Джули Салливан - Friends and Strangers

Sam put her sweatshirt back on and went to heat a bottle.

Elisabeth puttered around the house for an hour, before leaving to try to get some work done in her office.

She came home right at five.

“Thanks again for indulging me with the picture thing,” she said. “I’m so excited to have one of your paintings in our house.”

Sam smiled. “Thanks.”

“Have a great night,” Elisabeth said.

“I’m coming back over at nine, right? For the shot?”

“You don’t have to. I can do it myself. I was overreacting last night.”

“Are you sure?”

Elisabeth nodded. “Totally.”

Sam texted her at 8:45, asking if she was sure she was sure.

She was sitting in the dorm living room with a bunch of girls, watching a bad reality show about a family with six daughters who live at sea, on a yacht. Onscreen, teenage sisters in matching red bikinis and heels were bickering on the poop deck.

Elisabeth replied immediately. You’re so sweet to reach out. Honestly? Sam, I can’t do it.

Coming over, Sam wrote back.

On the floor sat a large tin of cookies someone’s mother had baked. Sam grabbed four of them.

“My friend needs me,” she said to no one in particular. “I’ve got to go.”

—

On Elisabeth’s kitchen table, there were two glass vials of liquid, a needle, a syringe, and a bottle of Cabernet, half drained.

She had been crying. Mascara pooled under her eyes. She wore glasses, which Sam had never seen before. She wondered if Elisabeth used contacts most of the time. It seemed like the sort of thing she should know by now.

“What are you thinking?” Elisabeth said.

Sam weighed whether to say: I’m thinking that you usually look as put together as Grace Kelly, but tonight you more closely resemble Courtney Love.

“I brought cookies,” she said, adding them to the strange array of items.

“I shouldn’t have bothered you,” Elisabeth said.

“Why? I could never give myself a shot. I totally get why you can’t do it.”

“No, Sam. I meant I can’t do this. Any of it.”

Elisabeth sat down at the table and put her head in her hands.

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Sam sat beside her. She wasn’t sure what to say. She pushed the stack of cookies toward Elisabeth.

“These are really good,” she said.

Elisabeth picked one up, took a bite.

“That is good,” she said.

She rolled her head back, stared at the ceiling.

“Fuck,” she said. “What am I doing? I’ll just do the shot. Let’s do it.”

“Okay,” Sam said. She filled the syringe. “Butt, thigh, or stomach?”

With Isabella, they had rotated the injection site each night.

Elisabeth seemed to be considering the question. Then she shook her head. “No. No. I was right the first time. I can’t.”

Sam wanted to suggest that she call Andrew, or her best friend. She felt out of her depth.

“I don’t want to be like my parents, with all that hostility,” Elisabeth said. “I want peace in my marriage. I need Andrew and me on the same page. So I said I’d try for another baby. I guess if I’m honest, I was trying to make up for something I did wrong.”

Sam wondered what it was. She held her breath, waiting to see if Elisabeth would say more. She thought of something George had said about a situation with Elisabeth’s sister.

“But that’s psychotic,” Elisabeth said. “Nomi’s right. I can’t have a baby so he won’t be mad at me. Andrew thinks I’m just scared. But every night I pray that this won’t work.”

“Oh, Elisabeth, that’s a lot.”

Sam’s mom always said That’s a lot when a friend confided in her over the telephone and she wasn’t sure what to say.

“I can’t do this, hoping against it. I have to make it clear to him that a second kid isn’t in the cards. Right? And if he still can’t get over the other thing, then, well, I don’t know.”

Sam swallowed. “Can I have some wine?” she said.

“Of course. Pour me another glass too?”

Sam did this, emptying the bottle.

She took a long sip. “So,” she said. “I think you’re right. Like you said, having a second child is a huge decision. If you already know you don’t want it to work, like you said, then it seems like a bad position to put yourself in. Not to mention the baby.”

Every word she said was deliberate, meant to emphasize that she wasn’t making recommendations, only responding to what Elisabeth herself had said. Sam knew how these things could go. She didn’t want to get blamed in the end.

Elisabeth nodded. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, you did.”

They finished their wine. Sam was eager to get home. She had a strange urge to call her mother and tell her what happened, find out if she thought Sam had handled it well. But when Elisabeth suggested they open another bottle, Sam said that sounded great.

An hour later, Elisabeth was wasted. She’d been drinking before Sam got there, Sam remembered, too late. And she weighed practically nothing.

“What did you have for dinner?” Sam said.

“I don’t remember,” Elisabeth said. “Did I have dinner?”

Sam made a pot of spaghetti and forced her to eat a huge bowlful, covered with parmesan and melted butter.

Elisabeth was singing lightly under her breath by the time she was done.

“Let’s get you to bed,” Sam said.

She led Elisabeth upstairs, tucked her in. It was nothing she hadn’t done a million times for Isabella, but it scared her to see Elisabeth like this.

“Sleep well,” Sam said, trying to sound calm. “Good night.”

Elisabeth looked up at her. “You’re the best friend I have here, Sam. I don’t know what I’ll do without you when you’re gone.”

“I know,” Sam said. “I’ll miss you too.”

Moments later, Elisabeth was asleep. She was still wearing her glasses. It seemed too intimate to remove them. But if she left them on Elisabeth’s face, Sam thought, Elisabeth might roll over on them and break the frames.

Sam gently pulled them off, holding her breath.

She placed the glasses on top of Elisabeth’s dresser, where she would easily find them in the morning.

It was possible Sam lingered there longer than was necessary, that she let her eyes scan the jewelry box, the photo of Andrew and Gil in a silver frame, the small pile of lacy things not yet put away. But she didn’t dig. Didn’t open a drawer or even an envelope. The check was sitting right there—made out to Gil, in the amount of three hundred thousand dollars. In the upper-left-hand corner was Elisabeth’s father’s name. Sam wasn’t sure why it filled her with anger, why it made her think of her parents, of Maria and Gaby. Of Elisabeth never considering the cost of paint.

Once she was out of that room, Sam felt strangely free. She wanted to be in her dorm room, with the door open, telling Isabella the whole story.

She made her way down the hall, past Gil’s nursery.

Gil.

He slept through the night now, most nights. But what if he woke up? Would Elisabeth even hear him crying, as drunk as she was?

Sam slipped into the room and lay down on the floor. She felt like crying herself. She rested her head on a giant stuffed rabbit with a satin bow around its neck and willed herself to sleep.

When she woke, the sun was rising. The baby was still asleep.

Sam crept downstairs, and out of the house.

Later, she texted Elisabeth to ask how she was feeling.

Fine! Elisabeth wrote back. Thanks for checking. xx

—

They saw each other again on Thursday. When Sam arrived for work, Elisabeth was her usual composed self. She said there was chicken and squash in the fridge for Gil’s lunch, and a new music class at the public library at eleven, if they wanted to check it out. She gave the baby a squeeze and a kiss, and was gone.