Page 93 of Drowning Erin
What does this girl not understand about what Rob just told her? "I...no, not really. Like Rob said, we're notengaged."
“Because this is a good song for a wedding,” she says, pointing at the small trio playing music in the corner. “I don’t know what it’s called, though. Classical music should have words, youknow?"
"It’s called ‘Fur Elise’,” says Rob. “It’sBeethoven."
She looks appalled. "What the fuck? You mean like a fir tree or fur youwear?"
"It was actually titled 'For Elise', but someone misread Beethoven’s handwriting," Rob explains. "He wrote it for one of hispupils."
"Good," she says with a sigh of relief. "Because I'm sorry, but I couldn't get behind a song about fur. I love all animals, even the mean ones like foxes. Killing them just so you can look good iswrong."
Holy shit. This girl is so fucking dumb I almost feel bad for hating her as much as I do. Almost. "You're wearing a leather dress,” I pointout.
She looks down at her dress and back to me, her face completely blank. “Yeah? What's wrong with that? There's nofuronit."
My mouth twitches, the merest hint of the bitter smile I want to shoot at Brendan. He sees it, and he’spissed.
“Have you guys been down by the lake yet?” he asks, holding my eye. “It’s the perfect place for apicnic.”
Our picnic. I can’tbelievehe’s bringing itup.
Crystal says that sounds romantic, while I cross my arms over mychest.
“Picnics are overrated,” I counter. “Who wants to eat with bugs crawlingeverywhere?”
“You’d love it,” Brendan says, smirking. “I bet you’d swalloweverything.”
I narrow my eyes. “Sounds like picnics are more memorable for you than they are for me, Brendan. I’ve never been to one that was worth mytime.”
Rob glances between us. “I thought you two were finally gettingalong?”
I go to answer him but I can’t, because I want to cry and scream in equal parts. I can’t stomach another minute of watching Brendan with that girl, of having him tauntme.
I excuse myself and hurry to the bathroom. Inside, I shut the door behind me and press my face to the cool tiles, flushed by both anger and distress. I reapply my lipstick, willing my breath to slow, my hands to steady. And when I finally step back outside, Brendan iswaiting.
I’m not sure if I want to laugh or cry at how little anything has changed. The last time we spoke outside a bathroom it was an identical situation, wasn’t it? He’d brought someone hot and dumb then too, and I was blindingly jealous, just like I amnow.
"Nice choice,” I sneer. “But maybe next time you should look for some quality other than brasize.”
"And maybe you should look for some quality other than the size of hiswallet."
"Fuck you, Brendan,” I say, as my hands curl into fists. “You know that's never been the reason I was withRob."
"Oh right. It's probably everything else,” he smirks. “It must get you so hot the way he immediately recognizes songs by Beethoven and can tell us all the story behindthem."
"At least he'd realized by the time he hit his 20s that leather came fromanimals."
He looks at me in disgust. "I knew you were going to bring thatup."
"Sorry, it's just so completely unsurprising. I should have known you'd wind up with some vapid little girl with a bigrack."
"I haven'twound upwith anyone," he snaps. "Unlike you, I don't move right from fucking someone like I’m never going to get it again to being all over someone else. I mean, how long did it take before you got back together with him?” he demands. “An hour? Aday?”
“Does it matter? As I recall, you were ‘so happy’ forme.”
“I just don’t know what you’re doing with him. The only thing that guy gets hard for is the closing of the stockmarket."
"Yes, it's so terrible the way he makes tons of money and wants to be a good provider," I reply. "Womenhatethat."