Dorothy Ann smiled. "Calm down," she said, standing in such close proximity to her redheaded friend, she was sure they looked like a couple. She tugged on his tie, closing the loop into a nice little bow. Arnold swore that the petite girl in front of him would be the first and last person he would ever know who could tie a bowtie with such fluidity.
She spread down a wrinkle in his shirt. She looked up at him again, stepping back. "Wonderful. You'll knock her dead, Perlstein." Another girl steps up from behind him, grabbing his cuffed hand and pulls him around so he's facing her. "Why, if I didn't know better," she grabbed his glasses from his face, her reach much better than the blondes, "I'd think my cousin was actually a decent looking guy." He grumbles, even though he knows it's supposed to be a compliment, and the closest he'd get from Janet.
She hands him a contact case, but he takes the glasses back. He says that she likes him with his glasses.
Dorothy Ann agreed. She did like his glasses, she had mentioned it before.
Janet presses something into his hand, teasing about how he'd be screwed if he forgot that. Dorothy Ann, suddenly concious of the time, shooed him out the door, following soon after to get in her own car. (She had sworn to her neighbor that she'd only be gone for thirty minutes. It was nearing an hour now.)
Arnold Perlstein, for all his preperation, for all the planning, could only feel a sense of dread.
He drove to the restaurant, meeting his current girlfriend of a year, a slim, short blonde. Dinner was lovely, they had excellent conversation. After dessert he stood, only to kneel on the ground seconds later. With a tear-stained face, she covered her mouth and shook, shaking her head the wrong way, accompanied with the wrong answer.
No.
No.
No.
He felt shocked, betrayed. He stood silently, paid the check and left. He drove for what felt like a few hours, but judging by the clock-radio, it was only thirty minutes. He stopped at a familliar brick structure, parking in the driveway even though it made her insane, considering she parked in the garage, and made his way to the door. He rang the doorbell five, six, seven times in rapid succession.
She opened the door, groggily, obviously in the midst of a nap. Her brown hair stuck up in strange angles, she looked surprised. Her best friend, decked out in what looked like a tuxedo and the most miserable expression she had ever seen.
"She said no, Pheebs. She said no." His voice cracked and she ushed him inside.
She wasn't going to chide him on her, how she knew she was bad, how he could do so much better. She was going to get him the set of clothes he had left in case he ever needed them (two sets, a pair of day clothes and a set of pajamas she had bought him one year for Christmas but he seemed to forget to take home,) and let him be miserable.
She was going to do what a true friend would do.
He was going to forget about the year he had wasted.
They fell asleep on the couch, both slightly miserable.
A/N: This felt longer.
Poll-- should I continue this? Y/N?