Read last week’s Things Girls Do After Graduation: Train For A Half Marathon.
“It’s just that Katie and Finn’s place is so amazing,” she explained to Caroline while going through her realtor’s website looking at two bedroom apartments north of 32nd Street. “And with my lease being up in June, I just figure now’s the perfect time to find something that’s more… well… ‘me.'”
She clicked onto her Pinterest board as the two sat and looked at everything she had pinned since signing her original lease in June of 2014.
“Oh em gee,” Caroline gushed. “You’re like, sooo mid-century modern, aren’t you? I love that about you.”
Her Pinterest board consisted mainly of whitewashed cupboards, unrealistic empty square footage with large fiddle-leafed fig trees and succulents, and overpriced mid-century modern accents from Design Within Reach and Pottery Barn. Her current apartment remains filled with pink and green relics from her preppy past, which she has since left behind after following several design blogs and Instagram accounts that have shaped her style into what she calls, “simplistic shabby chic.”
“I’m just like, so jealous of your eye,” Caroline further revealed before getting interrupted.
“Like, if my dad is going to cover half of my rent, I need to get something bigger than a studio, right?”
With a look of “Are you fucking serious?” on her face, Caroline looked at her before they both started laughing and Caroline responded, “You’d, like, fucking kill yourself in a studio.”
They both laughed and immediately went back to the original two-bedroom ideas that she had begun looking for in the first place. But as they continued to flip between Craigslist ads, realty websites, and Pinterest, Caroline brought up the idea of living in the new up-and-coming neighborhood on the west side of the city where Alex had recently rented a two-story townhouse with another friend from college. Fearing running into Alex more than she wanted, the idea was immediately shot down before Caroline decided to ask the question she’d been wondering about since their manicure appointment two weeks ago.
“…did you ever text Tripp back?”
“Ugh, no,” she snapped back. “Like, did he really think I was just going to grab coffee with him and smooth things over? What’s done is done and he and Alex can live happy ever fucking after. If I wanted to grab a cold brew with someone I hated, I’d just fucking ask Alex to go for coffee instead.”
Caroline immediately retreated before pointing at the laptop screen and saying, “Oh! Look at this place on 34th street!”
“Ummm, can you say ‘perfect’?” she rhetorically asked while scrolling the slideshow of the $2,200-per-month two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath apartment. “I mean, sure, I’d have to tear out all the appliances and replace that hideous island top with marble, but like, I think I’m in love?”
“We have to go look at this, like, yesterday,” Caroline pleaded. “You and Todd have to go look at it ASAP.”
She picked up her phone to text Todd and check his availability at lunch the following day, only for him to begin typing and display the “…” on iMessage despite having no intention to actually send an immediate response.
“Ugh, Todd’s been working so much lately that I feel like he just doesn’t have time for me lately,” she confided. “We used to do Wednesday sushi dates for lunch and I, like, can’t even remember the last time he took me out for lunch.”
“I want Todd and John to become besties,” Caroline remarked, alluding to her new fling, John. “I feel like they have to have met at some point both living here for the past few years.”
As both of the girls emerged from the couch and starting packing their tote bags with water bottles and their yoga mats, she ordered an Uber Select to take them to their hot yoga class that was a part of their ClassPass that week. And as Caroline unplugged her phone from the charger on the kitchen counter, she turned and asked a question that had been lingering in her head for the past hour.
“Wait,” Caroline began, “Have you ever thought about asking Todd to move in?” .
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