Unlike some other people.

“Alice Pieszecki!”

Sunny Ackland is the type of person who thinks it’s cute to call everyone by their full name. This is not cute. If she was only trying to prove that she didn’t think my name was “Alison” anymore, it was even less cute. I took my time before I looked up, hoping that if I ignored her for long enough, she’d just sort of go away. Kinda like a bug.

Unable to delay it any longer, I lifted my head from my espresso of sadness and locked eyes with the whirlwind of activity that was Sunny Ackland. A woman who, quite honestly, when I was living with Bette and she was dating Bette, I was quite content to call my arch-nemesis. In my head, of course.

“Hi!” I cried with the biggest, fakest smile I could muster which, if you know me, is pretty big and pretty fake on even the worst of days.

Then Sunny did this thing where she held out her arms really wide and made a ridiculous kissy face. I took this action to mean that I was supposed to “hug” her, but this was quite honestly one of the last things I was in the mood for doing. Would it be worse, I wondered, to get a reputation as the sort of girl who just ignores people who ask for hugs?

With no small amount of reluctance, I climbed off my stool and allowed the monster-I mean, Sunny-to wrap her arms around me in a tight embrace.

Then she did the thing where she kisses you on each cheek. Yuck.

“How long has it been?” she cried in that loud, over-enunciated way she had.

“Too long!” I cried in much of the same voice.

“Let’s see,” she said, releasing me and then holding me at arm’s length. “Bette Porter and I broke up… let’s see, about nine months ago.”

“Yes,” I said, hating this conversation. “You did.”

“But as I recall, you moved out about two months before that.” She laughed as if it were an old joke that she and I shared. “Oh, Bette wouldn’t tell me a thing. ‘What happened to your adorable little roommate?’ I would ask, because I really did think you were just adorable…”