Page 5 of The Best Friend Experiment
Brooke had known Olivia since college and had subsequently become friends with Penny through her. Some of the other women at the table were members of Olivia and Penny’s knitting group who Brooke only knew a little—although she’d sublet her apartment from Esther, who was sitting across from her. The remaining three women, who were from Penny’s yoga class, Brooke had just met for the first time tonight.
They’d all come together for Penny’s bachelorette, which had started off with mani-pedis and champagne at a nearby salon before moving to the wine bar where they were currently situated. On the table in front of them sat a collection of open wine bottles and the biggest cheese board Brooke had ever laid eyes on, hence “Cheese and Wine Fest 2020.”
“Woot! Woot!” shouted the yoga friend in glasses, whose name was Melody and whose left hand sported a diamond engagement ring the size of a Fiat. “I’m so sad I’m not going to see you walk down the aisle though.”
Penny was getting married in a week, back home in Virginia, so they were having her Los Angeles bachelorette this weekend. Olivia, as Penny’s maid of honor, was the only one of them making the trip for the small family wedding. But once they got back from their honeymoon in two weeks, Penny and Caleb were hosting a separate wedding reception here for all their LA friends.
“I know!” Penny said, pursing her lips in a pout. “But the church is tiny and my family isso big, and the reception’s just going to be at my parents’ house. The party here will be much better. Bonus: you won’t have to watch my great-aunt Naomi eat cake without her teeth in.”
“Ew!” Esther wrinkled her nose as she reached for another piece of Manchego from the cheese plate. They’d all been stuffing their faces with cheese for twenty minutes and barely seemed to have made a dent—that was how massive the cheese board was.
“When areyougetting married?” Penny asked Melody, brandishing a cheese straw like a lecturer’s pointer. “It feels like you’ve been engaged forever.”
“It feels like forever to me too.” Melody frowned as she twisted the big-ass ring on her finger. “It’s just complicated with his family and everything.”
“Families make everything complicated,” Olivia said, shooting Brooke a commiserating look.
Brooke reached over and squeezed her friend’s arm. She and Olivia were both California transplants who had fled out of state for college because they’d wanted to put some distance between themselves and their complicated familial relationships. As undergraduate roommates at Cal State LA, they’d bonded over the fact that they were both from the Gulf Coast area, as well as the fact that neither of them looked forward to going home over holiday breaks.
“You should do a destination wedding,” one of the other yoga friends suggested. All Brooke knew about her was her name was Lacey Lopez, she looked like she could crush a watermelon between her thighs, and she was in a relationship with Tessa, the third yoga friend who was also apparently the yoga instructor. The whole yoga end of the table was intimidatingly fit and beautiful, making Brooke feel self-conscious about her bird legs and flat chest.
They were also all in relationships. As Brooke looked around at their group, she realized everyone else there was either married, engaged, or in a serious, long-term relationship. She was the only single one out of the nine of them.
Cool. Cool cool cool.
Not that she minded being single. On the contrary, she loved it. She wouldn’t trade places with the others for anything. Brooke liked being on her own, and had spent enough time on the dating market that she considered herself lucky she didn’t currently have to deal with a man in her life.
The only thing she minded about being single was that when she was outnumbered by the happily coupled, the conversation often turned to topics that didn’t interest or include her.
“None of my family or friends could afford to go to a destination wedding,” Melody said.
Lacey shrugged. “Get Jeremy’s mom to pay for everyone. It’s not like she can’t afford it.”
Melody shook her head. “She doesn’t approve of destination weddings, so she’d never agree to that. Something about sand and formalwear. She has very particular ideas about what a proper society wedding should be, most of which have to do with impressing her rich friends and business associates.”
“This is why Jonathan and I are never getting married,” Esther announced as she claimed another piece of Manchego. “Both of our families are nightmares, and the thought of them all together at a wedding gives me anxiety sweats. It’s too much trouble. And for what? A meaningless ceremony and a giant cake?”
“Very nice.” Esther’s best friend Jinny, who’d just gotten married a few months ago, jabbed Esther with her elbow. “We’re here to celebrate Penny’s wedding, and you’re bad-mouthing weddings!”
“Ow!” Esther rubbed her arm where Jinny had assailed it. “I wasn’t talking about your wedding or Penny’s! Just weddings in general.”
“I’d have a wedding for the cake alone,” Olivia said with a shrug. “You’re doing it right, Penny. Two receptions means getting two cakes.”
Penny’s face lit up as she turned to Olivia. “Wait! Does that mean you and Adam have started talking about marriage?”
“Noooo.” Olivia gave a definitive head shake as she topped up her chardonnay. “Definitely not.”
“Why not?” Penny asked. “You’ve been together long enough.”
“Leave her alone.” Cynthia, another member of the knitting group, wagged her finger at Penny and pushed her empty wineglass toward Olivia for a fill-up. “Just because you’re getting married doesn’t mean the whole world has to.”
Olivia and her boyfriend Adam were taking it slow. They still maintained separate apartments, and as far as Brooke knew they didn’t have any plans to move in together. Not because they weren’t happy—in fact, they seemed deliriously happy—but because they liked it that way. Olivia said it was good for them to have their own spaces to retreat to sometimes.
Brooke valued her alone time, so she could definitely relate. Sometimes she’d try to picture herself in a serious, committed relationship, sharing her whole life and her home with someone else, but the prospect actively repelled her.
As far as she was concerned, she’d get better value out of a new vibrator than a new boyfriend.
Lately she’d been thinking what she really wanted was a booty call buddy. Someone she could call when she was in the mood for company and ignore when she wasn’t. You wouldn’t think it would be hard to find. If books and movies and most of the internet were to be believed, the world was full of emotionally distant men who were only interested in the physical aspects of a relationship. And yet she’d never managed to stumble across one.
