“Faith, girl, what are you talking about? I’m just trying to keep it real. You know how we do.” If she could truly believe her friend’s intentions were real and true, then Faith would have backed off in a heartbeat. But something about the words were hurtful and tinged with a whole lot of cruelty. No, this had definitely been intentional.
“No, Denise. You’re not keeping it real. Why you choose today to tell me how you really feel about me, I’ll never know. But now that I see the real you, all I can say is thank you.” Shaking her head at the feeling of betrayal coursing through her veins, Faith continued, “Thank you for showing me that you had been faking all these years. Thank you for freeing me from a friendship that was as fake as those damn nails on your fingers.”
Denise seemed to finally sense that she had gone too far, “Faith, you’re being entirely too sensitive. You know I’ve always told you that you were kind of big and needed to lose some weight.” Glancing away from Faith for a second, Denise smiled at a handsome man standing across the room at the hostess stand, but his gaze never captured hers.
Faith watched the interaction and noticed that the man seemed to look everywhere but at Denise. There was no interest whatsoever. And then it hit her. Yes, this was about her and the way she looked, but not the way she had initially thought. Understanding hit her like a brick.
Voice raised, she confronted Denise with her newfound knowledge, “Is this because of that bullshit party we went to a few weeks ago?” At the sudden turning of her head to look at Faith, the truth of her words was confirmed.
Faith continued, unable to hold the words back, “Are you fucking kidding me right now? You’re coming at me with claws bared because of a man? A man whom you hardly knew. A man that I had absolutely no interest in.”
Denise’s face suddenly turned ugly with rage and hate as she snarled her next words, “What the fuck ever, Faith! You knew that I was going after him, but you just had to swing your big, fat ass in his direction. I don’t even know why I brought you to that party anyway. You weren’t even invited.”
“What is that supposed to mean,” she questioned. Had she ever really known this person at all?
“It means I only brought you with me out of pity. Did you not see the people in the room?” Snidely, she looked at Faith with a look akin to disgust, “You were clearly out of your league. I have no idea why a man would be interested enough in you to spend two hours talking to you at a party full of beautiful women. You would never fit into his world and men like that only want women like you for a booty call. An experience. Nothing more.”
Damn, this was some cold shit. “I never knew you at all, did I? All these years, you thought you were doing me a favor by being my friend? Did you really think I needed you to help my self-image?” Pausing for a second to get her bearings, Faith started to laugh. She laughed at all the time she had wasted on trying to be a good friend. She laughed about the utter gall of the woman sitting in front of her.
She was jealous. The vitriol coming out of her mouth could only be explained by that one undeniable fact. Laughing harshly at the utter stupidity of her former friend, she noticed the looks and glances from the other patrons of the restaurant. Sitting across from her with crossed arms, Denise's body was tense and stiff. She seemed baffled by what was going on, and Faith almost felt pity for her.
Her laughing slowly came to a halt and she wiped her eyes. Steeling her voice, she spoke to Denise as her friend for the last time, “How about this, from this point forward, you focus on you and I will focus on me.” Gathering her purse that had fallen to the side during their argument, she prepared to leave the restaurant and return to the office. This lunch had turned out to be a very bad idea. “You have let your jealousy ruin a friendship that lasted for more than fifteen years. What you did today was petty and spiteful, and I will never forget what you said to me. If you see me on the street, keep on walking. From this point forward, we are strangers. Keep your distance.”
Standing up from the table, she dug into her purse, pulled out some bills from her wallet, and threw them onto the table. “I may have a few extra pounds on me, but I know who and what I am. I will never allow envy or jealousy to turn me into an ugly person. Too bad you never learned that lesson.”
Walking away with her head held high, Faith exited the restaurant and breathed in the crisp air of the nation’s capital. She loved living in Washington, DC. There was no other place like it and she loved the feel and pace of the city. The diversity of the people walking around her was welcomed. Various shades of skin color, some in suits, others in jeans, tall, short, skinny and not-so-skinny, and people from every walk of life.
Thinking back on the scene in the restaurant, she shook her head in frustration. More times than not, it had always been Denise who had thrown Faith a nugget of “reality” when a good-looking man had been interested in her. Or when she wanted to buy a more risqué outfit to wear out for a night of fun, Denise usually said just the right words to make her place the item back on the store rack.
Her pitying looks and statements of, “I don’t know if he’s serious about you. I didn’t want to say anything, but I saw him looking at other women while standing right next to you,” all came flooding back. Damn, she had been so stupid. Everyone hears about the backstabbing friends who make every effort to undermine you, but she never thought Denise would be one of them.
Raising her arm in the air in the universal signal to hail a cab, Faith was determined to put the hateful things Denise had said behind her. She didn’t need friends like that anyway. She had her books and her work, and she was happy. Well, as happy as one could be without close friends, a boyfriend, children and an entire life that seemed to revolve around work.