Page 39 of Anatomy of a Meet Cute
“Hey,” Sam called, stepping out of her shoes and setting her bag down.
“Don’t ‘hey’ me. How was it?” Jehan stuck her head out of the kitchen and narrowed her eyes at Sam.
“Oh, you know, as well as these things can.” Sam could swear that taking the MCAT had been easier than keeping the excitement out of her voice.
Jehan wrinkled her nose and shook her salad fork at Sam. “What does that mean?Welllike good-feeling well? Orwelllike you are going to get a rejection email in a week?” Originally, Sam had thought she would keep the good news to herself until she, Jehan, and Duke were all home tomorrow night. But given the way Jehan was looking at her, she’d be lucky if the tiny woman didn’t pry it from her in the next thirty-three seconds.
“Well, I don’t think we’ll be getting a rejection email ...” Sighing, Sam looked at the floor, then back at her friend, savoring the suspense for a moment longer before saying, “Because they gave us a yes today!”
Jehan shrieked and dropped her fork on the counter as she launched a hug at Sam. “This is amazing!”
“I know. I wanted to surprise you and Duke, but now we’ll just have to surprise him when he gets home,” Sam said, marveling at how tight Jehan was squeezing.
“I want to know every detail. Who did you meet with? What kind of questions did they ask? Did they like my proposal? Was Grant nice?” Jehan asked all these questions in rapid succession as she released Sam.
Letting the air flow back into her lungs, Sam started answering the first question, which prompted Jehan to ask about fifteen more as she carried her lunch to the table by the big window, forcing Sam to follow her so she could eat while they spoke.
“It sounds like a success, all things considered.”
“I’d say so,” Sam said, still buzzing with excitement as she tried to read upside down the papers that Jehan had strewed all over the table.
“And Grant gave you a ride home, even though he lives in the Outer Sunset?” Jehan asked, swallowing a final bite of salad as Sam stopped to take a breath.
“Yeah, he said it is close by.”
“I don’t think that’s true. Pretty sure my eyebrow stylist is out there. It’s like on the exact opposite side of town,” Jehan said, raising one perfectly manicured eyebrow.
Sam was halfway through marveling at the fact that Jehan even had an eyebrow stylist when she processed what her friend was implying. “Maybe he had an errand to run?”
“Right.” Jehan nodded, drawing thersound in the word out a little too much for Sam’s liking.
“What? I don’t know why he said what he said. But I very much doubt he would go that far out of his way for me,” Sam said, trying not to taste the fib in that sentence. This morning, she would’ve been able to deny that sentence with confidence. Now she wasn’t so sure. But Jehan didn’t need to know that.
Looking around the table for a subject change, Sam reexamined the handful of paper spread out in front of her friend. She realized that it was lists and samples of engagement party save-the-dates. Glancing back up at Jehan, Sam saw the puffiness around her eyes in a new light. This wasn’t just standard long-shift tired; this was something else. Afterwaiting for Jehan to finish chewing, Sam asked, “So how’s the party planning going?”
“It’s, um ... it’s going. Kind of.” Jehan looked at the paper on either side of her and sagged.
“Is it going? Because it doesn’t sound like it is,” Sam said, readjusting in her seat to try to catch her friend’s eye.
Jehan scowled and poked at the last few bites of her salad for a moment before exhaling like someone had punched her in the stomach. “Okay, it’s not going well at all. In fact, I would say that it is going terrible, and if I hadn’t just woken up from a nap, I’d likely be crying over it. As it stands, I’m just sort of wallowing in avoidance mode.”
“Okay, well, maybe don’t do that.” Sam suppressed a chuckle as her friend set her salad bowl down and put her head in her hands. “Can you tell me what happened? I thought you decided not to stress about your mom, the aunts, and Travis.”
“I did. And it was going really great until we actually set a date for the party. Now I’m being bombarded by opinions on the invitations and the catering for the thing, which is ridiculous. My family has a zillion opinions about the color; meanwhile Travis just wants to send an e-vite, which is basically causing my father to have a meltdown. And I just—”
“Can’t you do both?” Sam asked, gently reaching across the table and pulling on one of her roommate’s arms so that she had to look up.
“I could, but then there is my mom and the guest list to contend with, and I ... I just don’t know. I wish I could elope and throw a big party all at the same time.” Jehan sighed and frowned over at her salad bowl again, looking exhausted.
Sam’s heart broke for her friend. Jehan was constantly helping others, and it always seemed like she had no one in her corner.
The thought that her roommate needed help poked at Sam’s conscience. Jehan had written the Anjo grant report for Sam—money that typically took an inexperienced grant writer years to get. With Jehan’shelp Sam had gotten a grant within two months. Just last week, she’d done Duke’s chores after he had a rough night shift and picked up some new beauty product for Sam because she knew she was looking for it. Sam couldn’t not help her. If anything, this was her chance to pay her friend back for the myriad kindnesses she’d shown Sam since they moved in together.
“Jehan, what if I took care of the invites and all that for you? Tell me which invite you like best, give me the list of names, and I’ll mail them out. Then you can tell your family and Travis that it’s handled and be done with it.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” Jehan said, looking up from her salad bowl in surprise. “Seriously, invites are time consuming, and you have your research program to get off the ground.”
“A program I wouldn’t have without your help. Just saying.” Sam shrugged.
