Page 73 of Friendshipped
“What?” he asks in a more serious tone.
“Well, I’m not sure if his hair is real. It looks like a hairpiece. But he’s only twenty-seven so my eyes could be playing tricks on me. Then again, it’s possible he has early male pattern baldness and he covers it with a rug.”
“Well, whatever you do,” Trevor advises. “Don’t touch his hair or stare at it.”
The back sides of my legs feel like they are falling asleep from the pressure of the toilet seat, so I stand up, noticing for the second time this month how incredibly small these stalls actually are. The main door to the bathroom opens and shuts. I hear someone enter the stall next to me.
“What if, for the sake of argument, I already did touch it or stare at it?”
“But, you didn’t, right?” Trevor asks.
“Ummmm …”
I didn’t touch it, of course. But I may have stared. It wasn’t a stare-stare. It was more like an extended examination with inquisitive eyes. I was discerning the situation, and it required long periods of keeping my eyes fixed in the same direction.
“Okay. Okay. We can work with this,” Trevor says.
“Trevor?” I say, suddenly realizing I’ve probably left Eddie alone too long and I don’t know how I’m going to manage to even walk back out there.
An antsy feeling overtakes me.
“I have to get out of here,” I say in a slightly high-pitched tone of voice. “This is a disaster. I’m dating a mortician with a hairpiece, and I haven’t even turned twenty-three yet. I’ve hit a new all-time low. Oh gosh. What is my life?”
I’m totally not panicking. Nope. I’m not panicking.
“It’s okay,” Trevor says. “Breathe.”
His voice feels like my childhood teddy bear. It’s soft, comfortable, well-worn and familiar. When Trevor says breathe, I do.
“Okay,” I say, feeling my nerves settle because Trevor told them to.
They obey him like loyal little soldiers. It’s funny the effect Trevor has on me, even over the phone.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah. I think so. It’s only another botched date, right?”
“It’s not botched, Lex,” Trevor says in his calm, assured voice. “You’re a catch. He’s just not the one for you. When you find a guy who’s worthy of you and he sees the real you, he won’t be able to help himself. But, it’s obviously not Eddie. He’s not the one.”
I stand in the bathroom stall, stunned. Trevor always says things like this to me. I wish he meant them in an I’m-not-your-friend-because-oooh-baby-I-want-you way.
“Thanks,” I tell Trevor. “You’re the best friend ever.”
“Yep. Always here for you.”
Does his voice sound the smallest bit irritated? I hope not.
I have to go back to the date I left. He’s probably wondering if I’m staging an attempted escape out the bathroom window.
As I walk out from the stall, I glance up. The window is too high and too small. If I tried an escape, I’d end up stuck halfway like Winnie the Pooh when he ate too much honey at Rabbit’s house.
Well that settles it. I have to face my date.
26
Trevor
When Eddie’s car pulls up and Lexi gets out, I’m standing next to the porch steps waiting for her. Yes. I’m holding my hedge trimmers—at night, in the dark. The guy looks at me out his window and puts his car into reverse. He backs out the driveway without even getting out to walk Lexi to the door.
