Going Ghost

Victoria Ellis stood in front of her reflection, smoothing out the nonexistent wrinkles of her dress. Her mirror, riddled and framed with sticky notes of various color, reflected back at her the perfectly practiced posture of a woman in her mid-20s. Her hair, cut evenly and curled in loosely tubbed spirals, fell around her shoulders like a matching cape to the inky color she wore. She’d recently had her ends trimmed and she examined the look for what felt like the hundredth time, admiring it as though she’d done something far more dramatic. She was more than aware that it was a useless habit she’d developed since the cut earlier today - she could certainly go back in time and change her decision - but she kind of wished she’d gotten those bangs her best friend had talked her out of. In any case, she shook her head to dislodge the thoughts, she was still tossing it around in her head.

Unlike her roommate’s intricate and unruly curls, that interrupted Victoria’s carefully coifed reflection by sticking up from the background, Victoria had chosen a look that she felt was both professional and neat. Her bestie had called the uniformed bangs she’d requested ‘too severe’ for her face and while that might have been somewhat true, Victoria wasn’t convinced that she couldn’t pull it off. In fact, she was sure she could have and that was most likely why her best friend had taken that moment to distract her stylist by spilling product on the ground from an open display. “I can’t have my best friend looking like Mrs. Trenchbull and Morticia Adams somehow had a baby. The horror,” her best friend had said and that statement had given her pause for a number of reasons. Had it not been for the other woman’s quick wit and faux clumsy behavior, Victoria would have certainly had the time to investigate the comment and the look. And more than anything, Jessie would have definitely liked the change.

As though her hands could iron, Victoria ran her hands down the fabric of her knee-length black dress again. The arms of the dress were little more than caps and for some reason, tonight it fit a little snugger than she was sure Jessie would have liked at the top, but the remainder of the dress flared dramatically towards the bottom.

Victoria didn’t love it.

Jessie did.

She’d bought it from a store she’d heard him make a positive comment about and while the price tag had been outrageous, it’d been worth it when she’d told him about the purchase. Even more worth it when she’d shown it to him. It flattered her, he’d said and had joked at how the modesty of the dress was deceiving. He liked it when she wore something demure. He liked it more when they were alone and she was anything but.

And so it was that compliment and ones just like it that he’d made when either on a date with her or a double date with his work friend, Tom and his wife that’d kept her in dresses that actually were less than flattering. He liked them, so she wore them with a smile.

Despite her slight discomfort, the only person who ever actually vocalized an issue with her clothing was her best friend and roommate, Cessie, who laid strewn across the sofa, a bowl of cereal, resting against her chest, eyes watching her, bored and unimpressed.

“God, you dress like fucking Dolores sometimes.” As if on cue, Cessie voiced the time-honored commentary to the ceiling, head lolling back dispassionately, before abruptly sitting up and giving her best friend another once over. With a grunt of disgust, she pulled the spoon from the bowl and brought it past her lips, slurping obnoxiously at its contents.

“Seriously,” she crunched loudly on the colorful cereal. Between bites, she continued. “You have cute clothes. A lot of them. I know because I borrow them and don’t give them back. For the love of everything holy, wear something better.”

Victoria ignored her and turned away from the mirror and threw her hair over her shoulder. Glancing back, she ran a hand delicately down her backside. Part of her wanted to agree with her boisterous bestie. But Jessie didn’t force her to dress like this, she did it by choice, one that he greatly appreciated. That was how relationships worked. There was give and take and that was the great thing about Jessie: when he liked something, he said it. He was always the more straightforward of the two of them She loved that about him. For her, that trait was necessary. She didn’t like secrets or even surprises.

Of course, there were also those things about him that made her nervous too - he wasn’t perfect and she accepted that. But his habit of basically disappearing off the face of the earth, “going ghost”, as Cessie called it - this was new for him. They’d been together for almost three years and just recently, over the past seven months, he’d started ignoring her calls or forgetting to ring her back completely. When they did speak, he’d blame it on his new promotion- a big promotion.

A promotion that he’d busted his ass to get.

A promotion that gave him more money and even more hours.

A promotion that had him forgetting to call her for days sometimes.

A promotion that he’d been using in his apologies for months now.

A promotion that was starting to wear on her nerves.

Victoria wasn’t needy and she liked to think that she understood, did her best to make sure she explained to Jessie that she did, but it was easier to do both of those when she spoke to him every day. Far more difficult when he went three or more days without calling. Once again, Victoria sighed, shook her head and reframed her thinking.

Tonight was going to be different.

She had to look her very best.

Jesse had texted her that afternoon with a reminder that they had a special date at their favorite restaurant. She’d played coy, replying that she’d almost forgotten, but would certainly be there and Jessie had only answered with an emoji kiss face.

The two of them usually saved RED, a steakhouse that generally had a waitlist into the following week, for special events. They celebrated all of their anniversaries there and both of their graduations from school - his masters and her undergrad. So Victoria couldn’t help the thrill of excitement at the thought that they were going there on a random Tuesday.

“For your engagement,” Victoria’s coworker had chimed in with her usual unsolicited sing-song opinion.

After five years of being together, Victoria was more than ready. She’d been the dotting and understanding girlfriend the entire time. They’d made a five-year plan together and at the three-year mark, marriage was supposed to be around the corner. She’d done her best to not remind him of their plans too frequently, they usually made him feel flustered and snappy, behaviors she usually avoided invoking in him. But she was sure he remembered. She briefly looked down at the back of her hand, bare of any rings, but perfectly manicured in case the decoration came. She gave the front of her dress one last brush over before glancing over at the couch. Cessie, Victoria could see now, was using a cooking spoon to eat her cereal out of an oversized mixing bowl. She took a mouthful and chewed loudly before meeting eyes with her oldest friend.

’What?” She asked, milk spilling out the sides of her mouth.

“Don't you have to work tonight? Shouldn't you be getting dressed? And we both know that your mother has impeccable taste. It’s a compliment to compare me to Dolores.”

Cessie swallowed some of the cereal in her mouth before saying, “Oh, yeah. A navy blue business skirt suit and some chunky ass power heels. The pinnacle of style.”

Victoria smiled before standing up straight and looking expectantly at the mocha-skinned woman.

“How do I look? And be honest, don’t be demeaning. I need you on my team.”

“Is that Team Jesse or Team—”

“It’s Team Maid of Honor if I look as good as I feel.”

Cessie made a disgusted face. Victoria should have expected that but she sighed anyway, sagging her shoulders in annoyance. She was hyper-aware of Cessie’s low opinion of her boyfriend. Her best friend had done nothing to conceal her dislike for him since they’d started dating and he’d gone through tireless lengths to remedy this. On their first date, he’d taken her out for ice cream and a walk in the park and Cessie had called and texted the entire time in a panic, worried that they’d find her body in a ditch somewhere. In one of the many voicemails that she’d left, Cessie had shouted to her, “A park, Vic? A fucking park? We’ve watched enough CSI and Law and Order to know a trap when we see one. If you’re dead, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

When Jessie had dropped her off at 10:30 and had given her a light kiss on the cheek, Cessie had warned Victoria that cliche men were too good to be true. ′Trust me, sis,′ she’d cautioned. ′ If he buys you ice cream and listens to you talk for two hours, he’s probably a serial killer. Or he’s married. And ever since she’d given that warning, it felt as though Cessie was hanging out in her head, mumbling negative sentiments about Jessie that she usually chose to ignore. When he didn’t call for a few days, the Cessie in her mind would harumph knowledgeably. When Victoria came home alone from one of their dates, both the real Cessie and the one that sat on the couch eating cereal in her head would scoff, unimpressed that he’d chosen to drop her off instead of letting her sleepover.

For five years, Cessie’d heralded the same warning, day in and day out. Every holiday when Jessie bought her roommate a nice card with a small gift, Cessie tossed it out as soon as he left or she regifted it back to Victoria right in front of him.

In the beginning, it had been confusing and disheartening. As a best friend, Victoria wanted someone to share her excitement, her amusement and her low points with - that’s what best friends did. But Victoria had grown to realize that because Cessie hadn’t been the picture of stability in her own life, her upbringing heavily influenced the way she viewed relationships. Cessie didn’t need the stability the way Victoria craved it. In fact, there were times that Victoria was certain that Cessie shunned it. She’d learned to live without it, so guys like Jessie didn’t do it for her. Cessie would probably never be content to play the doting girlfriend- it wasn’t in her nature.

Victoria, however, had staked her future on it, providing a lending ear, eye, hand, mouth, anything for Jessie because that’s what a good girlfriend did. The only thing Victoria wanted in return for this was that he continues the path he was on right now; the path of upward mobility and continued stability not just for himself but for the both of them. He worked hard at his job, sometimes staying up late and sometimes ending their dates early. There were times that she was leaving her own office and he was still there, on the phone or sending e-mails. She admired how hard he worked. Everything he’d done had been leading up to this night.

The years of feeling content with as much as he could give, sometimes more and sometimes less?

It was going to be worth it tonight.

“You look amazing,” her roommate said in a deadpanned voice, after finally swallowing another spoonful of cereal. “He’d be a moron not to propose to you,” She continued in the same voice. “Fingers crossed.” For good show, she crossed her middle and pointer finger and rose them in front of her, giving her hand a good, solid shake.

Victoria checked her phone and shot off a quick text to Jessie that she was on her way to the restaurant. She added in, for good measure, that she was excited to spend the evening with him and the Cessie in her mind added in, hopefully, the whole evening for the first time in forever. Vic sighed, huffing out the negativity and pressed send. She wouldn't let anything get in the way of her happiness tonight, not even herself.

"Gotta send him a text. Wouldn't wanna surprise him and show up at the restaurant at the exact time that you both originally agreed upon, huh?" Cessie slurped the remaining milk from her spoon obnoxiously.

Victoria gave herself one last appreciative glance in the mirror before looking back at the raven-haired girl. “You’re gonna look so good in our wedding colors.”

Cessie dropped her spoon and gagged.