Anna Pitoniak - Necessary People

“No! I’m just as surprised as you. That’s all.”

“ Ugh. ” She flung her arms out and whacked them against the back of the couch. “So, we’re leaving the restaurant, and that’s when he says it. He just doesn’t think it’s working. We’re both so busy. Neither of us is making the other person a priority. Well, speak for your fucking self, Jamie. All I’ve done is prioritize him. I’ve bent over backwards to make that asshole happy. And this is how he repays me?”

This, I suppose, was the fundamental problem. Stella’s charm, her glow, her energy—it was so powerful that anyone who stood close enough could feel it. People were happy when they were near Stella. She saw that, and she took credit for their happiness. So when the shtick eventually wore off, when a person started to see Stella for who she really was, she couldn’t understand what had changed.

But the difference between me and Jamie? Jamie was brave enough to say it to her face. To cut bait, to make a clean break. Me, I didn’t have those guts. Stella was the vine wrapped around the limbs of my tree, and even though I had branches that were dead and dangling and should have fallen off long ago, she kept them in place. Jamie was a better friend to me than Stella had ever been. In that moment, I should have defended him.

But no one ever said doing the right thing was easy. Instead, pathetically, I crinkled my forehead and said, “That’s horrible, Stell. I’m so sorry.”

She stood up and started pacing, ignoring the crunch of broken glass beneath her feet. Little bits of her blood smeared the rug. “What is wrong with him? Does he realize what he just threw away?” She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “Look at me. You’re telling me Jamie Richter is going to do better than this?”

Her face changed, and she snapped her fingers. “This is some guy thing, isn’t it? They get bored and they want to fuck someone new. He’s going to get this out of his system, and then he’ll come crawling back, but he can forget it. I’m not taking him back.”

Over the years, I’d endured hours of Stella whining and complaining, but this was new. Raw anger. A wounded animal. Stella had a deeply rooted sense of self, a security and desirability that the world constantly confirmed back to her. But where life had failed to make a dent, Jamie had finally succeeded. Something at her very core had been disturbed.

“I have to pack,” she said, all of a sudden.

“Why?” I said.

She pulled out her phone, and after a moment, she was barking into it: “This is Stella Bradley, I need my car brought up. A silver Mercedes SUV. License plate—” When the call ended, she threw the phone onto the couch and walked out of the room. “We’re getting out of here,” she called over her shoulder.

HER GRANDPARENTS HAD closed up the house after Columbus Day, but Stella had a key. She didn’t tell them we were coming. She waved her hand and said, “I can’t get into all of that with them.”

I’d only been to Maine in the summers. Their small town looked different at this time of year. Stores that were cheery and bustling during the high season—buckets of cut flowers outside the grocer, cases of rosé stacked in the wineshop window, sweet yeasty scents from the bakery—were now closed and darkened. As we drove past the ice cream parlor, the T-shirt shop, the movie theater with faded posters of summer blockbusters, I wondered where everyone went. Were the baker and grocer and wine merchant still here, tucked away in their homes, living frugally through the off-season? What did they do, during the long winter months? The town was eerily quiet, the only open businesses the 7-Eleven and the motel near the highway. As Stella climbed out of the car to open the gate to her grandparents’ compound, it struck me: in this deserted town, who were they trying to keep out?

The driveway was long, and when we reached the house a few minutes later, it, too, looked different. The lawn was patchy, the trees bare, the windows shuttered. The net had been taken down from the tennis court, and the flower beds were covered in burlap sacks. The house looked harsh and isolated without the soft, verdant beauty of summertime.

I shivered while we stood on the doorstep. When Stella finally found the right key and opened the door, an alarm started chirping. “Oh, shit,” she said. “Oh, fuck.”

“You don’t know the code?”

“I used to.” She was frozen, staring at the blinking panel on the wall.

“Shouldn’t we call someone? Before it triggers—”

The alarm got louder. Warning, an automated voice said. Warning. Stella was just standing there, biting her lip. I started to say something, but she held up a hand, then leaned forward and punched in a six-digit code. A moment later, the alarm stopped.

“My dad’s birthday,” she said, exhaling.

Stella moved through the house, turning on the hot water heater, resetting the thermostats. “You remember that Christmas, the first year after college?” she said.

“Which one was that?”

“When my family ganged up on me and I came up here. I couldn’t figure out how the heat worked. So I kept a fire going and slept in front of the fireplace. Did I ever tell you that?”

On the long drive from New York, the sun rising over Connecticut, stopping for gas with the morning rush on the Massachusetts Turnpike, Stella had been intensely quiet. She barely spoke a single word. Now her mood was different. Lighter. She seemed pleased to be back in familiar territory. She went from room to room, humming to herself, running a finger through the layers of dust that had accumulated on the tables and shelves.

“Aren’t you going to get some sleep?” I said, following her into the kitchen.

“I’m not tired,” she said. “Besides, I have to make some calls.”

“To who?” I said. Stella had opened the liquor cabinet and was examining the contents. She shut the cabinet, waved a dismissive hand at me, and left the room.

In the guest room, I lay down in the dim afternoon light, the gauzy curtains pulled shut against the sun. My eyes were growing heavy when I heard Stella’s footsteps in the hallway outside the door. Pacing back and forth, her voice sharp and irritated.

“I just needed to get away for a while,” she said. “Mom. I’m fine. ”

A pause. “God, no. Don’t come here. Why would I want you around? That’s the whole reason I left, don’t you get it?”

Another pause. “Well, Violet doesn’t really count. You know how she is. She always tags along.”

After a while, the footsteps faded, the voice disappeared.

When I woke up in the darkness, my phone said it was 5 p.m.

“Stella?” I called, stepping out of the bedroom. The house was silent. The door to the master bedroom stood ajar. With the light spilling in from the hallway, I could make out a sleeping form on the bed. A glint on the nightstand, wine bottle and wineglass. The sound of Stella’s steady breathing. I closed the door quietly and went downstairs.

There was a box of pasta and canned tomatoes in the pantry, and I made enough so that Stella could have the leftovers. In the living room, I turned on the TV, but the signal from the cable box was scrambled. The Wi-Fi didn’t appear to be working, either, so my laptop was useless. The sole source of entertainment was a wicker basket full of old issues of The New Yorker, water-rumpled from last summer.

The evening crept by. After glancing up one too many times and jumping at my reflection in the dark windows, I’d finally drawn the curtains. The quiet house gave me the creeps. It was made worse by the fact that I didn’t know why I was here. Like a bad riddle, or a video game: what was the goal, anyway? What was I playing for?