Back in Halley’s condo, I tried to ignore the feeling by completely unpacking and then going through each cabinet to get a sense of what I had to work with in the kitchen. The feeling kept pace though. I wanted—no, I needed to talk to someone. I called my mom, but she was at her book club. I called one of my close friends, but she was in class. It was just as well none of them was picking up though, because the person I really wanted to talk to was my best friend.
Halley.
As I stared down at the phone in my hand, undecided, it lit up. And of course it was her. We’d always been closer than sisters. Practically able to read each other’s minds.
True to form, the first thing she said when I answered was, “You miss me, don’t you?”
“Oh my God, you have no idea.” I gave into the sweet rush of happiness her voice brought me. “I’ve had a day.”
I poured myself another glass of the fancy dry white I’d found in the refrigerator and told her about the brand development team. Halley alternately laughed and groaned at my description of how cliquey they had been.
“I’m sorry, Lily. That’s how LA is. I mean, you’ll find nice people eventually, but you have to really scour the woodwork. They’re not just going to pop out.” There was a long pause, and I heard computer keys clacking. Halley was doing homework while we talked. I closed my eyes and leaned my elbows on the cool granite countertop of the bar, pretending I was sitting at the end of her bed with my own computer sitting on my crossed legs.
“What about guys?” Halley asked after a moment.
My eyes popped open. “What about them?”
It had been an off handed question, but something in my voice caught Halley’s attention. “Oh,” she said with a hint of glee. “There’s a guy.”
“There is not a guy,” I corrected. It was true. There were a million guys in LA. None of them any more special than the other, as far as I was concerned.
“There’s a guy,” Halley said, distracted again. I heard keys clicking, then she came back, focused again. “Tell me about him.”
With a sigh, I slid off the barstool and walked around the living room, then out onto the patio. Far below, I saw figures splashing in the pool. On one end, a woman in a lime green one-piece was swimming methodical laps. I watched her cut through the water like a tropical fish while I figured out what to say to Halley. I desperately wanted to unburden myself and tell her everything. Surely, I wasn’t the first of her friends to think her dad was hot. Unless they’d all been blind.
Maybe if I could have done it with enough levity in my voice, I would have told her the truth. Disguised it in a joke, of course, but still, I might have been honest. But I couldn’t. Instead, I took a sidestep away from the truth and said, “You know me too well. There is a guy. Maybe you know him—I ran into him at the pool yesterday.”
And then I described everything I was feeling about Con and attached it to this mysterious tenant.
“I’m confused,” Halley said. “Why would he think you’re too immature for him?”
“Because he’s older,” I explained, still watching the woman in the lime green suit swim. “And I guess I came off kind of ditzy.”
“Hmm,” Halley said, unconvinced. “You don’t really give off ditzy vibes. Did you say something dumb?”
I shook my head, then realized that I wasn’t really sitting at the end of her bed and therefore she couldn’t see me. “I don’t think so, but you know, I talked about being in a sorority. You know how people can be about that.”
“Sure,” she said doubtfully. “But if that’s the conclusion he leapt to, he seems like an ass.”
“He might be,” I admitted with a sigh, picturing Con’s dark, impatient eyes when he met me at the airport. “But Halley, he’s so good looking, it hardly matters.”
Now she laughed. “You sound like me! Don’t let LA get in your head, Lily. If he’s an ass, it doesn’t matter how good looking he is, he isn’t good enough for you.”
“Sure, sure,” I muttered. It was funny, I’d never been insecure before. Not since early middle school anyway. A couple of weeks in LA though, and I was full of self-doubt. I wasn’t sure how much of that was the place and how much was the man. I’d had crushes before, but this felt different. Crushing. I desperately wanted Con to be sparing me even a tenth as much mental attention as I was spending on him.
“Seriously,” Halley said again, but I could hear her keyboard clicking beneath her long, lacquered nails. “Don’t waste your time on him.”
“You’re right,” I said, resolve surging through me. I wasn’t going to waste any more time thinking about someone I could never, ever have.
Halley was more important to me than her father ever could be.