Saudade

Chapter 5

Spencer took me to a café in London that offered a courtyard so we could sit outside. As we sat, Spencer stretched out her arms and smiled in admiration of the warm sun. She reminded me for the thousandth time in our lives that Vitamin D was essential to happiness. Across from me, her aviators perched on the edge of her nose as she inspected the menu.

“I’ve never actually been here, just walked past a lot and thought it looked delicious,” she said, staring intently at the menu. I was too busy glancing at the people around us. They were trying to be sneaky, but they all were looking over at us as if deciding if she was in fact Spencer Leroy. I tried to refocus my attention to the menu. “It’s so nice out, too, who knows if we’ll have any sun for the next week.”

“Mmm,” I mumbled in reply. The menu wasn’t even really a menu; it had three different options as to what to eat for lunch. Spencer, however, tended to be extremely indecisive about nearly everything and anything. She’d probably ask me soon what she should get. I decided on an intricate-sounding salad immediately, as I wasn’t particularly keen on cold soup or eating duck.

“I think I’m going to get the salad,” she decided, setting down the menu and causing a wide smile to materialize on my lips.

“That was a quick decision on your part,” I teased, and she smiled too.

“I’ve gotten a little better on it over the years. I’ve been told that depression starts the inability to make simple decisions, and it’s just one of those things I’ve clung to.” I nodded. When Spencer’s parents had divorced, she and her sister had a really hard time. I know she spent a lot of time in therapy before I ever met her, but I think it had helped her become the person she was. She just understood everyone. “But we don’t need to talk about that, anyway. I can’t believe you’re here! You need to fill me in more on your senior year!”

“It probably wasn’t as awesome as yours, Spence.” I laughed. The waiter came to our table then, and we quickly ordered before she gave me a long stare meaning she didn’t give a rats ass if I’d sat around and stared at the wall my entire senior year, she wanted to hear about my every thought. “Well, I mean,” I cleared my throat, trying to remember exactly what had happened during my senior year. “You know Andrew and I started dating right away in September,”

“Yes, because you had been fooling around all summer.”

“Spencer!” I whispered, mortified.

“Oh my god, Ry, don’t even act like it was some big secret: Lee had to chase him out of the house on several occasions in the wee hours of the morning! My mother already told me all about it.” I felt my cheeks burn red hot.

“Anyway,” I shot her a fake-angry look, “we went to homecoming together which was unsurprisingly boring. I managed solid B’s all semester. Andrew and I broke up over Thanksgiving weekend. Not that it was a huge deal, he never took me anywhere. We just…” I cleared my throat. “Christmas break was pretty alright, but you were there for half of it. New Year’s me and my girlfriends got drunk on champagne and then fell asleep at like two…umm…” I was really struggling to remember anything. “Oh, and I dated this kid Blake for like two seconds. Okay, three weeks but he never took me anywhere either. I’m pretty sure we just made out in the backseat of his car the whole time. Then it was Spring Break, me and my girlfriends went to a hotel in the city for a week…then I graduated, pretty much.”

“You need to tell me more about these boys.” Our salads were dropped off then, a new waitress staring a little too long at Spencer. After a solid forty five seconds too many she walked away, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “Oh Jesus, we should have just gotten hamburgers we’re going to be starving after this. We’ll go get cupcakes or something.” I let out a snort, for a girl who had lost nearly fifty pounds since she was eighteen she still was as careless about food as she was when we’d lived together.