For the Love of Friends(3)
Except for Caryn.
Caryn, like myself, grew up with absolutely zero interest in science. Technically, she’s the Administrative Assistant to the Director of the FST. But call her a secretary at your own peril. She runs the whole operation, largely because social skills are not exactly the strongest suit of the higher-ups here. Without her, the entire foundation would disintegrate within twenty-four hours. She also has more tolerance for people than anyone I have ever met in my life.
Our lack of interest in science was where the similarities in our career goals ended though. Caryn was still actively pursuing her MRS degree, having failed to achieve that particular title in college and somehow, inexplicably, for the seven years thereafter. Which meant that this job, for her, was a nice little marital résumé booster to show she could hold her own in an intelligent conversation and run a home and family while looking like a supermodel.
She’s where the craziness began.
“Good morning!” Caryn trilled as she came gliding into my office.
I looked up warily. No one was that happy at nine fifteen on a Monday morning. At least no one I would voluntarily be friends with.
“Coffee?” she asked, wiggling the clear plastic, mermaid-bedecked cup that told me she had gotten my favorite iced skinny vanilla latte after her morning exercise class.
“Oh no. You want me to completely rewrite the Higgins proposal again, don’t you?” Caryn didn’t drink coffee—especially not mass-produced coffee from a chain. Organic juice cleanses? Yes. So if she was supporting Starbucks, whatever she wanted was going to be more than I could handle on a Monday morning. And she had bought a venti!
Caryn laughed. “Can’t I just bring my friend coffee on a beautiful Monday morning?”
I glanced out the window. It was overcast and supposed to rain for most of the day. I looked back at her to see if she had finally snapped and was ready to go on a killing spree while decked out in Lilly Pulitzer and Chanel perfume, but she just stood there, smiling sweetly, her left hand holding out the coffee.
Then I saw the dazzlingly giant gemstone on that hand.
“Oh my God!” I jumped up, banging my knee and scattering papers in the process. “Caryn!”
She managed to set the cup down on my desk before I tackled her in a giant hug. “Tell me everything!”
She sank gracefully into the chair at my desk, while I grabbed the coffee like the lifeline that it was.
“Well, you know our anniversary was last night.” I nodded, despite knowing nothing of the kind. They had only been dating since January and it was early July now. Was she counting month anniversaries? “So Greg took me to the restaurant where we had our first date. And I honestly didn’t expect a thing.” This was a bit of a stretch. She had bridal magazines in her desk. Granted, she had been hoarding those for years before she met Greg. But still. “And we ordered drinks, but the waitstaff brought a bottle of champagne instead. I looked at Greg, thinking he was going to tell them they’d brought the wrong drinks, but he wasn’t at his seat, he was down on one knee.” She held out her hand for me to admire the ring.
“It’s perfect,” I said. And it was. Which was no surprise. Caryn had honed the appearance of effortless flawlessness in absolutely all aspects of life. Sometimes I felt twinges of jealousy for how easily everything seemed to come for her, but in the seven years since she had started working at the FST, I had snuck enough peeks behind the Wizard’s curtain to know there was genuine effort involved in that appearance. Some people, like my little sister, fall backward into everything without trying. Caryn never stopped trying. I tended to fall somewhere between the two of them—I tried more than Amy did, but I couldn’t reach Caryn’s level of perfection even if I wanted to. Which, if I was being perfectly honest, I didn’t want to. I liked being able to skip the gym when I was tired and eat refined sugars.
“When are you thinking for a wedding?” I knew the answer, but still wanted to ask the right questions. “And where? What did your mom say?”
“June. Somewhere outside, maybe by the water. But not destination. It’s just too much of a strain on people. She was thrilled, obviously!”
I grinned. Caryn’s news was possibly the only thing that could put a smile on my face first thing on a Monday morning.
“Will you be a bridesmaid?”
“Of course.” I was genuinely flattered. She might have been my best friend at work, but we didn’t exactly run in the same circles. “You didn’t have to bring me coffee for that!”
Caryn laughed. “Let’s see if you still say that after you meet the other bridesmaids.”
I rolled my eyes. I hadn’t met her high school friends, but I had heard the stories.
“I was in all of their weddings,” she said with a small shrug. Which was totally ridiculous as reasons went, and she knew that too. Caryn’s fiancé was the brother of the worst of them. Their family had more money than they knew what to do with, which explained the enormity of the rock on Caryn’s finger. I never understood why Caryn was so desperate to impress this one particular group of girls, especially because Caryn herself came from money. But as a peasant, I didn’t understand the ways of the extravagantly wealthy. And I knew that the fear of not living up to these other women’s standards was the primary source of anxiety in her life.