A Dangerous Friend

Dinner and Nearly Dancing

"This is so weird," said Tori, as they sat down.

"What?"

"You and me. Sitting in a restaurant."

"No it isn't," Jade said. "We've sat in restaurants hundreds of times. We were at Nozu's practically every week."

"I know, but... you know, voluntarily."

"I've never eaten in a restaurant involuntarily."

"Look, let me have my moment, okay?" Tori said. "I've waited a long time for this. The least you can do is let me revel in it."

"I'm sorry," Jade said. "Revel away."

"Thank you. Let's start again. This is so weird."

"Wow, no kidding. I never thought I'd see the day. No sirree."

"That's better."

"What do you want to drink?"

"Something big."

Jade raised her eyebrows and waved the waiter over.

"So," said Tori, when they'd ordered their drinks. "Tell me all the news."

"What news?"

"The news. You know. The gossip. The things you tell someone you haven't seen in a year."

"Oh, that."

"Yes, that. Tell it to me."

"Okay, well... everything's fine."

"Is that it?"

"I don't know what else to say. College isn't too bad, I'm working on a script, and we haven't had any earthquakes."

"Have you seen any of the guys?"

Jade shrugged. "I've been kind of busy."

"So, what about you and Beck? Going okay?"

Jade paused. "No," she said. "We split up."

"Really? Why?"

"Well, we..."

"What?"

"The thing is, Tori, when you're at school it's a pretty insular society, you know? Close-knit. You're choosing from a small pool of people, because they're everything you know. But once you get out into the world, you look around and you see that... maybe there are other choices, other options. You know," she shrugged, uncomfortably, and played with her glass. "Better options."

After a moment she looked up to find herself bathed in the light of Tori's sympathy. "What? It was a mutual thing, okay? We just decided that we'd be better off apart."

"Jade..."

She sighed. "Okay, fine," she said. "He dumped me. Happy now?"

"No! That's awful! Why would he do that?"

"You've met me, why do you think?"

"Jade!"

"He met someone else. Someone... nicer."

"You're nice."

"I'm a lot of things, Tori, but nice isn't one of them."

"You did my homework for me."

Jade found it quite cute that Tori still referred to it as 'homework', but refrained from saying so. "That was because I had an ulterior motive."

"What?"

"So we could come out tonight. I didn't want you to be stuck inside doing 'homework' while I sat all on my own, festering away in a luxury hotel."

"You can't fester in a luxury hotel."