Before Time's Up

(pt1)

“Hey, girl,” a young woman with blonde hair and a dark blue, low cut cocktail dress exclaimed, a huge smile plastered on her face as she neared a beautiful brunette surrounded by her friends, “wow you look gorgeous, what have you been up to?” she continued, giving her a hug as the other distanced herself a bit from the little crowd beside her, “Heard you moved to Seoul after graduating!”

“Hey, Nicky, good to see you too, yeah, right, been living in Seoul since then,” the brunette gave a wide smile as she nodded, her eyes forming into two curves of long eyelashes as she did so. “How have you been?” she asked.

“Good, good,” Nicky replied. “Got married, moved to Newport Beach, have two little doggies, Kiki and Diamond… hubby’s doing well in cars sales so I’m kinda just freelancing these days. It’s around time we make a baby, you know?” ‘Wow. All in one breath.’

“Wow, that’s… that’s really cool, you enjoying Newport then?”

“Sure I do, I mean, it’s the place to be right now, really. I wish I could have brought Marc with me tonight to introduce you to him but well, most of the class seemed to agree on not bringing anyone. Probably a lot of loners here tonight, right?” she chuckled.

“Hmm,” the other smiled back, “yeah, maybe.”

“So, how ‘bout you, Stephanie? I’m sure you had a good catch too,” ‘Oh, that I did,’ Stephanie mentally scoffed to herself. “Husband, kids?”

“Neither,” she replied bluntly.

“Oh?” Nicky raised her eyebrows.

“Things just didn’t work out that way so far. And I’m mostly just slumped with work these days so I haven’t had the chance to look much lately,” Stephanie said but inside she thought ‘Well that, and I didn’t really want to.’

“Oh, I would think you don’t really have to look, guys must be all over you! But if those Korean guys are so blind, well, you’re in the golden years of your beauty right now, you really should get some time to find someone and settle down soon because it’ll be different in ten years time, right?”

“Yeah, probably,” Stephanie thought of the person back in Seoul she hoped would still be beside her in a decade... or two… forever, even.

“So what are you doing? Fashion?”

“Oh, you still remember that?” the young woman chuckled. “No, that was… kinda just a phase. I always dreamed of becoming a lawyer so… here I am.”

“Oh, wow. Law,” Nicky’s eyes sparkled. “That’s where the money’s at, right?”

“Well, for some, I’m sure it is but I prefer defending those who may not otherwise be able to afford.”

“Ah,” Nicky’s face fell a little. “So you’re sorta like a good samaritan?”

“You could say that.”

    There was a moment of silence. In all honesty, Stephanie didn’t really want to prolong the conversation, there were still a lot of things she wanted to talk about with her long lost friends instead of dealing with this pretentious small talk with a woman she barely remembered. But she didn’t mean to be rude either.

“So you’re living alone right now?” Again, Stephanie thought of the same person as before, the one she lived with for so long until a few months ago.

“Yeah,” she remembered something, “hey, is Amanda here too, you still keeping in touch with her? You used to be joined at the hips back then.”

    Suddenly, the young blonde’s expression changed. “You… you haven’t heard?” she asked, and her painful eyes made Stephanie’s heart anxious.

“Heard what?” she asked carefully.

“Amanda… she’s gone,” Nicky replied and she looked as if she was only a ghost of herself now. Her voice was weak and fragile. “Died three years ago.”

    Stephanie felt a clench in her chest.

    And she thought of her again.

*

“Fany-ah, isn’t it a little late over there to be calling right now?”

    Stephanie threw herself down on the king sized bed in the hotel room. “Well, it’s only… it’s only… ” she pulled the phone away from her ear, “Three twenty-two,” she spoke into the speaker, still staring at the numbers, “twenty-three,” she said as the numbers changed. She burped. “Ah, sorry, it’s the bubbles. Anyway, it’s a little late, right?” she chuckled as she peeled her left shoe off with her toes.

“Fany, are you drunk?” the voice on the other side sighed.

“You know I don’t get drunk easily. But I’m definitely a little tipshy,” she laughed as she heard the slur in her last word. “Tipssssy,” she repeated.

“You sound drunk though.”

“No, no! Tipssssssy!! See, I can strill say it just very well, I mean, like… wah, okay, may-beh I reealy am a little drunk?”

“What did you drink tonight?”

“Ahdunno,” Stephanie sighed, trying to pull herself together again as she rubbed her eyes. She didn’t want to get up and change her clothes anymore though. “Champagne, red wine, martini… a bit of thisndat.” Sigh.

“So what’s wrong?” the other side asked. She knew Stephanie only got drunk like this when something really hit her hard. “Was the reunion that bad?”

“It wasn’t, it wasn’t,” Stephanie sighed. “It was nice, it’s just that… ” Stephanie hesitated but the other side just listened patiently. “Amanda died.”

    The other side stayed silent for a moment before asking, “Amanda… who?”

“Uh, I… ” Stephanie rubbed her forehead, “I can’t remember her surname, it’s uh… I don’t know but she was in the same year as I and I knew her and… she just… she died.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, and I mean, she’d be as old as us. Right? But she’s… she’s not because she’s dead,” Stephanie explained as if this was the most incredulous thing in the world.

“Yeah. So it was kind of a shocker, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Stephanie breathed out in exhaustion.

    She was not sure why this shook her up so much. Due to her job, she’s dealt with cases before where people even younger than them passed away. Been killed. Or attempted suicide. It was a constant reminder of how unpredictably a human life can come to an end, and for her to do her best while she still can.

“You two were good friends?”

“No,” Stephanie forced her eyes open. “I didn’t know her well. But, you know, she was the same age as us, Taeyeon. And it’s just… ”

“I know what you mean,” Taeyeon said, “every time I do reports on an accident or something where the victim was a similar age… yeah, I know the feeling.”

    Stephanie wasn’t sure she did. This was… This was different. She’s seen those girls every day at school, they were like Siamese twins, inseparable, always going everywhere together. They were like two halves of the same apple and now one half was rotting six feet under.

“She was… she and Nicky… they were like—”

“Hey, Fany, sorry to interrupt and all but I really need to go get my make-up done, okay? You should get some sleep too, and I’ll call you tomorrow, alright?”

    Stephanie sighed. “Right, okay. Do well.” She heard more and more noise on the other side.

“Will do. And you try not to think about this too much, okay?”

“’Kay. Bye.”

“Bye,” Taeyeon said a little louder than before in the noisy room.

“Love y—” the line was disconnected, “-ou.” Stephanie groaned. She threw the phone on the bed lazily.

    She peeled her clothes off without sitting up anyway so that she could sleep more comfortably, and pulled the blanket up to cover herself before she let the exhaustion and drunkenness come over her.

     ‘They were just like you and me.’

*

“Heyy~ Wow, the photos didn’t do justice, hi there Hwang Yuri,” Taeyeon grinned as she approached the girl waiting in front of the café now.

“Yah!” Stephanie slapped Taeyeon’s shoulder as soon as she was in an arm’s reach. “It’s really sunny there right now and you know that,” she reprimanded as they headed in to the small, cozy café. After all, they went together for a week-long vacation just a few years ago.

“Yeah but I still didn’t come home so chocolatey when we both went, did I?”

“That was just a week. I was there for three if you haven’t noticed.”

“I have,” they reached the counter now. “Hi, a Vanilla Americano and a Caramel Frappuccino, please. Oh, and… one of those, too,” Taeyeon pointed at a slice of sweet potato cake.

“Yah!” Stephanie shoved her again.

“Two?”

“I’ll have a tiramisu, please.”

    They both waited silently while the barista served them.

“Here you go,” he handed them the plates and cups individually. Stephanie had always been good at maneuvering things so she took her plate and the two cups to their table while Taeyeon paid.

    She took her jacket off and placed it on the back of the chair while Taeyeon arrived and put her own plate down on the small, round table.

“I was just kidding though, you know,” she said as she sat down, also taking her light jacket off.

    Stephanie looked up from her first sip of drink curiously.

“You look great, I mean,” Taeyeon explained. “The tan looks good on you.” Stephanie wasn’t someone to blush or get flustered easily. But her stomach did flutter at every little compliment Taeyeon ever gifted her with.

“Thanks, but we really shouldn’t take selcas together any time soon,” she just chuckled. “You’ll disappear on the picture next to me.”

“Right, well, we can always just take one in a very bright room and a very dark room and then just photoshop it together.”

    Stephanie laughed at that, “Yeah, sure. You even have a lighter shade of blonde now, don’t you?”

“Yeah, weird you noticed though, it’s barely a shade lighter than before.” ‘How could I not?’ Stephanie thought. ‘I have every curve and color and corner of your body carved into my brain… ’ “I’m already happy I can even get away with my blonde hair. You know the viewers are not exactly fans of big changes.”

“I’m not either,” Taeyeon raised an eyebrow. Stephanie changed her hair color and style as often as she changed toothbrushes. “Not on you, I mean. I like your blonde hair. You look more feminine, more sophisticated with it.”

“I am naturally feminine and sophisticated anyway!” Taeyeon exclaimed.

“Yeah, right, very,” Stephanie snorted. “And that’s why last time we went to the museum you couldn’t stop laughing for half an hour when you noticed there was a crack on one of the statues’ .”

    Taeyeon laughed again, “But I mean, you gotta admit, it’s so funny. It’s a crack on the !! A -crack!”

“I’d like to see you slip this in to one of your news reports and then say how feminine and sophisticated you are, Kim Taeyeon.”

“It’s still