Dancer's Body

Chapter 11

Hannah and Olivia sat side by side on their couch, Real Housewives on mute for background movement and kebabs from the good doner place downtown piled high in their Styrofoam boxes.

"She's such a ho," Hannah said suddenly. Olivia looked up from her textbook for Dance Theory and saw one of the housewives drunk and spread eagle on what had to be a twenty-thousand-dollar couch.

"A ho makes a show," Olivia said. Hannah cheered her and they took another sip of their bargain wine.

"Speaking of hos, what's up with you and Wyatt?" Hannah giggled, already buzzed and not even finished with her second glass. "You letting him hit that yet, or what?"

"Trust me, Wyatt has no interest in hitting this, or anything else besides his freaking tests, at the moment."

Hannah looked at her with pity. "Aw, sad. You deserve to get laid. You can't graduate college with your v-card intact!"

"V-card? Really, Hannah? Besides, you're one to talk. I don't hear you wrinkling the sheets in the next room over."

Hannah wrinkled her nose. "I have no options. You have a boyfriend, and you're not even making use of him. And he's gonna be a doctor! Just like one of these ho-bags' husbands on here."

"The whole idea of doctors being rich is a myth anymore," Olivia told her. "I read this article on how they're all swimming in med school debt and malpractice insurance. They end up making, like, twenty-seven dollars an hour and work around the clock."

"He seems like a nice guy, though. Not that I really hang out with him much." Hannah pulled her knees up beneath her chin. She was right. How could her best friend and her boyfriend barely know each other?

"Wyatt's all right," Olivia agreed, thinking back to when they first met and he wasn't so dismissive and self-centered. "I think he's just under a lot of stress."

"Well, that's a mood killer," Hannah said. "No sex? No wonder he's such a grump and you're moping around all the time these days."

"I don't mope!" Olivia said, smacking her lightly with one of the throw pillows.

"Ouch, not the one with sequins!" Hannah squealed. "You're going to scratch my cornea or something."

"Your cornea? Who's the doctor now? You watch too many of those hospital shows."

"But for real, Ollie. PHSU is one of the best med schools in the country, and it's, like, right up the hill. I say you stick it out. Literally—stick it out and give him some of that good-good already."

"Ugh, you might be right," Olivia said. "I just, I don't know. I'm not really feeling him these days."

"Comes and goes after a while," Hannah said. "That's what I hear, at least."

"Christ, it's Ava," Hannah said, grabbing her phone as it buzzed with a text.

Olivia glanced at her phone, buzzing by the kebab box. "What's it say?"

"Fuck! She's scheduling the pinning ceremony for the newbies the day before graduation!"

"What? But Wyatt—his parents are going to be here from North Carolina."

Hannah's eyes squinted as she read the text. "Apparently she thinks the graduating senior sisters would bail if it's after, which makes it the best weekend for it. Well. She's probably right about that. Lord knows I wouldn't go if I was peacing out the next day."

Olivia groaned as her phone kept buzzing like mad on the table. She leaned forward and saw six texts from Ava. The last two were just for her. "I know you have your internship, but it's REALLY important you're available for the full ceremony," Ava had texted. "PLEASE don't disappoint your sisters (old and new) bc this IS mandatory and I don't want U called to the judiciary board. BTW I gave you Nyla as your new little. UR welcome." She ended it with a smiley face.