Lazy Lizzie

Fifteen

Her former co-workers from The Crazy Loops were on their way out, Lizzie saw the take out bags crumpled under Marguerite's many heavy rings and bracelets, worn every time the same way, as if welded together. 

An unlikely duo: Lana was tall and built like an Amazon, her muscular legs proudly displayed in cut-off denim shorts, while Marguerite wore an oversized sweater as a dress, red hair arranged in a birdnest of insanity. Smaller, her arms, a pair of white twigs, waved enthusiastically. 

Six years before, they would've have been a trio.

Lizzie grinned, happy she had washed her hair. Thick and heavy, it was gathered in a big slouch on top of her head. As the part she liked most about herself, Lizzie knew that all it needed was to be washed and left to shine. 

The real reason she had an ear-to-ear smile was that she had missed her friends. And they looked like they'd missed her too, interrupting what she knew was a much-awaited lunch break from practice. The girls would be worried if she looked raggedy. 

“Oh I can't believe this! Is Dale dead?” Lana spared no time reminding Lizzie how they'd lost touch after Lana's fierce opposition to her moving in with him, two months into their relationship. With a loose top over her small upper body, she looked exactly like Lizzie remembered her. Even her huge sunglasses, resting on her voluminous hair. Not having aged a day.

“We're not together anymore,” Lizzie was happy to say it out loud.

“Oh thank God!” Marguerite replied, and all of them laughed because they all knew Dale. And well, there was not a lot to say. 

The girls noticed she wasn't alone, so they all stopped, and since no one had been paying attention to him, Leo had time to prepare himself, so he was very relaxed.

“This is Leo,” Lizzie said, and his eyebrows agreed.

Two pairs of eyes converged to him, and he waved in slow motion, then deflected, “We're eloping to Vegas.”

“I see,” Lana returned to Lizzie, who was grateful her tan hid her embarrassment. Leo winked at her over the table. 

“It's not like that,” she still tried, but the approval had been stamped on him, so the girls didn't really care what she planned to do with Not Dale.

“I'm leaving town,” Lizzie said. If she was lucky, it was the last time she'd see them.

Her friends were still smiling, sadness betrayed only by their eyes.

“Girl, go!” Lana said. “Just go, start fresh somewhere else, I don't know. Just, you know, do something!” 

Lizzie remembered Lana in The Lair's door, the last time they saw each other. Words so hurtful that Lizzie put them on the trailer wall. It feels like you're waiting to die. It wasn't because of Dale that their friendship froze.

“I'm sorry,” Lizzie's voice trembled, and Lana was quick to talk over her.

“No, no, no -- no regrets. It only leads to more dark thoughts. You call us, yeah? You call the The Wacky Loops, if you lose our numbers.”

That was how Leo verified her stripper story, although Lizzie was insulted that Lana used the more popular name for the place.

“Yes,” she promised, meaning it.

In the parking lot, the women hugged, two by two, and then all three, and Leo went to the driver's door, away from the ceremonies. They were too caught up in their goodbyes, forgetting all about him.

There would be some things she would miss about her hometown, Lizzie realized, as the car started. 

“Next stop, Vegas!” Leo announced. “And Canadian citizenship for Mrs Ursu, aka immigration fraud! So that she has more places to run!”

“I'm going to search for a chapel,” Lizzie took out her phone. 29 missed calls. All Dale. Swiping over, she opened a map, deciding on Little Paris Chapel, its motto proudly bolded. “Five minutes, tops!” said a heart's thought bubble.