Just Friends

CHAPTER 1 Freya peeled off her clothes and stood in her underwear, contemplating her reflection. She wanted to look her best for Michael tonight. There had been no time to go home to change; she must make do with this cramped ladies' room beneath her office. Her new dress hung from the cubicle door: a cool thousand dollars' worth of palest pink that shimmered with a tracery of opalescent beads a Cinderella dress chosen to make her as feminine and delicate as a porcelain doll. That was the look she was aiming for, less femme fatale, more . . . femme, plain and simple. Let's go somewhere special, he had said over breakfast on Monday morning, somewhere we can talk. Questions had exploded in her head like popcorn in a hot pan. Talk about what? Why not right here in the apartment? Freya had choked them back. Instead, she'd done a lot of shopping. But all week long she had carried his words around with her, a time bomb in the pit of her stomach, tick-tick-ticking as the days passed. Was this It? Was she about to become Mrs. Normal, grouching about schools and the state of her suburban lawn? With a hand that was not quite steady Freya twisted the tap and splashed her cheeks with cold water. On with the war paint. She began to make up her face a pencil to darken the pale arches of her eyebrows, mascara to bring her light-blue eyes into focus. Which lipstick? Scarlet Woman was out, obviously. So, frankly, was Vestal Virgin, a relic of her infatuation with an artist who had left her for a seventeen-year-old. Ah-hah, Crimson Kiss, that was more like it. She slid the color back and forth over her lips, then bared her teeth, satisfactorily white against the red. I floss, you floss, we all floss. God bless American dentistry. But what if she was wrong? Maybe Michael just wanted to discuss the new service charge for the apartment, or to finalize plans for their trip to England. Freya cocked her head to fix an earring, considering this possibility. No, she decided. Michael was a lawyer, and a man: habit was his middle name. Every January he bought his suits in the sales, always two, always Armani, either navy or charcoal. He called his mother on Sunday evenings (allowing for the time change to Minneapolis), got his annual hay fever shot right after Groundhog Day, and always tipped ten percent on the nose. There was nothing unpredictable about Michael, thank God. If he wanted to "talk," he must have something important to say. Balancing precariously on one flamingo leg, then the other, Freya slid on sheer stockings, then stepped carefully into the precious dress and drew it up her body, shivering at its silky opulence. A hidden side zip pulled it snug around her small breasts, miraculously creating a discreet cleavage. She slotted her feet into flat shoes, with the faintest sigh of regret for those strappy four-inch heels she'd seen in a Fifth Avenue store. It was too bad Michael wasn't taller. She reminded herself sternly that successful relationships were founded on compromise. A few adjustments, a mist of perfume, and she was finished. Did she look the part? Freya found her brain flooding with words she had never associated with herself: fiancee, engagement, honeymoon, Mr. and Mrs. . . Daddy and Mommy. She grabbed the sink with both hands and peered close. Narrow pointed face, skin as pale as buttermilk, collar bones you could beat a tattoo on, long arms and legs too long? She was as tall as many men: "giraffe," they had called her at school. Could somebody really love this person for ever and ever, amen? She picked at her newly cropped hair (another hundred bucks), so fair it looked almost colorless in this light. "Freya the beautiful," her mother used to call her, named after the warmhearted goddess of the icy north who was loved by all men. But that was when she was six years old. It was impossible to knSisman, Robyn is the author of 'Just Friends', published 2001 under ISBN 9780385658096 and ISBN 0385658095.