Taken By Surprise

by Jessica Frances

  ***

  Monday night, Dana knocks on my door. I hadn’t been expecting her. I had sent her a text message saying I wouldn’t be able to meet her at MAY tonight. Part of me wants to spend every last second of my life with her, but another part of me wants to wallow in self-pity. The self-pity won today.

  “Dana?”

  “What’s going on? Are you sick?” Dana holds her hand to my forehead after I let her inside the house.

  “What? No.”

  “Then why didn’t you go to work today?”

  “How did you know about that?” All I had said in my message was that I couldn’t make it to MAY, not work.

  “Joel came into A Novel Idea today, said you had called up work to say you wouldn’t be in all week. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing is wrong, I just felt like I needed some time off.”

  “You’re lying. Joel looked like crap and he was worried sick about you. He said he thinks he scared you on Friday night. What happened?”

  “He didn’t scare me. I just needed a break is all,” I lie.

  “Are you sure? If he did something to you, I can get Drew to rough him up.”

  “Dana, no. Seriously, Joel didn’t do anything to me.” I keep eye contact with her to prove I’m not lying.

  “Okay. Although, to be honest with how he looked today, I probably could have beaten him up myself. He looked like crap.”

  “Did he?” I can’t imagine Joel ever looking bad.

  “Yeah, he looked really unwell and rundown, like he hasn’t been sleeping in days. Are you sure you’re not sick? Maybe you caught something together?”

  I lightly slap away her hand as she reaches out to touch my forehead again. “I’m fine, I promise. I just needed to take a break from work.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Dana!” I throw my hands up in the air in exasperation.

  “Fine, fine, but will you at least tell me what happened with Joel?”

  “Nothing happened. I’m just not sure I like him.” I look down at my hands, unable to meet her eyes.

  “Trust me, you do.”

  “Can we not talk about Joel?” I beg, leading us out of the hallway and collapsing heavily down on the couch I had vacated moments earlier.

  “Fine, then let’s talk about your birthday.” Dana crosses her arms over her chest.

  “My birthday?”

  “Well, yeah; you’ve been able to put off talking about it for weeks, but now it’s here and we’ve got nothing planned.”

  “I don’t want anything planned.” My panic is creeping back again.

  “You don’t really mean that. You’re just saying that because you’re not feeling well.”

  “I’m feeling fine and I do mean that.”

  “So, you don’t want a party?” Dana scrunches her face to examine mine.

  “Hell, no. I just want to spend the day with you and I’m having a quiet dinner with Mom.”

  “So no Joel?”

  “No Joel. No party. No guns.”

  “Guns?” Dana gasps surprised.

  “Nothing. Can we change the subject again?” I stare at the muted television, trying to distract myself.

  “Again? To what?”

  “I don’t know. What did Drew want with you yesterday?” Drew had made sure Dana had yesterday free and she’d had no idea why. It was all a big mystery.

  “It was so romantic. He took me away Saturday night to this little bed and breakfast and he—” Dana’s phone rings loudly from her bag, cutting her off. She fumbles around, trying to find it.

  “Hey… yeah, she’s fine… nothing apparently… I do not always overreact, you—… Okay, I’ll pick some up on my way home. Love you.” Dana clicks her phone off and rolls her eyes.

  “Let me guess, he wants you to pick him up a mop and bucket since you make everyone around you vomit with how lovesick you both are,” I joke.

  “We are not lovesick.” Dana’s roll of her eyes is directed at me now.

  “You are so! Come on then, what happened this weekend, prove me wrong.”

  “Oh, shut up.” Dana sits on the couch next to me, grabbing the remote from under her since she sat down on it and turns the volume up. She rests her head on my shoulder while she randomly changes the channel.

  We sit together in comfortable silence before my thoughts circle back to my impending doom. “Dana, when you and Drew get married and have twenty children, can you promise me something?”

  “Yes, I promise that we’ll make you babysit them all at once, every weekend, for the rest of your life.”

  “Yeah, right. No, can you promise me that when you’re reading them some magical story that you loved when you were a child that you’ll tell them about me, about us.”

  “What do you mean?” Dana turns to face me, giving me her full attention.

  “We had such a great childhood growing up, even though I lost Dad and Frank, it doesn’t matter. You were the sister I never had. Tell them about the Christmases we spent together. Tell them about old Mrs. Black who chased us away with an umbrella when she caught us switching up the street’s mail. Tell them about the time we got those markers that you can erase and sketched out a story about a prince falling in love with his princess on our second grade teacher’s walls, only to realize we were using permanent markers by mistake. Tell them about the boy you threatened to smack across the face because he dared to break up with me, even though we were only in fifth grade.”

  “Zoe, what are you going on about?”

  “They should know how awesome we were together.”

  “Well then, you tell them, because I’m pretty sure it’s bad parenting to tell your kids how you threatened to beat another kid up. Besides, why is it me that’ll have twenty kids? Maybe it’ll be you who has fifty kids.”

  “I don’t think so, but sure. If I have fifty kids I’ll tell them about the time you wet the bed when you slept over at my place because you thought there was a man under my bed with a knife.”

  “One, you promised never to mention that again and two, who on earth wouldn’t be freaked out if they thought that!” Dana pushes me in the arm.

  “Fine, that one stays in the vault.”

  “How about this? When I publish my first book, it’ll be the scandalous story of Dee and Zee and the bank we robbed.”

  “We never robbed a bank,” I point out.

  “Well, we have plenty of time to do that.”

  I shake my head, but don’t argue back. We sit and watch TV in silence until it gets so late Drew calls again.

  “Okay, so I guess I won’t see you at MAY this week?”

  “I don’t think so.” I want to say yes, but I know I can’t go back to work again.

  “Okay, I’ll pick you up on Saturday and we’ll go out for lunch.”

  I nod in agreement. “Drive safely.”