Free Anything for My Virgin Best Friend by Kate Kendal

Anything For My Virgin Best Friend
by Kate Kendal

    They don’t have speed dial anymore but if they did, Paul would be number one.
    The highway was bumper to bumper as it always was this time of day. It looked like a tedious half hour of stop-and-go was in my future, so I turned on my cell phone. It vibrated in my hand, emitting a cheerful tone.
    Eleven unread texts. The sender was no mystery. My boyfriend was mad again.
    Curtis wasn’t without his charms. He had a decent amount of money, dressed alright, and was a lot of fun to go out with. The problem lay in his Type A personality - he spent more time worrying about what people thought of him rather than just being himself. He could be smiling, talkative, and laughing with his friends in a bar, but as soon as we hit the car, he would be brooding, frustrated, and anxious.
    “Do you think I offended him?” he’d ask. “Did I look sloppy? Were they looking at me weird? Were they looking at you weird? Were they looking at us weird?”
    There isn’t a “chill pill” big enough to calm him down, I’m sure.
    My text messages went ignored as I placed a call.
    “Hello?” Paul answered, as if he didn’t know it was me.
    “Hey hey, how are you?” I asked. I tried my best to sound conversational.
    “Great. I got out of work early,” he bragged.
    “Nice? So, what’re you going to do?” I asked.
    A horn blared behind me. I turned my head and saw a white SUV flashing its brights. The car in front of me had moved up a couple feet. I rolled forward to close the cap, hoping I satisfied the prick behind me.
    “Sorry, what did you say?” I said.
    “Oh,” Paul stuttered. “I said it was an unexpected half day, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”
    “Lucky you,” I muttered. “I worked over and I’m caught on 79 again.”
    “Wow, that sucks,” he consoled.
    “Yeah, usually I get out fast enough to avoid all of this, but here I am,” I said.
    “Yeah. That sucks,” Paul said. “Why did you have to work over?”
    “End of the month,” I stated. “Crunch time. You’ve heard me bitch about it enough.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Well, a job’s a job, right?”
    “I guess,” I answered. “But sometimes, salary just seems like a raw deal.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “I can see how that would be frustrating.”
    “Damn right,” I said, crawling forward once again. I saw a car blazing past me down the shoulder lane.
    “People are idiots,” I added.
    “At work?” Paul asked.
    “No, some guy just got out of the jam and is speeding down the side of the highway like it is going to get him somewhere,” I said.
    “We’re better than that, right?” he said.
    “Yeah,” I sighed. “I suppose so. But. Still.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean.”
    “So, guess what happened today?” I said. “Curtis starts texting me, just blowing up my phone while I am at work.”
    “Oh?” Paul said. “What did he want?”
    “The usual,” I answered. “He’s freaking out about something. He introduced me to some client the other day. We happened to run into him while we were at the store and now he’s convinced that I made a bad impression.”
    “Bad impression?” Paul questioned. “How would you do that?”
    “I don’t know,” I whined. “Something about me blowing him off. The client, I mean.”
    “How would you blow a client off?” Paul asked.
    “I went back to grocery shopping after I introduced myself,” I explained. “They were talking so long. They only stopped because I’d made a lap around the store and the cart was full.”
    “So what did he want you to do?” Paul said.
    The white SUV quickly merged to the left. Tires screeched as he sped into the gap in the traffic.
    “God dammit,” I yelled. “Another idiot just pulled out in front of someone to get ahead by a couple cars. People are ridiculous.”
    “Yeah,” Paul said. “People are ridiculous.”
    “Wow. Sorry,” I said. “Anyway, I guess Curtis expected me