Krista Voth

     She sat at the bar, sipping her Amaretto Sour and shoving peanuts into her mouth methodically.  It had been such a long day and she knew that this night would go on forever.  Work had been a bitch but it was nothing compared to the agony she was about to face.  What time was it anyway?  She looked up at the clock behind the bar, twenty minutes past the hour.  Great, she thought, they were late as usual.  She was about to order another drink, a double she thought, when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
     She swiveled around on the stool and looked up into the beautiful, blue eyes that had been entrancing her for years.  He looked so good, and so did the woman standing behind him.  She had always been gorgeous, so thin and glamourous.  She smiled her same beauty pageant smile and said hello.  They small talked all the way to their table but she was barely listening.  She had learned over the years to tune Rick and Miss America out when they started talking about their perfect lives.  It had really gotten bad after college because she went off to her computers, while they went off with each other.  Even before that though, she had pretty much been on her own.  These dinners were stupid, she thought as she sat down at the table.  Her mind wandered to the day they decided to start these reunions.
     "We're going to be friends forever,"  she had said, "even after we graduate, right?"  
     "Well, sure we are," he replied, tossing a pillow at her.
     She decided he was probably right, he had never lied to her before and they had been friends since their freshman year.  She honestly loved him, she always had but she was beginning to doubt he would ever notice.  On some level, he probably knew her feelings but didn't want lose her friendship.  Just then, the third musketeer burst in, carrying a pizza.
     Miss America was always bringing food to their little gatherings, but did she ever eat it?  Not a chance.  She rarely ate anything because she had to stay thin for the pageants. That's where she got her nickname, not that she liked anyone calling her that, she thought it would jinx her.
     She plopped down right next to Rick, practically on his lap, the other thought.  Anne couldn't understand where these jealous rages had been coming from lately but they were getting out of control.  This was her best friend, for God's sake!  They had been roommates for four years and all three of them had been best buds since the first week of college.  Where was all this resentment coming from?  She didn't really need to ask, but she didn't want to feel this way.
     They were just getting too close.  The two of them were always together.  Sure, she was usually busy with her studies and work and everything but even when she was with them, it was like she wasn't even there.  They used to do everything together, all three of them, but ever since the Christmas dance when they had decided to go together instead of all boycotting it, she had been trying to distance herself from them.  She just couldn't handle watching them together, being all flirtatious and giggly, it just killed her.  Besides, they didn't want her around anyway.  Of course Rick constantly asked why she wasn't ever hanging out with them, but Miss America made it clear that three is really a crowd, especially if she was going to just sit there and pout. The horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach was almost a daily occurrence when she saw her roommate touch him or had to watch him look into her eyes when she was talking.  
     This was just too much...  She got up and reached for her bookbag.  "Hey, where you going?" he asked.  
     "To the library," she replied, "I'll just see you guys tomorrow I guess."
     "What about the pizza?"
     "I'm not hungry."
     "Come on, stay for a minute," he pleaded, "We have to talk about our reunion."
     "What reunion?"
     "From this day forward, on this exact date: May 3, right, the three of us, The Three Musketeers, will meet at Fazzoli's in the city for dinner."
     Miss America chimed in, "Yeah, it will be just like the old times, remember when we used to go to that little Italian place for dinner and then spend all night in Borders?"  She was smiling so big all her perfectly capped teeth were showing.  "But next year, we will have so much catching up to do, you know, about our work, our jobs or even our love lives," she said, deliberately winking at Rick.  
     He laughed nervously and continued.  "No matter where we are or what we're doing, we will converge upon the restaurant at, say, 8:00 p.m., for the rest of our lives," he finished with the triumph of planning this event.
     "Okay, whatever," and she walked out the door.
     Whew, Anne thought, this was their third reunion dinner but she assumed it would be her last.  It just wasn't right that she had to endure their happy talk about their happy lives every single year.  She should be happy too, but she just wasn't.  She should be ecstatic- her career was going great, she had just been the first woman to be promoted to vice-president in the history of her company, she had just finished fixing up her first apartment and had put a down payment on a brand new Lexus. Why wasn't that enough?  She had worked so hard for this in college, sacrificing most of her social life for a chance at the big time business world and for what?  A yearly dinner to remind her how depressing it was to go home only to a cat at night.  No thank you, not anymore.
     They ordered their meals.  Of course, little Miss America ordered only a small salad and some kind of rice.  She was really looking thin these days, why could she never eat?  Even in college the two were always getting into fights about her eating habits.  When she finally decided to get help, it really  brought them together their freshman year.  They could tell each other anything: about food, schoolwork, dating, their parents, whatever, which is why it made the other two dating, that much harder.  Her roommate knew about her crush on him.  She had been totally honest about her feelings for him from practically the day they moved in together.  It was never really an issue though until their senior year when Miss America and Rick started having feelings for each other.
     The worst part about the whole thing though was that she didn't even really know until graduation day, when they pulled her aside from the mass of caps and gowns and told her they had been seeing each other for nearly six months.  "It won't affect our relationship though," they both swore.  "We'll still be the three musketeers."  
     But really it never was the same.  Doing the math isn't hard, three friends minus one equals two people in love.  They got married right before the first reunion.  She didn't make it to the wedding, she was luckily away on business but she had to relive it through the pictures.  They looked like the models in the Calvin Klein Escape ad, Miss America Leaning into him, their gazes locked in what looked like profound thought but what was really just lust.  It made her jaw hurt to look at their big smiles.  Though she desperately wanted to be happy for them, her heart ached and her thoughts were consumed with him.  
     He was so smart and funny and when his fingers touched the piano, a lump formed in her throat that no amount of liquor would dissolve.  When he worked at the bar during college she would spend the whole evening there, pretending to study but really just listening to him play.  He would dedicate her favorite song, "It Might Be You," to her but he probably didn't even know what it was about, Miss America on the other hand, would think it was the new Hootie song.  She knew every word by heart, and would sing along in her head, feeling the tears well up in her eyes as he played.  He was meant for her, she just knew it.  She had felt it the first time they met.
     It was the summer when they were both twelve at a church camp.  He was the first boy who was ever really nice to her, he was so fun and polite and they spent hours just walking along the creek talking.  Those were some of the best days of her life, walking hand in hand with him, knowing she could tell him anything and that he would listen.  He understood her so well and he got her through her parents divorce.  His mom and dad were still married but they fought all the time just like hers did which is why they were both at camp all summer.  Plus, they were both outcasts, he was a musical prodigy, she was a computer geek, neither was very popular with the other campers, they got made fun of all the time, but two lonely kids make perfect friends. They found in each other a connection that neither had felt before.
     They lost contact over the years but ended up at the same college.  Up to a point, she could still tell him anything, but it got to be too hard when she realized how strong her feelings were for him.  Since she had last seen him, he had grown over a foot and was no longer the shy, quiet boy with his hair falling constantly in his eyes.  He looked like a GQ model, but that isn't why she loved him.  She loved him because he talked to her, not at her, like every other guy she had ever known and he liked to listen.  Even now, he would grill her about her personal life at these dinners, but she really didn't have one so sometimes she made things up, just to make him feel like he still knew her.   "Yes, I still kept a journal but no, Rick, you can't read it," she laughed.  They used to go to the truck stop at all hours of the night, he would work on his music, she would write her stories.  When they felt they were ready, they shared with each other.  The truth is, most of the journal was about him and the things she "read" out loud, she  invented as she spoke.  He hadn't really known her since those first months when she began hiding her feelings from him.  
     Dinner finally arrived and they ate in silence.  Why were they acting so bizarre?  They usually couldn't shut up about their yuppie lives and all the fun things they are still learning about each other.
     The dishes were cleared and they settled back in their chairs with coffee.  There was an awkward silence, until he finally leaned forward and rested his arms on the table.  "We have something to tell you," he stated.
     "Oh?" she said, expecting the worst, yet not knowing what it could be.
     "We're getting a divorce."