...And a Happy New Year

February 25, 2014

Manic Mondays. Terrible Tuesdays. The list could go on. That’s what Chaney hated most, the unpredictability of what the week could bring. The last week had been less than eventful as she spent all of her free time unpacking and situating herself into her apartment. Halvo was supposed to join her in furniture hunting this past weekend, but plans fell through last minute. Like most times here recently, he never gave a reason, but apologized and promised to make it up to her.

That was another thing. This whole new side of her and Halvo’s relationship was still so new. They hadn’t really spent much time together since they got together; not that they were that official or anything. To be honest, Chaney had no idea what they were; only that they were trying to work out whatever was going on between them. She missed hanging out with him, and was disappointed that she hadn’t seen him since the guys all came over to help move her into her new apartment. She was feeling lonely. Her only human interactions had been at work, and even those interactions had been limited as she had been given an endless mound of paperwork.

As she sat there, staring at her cubicle wall, she began to realize, she really didn’t want to do this job for the rest of her life. She was sick of being a paper pusher, and this last week had proved that much. Chaney had no idea what she wanted to do, which is why she took this job straight out of college. She was thankful for the job, but it definitely wasn’t something she wanted to do long term. Even now, roughly three years later, she still had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, but she didn’t want to be stuck in a cubicle the rest of her life.

She was shaken from her thoughts by her phone ringing. She looked at the caller ID and didn’t recognize the number. Her heart began to race as she feared the worst had happened again. The last time an unknown number had called her, it had been the local hospital telling her about Halvo. She was almost afraid to answer it, afraid the same would happen again. She hesitantly swiped her finger across the screen to answer the call, and gulped down her nerves, hoping to sound more confident than she felt.

“Is this Ms. Masters?”

She cleared her throat before answering with more gumption than she thought she had, “It is, may I ask who’s calling?”

“This is Claire from The Firehouse. We’re a place for artists to perform, show art, live, make, or sell their work. We got your portfolio, and would love to show your work at our upcoming gallery.”

Chaney felt like the wind had been knocked out of her.

“My work?”

“Yes! Ms. Masters, in all my years of curating shows, I’ve never seen work quite like yours, and it fits in perfectly with the theme for our upcoming show. I would love to include your work in the show.”

Still not exactly sure how to take the news, she nodded her head, and replied, “Oh, uh, yeah, that would be fine.”

“Wonderful! I’ll be in touch within the next couple of days and we can iron out the details. I look forward to working with you Ms. Masters!”

Chaney hung up the phone, and sat at her desk in a daze, trying to figure out what just happened.

“Earth to Chaney.”

Chaney looked up to see Stephanie standing in the doorway of her cubicle.

“What’s up with you today Masters? You’ve been in an off mood all day. Did you not eat lunch again today?”

Chaney looked down at the time on her phone and saw that it was now 3:45 meaning that she did indeed miss her lunch hour again.

She sighed and nodded.

Stephanie laughed, disappearing. She came back a couple moments later with a small Chinese take-out carton.

“Chicken lo mein. Your favorite. Figured you neglected to eat again, so I thought I’d grab you lunch while I was out. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I’m just trying to figure things out with Halvo, and I’m still moving in, and I got this phone call from a local art gallery wanting to show my work…”

“Woah, woah, woah. That’s a lot of information to take in. Firstly, what’s this business with you and Halvo? Last I heard it was strictly platonic between you two…” Stephanie challenged with a quirked eyebrow and mischievous grin adorning her lips.

Chaney’s face turned a bright red, and she quickly looked down to her hands that were fiddling with her phone. She realized that no one else knew about what had recently transpired between the two of them, unless Halvo told the guys. However since none of them said anything to her, she figured that couldn’t have been the case. In all her years of knowing Halvo, despite his tendencies to jump into things without thought, when it came to relationships he was extremely cautious. Until he knew what was going on and had been in a relationship for a set amount of time, he wouldn’t say a word to anyone about it. Being one of his best friends, she didn’t even find out about his past girlfriend until after they had been dating a few months.

Stephanie stood there waiting, debating whether she should try to get Chaney to answer her to dish the dirt on her and Halvo, or just let it be. She didn’t have long to mull her decision over as Chaney sighed, regaining Stephanie’s wandering attention.

“Well Steph, I don’t really want to say much about the first part except that Halvo and I are…going through some things right now. We’re both in a weird spot right now and are just wanting to work things out.”

Stephanie wasn’t expecting that answer. When Chaney mentioned Halvo, she assumed it meant that they had hooked up; not that they were going through some sort of rough patch. With that in mind, she regained her determination to help Chaney out with her “mystery guy”. It was a topic that had been neglected between the two of them over the last couple weeks, and she wondered if it was something Chaney even wanted anymore. She could tell Chaney was stressed from the already busy workweek, and wanted to help alleviate some of her stress if possible.

“Hey Chaney, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I didn’t realize that it was a sore topic. How about this. You said you just moved into a new apartment, right?”

Chaney nodded in agreement.

“Alright, so how about I stop by your place tonight, help you unpack, and we can catch up? I’ll bring over some dinner, your choice.”

Chaney smiled back. She was thankful for Stephanie’s friendship. She was honestly the first girl friend of Chaney’s. She never knew how to act because she was so shy, and it took Halvo to help break her out of her shell. Then again, once she became friends with Halvo, she didn’t see a need to have any more friends because his friendship was sufficient enough for her. However in cases like she was dealing with now, she was glad Stephanie befriended her three years prior. Chaney never really realized how great it could be to have a girl around to help you sort out your guy drama, though she wouldn’t admit to Stephanie that it was Halvo. She wanted to figure out what was going on first before she said anything.

Both finished their work for the day, and were able to clock out a few minutes early before deciding on dinner and heading towards Chaney’s apartment. Stephanie offered to get the food and bring it there if Chaney would get the drinks and get everything set up for the night.

Stephanie arrived shortly after Chaney got home, fresh sushi rolls in hand.

“Ahhh! Philadelphia rolls! Thank you! I haven’t had sushi in so long, and this is my favorite kind.” Chaney said as she salivated over her uneaten sushi.

Stephanie chuckled, “If I had known you were such a fan of sushi, we would’ve gotten some together before now! I have to have sushi at least once a week. I could live off this stuff. I go to this sushi bar just down the street from work all the time. The owner now knows me by name because I go there so much, and now gives me discounts. Win-win for all parties involved.”

“Then it’s settled, we’ll grab lunch there sometime this week.”

“Sounds good. We’ll invite the guys.”

Chaney’s face faltered momentarily. She hoped she could compose herself before Stephanie caught on to her hesitance towards this idea.

Stephanie noticed Chaney’s change in demeanor at the suggestion, but didn’t bring attention to it. She had no idea that whatever was going on between Chaney and Halvo was so dire. She would have to get things worked out between the two of them. Which reminded her of the whole reason she suggested having a girls’ night.

“Oh wait, we can’t do that because John is out on the east coast right now. He texted me earlier this morning saying they were going to be there for a few days.”

Chaney meekly nodded, not really in the mood to talk about John or Halvo at the moment, as it seemed she was currently torn between the two.

Stephanie picked up on Chaney’s quietness, and decided to Segway into the topic of her mystery guy.

“So Chaney tell me, what’s the 4-1-1 on your mystery guy?”

“W-what? What are you talking about?” Chaney stuttered. Afraid she had unknowingly given away her and Halvo’s secret.

“Oh you know, don’t play coy.” Stephanie smirked towards Chaney over her sushi roll as she popped a piece into her mouth.

“I uh, don’t have a uh, ‘mystery guy’…” she trailed off.

Stephanie laughed. “Bull! You do too! Your mystery New-Year’s-Eve-kiss-at-midnight guy! How’s that going?”

Realizing that Stephanie didn’t know about her and Halvo relieved her, and she visibly calmed down and answered.

“Oh that, well there’s some progress I guess? I mean, he doesn’t seem to hate me anymore.”

“Wait, anymore? I don’t recall him hating you.”

“Well, he does…or he did. At this point I’m not sure which it is anymore. I think we’re okay now, but it’s hard to say. Things have been so fickle with him lately that I’m still testing the waters.”

“Hmm…so what happened exactly?”

“To be honest, I have no idea. He was being a jerk. He accused me of being some homewrecker based on one drunken mistake that he witnessed, and it went downhill from there. For the longest time he refused to talk to me, much less explain why he hated me so much.”

At this new information, Stephanie was even more confused. She never knew Halvo to be so judgmental, especially of Chaney. She figured of anyone, he would know her the best and would know better than to cast judgment on her based on a decision made while inebriated. She then began to wonder if trying to set her up with Halvo would be for the best or not. Her mind then wandered to John.

Stephanie and John weren’t really much of anything. Sure they had been on a couple of dates, occasionally greeted each other with pecks on each other’s checks, and would text often; but outside of that, they weren’t anything near a couple. Stephanie didn’t really have any strong feelings towards John, other than finding him charming and enjoying his company. From her conversations with John, the feeling was mutual; he didn’t seem necessarily tied to her and they both kept their relationship pretty open and casual. Knowing what she did about John and Chaney, she then began to wonder if she should try to get them together. They had a lot in common, yet could be complete opposites; completely balancing each other out.

In that moment, Stephanie decided to abandon her mission to get Halvo and Chaney together in favor of getting John and Chaney together. Her plan would be kept under wraps of course, but she knew she could solicit Halvo’s help. Halvo seemed to be in favor of helping Chaney get her kiss at midnight. Despite believing that Halvo was the guy Chaney was hoping to kiss, Stephanie decided instead to go against what she believed Chaney wanted in hopes of providing her with a better match.

As Chaney sat reflecting on the past couple months with John, she began to wonder if she still wanted the kiss from him or not. She sort of had Halvo now, though she knew he would understand if she still wanted to kiss John this New Year’s. Not that she would be so underhanded if she and Halvo were dating then, but if the opportunity ever arose, she knew Halvo would allow it the one time so she could finally get past that fantasy.

Which led her to think about how things between her and Halvo were going. She had no clue why things had been so weird this last week. She wanted to know why he kept blowing her off. He never did this before, at least as frequently as he had been now. She began to worry that maybe he was second-guessing this entire thing. She didn’t know whether to try and stick with it or move on. She didn’t want to be dragged around forever and have her feelings tampered with by one of the most important guys in her life. She was afraid this could eventually tarnish their friendship if it continued long enough.

Chaney and Stephanie continued to finish eating their sushi in silence, both meditating on guys that had other things on their minds than these girls and their pending relationships.