Friendship (25 page)

When she came back to the table, Jackie had already paid the check. “Oh, you didn’t have to,” Amy said weakly, but Jackie just gave a little
Oh, it was nothing
hand flick and her ring caught the light again. Amy fought back another surge of nausea.

They hugged and parted, and Amy turned and walked down a leafy side street, setting out to walk home, not wanting to chance the subway in case she threw up again. She would try to duck into an alley or behind a parked car. People would just think she was pregnant, in this neighborhood.

She walked and walked and didn’t start feeling better, though she did stop feeling drunk, which actually made her feel worse. When she got to a little minipark, she paused and sat on one of the benches, hoping her stomach might settle down if she rested.

All her problems could be solved in a second if she simply apologized to everyone she’d offended and asked for one or the other of her old jobs back. Not only—if Jackie was to be believed—could she potentially go to work in the blog big leagues, but if she didn’t feel up to that, she could even potentially sucker Jonathan and Shoshanna into rehiring her at Yidster; with Jackie gone, they’d be desperate. Either way, it would be like going back in time. And either way, she realized, it would be impossible. On paper, those ideas seemed exponentially better than whatever she had lined up (nothing, Trader Joe’s). But when she imagined the moment of walking back in the door at either place, she felt like actually killing herself. Deep down, Amy knew that all her compulsivity and procrastination had been about avoiding one simple, fairly obvious truth: her life in New York, in the form it had taken since she graduated from college, was over. The lies she’d been telling herself about job applications and reinventing herself as a consultant were just that: lies. A change was looming, as necessary and unpleasant as vomiting in the restaurant just now had been, and like the vomiting, it would happen whether or not she wanted it to. The only thing she could control was whether it happened sooner or later, in private or in public.

In search of soothing familiarity, she pulled out her phone, as though it might ever be the bearer of good news. She had five missed calls, all from a number she didn’t recognize. The area code was familiar, though, and with a sinking feeling Amy realized why: it was the same as Jason’s. The caller had to be Sally.

38

They had arranged to meet for lunch the next day at the Roebling Tea Room in Williamsburg. Amy had tried to put Sally off, but Sally insisted that they needed to meet in person, and as much as Amy dreaded the telling-off that she knew was coming to her, she was pathetically enticed by the idea of another free meal, which, in spite of everything, she imagined Sally would pay for. Aside from the Jackie lunch she’d vomited up, Amy had been living on bits and pieces of her roommates’ vegan nightmare leftovers, snagged from moldering Tupperware in the fridge when they weren’t looking. She couldn’t keep it up much longer, healthwise or practically: already, Sage had wondered aloud more than once what happened to the remainder of his previous night’s stir-fry.

She arrived at the café early and ordered a glass of Sancerre and a starter of deviled eggs, eating them all before Sally even got there, and then ordered more.

She’d expected Sally in a mantilla and sunglasses or something, but she looked exactly the same as she always did: groomed, pretty, with a slight shrug to her shoulders or cringe to her mien that made her seem physically smaller than she was. She wasn’t quaking with rage or glaring at Amy, but she did look tired and, as usual, a bit sad.

As soon as they made eye contact, Amy knew for sure that the jig was up.

“I’m sorry,” she said, before Sally could say anything.

Sally sighed. “It’s okay. It’s not a big deal. It’s not the first time. I’m not angry with you, really, but I did want you to know, well, two things. One, that I’m divorcing Jason, and two, that it has nothing to do with what he did—or is doing, or whatever—with you. Oh, actually, three things, but I guess I can get to the third one after we order. Do you want another glass of wine? Maybe we should just order a bottle?”

“Um, sure. Yes, please,” said Amy.

They managed to find other things to talk about while the waitress was near their table, filling their glasses and bringing them bread and little plates, and Amy felt almost as if the situation were normal. But then the waitress left and Sally continued with her speech, which seemed to have been practiced in advance, possibly in the mirror.

“Okay, so, obviously things between me and Jason have not been perfect, but I just don’t believe in infidelity as a deal breaker. Some of the happiest couples I know are in open relationships. But when you really think about it, they’re all gay men. And what does that teach us? That part of the reason nonmonogamy doesn’t work for heterosexual couples, or at least not for heterosexual women, is that there’s this social stigma associated with being ‘betrayed’ that is really only a problem for women. Because it’s humiliating. But it’s not humiliating for men when their male partners cheat, at least not in the same way. And why is that?”

It was a rhetorical question; Amy shrugged.

“It’s because of the patriarchal social construct that men are fiscal providers, inherently desirable, and that women are interchangeable and valueless! Like, if your husband cheats on you, it means he’s demeaning you by exposing you as inadequate in some way. But it doesn’t have to mean that. I mean, if we decide it doesn’t mean that, it doesn’t mean it.”

Amy, sensing that some kind of thumbs-up was called for, nodded vigorously.

“But, this situation is different because I’ve been thinking about a lot of other things that are not exactly perfect about our relationship—besides which, I really feel that being in the city and around its creative energy is better for me, and to give myself a chance to experience that, I really feel like the best thing is to get away from Margaretville and Jason and just … soak this up, you know? I mean, this neighborhood specifically. Isn’t it just vibrant and pulsing with new energy? Even all the construction, it’s, like, about novelty and growth.”

“I guess so.” Amy hadn’t spent a lot of time in Williamsburg, even when she had a job; she didn’t feel that she could really afford to. What Sally saw as a hotbed of youth and culture, Amy saw as a hotbed of European tourists and restaurants with thirty-five-dollar entrées. But there was clearly no point in mentioning this. Their food came, and Amy tried to maintain her respectful, slightly ashamed look while devouring her cheeseburger.

“So I’m moving out, which Jason is fine with. Uh, I guess that’s … oh, right, the third thing!”

“Mmm?” Amy dipped a small fistful of fries in ketchup.

“Oh, just … well, I have no right to ask this of you as a favor to me, but I am hoping you’ll do it anyway, for yourself. Can you please, if you can, just not see Jason anymore? I don’t think what you two have is a genuine love connection or whatever. And I just think as far as you and I and Bev are concerned, it would be so much better, so much less weird emotionally, for me, and probably for you too, if you could just … not continue any kind of relationship with him.”

Amy was dumbstruck, which Sally must have mistaken for resistance, driving a hard bargain, because she sighed and took something out of her purse.

When Amy realized it was a checkbook, she gasped. “What is with you? You can’t always pay people to do what you want them to do! I mean, sometimes you can, but why is that your default means of solving problems?”

“Because it works?” Sally said, all hippieish clumsiness gone. Perhaps it had served its purpose.

“Maybe on Bev, but not on me,” Amy said. As she pushed her chair away and tried to pull on her jacket as quickly as possible, she looked down at her plate: half the burger was still there, and a lot of the fries. Not to mention the full glass of wine. She briefly considered grabbing the burger, but stopped herself and headed straight for the door.

39

Bev was still pleasantly shocked to find that she hated working in the boutique way, way less than she’d thought she would. There was an inherent satisfaction in rearranging the display cases, refolding the clothes customers disarranged, checking inventory against what was in the computer, and doing the rote procedures of opening and closing each day. It had been only a month or so, of course, and she could foresee this getting stale. But for now it was blissful. She felt a little bit less exhausted than she had in her first trimester. Sally had bought her a book about pregnancy and childbirth—“Not the fearmongering one, this is a hippie one, but not too hippie, like you. You’ll like it”—and she’d read it, and it made her feel much less terrified, so that was cool. She had been going to her appointments with Dr. Sandy and had seen the baby on a sonogram for the first time. The baby was going to be a baby, and it was going to be her baby. It was almost too bizarre to think about, but it was true, and it seemed, for the moment, as if it would be okay. Her parents might never speak to her again when they found out, but in a way, that would also be okay. The only thing that really bothered her was what was going on with Amy, who was supposed to come by the store today. It would be her first visit.

Bev hadn’t spoken to Amy since their fight at the Flea the previous Saturday, which felt awful. But Amy had been awful. Amy didn’t want Bev to be a mother, Bev had seen this so clearly in her face that day. Amy would never say so, but she was so terrible at hiding anything, terrible at telling anything but the complete truth. Once, Bev had seen this as a good quality: Amy was trustworthy, if only because she couldn’t get away with being otherwise. But right now Bev wanted to surround herself only with people who supported her wholeheartedly.

Bev was sitting behind the cash register, ringing up a customer’s shoe purchases, when the store’s door chime rang out and Bev saw that Amy had just walked through the door. Bev looked up at her and smiled. “Hi there,” she said in what she hoped was a casual voice. “I’ll be with you in a sec.”

Amy made an exaggerated tiptoeing show of not wanting to interrupt Bev at her work. “Nice place,” she mouthed, then walked off toward the racks. Bev printed out the customer’s receipt and presented it for her to sign; the woman’s handwriting was big and loopy and childlike. She had just spent four hundred and seventy-five dollars the way someone might buy gum. It would take much longer than a couple of months to get used to that, but Bev imagined that she would eventually.

The door chimed again and the rich woman was gone. Bev had to wait another fifteen minutes at least before she could start emptying wastebaskets, straightening up the dressing rooms, doing the kind of purposeful puttering around that would let customers know it was time to quit browsing. There were a surprising number of people in the tiny store, considering that it was 8:30 on a weekday evening. For some of them, maybe, it was a reward after a long workday, and others had probably snuck out of their nearby brownstones for a stolen half hour of Me Time after putting the kids to bed, leaving their husbands half drowsing in front of a DVD of
Mad Men
. The store was lovely, full of carefully chosen clothes that looked good on most pregnant women, and it smelled wonderfully of beeswax candles and expensive fabric, silk and linen and warm, soft cotton. Bev was mostly hoarding her paychecks for the baby, of course, but she had allowed herself to buy one of the T-shirts, the one she’d been wearing when she fought with Amy at the Flea. It cost ninety dollars, even with her employee discount, but the difference between it and every other T-shirt Bev had ever owned was that it was silky soft and looked phenomenal on her, setting off the blue of her eyes and cupping her swollen breasts, squeezing them together just slightly so that subtle, unslutty cleavage was visible in the shirt’s V-neck. Yesterday she’d worn it again, and three people had bought one.

Amy was fingering the same shirt now. “This seems like something even a non-preggo could pull off. Can I try it on?”

“Sure. Any dressing room you like,” Bev said, gesturing.

Gradually, all the customers filtered out, and Bev pulled down the gate outside after the last one left. Amy was still in the fitting room.

“Okay. Everyone’s gone, we can talk,” Bev said. There was silence behind the heavy curtain, and she pushed it aside. Amy was sitting doubled over on the bench, wearing the shirt—it fit her perfectly, wasn’t noticeably a maternity shirt in any way. She was silently weeping into her hands.

Wordlessly, Bev rushed to her friend’s side, folding her arms around her, holding her as she cried. She patted her back and whispered, “Shh, shh, it’ll be okay.”

“I really want this shirt,” Amy finally said.

“I can give you twenty percent off.”

“I can’t buy it. I don’t have any money.”

“Are you trying to drive a hard bargain? Twenty percent is the best I can do.”

“Dude, I’m literally completely broke. The last of my cash went to this month’s rent, and I haven’t even made it past one interview at any real jobs. And you’re completely right about service jobs, but I haven’t found the right one yet. How did this happen, Bev?”

“Well … sorry, I know you aren’t actually looking for an answer. But … you quit your job even though you had no savings at all, and not even enough money to pay your rent.”

“Um, yes.”

“Can’t Sam help you?”

Amy looked down. “Shit, I’m getting tearstains on this fucking shirt. I have to take it off before I end up having to buy it.” She pulled it over her head and kept crying in just her bra, which had once been a nice one but looked to Bev as if it had been accidentally put through the dryer.

“Amy, did you tell Sam?”

“I don’t want to talk to Sam.”

“Are you guys broken up?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Probably. He left for Spain and told me he needed to focus on his work, but lately he’s been calling me and I’ve been ignoring his calls.”

“Did you tell him you slept with Jason?”

“No. I mean, that’s why I haven’t wanted to talk to him. I’m worried that I inadvertently will.”