Free The Hopefuls by Jennifer Close Page B

pleasant company. I’d started to doubt myself. Sometimes I think if Ash hadn’t called me, hadn’t pursued a friendship, I would’ve stopped trying to make new DC friends altogether.
    The Dillons had a membership to the pool at the Hilton across the street from us, and Ash and I made plans to meet there the following Monday. I couldn’t help but smile as I hung up and relayed the conversation to Matt.
    “You have a date,” he said, laughing just a little. But I could tell he was happy for me, that maybe he’d also been worried I wouldn’t make any friends in this city.
    “I know. Thank God, right?” And then I started laughing, mostly from relief, I guess.
    “Just remember,” Matt said, grinning. “Be yourself and don’t put out on the first date.”
    —
    I was ready early on Monday, and stood on the corner of Florida and T, waiting for Ash, who had texted to tell me she was on her way. It was hot and I could feel sweat sliding down my back as I stood in the sun holding my canvas bag filled with magazines, sunscreen, and a book. I wiped my upper lip, which was already wet with sweat just from standing there. I didn’t understand how anyone got used to this humidity, ever.
    When I finally saw Ash walking down Florida, I felt suddenly shy and held up my hand in an awkward wave, but she bounced across the street and threw her arms around my neck, giving a little squeal as she did. “I’m so glad you were free,” she said. “Isn’t this the most perfect day to go to the pool?”
    “It is,” I said. “Because it’s about a hundred and twenty degrees out.”
    Ash just laughed. “You forget, I grew up in Houston,” she said. “This is nothing to me.”
    We found lounge chairs and unpacked our things, laying out our towels and getting settled. The pool wasn’t all that crowded—it was Monday, after all—just a few moms with young children who all seemed to know each other, and a random hotel guest or two.
    Ash took a dip in the pool right away, piling her hair on top of her head and only going up to her shoulders. I did the same, and then we repositioned ourselves in the sun, the water evaporating off of our bodies almost immediately. We each took out a magazine and began paging through, chatting a little as we did.
    Everything was pleasant, but it was hard for me to completely relax—I’d gone back for a third interview at DCLOVE and had a fourth the next day. It was driving me crazy the way they were dragging this out, and even though I’d been ambivalent about the job in the beginning, I now wanted it badly. (Which sometimes I thought was their whole strategy.) It felt funny to be hanging out by a pool on a day that everyone else was in an office, like it was wrong somehow. I said as much to Ash, and she made a sympathetic noise, but it was clear she didn’t share my anxiety about it. She mentioned vaguely that she’d probably start looking for a job soon, but I got the feeling that money wasn’t a worry, and when I pressed her as to what sort of job she might be looking for, she didn’t really answer, just said that she didn’t want to take a job unless it was the right fit and then changed the subject.
    When I rambled on a little bit about how many résumés I’d sent out, how I wasn’t sure what I’d do if I wasn’t hired at DCLOVE, she laughed and waved her hand in front of her, like she thought I was being ridiculous. “Girl, you’re too stressed out,” she said. “Enjoy this. You’ll be fine.” Then she waved down an attendant and ordered us two glasses of white wine. “That’ll help,” she said, lying back in her chair and adjusting her sunglasses.
    —
    Our conversation was all over the place, but in a good way. We talked about our husbands and moving to DC, our families, college,
The Bachelor,
and buying swimsuits. But when I mentioned something about Alan’s party, Ash snorted. “He is one of the worst human beings I’ve ever met,” she said, and I burst out