I balance my phone on my shoulder as I fumble with my key in the lock of our apartment door. It takes me a second before I get it to click and swing the door open.
Grace is sprawled on the couch, phone to her ear. I catch just a snippet of her conversation (“No mom, I don’t want to get a spray tan before taking bridals”) before Lauren pulls me back into ours.
“So she’s pretty sure then?”
I hesitate, dropping my backpack and collapsing into my hand chair just beside Grace. (“I’m fine not being orange, thanks”)
“Yeah. She’s pretty sure.”
“After three weeks of dating?”
“Yup.”
“Well … as long as she’s prayed about it I guess.”
“She has.”
Grace waves a hand at me and I glance over at her. She takes the phone off her ear and says, “Are you still in the mood for Smashburger?”
I pull my phone away from my mouth and respond. “Ummm do you have to ask?”
She grins. “Five minutes?”
“Done.”
We resume our phone conversations.
“Was that Grace?” Lauren asks.
“Mhmm.”
“Tell her I say hi!”
“I will. Listen, we’re gonna get food so I have to go. I’ll call you later?”
“Sure Shmoo. I love you more than Scout.”
“I love you more than my polka dot pants.”
I hang up and grab my purse, making it back into the living room just as Grace hangs up. She grabs her jacket and then we leave.
It’s days like this that I’ve missed the past three weeks … since she’s been in la-la-land with Ben. Days where we go get food and people watch and just spend time together. We get our regular at Smashburger (barbeque burger and oreo chocolate shake for her, cheeseburger and chocolate peanut butter shake for me) and sit across from each other and laugh and swap shakes every now and then.
When we finish, she looks up a little embarrassed. “Hey Jess.”
“Yeah?”
“Can we … can we go lingerie shopping soon?”
“I don’t have any plans the rest of the afternoon.”
She gets a stupid grin on her face and that’s how we end up in the Macy’s dressing room on a Thursday afternoon, trying on lingerie and giggling and commenting on the boob sack lingerie versus the built in bra lingerie. I try on a couple, but she tries on six or seven. There’s a particular white one that is just perfect and she declares that she has to buy it.
But she pauses just outside the dressing room.
“Grace?”
“I’ve never bought lingerie before…”
I raise an eyebrow at her. She scrunches up her eyes and looks over at me.
“Will you buy it for me?”
And that’s how I end up in the Macy’s checkout line with a debit card that’s not mine and a piece of lingerie that’s definitely not mine.
It’s not a long line, but there’s a particularly obnoxious old lady, two customers in front of me, who insists she should get 50% off a sweater because of a tiny snag on the bottom. She takes ten minutes arguing with the poor cashier, whose English isn’t very good to begin with, and I stand there feeling more awkward with every minute.
I finally make it up to the cashier. She smiles at me and I put the lingerie on the counter. She looks at it. Then she looks at me.
“You want … to buy?”
What else? I purse my lips. “Ummm. Yes.”
She nods and picks up the lingerie, and holds it at eye level for the entire store to see, while she hunts around it for a price tag. It must take her a solid minute and a half of fluffing it around and drawing the general attention of the store before she finds it. It takes her another minute to get it to scan.
The price rings up as twenty dollars more than I thought.
“I thought it was only $30?”
She frowns, squinting at the price tag. “No, that scratched off.”
It’s not scratched off. “Are you sure?” I ask.
“I go check.”
Four minutes later, she comes back with no answers. “I go ask someone.”
At this point, I have three customers behind me who are grumbling and probably judging me for buying lingerie. Dang it Grace. The cashier takes another five minutes before she comes back.
“30 dollar,” she says.
I nod, content, and she proceeds to try to re-ring it up. It takes three tries and another four minutes to get it right. Jeez.
“Ok, just put in pin.”
Oh crap. What’s Grace’s pin? I hesitate…it takes me a long moment, but I scrap together memories of seeing her punch it in at grocery stores. I punch in the numbers cautiously, but the machine just chimes happily.
“Okay, now zip code?”
What? Any other question about Grace I would’ve known. Her birthday? Got it. Phone number? Check. Area code? Yup. Address? Yeah right.
I turn around, desperately searching for Grace. I see her hiding behind a rack of clothes. I feel no guilt in calling her out.
“Grace! Zip code!”
She steps from behind the rack of clothes sheepishly. “89434.”
I repeat it to the cashier three times before she gets it.
Then she pulls out a bag and flips the lingerie around in some attempt to fold it and stuff it into the bag, but honestly I’m ready to just grab it and run. We both watch the receipt print out at snail speed.
“Receipt in bag?”
“Yes.” Just hurry up.
She holds out the bag to me and I yank it from her hands, turn on my heel, and book it away from there. Grace hurries out of her hiding place to catch up with me.
We manage to make it down the escalator before breaking out in giggles.
“That shouldn’t have been so hard!”
“I’m so sorry!”
“You have to talk to the next like 50 store people. I’m not doing it.”
“Deal,” she says.
We reach my car and I dig around in my purse for my keys, tossing her the bag. She catches it and gets that stupid grin on her face again.
“Jess. Guess what I just bought?”
“What you just bought?” I find my keys and open my car door.
She sticks her tongue out. “What we just bought.”
I duck into the car, reaching across to unlock her door. She climbs in.
I look over at her, putting my key in the ignition.
“We just bought lingerie,” she says, giggling again.
I laugh back and start the car. The radio blares back at us, a reminder of the mini-concert that took place on the drive here. It scares us both and we laugh again before we register the lyrics blasting out of my speakers.
Man, I feel like a woman.
