspirin,” I comforted her. I grabbed some aspirin from the cabinet beside the sink and passed the pills over to Lana.

“Thanks, babe,” she mumbled as she dry-swallowed the pills that I had given her. “I can’t believe I drank that much last night. God, I haven’t drunk like that since college.”

“I haven’t either.” Lana sipped at her coffee, and I struggled with the words to tell her how grateful I was to her for all that she had done for me. Never being one to express my emotions well, I didn’t know where to start or how to say what I was thinking and feeling, so I just jumped in. “Thanks for you know . . . everything.”

Lana met my eyes over her coffee cup and smiled at me. She knew how hard it was for me to talk about how I was feeling. I was only able to last night because I was buzzed. “No problem.”

I loved that about Lana. It seemed as if she knew more about me than my own sister, and she didn’t make a big long speech or anything about how she would be there for me. It was just a given that she would help me through anything that I needed her to. An uncontainable smile broke out over my face.

We continued eating our breakfasts and settled into a companionable silence, but as soon as Lana finished her meal, she began talking, indicating that she had been thinking of how to start the conversation.

“So, what now?” I looked at her curiously. “I mean, you agree to plan the douchebag’s wedding, and I know you are strong and everything but . . .”

She paused, and I knew what she was thinking: this--planning Phillip’s wedding to another woman--would break me, heart and soul.

“Well, I know that what I feel for Phillip is just puppy love, and I can’t just turn it off. The best plan of action I think is to find someone that I can feel the real thing with.”

“So?” Lana prompted. A sly smile broke over her face. She knew what I was saying, but she wanted me to actually say it.

I rolled my eyes at her. “I agree to go on a blind date with this supposedly perfect man that you have found for me.”

Lana let out an ungodly high-pitched squeal and winced immediately afterwards because of her still pounding head.

“Okay, so what days are you free this week?” Lana asked eagerly.

“Well, I have a ‘planning party’ on Saturday, but any other day, I am free.”

“I will give him a call and see what day he can do. I still don’t see why you are doing planning this thing for that jerk, but this is your decision. If you need any help, just give me a call.”

“Will do. Thanks.” I grabbed her plate from in front of her and started washing the dishes, and Lana slunk away to take a shower. When she got back from her shower, we sat on the couch and spent the day joking around and watching television together until Lana had to leave to get ready for a hot date with her boyfriend of the hour. Walking her to the door, I bid her goodbye, and she said, “I will give you a call tomorrow with the time and day of the date. You better be there.”

I laughed a little at her. “I will talk to you later.”