Catching Up

"Alice! Over here."

Madison waved at Alice from a table to the right of the patio. Big earrings, big smile, cigarette in her hand. It had been a while since the two young women had seen each other, but Madison hadn’t changed a bit.

“I got you a coffee,” Madison said, pushing a cup toward Alice as she sat down.

“Oh.” Alice paused to set her purse down on the table. “I don’t drink coffee.”

“I forgot,” Madison said sheepishly. “I’ll go get you some tea. Maybe a hot chocolate?” Alice began to acquiesce, but Madison had hardly caught her breath before speaking again. “Actually, I’ve only got a couple minutes anyway. Hair appointment. You’re not thirsty, are you?”



The other woman’s eyes widened briefly before returning to normal. Nothing coming from Madison could truly surprise her at this point. "S'okay. I'm fine."

“I’ve missed you, man. We need to get together more often.”

Alice ran her finger along the rim of the coffee cup, unwilling to comment about missing or not missing Madison. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been good! Same old stuff at work. You know how it is. And I met a new guy.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s amazing. Name’s Ryan. Six-one. Dark curly hair. An engineer. You should meet him!”

“That would be nice.” Alice smiled, although her eyes remained cold. A wave of nausea rose in her abdomen, but she ignored it as she always did.

Madison put out her cigarette and lit another one. “This one thing drives me crazy, though. He never asks me about myself. I texted him the other day, just to say ‘hey’ and ‘how’s it going.’ He wrote back ‘Good.’ No ‘how are you,’ nothing. That’s not normal, is it?”

“No, that - ”

“He’ll call me up sometimes and just go off on a rant about something. He doesn’t let me get a word in. Just calls me and talks and talks, then says he has to go and hangs up.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty rude.”

“I know, right? I mean, I could be in the office when he calls, and he doesn’t give me two seconds to say I have to go if he’s not calling for some emergency. He just starts talking. Doesn’t matter if I’m interested or not. Doesn’t matter if there’s something more important I’d rather talk about. He could call me when I’ve just been in a car accident and be lying in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of me. He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t ask.”

Alice nodded.

Madison looked at her watch. “All right, I gotta run.” She put out her second cigarette, downed the last of her coffee, and picked up the cup that was ostensibly for Alice. “Let’s catch up again soon. We have to make more time for each other. And hey, I love what you’re doing with your hair!”

Fingering the strands of her wig, Alice smiled weakly. “Thank you.”