Page 7 of Like It's 1999

After I grunt, she ticks that bossy finger back and forth in front of Kate’s face. “But no getting any ideas, missy. No high hopes and moony faces from you. We had sex, and that is it. We’re nottogether”—she makes air quotes—“and we never will be.” She draws a line in the air between us. “Neither of us doestogether, so I don’t want to hear anything about it. Got it?”

Fists on hips, she glares at Kate, then Will, then Deb, then Pam. Then me.

Usually, it’s me having to sell no-strings-attached sex. I should be relieved that I got it without having to work for it. So why do I feel like I’ve been robbed?

Part Two

December, 1989

“What happens to us in the future? Do we become assholes or something?”

Marty McFly,Back to the Future

ALICE

Through thick and thin, no matter what’s going on with work or the rest of our lives, Kate and I find time to run together. It’s when we catch up. And give each other shit. So I start right in, the moment our heels hit the pavement. “I’m surprised Will let you out of bed to meet me this early.”

She shoves me, almost hard enough to break my stride. “Hey, he’s no caveman. Wait. I’m not that kind of girlfriend, am I? I haven’t abandoned you just because I foundthe man of my dreams?”

“Nah, you were way more married to your job at the investment firm—and I’m talking an abusive marriage—than I can imagine you ever being to Will.”

She doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. Her breath is puffing out in regular little white clouds in the frigid air, so I know it’s not that shecan’ttalk. Just when my mind reaches the blessed Zen of a runner’s high, she blurts out, “That’s why I asked Steve to be a bridesmaid, you know.”

“Huh?” Usually I can follow the zigs and zags of Kate logic, but she’s lost me this time.

“He doesn’t belong at my old firm either, but he doesn’t know it. He doesn’t hang out with anyone who isn’t steeped in that frat-boy culture except me.” She taps me on the arm. “And, I was hoping, you. He needs smart, female friends. But you’re avoiding him.”

“What? Have we not met all of our deadlines?”

She groans. “You guys have done a great job. I just thought you’d have more fun doing it—that we could all hang out. But you guys slept together and now almost a whole year has gone by and you still avoid each other.”

“That’s not…“ My argument fades before I can make it because I know she’s right. I’m afraid I’ll want to sleep with him again if I spend too much time in his actual presence. Doing everything by phone has been safer. “Okay. You’re probably right. I just didn’t want things to be awkward.” A half-truth, but that’s what I’m going with. “I guess I can help you raise the poor man’s consciousness.”

“Yay!” She claps, turning sideways to skip along next to me. “Just think of him as a project, like at work, when you guys have to change a company’s image.”

It’s not Steve’s image that needs fixing. He’s prettier than any man has a right to be, kind of a perfect mix of Cary Elwes and Rob Lowe. Before Rob Lowe got to be a creep, that is. Okay, nix Rob Lowe, except for his haircut. Big blue eyes, clean-cut square jaw, blond hair with highlights women pay beaucoup dollars for.

“Ahem.”

The smirky interruption from Kate has me shutting down this dangerous line of thinking. “Hush, you. I’ll work on him, but that’s it.”

She makes a pouty face.

I counter right back with my don’t-push-me face.

“Okay, okay,” she finally sighs.

“I’ll help you… reform him or whatever you want to call it.” A memory—in technicolor—of his naked chest pressed against mine has me picking up my pace, as if I could run away from the whole bad idea of me and Hot Steve. “But you know I don’t date, and no offense, but I am neverevergetting married.”

At least not while I’m here in Boston, far enough away from Atlanta that I can keep my parents in the dark about what I do all day. Or all night. Someday, they’ll figure out a way to pull the plug on my playgirl lifestyle and make me move back home. The fact that they think they can do this in America in the twentieth century is as pathetic as it is true.

Parental guilt is a powerful force. One I’ll fight as long as I can.

STEVE

The first Saturday of December, Kate and Will and Alice and I take the afternoon to make the rounds of a few bars and restaurants that have private rooms for parties. Once Kate’s mom “heard tell” of the wedding plans, she threw a fit and demanded that the actual wedding take place at their country club in Virginia. Since the couple’s theater friends aren’t likely to be able to get away for a whole weekend, they’ve decided to throw a party here in Boston after the fact to celebrate with the locals.

Lucky for them, I’ve been to bachelor and engagement parties all over this city, so I was able to come up with a good list of potential venues. Seems like most of my many cousins or fraternity and prep-school buddies have gotten married in the past couple of years. It’s like an infectious disease.

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