Joanna Rakoff - A Fortunate Age

“Wow. Vegan,” said Sadie. When , she wondered, is she going to come to the point? The coffee machine began to sputter, thankfully, and Caitlin jumped up and grabbed two brown, earthenware mugs from an open rack by the room’s lone window.

“You know, meat stays in the colon for up to a week,” Caitlin was saying. “It’s disgusting, when you think about it, and it explains why you feel so heavy after you eat a steak. Here’s coffee.” She placed a mug in front of Sadie. “Sorry I don’t have any sugar. We’re trying not to eat it, at all. It’s addictive, you know.”

Unlike coffee , thought Sadie, taking a sip. It was weak and sour, but she said “Thanks” and poured in some soy milk, which rose to the top in mealy chunks.

“Listen, Caitlin,” she began, interrupting an explanation of different types of intestinal flora.

“I know, I know,” Caitlin broke in. “Lil’s your friend, I’m not. You’re on her side.” She glanced petulantly at Sadie. “I know you never liked me.” Oh, let’s not do this , thought Sadie. “None of you did,” Caitlin continued, staring intently at Sadie over the rim of her mug. “I was too political for you. Too radical. I made you uncomfortable.” Sadie struggled not to laugh. Caitlin seemed to believe that reading bell hooks made her a radical.

“Not really,” she said, taking a tentative sip of coffee, which the soy milk had done little to improve. “That’s kind of… extreme, isn’t it? I—we—maybe didn’t agree with you about everything, but we weren’t apolitical.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t out protesting the Gulf War either.”

“You’re wrong,” Sadie retorted, a bit too sharply. “Emily, Lil, Dave, and Tal all went to the Washington march. And Beth didn’t go because she was glued to the television. She had friends in Israel. She was obviously worried about them.” She paused and took a breath. Why was she defending herself when she’d done nothing wrong? Caitlin pursed her lips and nodded her head.

“ Israel ,” she spat. “Of course she was worried about her friends in Israel .”

“What’s your point?” asked Sadie, then thought better of it. “You know, forget it. The point is—”

The dog raised himself creakily to his feet and began licking Sadie’s bare knee with a warm tongue.

“Mumia,” shouted Caitlin. “No!” The dog lay down, with another whimper, and placed his head atop his paws. “Sorry,” she told Sadie, “he’s not really trained.”

“Um, that’s okay,” said Sadie, reaching down to stroke the poor beast’s head. She was beginning to feel she had slipped down the rabbit hole. “Listen, Caitlin,” she began, again, “this was ages ago. You and Lil are friends now. Why rehash this?”

“Because,” Caitlin said slowly, in her careful way. Sadie was now beginning to wonder if she had, indeed, rehearsed all this. “You made me feel terrible about myself.” By existing? Sadie thought. What had she ever done to this girl? It was true, though, she’d always felt the peculiar heat of Caitlin’s resentment, from the first time they’d met, as freshmen in a low-level English class. Each time Sadie spoke in discussion, Caitlin made a self-conscious little noise—a “hrumph” or a “huh”—as though she couldn’t believe Sadie was passing off such bullshit as insight and she wanted the class to know that she , Caitlin Green, wasn’t buying it.

“I’m sorry,” said Sadie flatly. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings—”

“Right, right, right. Because you just didn’t think about me at all.” Sadie flushed. This was true. But she’d rather Caitlin speak honestly, she thought, than make these grand statements about politics.

“Caitlin—” Sadie began, but the girl cut her off, thrusting her pointy little chin forward.

“No, no,” she said, her voice rising, “I thought about you all the time. I was so jealous of you. It’s funny, right?”

Sadie flushed again, her face—she knew—turning from pink to red. “That’s insane,” she said, in a voice that was harder than she liked, because she, curiously, had lost all sympathy for Caitlin—which made her realize that she’d actually had sympathy for her when the conversation started. “Why would you be jealous of me—of us?”

“Because everything was easy for you. And you had everything: men following you around, the right clothes, the right vocabulary.” Oh, please , thought Sadie. Caitlin’s parents, she knew, were academics of one sort or another. There was nothing wrong with her vocabulary. She was trying to flatter Sadie into friendship, to guilt or shame her into, as she’d said, being “on her side” rather than Lil’s. But then she was a bit flattered, wasn’t she? How could she not be, she who’d been friendless as a kid? Sadie had not thought herself “popular” or “cool” in college—and she had pretended that Oberlin society was immune to such classifications—but there was something thrilling, wasn’t there, about the possibility that she had been part of some coveted elite? And there was something shaming about finding this possibility thrilling. All of which, she realized, Caitlin knew. She frowned and pushed her coffee away.

“Why don’t we go into the living room?” said Caitlin suddenly, as if she’d just remembered that such a room existed.

“Sure,” said Sadie, and followed Caitlin and Mumia down a dark little corridor—past a sunny nook, in which a brand-new iMac sat on a built-in desk, and an alcove, of sorts, that held a double bed, covered with an Indian-print fabric—into a bright, pleasant room, with two large windows overlooking Metropolitan’s little commercial strip: a bar, a Thai restaurant, a car service, an ancient hairdresser’s shop, and a host of boarded-up storefronts. On one wall stood two tall glass-fronted bookcases filled with political and theoretical tracts: Marx and Engels and Guy Debord and Gramsci and Chomsky. On the opposite sat a large, blond-wood-framed futon, on which rested three enormous cats: one on each end of the seat and a third stretched along the top of the backrest. With their legs tucked under them, their breasts puffed out, and expressions of superiority etched on their round faces, they resembled giant pigeons.

“You’re not allergic, are you?” Caitlin asked.

“No,” said Sadie, seating herself between a tabby and an orange tom. “I love cats.” The large rug below, she saw, was clogged with fur, a pale, fibrous layer thick enough to obscure the carpet’s pattern. The dog settled down on it, oblivious to or uninterested in the cats, and Caitlin yawned, folding herself into a metal-framed leather side chair, reflexively pulling a cigarette out of a second crumpled pack, which lay on the chair’s arm. The soles of her feet, Sadie saw, were gray with grime.

“ I’m actually allergic. I get shots every week. And I have an inhaler.”

The girls looked at each other.

“So,” said Caitlin, impotently flicking a small Bic lighter. Her cigarette was still unlit. “Tuck and I are in love.”

Sadie hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath—but she had and now she was able to release it, though her heart began to beat faster with anxiety. This was not, of course, good news, but first of all, she doubted its truth, and second, she was relieved that they’d simply arrived at the point. Though Caitlin had not, Sadie noted, come out and said that she and Tuck were sleeping together. Was it possible that they weren’t? No, Sadie thought, it wasn’t.

“Oh,” she said. “Really.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” said Caitlin. “I mean, Rob is incredible . He completely takes care of me. It’s like, he even makes sure I take my medication . But he has this problem”—she leaned in toward Sadie, suggesting in her demeanor that she and Sadie were of like minds, that Sadie would surely understand what she was about to impart—“because he worships me, we can’t have that kind of animal , rip-each-other’s-clothes-off sex. Do you know what I mean?”