Free Starfish by Anne Eton Page A

either. She small talks: her new job, the studio apartment in Manhattan that she has rented sight unseen, the possibility that she may buy a bike and brave New York’s city streets. Working on Wall Street is boring enough, she says. A hair-raising commute twice a day may keep life interesting.
    I’m feeling the alcohol now. Good. A light, easy buzz lifts my brain. Everything seems funny—the jostling crowd around us, the posters on the wall, Jill’s starfish earrings. I’ve never seen her wear them before.
    I bought them for her during sophomore year, when she and Deborah and Bonnie and Elizabeth and the rest of us were in Fort Lauderdale on spring break. The earrings were in a costume jewelry bin inside a tourist trap gift shop. My gift was a joke, of course. I had earlier begun telling Jill that she was a starfish, and I was a clam. She kept applying relentless pressure, trying to get me. No matter how many times I had told her to forget about The Offer, she had never given up. The starfish earrings had made her laugh, like she laughed about everything.
    I suddenly remember something. If I wear them, will you accept The Offer? Jill had asked then.
    The shiny stainless-steel earrings look pretty under the bar’s track lights. I reach and touch a glittering starfish, sliding my finger over Jill’s ear. Jill gets a funny look on her face. It’s an expression I’ve never seen before, and for a moment I almost run out, run away, leave her with the check and everything else, all the memories, the friendship, us. Because I’m terrified of the possibility that in the next few hours the us will stop, and in its place there will just be a me and her . That might happen, anyway, since she is going to the Big Apple and I’m going to be teaching English in Botswana with Brad. Out of sight, out of mind.
    Alcohol-brave, I go ahead and ask her: is this going to change our friendship?
    She smiles. She takes my hand. That will never, ever change, she says. I nod. I believe her.
    My hammering heart slows and my face transforms into a sunny smile.
    Our drinks are empty. You ready? she asks, touching my knee. It’s a light touch, just her fingertips, a playful touch like so many she has given me over the years, but this time it shoots electricity up my legs.
    I pay for my drinks, she pays for her beer. We slide off our barstools, jostled by the hovering frat boy seniors desperate for a seat and one last get-wasted-hurrah before graduation in a few hours. Jill leads me out into the sunshine.
    She turns back toward campus. What? Oh, yeah. The conference center. As I walk behind her, stumbling in my heels, my alcohol-fogged brain struggles to remember the conversation we had had less than an hour ago.
    I had called asking where she was going to sit. What do you mean, she had said. After a short chat about potential shaded areas on the quad and saving ourselves from the traditional graduation-day sunburn, the words left my mouth. Out of nowhere.
    I wish I taken you up on The Offer.
    (A timely pause as she weighs if I’m kidding. She decides not, thus:)
    It’s not too late.
    (I laugh. She speaks again.)
    It’s not too late.
    (Her tone deflates my giggling. Calm. Sure of herself. Very Jill. She keeps talking.)
    Why don’t we go to the conference center. We don’t have time for a hotel. My roommate’s here, and I’m guessing your roommate is there, too. Right?
    Right.
    So let’s do it.
    (An eternity passes. Finally, I reply:)
    I need a drink first.
    Meet me at the fountain. We’ll hit the tavern and then we’ll go. Okay?
    Okay.
    See you in five.
    Okay , I had said. I look at the tree limbs swaying above us in the breeze as we pass through the heart of the place I have spent the last four years of my life.
    Okay , I had said. Just okay . No aw Jill . No yeah in your dreams . No evasions or brush-offs or snappy comebacks. Not today. Not on this, the last day we will see each other for a long time.
    Inside the conference center, a