Details

"So how was the wedding?" Mia asked me as I rushed past her in the locker room at work. As usual, I was late and in a hurry, there were thirty-five people waiting for me to start aerobics class.

"Wonderful," I replied breathlessly as I peeled off my shirt and slipped into a leotard.

"I'm so bummed I had to miss it." She admitted to me, sitting down on a bench.

"I'm sure Sarah understood. Work called." I remembered her scheduling conflict.

"That's true. The conference was great though." Her dark eyes sparkled excitedly, indicating she had lots to gossip with me about. However, it would have to wait for a later time.

"Cool." I grabbed my shoes from my bag and shoved my toes into them.

"Not very talkative today, eh Maggie?" She asked me, the beginning of a small pout forming on her lips.

"Joe switched my nine o'clock class to eight forty-five on me." I explained with a grin. "Which translates into I'm late."

"Fifteen minutes earlier makes you late?"

"Yup. You know me."

"Get outta here. We'll do lunch then." She tossed her hair over her shoulder and laughed.

"Have your people call my people!" I called over my shoulder as I rushed down the hall to class.

Boy, class hasn't even started and I'm already feeling some kind of burn. I thought, a little surprised at the lack of energy I felt, or rather didn't feel, inside me this morning. I brushed the doubt aside as I pulled my hair into a small ponytail, dismissing it from staying out late with Taylor after the wedding yesterday. We'd shared a cup of hot chocolate together in a cute little coffee house, ignoring the fact it was the middle of August.

"Hey everyone. Sorry I'm-"

"Late!" A few people called in response. I looked up at the group, my eyes wide with surprise.

"We're getting used to it, Maggie." A long-time friend and exercise enthusiast explained.

"Thanks Carol." I grinned sheepishly. "Now.. if you're done picking on me, let's get started."

"It was beautiful. Lotsa white and green, people singing, weird relatives, crying, kissing, the whole nine yards." I grinned at Mia before taking a sip of my chocolate shake. After a hearty workout, the two of us were kicking back at McDonald's down the street from work.

It was kind of funny how the gym was in the commercial part of Tulsa: surrounded by fast food on nearly all sides. Except for the boy scouts across the street. It was cute: if I was opening on Sundays, I'd get to see the little guys decked out in their uniforms while raising the flag outside their front door. I love kids, probably the reason I'd decided to major in elementary education. Big part of the decision though; I'd battled the idea of teaching high school for a few months before changing my mind. Hey, I'm young, I'm allowed to make rash decisions.

"That's it? No dirt?" She laughed at my synopsis of Sarah and Ike's wedding.

"Well, what are you looking for?" I swallowed and grinned at her. "I made out with the ring bearer behind the alter? That better?"

"Much." She rolled her eyes at me but smiled. "But, knowing you and Taylor, you two were probably joined at the hip the whole time, getting asked when your wedding is going to be."

"We weren't attached at the hip." I replied indignantly, picking up my double quarter.

"You always are."

"Really?" I frowned at her, holding my sandwich near my open mouth. "I guess I've never paid attention."

"Well, it's hard not to notice."

"I'm sorry Mia." I lowered my sandwich at the soft wistfullness in her voice.

"Don't worry about it."

"Are you sure?" I noticed her tone hadn't changed though, and felt a twinge of guilt in my stomach. Suddenly, my extra-juicy burger didn't appeal to me as much as it had a few seconds ago. Mia had dated Taylor for a few months before she dumped him. It was a very weird situation, but hey, look who's telling it all. I'd been mixed up in the whole dang, Melrose-like life. I could only cross my fingers our days of turmoil were over. Then again, I've always been known to be wrong..

"Yup." She forced a tiny smile at me.

"You're sure." I spoke to her, not asking in the form of a question. In other words, if I were on Jip-parody, as I like to refer to the game show, I would've bombed. I'd hope that I don't have a lot of useless information in my head anyway.

"Yeah, I'm ok with it." Her smile widened.

"Aww... You're making me feel bad here. Look, I can't even eat my sandwich now." I pointed to the discarded burger now on my tray.

"You?" She laughed. "Not eat? Ha."

"Why does everyone but me have a problem with my appetite?" I demanded.

"Probably because you're so tiny.. Anyway, look." She pointed to her tray, filled with a bowl of rabbit food; i.e., a salad, (ewww) and a glass of water. Tiny bits of burned French fry butts were piled next to my sandwich, but my tray was scarce except for the large Diet perched atop the upper right corner.

Hey, even I have my limitations here.

"I have limitations, ya know." I grinned.

"Like what? Eating people?" Mia wrinkled her nose at my tray. I widened my grin and tapped the side of my cup with my index finger.

"Read it and weep: this is Diet, baby."

A few days later..

"Hello!" Sarah said loudly into the phone, having picked it up after the fourth ring. It'd started ringing the moment she'd stepped onto the front stairs of her new apartment.

"It's about time you got home, young lady." An annoying, nagging tone filtered through the receiver.

"Hi Maggie." She immediately recognized my voice and laughed. "If I would've known it was you, I wouldn't have answered."

"Now that's not anyway to treat your best friend, especially when you haven't seen her in a week and a half." I pretended to use a hurt voice.

"Sorry, you weren't missed."

"That busy??" I asked, smiling a little. "Sarah Jacobs, spill yer guts."

"When you put it so nicely, sure." Sarah laughed loudly. "And it's Sarah Jacobs dash Hanson now, you know."

"You kept your maiden name?"

"For now.. Yeah. I can always change it."

"Yeah- what's in name anyway?" I joked. "Everything, that's what! Is Ike ok with that?"

"He didn't seem to be bothered by it." She replied. "Just let me put the groceries away before I indulge you into our honeymoon details."

"Hey, I'm not sure if like the sound of that. Please keep it rated PG-13, ok? I don't want you to scar me for life. It was bad enough picturing you sleeping with Mark, I want to still be able to look Isaac in the face without giggling."

"You are so messed up, you know that?" Sarah sighed as she set down her bag of groceries and started putting them away.

"It's part of my charm."

"Something like that." She grinned as she started banging various cabinet doors open and closed. "Where do you want me to start?"

"You can start by stop making all that racket, I can barely hear your voice."

"All right, all right." She abandoned the groceries for a few minutes of girl chat. "I'm sitting down at the counter. Better?"

"Much.. now spill it."

"Like I said, where would you like me to start?"

"Umm.." I thought for a moment, before grinning wickedly.

She'll kill me for this, but I hafta ask:

"How was the sex?"

"Margaret Suzana!" She cried, nearly dropping the phone. "I thought you didn't want me to scar you for life."

"I only wanted to ruffle your feathers, relax Sarah." I laughed into the phone.

"Ruffle my feathers?" She echoed. "Thanks to you, I'm now practically a plucked chicken."

"Hey, leave the corny jokes to me. What I meant was... Umm.."

This is harder to say that I originally thought it was going to be, I realized as I felt myself tense up. Not a good sign, Mags.

".. Ike didn't.. hurt you in any way, did he?" I asked in a soft voice.

"Absolutely not." I could hear the smile in her voice and relaxed. "He was wonderful.. He held me in his arms softly for a long time before we did anything."

"That's so sweet." I smiled.

Leave it to Ike to take care of my best friend in the way she deserves. Her last boyfriend, fiancé even, wasn't as much of a sweetheart. Quite the opposite actually.. but then again, that falls into the past as well.

"It really was. But, in terms of boring stuff, Disney World was so much fun. Ike treated me like a little kid, buying me nearly everything my hands landed on. You should see how much crap came back up here with us."

"I can imagine." Sarah was quite the shop-aholic, unlike me. You couldn't get me into a mall unless dragged kicking and screaming, or bribed. Occasionally a good reason came up though, like birthdays, but I tried to avoid the mall as much as possible.. totally not my scene.

"We had to send some of it UPS over night because we were over the maximum weight on our luggage." She laughed.

"Oh, I'm sure Ike loved that." I replied with a smile.

"Actually, he took it incredibly well." She sighed happily. "He's the most patient and understanding guy I've ever known. I'm waiting for the moment I screw up enough and he cracks and yells at me, though."

"Oh, I'm sure you won't screw up anything." I assured her. Sarah had always been, between the two of us, the one with the boyfriend. She knew how to handle guys, how to treat them, even more surprisingly, how they thought. Me, I might as well have been born on another planet. She still surprised me with her answer though:

"You never know, Maggie.. Ya never know."