Quarter-Life Crisis
an excerpt

She opened the door to discover that it was not, in fact, Caitlin. Josh was standing in front of her, holding a set of keys and a bag of groceries. Lauren froze, totally aware that she was only wearing a towel and that a guy who she had met exactly once was staring at her, looking kind of bemused.

“Uh, Caitlin’s right behind me, but she made me a set of keys. I’m really sorry. Did you want me to leave?”

Yes. But Lauren forced herself to be polite.

”Uh, no, it’s fine. You’ve seen all there is to be seen now anyway so you might as well come in.”

She backed away form the door and immediately went down the hallway to put on her pajamas. Her head was now pounding, she really had to pee, and more than anything, she was really, really pissed at Caitlin. Was a courtesy call too much to ask for?

Pulling on her pajamas, she went back into the living room to apologize to Josh and passed the answering machine. Whose little light was blinking merrily. Grouchily, Lauren hit play, hoping to postpone the rather embarrassing conversation she was sure to have with Josh.

“Hi, Lauren, it’s me. The power’s out at Josh’s so we’re coming over there with a large supply of ice cream from his freezer. Hopefully you’ll help us eat it since it’ll go bad here and there’s no room in ours! See you soon.”

Lauren closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, taking another gulp of the water in the hopes that it would miraculously cure her splitting headache. Now that she thought about it, she’d heard something sort of vaguely while she was in the shower, but she was in the middle of a deeply profound thought and had totally ignored it. Great. Now she couldn’t even be mad at Caitlin, who was being all nice and offering to share ice cream. She took a few deep breaths and went down the hallway to talk to Josh.

“So. Uh, hi. Sorry about the towel.”

”Oh, it’s fine. I have sisters.”

“Well, that’s good. You are familiar with girls in towels, then.”

”Oh, yes. More than familiar. And you didn’t have one on your head, which is always much stupider looking, if that’s any consolation.”

Dammit. He was being so nice. She really wanted to dislike this guy.

The door opened again, and Caitlin came rushing in, also carrying a grocery bag.

“Dude, how much ice cream did you have?” Lauren looked over at Josh, rather bemused.

“Well, you know, I like to have a variety. Because sometimes you just really need chocolate, but other times you need to regress and eat something with large chunks of cookie dough in it. And other times, you want something that’s kind of lower fat, right? Because you ate way too much crap but you still need some ice cream. A selection of ice creams is the staple of any freezer, if you ask me.”

Lauren, whose head was still pounding, stared at Josh in total disbelief for a moment, and then caught Caitlin’s eye. They burst out laughing. Josh looked at them, confused, until Caitlin led him over to their freezer and opened it. No fewer than six kinds of ice cream were there, all in various levels of fullness.

“Well, it’s good to know that in case of an apocalypse, we are covered for ice cream.” Josh grinned at the two girls.

“Yeah,” said Lauren, “but we’re girls. We’re supposed to have a freezer full of ice cream in case of ice cream emergencies. What’s your excuse?”

”What, a guy can’t have ice cream emergencies? Now you’re just being sexist.”

”I thought guys were more prone to, like, beer emergencies.” Lauren grinned, but Caitlin suddenly gave her a very suspicious look.

“Speaking of beer emergencies, you kind of smell like a brewery.”

”Oh, thanks a LOT.”

”Well, not all of you. Just your breath.”

Lauren wafted a bit of her breath towards her nose and winced. “Jesus, you’re not kidding. It’s bad enough I greet your boyfriend in a towel, but I absolutely reek while I’m at it. Now that’s hospitality!”

Caitlin looked at her, bemused. “You greeted my boyfriend in a towel?”

”Well, not, like, intentionally or anything, like, oh, Josh’s coming over, quick, put a towel on so as to seduce him with my wily towely ways! I just…happened to be wearing a towel when he got here, is all. It was inadvertent towelage. What can I say?”

Caitlin raised an eyebrow at Josh. “Free show, eh?”

”Hey, I have sisters. Girls in towels doesn’t mean sexy, it means the mirror’s all steamed up and I can’t shave.”

”Oh, muffin.”

”Well, really. How would you like it if you were 15, you had about five hairs on your face, and you couldn’t see to shave them?”

”Yes, clearly this would have been a disaster of epic proportions. God knows that you would have had a full beard by the time you waited the 10 minutes for the steam to clear off your mirror.”

”That’s right.”

Lauren laughed, and then got up to go to bed, not wanting to intrude. Josh looked at her indignantly. “There is still a lot of ice cream to be eaten here. Just where do you think you’re going?”

She looked abashed. “Uh, to bed?”

”I don’t think so, pal. We all have our parts to play here.”

”Dude, Caitlin is like a one person ice cream vacuum. You don’t need me.”

”Hey!” Caitlin looked indignant.

”Oh, you can’t deny it.”

”Oh, I know. It just seemed like the kind of thing I should object to on principle.”