Джули Салливан - Friends and Strangers

There was no one else around, not a single person. Overnight, the place had emptied out. The folding chairs, the stage, and the tent had been cleared from the quad. The grass was an unblemished green, as if the ceremony had never happened, as if the girls in their black caps and gowns hadn’t sat there in rows, fidgeting in nervous anticipation, high heels sinking into soft ground.

Elisabeth could only be certain they had because she had seen them, briefly.

Her invitation was postmarked the day of her terrible argument with Sam. It arrived two days later, a Wednesday.

The morning after that, Sam was supposed to watch Gil for the first time since they’d argued. At the last minute, Elisabeth escaped to her office, telling Andrew to tell Sam that she had an important phone call with her agent. It was true, and yet she knew that had they not fought, she would have taken the call from home. She was being a wimp; she could admit that. She wanted Andrew to take the temperature of things and report back before she saw Sam later that evening.

As soon as she reached her office, Elisabeth thought of the threat Sam had made and wondered if it had been wise to leave her alone with Andrew.

Maybe I should do the same to you. See how you like it, she had said. The words so hostile, so unlike Sam.

Elisabeth had told Andrew that Sam was mad at her because she had meddled in her relationship with Clive. She didn’t tell him the rest. Now she let herself imagine the worst. She pictured Sam and Andrew in the kitchen, the baby on Sam’s hip. Sam saying, There’s something you need to know about your wife.

Andrew might actually leave her.

Elisabeth was so consumed with dread over this that she didn’t pause to wonder what her agent would think of the chapters she’d sent. So when Amelia sighed and said, “Look,” just that one word surprised her. She knew what Look meant.

“The book is technically good,” Amelia said. “It’s great. Everything you write is great, you’re a great writer.”

“But?”

“But we can tell your heart’s not in it.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Elisabeth said. She felt offended, even though it was true.

“Why is this the book you’re writing now? What does it have to do with you, with your world, your obsessions?”

“Not every book needs to be autobiographical,” she said. “My others aren’t. I’m a journalist.”

“Sure. Of course,” Amelia said. “But let’s be honest. Women in sports? You hate sports.”

Elisabeth was supposed to write about her obsessions? A book about women who commit fertility fraud against their husbands. A book about a woman unable to be normal, as much as she wished she could be. A book about a woman who meddled in a girl’s life when she should have been paying closer attention to her own.

“What scares you?” Amelia said. “What would you give anything to stop thinking about?”

It was all too much, the book and the situation with Sam. Elisabeth decided to hide out awhile longer in her office. She asked Andrew to get home early, make some excuse. She would face Sam tomorrow.

But after that day, Sam never came back. In the week that followed, Elisabeth must have picked up the phone a dozen times to call and apologize for overstepping. But when she remembered things they both had said, she wasn’t sure how to talk about any of it. It was so raw, so awful.

She decided she would go to the graduation ceremony, give Sam her gift, and say she was sorry. Nothing drawn out, just a simple I shouldn’t have. Forgive me. Maybe it would be bad—maybe Clive would confront her for interfering, or Sam’s mother would tell her she was a terrible person. But maybe all would be well, and they’d celebrate at her house the next day, as planned.

Elisabeth wore a red shirtdress, flats, and sunglasses. She stood off to the side, away from the groups of family members, feeling out of place and a bit lonesome. It was a glorious sunny day. The blue sky set against the brick buildings gave the place a sharper focus and made everything look clean, perfect.

When the grads filed in, she caught sight of Sam from a distance. She looked serious, determined, until her face broke into a smile, and she started to laugh. Elisabeth had never seen her laugh like that. Sam pulled away from the procession just fast enough to hug and kiss her relatives. They held a homemade sign. Elisabeth couldn’t make out what it said.

She had miscalculated. She wasn’t wanted. She shouldn’t have come. She turned and walked away. When Andrew asked why she was home so soon, Elisabeth told him she had a headache and needed to lie down.

Now, two days later, she was back. Headed for the white Unitarian church tucked behind the science building. Specifically, the College Children’s Center day care, located in the church basement, and run by Maris Ames, a soft and cheery woman with thick, almost-purplish hair.

She met them at the door with a smile. Gil grinned back appreciatively.

As of three days ago, he could walk. A step or two at a time, and then he’d fall down or grab hold of a piece of furniture. It was a milestone every child reached somewhere around this age, and yet Elisabeth and Andrew were awestruck.

While Gil perused the classroom, pulling blocks and books and bins from where they belonged and dumping them on the floor, Maris explained that during the academic year, the school was staffed by students from the Early Childhood Education Department.

“Lovely girls. Each handpicked by yours truly, and not a dud among them,” she said. “I can sense a hard worker when I see one. I’ve been at this for forty years. In summertime, we have excellent help as well. Older gals with experience. Grandmotherly types.”

Elisabeth smiled. She liked this woman.

Her neighbors said the school was overpriced. But one of the good parts about living in the city for so long was that she had a skewed sense of what things ought to cost. To her, almost everything here seemed reasonable, if not downright cheap.

“And you’d have room for him soon?” she asked.

“As soon as you’d like.”

Elisabeth had been thinking of having Gil start the following week, but now she said, “Maybe at the end of July?”

“Sure,” Maris said.

It would give her that much more time with her baby, who felt less like a baby every day. Maybe Faye could sit with him some, since she’d be off for the summer. Elisabeth had vowed to herself to try and let her mother-in-law in more. They had no longer just moved here. They lived here. She ought to make a go of it.

Things would be different, having Gil away from home all day, not being able to look in on him whenever she wanted. She thought he would thrive in the presence of other kids his age. But she would miss what they’d had this first year, the cocoon of the two of them, plus Sam.

Sam had only been with them three days a week. Day care would be full-time. Elisabeth felt overcome with regret, knowing how much of his life would have nothing to do with her. It made her want to quit work and stay home doing arts-and-crafts projects with Gil for the next ten years, even as she knew that she’d lose her mind.

Andrew’s fellowship was soon to end. He had no plan for what might come next. The provost at the hippie college had hinted at keeping him on in some kind of mentor capacity, but who knew where that would lead. She needed to write a book.

When Elisabeth thought of Sam, she felt like she had ruined something, even though their arrangement would have come to an end anyway. She would still be standing here, scanning the brightly colored room for choking hazards as she pretended to listen to Maris Ames’s thoughts on the Montessori method.