May's back in town so I make plans to get coffee with her after seeing the Muppets the night before.
"I'm not ready yet!" Nicky insists, having just got out of church.
"No biggie." I say, "I'll just swing by the Coach store and be out in twenty minutes to get you."
...turns out, I end up spending forty minutes in the store literally wandering about attempting to find presents for my friends, running extremely late to pick up Nicky. I make a quip over how, since we've seen each other multiple times this week, we're likely not to see each other for a few months afterwards.
May's kinda MIA for a bit when we arrive, so we grab some crepes before we run into her in front of the Starbucks. She's still the same as ever, thought the bright blond hair has clearly gotten a little duller with too much time in Boston. But she looks happy and healthy, much like she did when we still Skype'd with each other before my laptop went to shit.
She's doing well, applying to med schools in the summer and dating an aggressive guy in Boston who plays ice hockey. At one point, a blob of orange passes by and I erroneously throw out a finger in its direction, singling out, of all the people to pass by, Shay's ex.
Now, the last image I've had of this man was when he was much younger, skinnier, and a lot less hairy and weird. And now... eh, "hot mess and a half" doesn't even come close. He looks grungy and gross and I spend the brief, extremely awkward conversation that follows staring at this tuff of chest hair that looks like a weasel trying to crawl its way out of his shirt while Nicky will later lament that it was impossible to look away from his bulging gut when he had a hole in his shirt that she could see his gut through.
Eventually, he walked away to his hulking fiance... and it sorta made Nicky, May and I stare away with the same simultaneous thought, "He never quite recovered."
What follows after coffee is an extensive walk around the mall wherein we stare at beautiful bags, Nicky searches for a new perfume, and I get a little too enthused with shiny gift-paper. May has to leave at some point, but we make a promise to write to each other with pretty stationaries that I get at the same store where I haul away three different wrapping paper rolls (with matching bows of course).
Next up, we make the dreaded trek to Ricky's house. I'm always up for a good BBQ but Ricky's been blowing up my phone like crazy, same with Nicky, to come over that I can't help but be a little curious. Sure enough, with a little prodding, we laugh over how his motivation for having girls come over is to make sure Rae, who's come into town, won't be alone at this getty. Susie says she'll come, but only willing to coordinate with how long Nicky and I plan on staying since she's a good girl and trying to study.
We talk, we laugh, at some point Andre shows up and I invite him to our novena in the next week, and eventually I just wanna go home.
The drive back after I drop off Nicky is long and quiet and it gives me time to realize that it really has been a year since I started this. In a year, I've managed to be employed and watch my sister get engaged and just see everything pass by. So much has changed, and yet so little and while the world looks happy and pretty now, I just want to let it linger because I know it won't always be like this...
