Page 4 of Cabins Cows Critics
“I’m in the planning stages.”
“What planning? Just grab a bunch of stuff and toss it in. What you don’t have, you either don’t need or can probably pick up when you get there.”
“And that style of packing is why you now own seven pairs of black trainers and nine beach towels.”
She shrugs and flops down on the couch in the only section not covered in a stack of clothes, but it jostles the piles and sends one stack toppling into the suitcase below.
“Watch it,” I say, and she nudges some more over.
“I’m helping, look, you’ve actually started packing now.”
She’s in a particularly bitchy mood today. Something’s up.
“Okay, what’s going on?” I ask, kneeling beside the suitcase and refolding the toppled clothes.
“Greg is history,” she sighs, and I nod. “No, like this time it’s for real.”
“Sure it is,” I reply, trying my best to sound genuine even though I am ninety percent sure she’ll be back with him in a matter of weeks.
Greg and Wen have been doing this on-and-off dance with each other for years. He complains about her going out with her girlfriends all the time, and she complains about his video games, and then they spend a few weeks apart, realize they both missed each other too much to stay away, and pick right back up again, swearing this time will be different. Personally, I thinkGreg is a controlling dick, but the last time I said that to Wen, we didn’t talk for a week. So now I keep my opinions to myself. One day, maybe she will see she deserves better than that douchebag.
“And my sister’s got the new baby, so Mom and Dad are flying over to spend the holidays with her, so…”
“Are you going, too?” I ask, and she shakes her head.
“I was supposed to go with Greg to his parents’ place, and now it’s too late to get a ticket on a flight, so it looks like I’ll be here all alone.”
“That’ll be nice and quiet for you,” I say, reaching past her to grab one of the stacks and putting it into the case. I know where this is going, and as mean as it might seem, I actually kind of love watching her squirm a little. Wen and I have been best friends since she moved in about two years ago. I got home after picking up takeout from a new Italian restaurant about five blocks over that I needed to review, and I found her stuck in the cage elevator with it totally filled to the brim with her moving boxes. I was actually pretty impressed by how much she managed to Tetris in. Though if she had taken more trips, she might not have shorted out the elevator in the first place and gotten stuck.
It took me and the super about ten minutes to wedge the door open to free her, and to show me her thanks, she invited herself to my place to eat the take-out.
“Hayden.”
“What?” I ask, looking up at her. She’s got her platinum blonde hair strung up in the highest ponytail I think I’ve ever seen, and her perfectly shaped brows raised in my direction.
“You’re supposed to offer for me to come with you.”
“I am?” I ask, faking ignorance.
She shoves my shoulder playfully.
“Okay, Wen, do you want to come on my work trip?”
“Depends, where is it?” she asks, sipping her tar.
“Seriously, you’re going to be picky about a free trip now?” I ask.
“No. I don’t actually care.” She chuckles, and I toss a pair of socks at her. She bats them back at me far too easily. “I thought you were supposed to be done with work for the year. What happened?”
“Yeah, I wasn’t supposed to have any more assignments this year, but Franklin, the travel reviewer for the site, had to fly over to Greece to see his sick mother, so his assignment was reassigned to me.”
“I mean, it’s better that you’re filling in for Franklin and not Suzie, with her column on everything you need to buy for baby this Christmas. How would you know if a breast pump was any good or not?”
“I have breasts.” I laugh, and she shakes her head before tossing a shirt at me from the top of one of the piles. It would normally irritate me to no end that she’s messing with them, but I had already planned to refold them before packing them into the case, so my brain isn’t really giving a shit about her messing them up too badly. Well, not as much as it would if I had planned to transfer them straight in as they were.
I can get that way about some stuff. I like things to be neat and organized and clean. Not like washing your hands three times before eating, clean, but neat, tidy, and lined up is usually how I like everything in my life. I am also pretty picky with my food and with how things are done. Not that I am a perfectionist, but if there is a right way to do things, then why not just do it the right way?
It’s why my work for the website is a good fit. I don’t have to share an office with a bunch of people leaving things all over, and I get to critique the places I go and the food that I eat, and get paid to offer my honest opinions.
