Lauren
- Jun 11, 2021
- 4 min read
by Monica Wang
It was Pam who first spoke of Lauren. At least, Pam spoke at Christie as the latter tallied the calories of her cranberry and cheese scones. Christie contributed only personal anecdotes to conversations and had no interest in anyone who didn’t show greater interest in her.
Lauren was that sort of anyone.
No response.
Pam turned to her other side and tried again. “Have you heard? Lauren’s ex said they broke up because Lauren tried to stab her.” Her deep, clear voice added vague authority to the gossip.
“She stabbed Dav?” As Natlee leaned forward, the ends of her hair swept across the smear of frosting on her plate. She shrank back.
“I said tried to. With her grandma’s cleaver.” Pam touched the buzzed side of her head, pleased.
They—Pam, Christie, Natlee, and Jade—sat at a long table in Jade’s favourite patisserie, where the macarons photographed well and the furniture wore freshly distressed paint. Jade had retained from childhood the belief that her birthdays warranted universal celebration, so her guests didn’t question, at least out loud, her organising a party of mere acquaintances.
Behind her phone, Jade hadn’t heard Pam either. Jade, a freelance stylist, and Christie, who owned more than two dozen wigs, both had ash-blonde curls on this day, a coincidence worth documenting if her phone would cooperate.
Pam herself had seen Jade no more than five times in the past three years. As the descendent of 1960s immigrants, she considered herself the least Asian of the group and considered Jade “too proud of her newcomer family’s new money.” She had accordingly brought the most expensive gift in the room.
Natlee—whose offering was a re-gift she thought looked new—had only known Jade for some months. After they’d met through mutual friends, Jade had soon called to suggest coffee.
“A platonic coffee,” she had added. She still thought Natlee was straight and Christie was bisexual. “I’ve always heard you were sweet and funny. We should get to know each other.”
Jade’s phone voice had a nasal quality many interpreted as insincerity, and her call had terrified Natlee. Social interactions strained the muscles in Natlee’s face and neck; whenever she attempted a compliment or joke, she looked stern, as if daring listeners to laugh.
She had resorted to paraphrasing. “You’ve always seemed interesting. And nice! I can’t wait to hang out with you.” Her neck cranked into her shoulder, disappearing forever.
At the dimly lit cheesecake place downtown, they had ordered overpriced pastries, exchanged compliments, and ran out of things to say. Jade rearranged her bangs—a brown-to-black gradient then—while Natlee checked her mug over and over for flaws.
“Are you still friends with Lauren?” asked Natlee.
Neither had spoken for five minutes.
“Not really. Why?”
“Nothing. She said things I couldn’t tell you when you were still friends.” Natlee looked severe. “You’re nothing like she described.”
“We’re friends now, right? You can tell me.” Jade smiled.
“It’s the same stuff she says about everyone. I know it sounds like I’m saying negative things about her, but she literally does it to everyone.”
“I don’t badmouth people, either, but Lauren is a two-faced troll. You should hear what she says about you.”
“Me? Because I didn’t lie to Dav for her when she was at Joania’s? Lauren didn’t even like Joania! She said she hates everyone.”
“Even me?” Jade’s smile vanished. “But I was nice to her even after she cheated on Dav, and Dav and I were friends way before—”
“She badmouthed you, too, but I shouldn’t repeat any of it.”
“Oh. Anyway, I don’t talk about people behind their backs.”
“Right. Only people like Lauren would do that.”
Jade blew her nose with a napkin.
After Natlee concocted evening plans and left, Jade drove to Dav’s with sweet granules of talk to churn into more, like cotton candy.
While the group celebrated at the patisserie, Dav worked; she would attend two of Jade’s birthday parties later in the week. With two new designers at her little firm, no more migraines, and a great haircut—she’d cut off all the pink when everyone in Vancouver went pink or purple or green—Dav no longer remembered why she had felt so lowly that she’d fed, chauffeured, and obeyed Lauren for three years. To earn intimacy points, as Lauren had joked?
Dav didn’t cry the evening she learnt about the cheating, but Lauren had, denouncing the world as liars through mascara tears.
Pam was wrong, though: Lauren had wielded scissors, not a cleaver, and it was her resin-tipped nails Dav had struggled to keep away. Mid-fight, without intending to, Dav marvelled at the lines of rage in her girlfriend’s face. The creases at the corners of her eyes, the deeper ones by her mouth, looked so much like peach skin, Dav wanted to touch them.
After the fight, Dav drove to Jade’s. What she shared in confidence, Jade told no one but Pam.
“I think Lauren is sweet but misunderstood,” Pam announced from her seat at the only occupied end of the table, which had caused minor confusion when the patisserie staff came to wish Jade a happy birthday. “I’m just worried she’s unhappy even with all the advice I’ve given her. People don’t listen to what’s good for them.”
Natlee murmured something no one heard.
The room seemed to quieten for Christie. “The last time we talked, Lauren was screaming at me over the phone.” She scraped silver decoration balls off a cupcake with her teaspoon, not looking at the listeners. “She said Dav found out about Alissa. Have I mentioned Alissa? Apparently every time she was out with Alissa, Lauren told Dav she was with me.”
Natlee jerked forward again. Shabby chic paint flakes fluttered from her chair to the floor.
“She did the same to me! She told me to lie to Dav for her, but Dav found out when I acc—the same!”
Pam and Jade looked at her. Then they turned back toward Christie—she’d given them the story first, and told it better.
Christie swept aside her curls with one hand and continued.
Natlee sank back and glowered at her plate and butter knife. She had lost her story to Christie. She blamed Lauren.
Monica Wang has fiction in Southword and other publications as well as a collection of haiku & CNF forthcoming with The Nasiona. Her flash won The Sunlight Press’s 2020 fiction contest. Born in Taichung, Taiwan, she grew up in Taipei and Vancouver, Canada, and now writes in the Netherlands.
