Finding London

“No way. All is fair in love and war,” she protests.

“Not sure that quote applies here, babe.” I huff out a chuckle. I grab the hair tie from my wrist. Raising my arms, I pull my now partially wet hair into a ponytail. “Can you believe this is our last philanthropic duty, like, ever?” I face Paige again.

We graduated from the University of Michigan three weeks ago, but months ago, we had signed up for this car wash as one of our required charity events with the sorority.

“No, it’s so crazy. No more washing cars, raking yards, collecting disgusting cans of peas and soup, or selling raffle tickets to win lame-ass gift baskets. It’s hard to imagine.” She rolls her eyes. “And I can hardly wait.” Her pouted lips turn up into a quirky smile.

I met Paige the first day I stepped foot on campus during my freshman year. I remember walking into my dorm room to find a thin little thing with long dark hair, wearing gym shorts that barely covered her ass cheeks. She was fastening a bright pink boa to the shelf above her bed and turned toward the door when I walked in.

Her wide smile greeted me before she said, “Hey! You must be my new roomie. I hope you don’t mind pink!”

I took a quick look around to find her half of the dorm room practically shining with a rose-hued glow. Everything from her bed to her desk was decked out with twenty shades of pink accessories.

I simply replied, “Not if you don’t mind green.”

It was the first color to come to mind that might clash with pink. In truth, I liked the color green even if I didn’t actually own anything bearing its shade, and pink was my favorite color as well. So, I could tell immediately that this girl and I were going to get along just fine.

She simply replied, “Hey, whatever floats your boat.”

I would come to see that Paige was full of one-liners, and she’d sometimes use popular sayings that didn’t fit the scenario.

From that first meeting in the dorm room to now, Paige McAllister and I have been best friends. We were roommates all four years. We saw each other through wardrobe malfunctions, bad boyfriends, worse breakups, drunken nights, horrible hangovers, useless classes, and tedious tests. She majored in marketing, and I majored in journalism. The two degrees had a lot of the same coursework, so we took as many classes as we could together.