“Yeah,” Chuck adds. “It’s Friday.”
Dana rolls her eyes at me as the guys leave.
“Are you still coming tonight?” I ask her.
“I’ll be there.”
“Do you have the address?”
She rifles through some papers on the desk. “The flyer is around here somewhere. I’ll text you if I can’t find it.”
“Okay.” I stand and grab my bag. “Bye.”
*
A heavy cloud of hairspray hits my face the second I open the apartment’s front door.
“Wow,” I mutter, waving a hand around to try and dispel the heavy fumes. “Is anyone still alive in here?”
“Barely!” Crystal’s voice comes from the living room. “Send Twinkies and DVDs! This is going to take a while!”
She stands in the middle of the living room with Eryk perched on one of the kitchen stools in front of her. Even sitting on the stool, he still comes up past her shoulder. Crystal busily winds locks of the mermaid colored wig around a curling iron, spraying each strand with the aerosol hairspray. It looks like someone devoured a Beauty Supply and then threw up all over the floor and coffee table. Makeup brushes, lipsticks, bobby pins, styling gels, and a plethora of other supplies litter the area.
I step over Crystal’s big black makeup case and sit on the couch. “You look amazing.”
“Thanks.” Eryk winks at me.
“Are you nervous?”
He takes a deep breath. “A lady never admits to nerves.”
“Really? Damn, I’ve been doing it wrong my whole life.”
Crystal nibbles her lip and looks over at me while wrapping a new piece of hair around the curling iron. “Did Brendan say anything to you about tonight?”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Let me guess. You invited him tonight as well?”
“Way before what happened on Tuesday.”
“So you mean you invited him on Monday?”
She grimaces.
“It’s okay. I can handle it… as long as it’s okay with you guys.”
I look at Eryk, who shrugs. “It will be good for him.”
Crystal pats our friend on the shoulder and wraps another curl. “A little culture shock never hurt anybody.”
*
Eryk leaves early to get himself checked in, and Crystal and I stay behind to get changed. When I come into her room wearing ballet flats, skinny jeans, and a black t-shirt, she stares at me, her mouth slightly hanging open.
“You’re not dressing up tonight?”
“Crystal,” I whine. “Come on. Don’t be like that. Besides, what do you call these?” I point at my shoes. “They’re not sneakers. I’m trying here.”
She cracks a grin and turns back to the floor length mirror to finish her eyeliner. “Just leave the backpack at home, okay?”
“I can’t make any promises. It’s sewn to my shoulder.”
The surprising thing about Crystal is that she has two distinct styles, and they’re literally on opposite ends of the fashion spectrum. She’s either wearing yoga pants and a tank top or she’s wearing heels and a mini skirt that would make most women blush.
Tonight she’s got on a tight skirt covered in pink feathers. She finishes her makeup and continues to look in the mirror while she teases out her hair.
“Are you seeing that girl again?” I ask, already having forgotten the name of the one who came for dinner.
She makes a face. “I don’t know. She’s kind of religious.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and I normally wouldn’t mind, but she also told me a story about her childhood cat that lasted fifteen minutes.”
“How?”
She exhales for at least ten seconds. “It was heavily detailed. Apparently she has a photographic memory.” She pauses. “It’s so hard to find someone good.”
“I would have thought it would be easier when you’re bi. Twice the choices.”
“Twice the letdowns,” she corrects me.
She takes a step backwards and turns to the side, studying her back. “What’s up with Mr. Mulroney?”
I lean against the doorway. I don’t like the segue from Crystal’s dating life to Mr. Mulroney. It makes it seem like he and I are some sort of thing, and thinking about such an occurrence is a stab in the heart.
“He’s been gone all week.”
“Where?”
“Some trip.”
She catches my eye in the mirror, and she must get the hint that I don’t really want to talk about him because she gives me the tiniest of sympathetic smiles and doesn’t say anything else.
We leave together in her car, and I take the opportunity to close my eyes and let my hand hang out the window to ride the wind in between stoplights. I prop my feet up on the dashboard for good measure and enjoy the sounds of the nighttime city throbbing all around us.