I'm So Happy for You (25 page)

Wendy knew there was no point in keeping what had happened a secret. Adam would find out eventually. “Actually, it ended early,”
she told him. “Though not before Daphne dumped a bag of flour on my head and told me I’d spent the past fifteen years doing
my best to ruin her life.”

“Whaaaaaaaaaaat?!” cried Adam.
Was there ever a man whom gossip excited more
? Wendy thought irritably.

Then again, even Wendy had to admit that their blowup was a story made for retelling. She could already hear her guests regaling
their other friends:
You won’t believe what happened at Daphne Uberoff ’s baby shower
.… “I gave her a baby sleep sack with the phrase ‘vanity project’ written across the chest,” said Wendy. “It was a joke, but
Daphne didn’t find it funny.”

Adam squinted in disbelief. “You wrote that, or it already came written on it?”

“I wrote it.”

“Daphne’s finally straightened her life out and found a little happiness in the world, and you’re accusing her of being a
hideous narcissist? Are you out of your frigging mind?”

Wendy was willing to believe that what she’d done was hostile bordering on inexcusable. But she hadn’t told Adam so he’d make
her feel even worse. She’d already been “floured.” What further punishment did he have in mind for her? Fitting her into stocks
in the town square? “No—apparently just a terrible person,” she answered. “Never mind the thousands of hours of my life I’ve
spent listening to Daphne go on about her problems and generally trying to be a supportive friend to someone who rarely if
ever asks me a single thing about myself.”

“Woooo—calm down,” said Adam. “I’m just trying to understand what happened.”

“What’s it to you?” asked Wendy.

“It isn’t anything to me! I just think it’s a little ridiculous to throw a party for someone and then use the opportunity
to insult the person. I mean, either you decide to be friends with her or you decide not to. It’s like you want it both ways.”

Wendy felt her temper flaring. But she’d already alienated her best friend; she figured she’d leave her husband for another
day. “I don’t want anything both ways,” she said as evenly as she could. “I just want to stop talking about this, not least
because it’s not really any of your business.”

“Fine,” said Adam.

Just because you’re close friends now with Daphne doesn’t mean I have to be, anymore.”

“I thought you wanted to drop the subject?”

“I do,” said Wendy. Daphne and Adam’s receiving-line exchange had crept back to the surface of her consciousness.

Wendy was still puzzled by what had happened to make her husband feel the need to defend Daphne at every turn.

Wendy wasn’t sure what reaction to expect from their mutual friends—whether they’d shun her for her behavior or feel compelled
to take a side (presumably Daphne’s). A part of Wendy was hurt that no one had come to her defense after Daphne opened her
gift. (What she’d written wasn’t
that
bad, was it?) At the very least, Wendy figured, she still had Maura as a friend. That said, Maura had recently vanished to
Mexico to “do research,” even though, the last time Wendy checked, Maura’s dissertation was on the Scottish Enlightenment.

A few days after being “floured,” Wendy received the following email from Gretchen:

wen,

just wanted to see how you were doing. i’m sorry about how the shower ended on sunday. if it seemed like daphne overreacted,
i think secretly she’s really nervous about having a baby. can’t say i entirely blame her, since motherhood basically ruined
my life, and i’d rather feed starving children in africa than my own in brooklyn. there, i said it. does that make me a bad
person? please don’t answer that. but, seriously, i’d be institutionalized if it weren’t for dorothea.… meanwhile, i’m sure
d’s big film news—assume you heard by now?—will go far to boost her mood and confidence. to be even more honest, i’m feeling
a little envious myself. can’t remember the last time someone threw money at me for doing basically NOTHING. (maybe never?)
but, then, i work in the non-profit sector, so I’m not supposed to care about stuff like that. (yeah, sure.)

xoxog

p.s. remind me—are you guys headed anywhere fun in august??

Wendy appreciated Gretchen’s show of support. She also appreciated Gretchen’s honesty regarding both her failure as a parent
and her envy of Daphne’s good fortune. As for the basis of Gretchen’s envy, Wendy knew that for the sake of her mental health,
she ought to refrain from asking her to elaborate. But curiosity won out over self-protection, as it usually did. Wendy wrote
back:

Dear Gretch, Thanks for writing. I’m sorry too about what happened at the shower, but I think Daphne and I were headed for
a split one way or another. Granted, I could have made that happen in a more grown-up fashion. Anyway, it’s a little late
now.… Meanwhile, I’m sorry to hear you’re not enjoying motherhood more. Though it’s probably good for me to hear it isn’t
all just a collection of “Kodak moments.” Finally, no, I didn’t hear about D’s “film news.” Pray tell. XW

Gretchen promptly replied:

basically, this three-page treatment d wrote got optioned for a half million dollars by some division of warner brothers.
as far as I know, it’s about two best friends who are really competitive and try to seduce each other’s husbands. (am hoping/assuming
she was
not
thinking of the two of us, since—yuck—I’m so
not interested
in sleeping with jonathan! though if rob reciprocated d’s advances, am not sure i’d be entirely surprised, since it’s NOT
LIKE WE HAVE SEX ANYMORE.) anyway, daphne is apparently going to be writing the screenplay, too. so she’ll get even more $
if the movie is ever made. in short, it doesn’t look like the uberoff-sonnenbergs are going to be hurting for cash anytime
soon. not that they were before. not sure if you know that the sonnenberg elders own a renowned collection of old master paintings,
including several rembrandts??…

After Wendy finished reading Gretchen’s second email, whatever embarrassment she’d been harboring over her behavior at Daphne’s
baby shower was instantly erased. Her only regret was that she hadn’t also written “My Mother Is an Evil Shrew” in giant capitals
on the back of the sleep sack. Envy was only part of it. Wendy felt exploited, too. There was no doubt in her mind that Daphne
had had her and Adam in mind when she’d written up her film treatment. And that she could attach them to such a sleazy, gratuitous,
and, most of all, presumptuous plot!

Wendy was exiting out of her email program when Alyson the Extraordinarily Attractive Intern appeared in her doorway. The
expanse of leg between the top of her cowboy boots and the hem of her purple shorts seemed to encompass several football fields’
worth of creamy, veinless skin. “I’m so sorry to bother you?” she said.

“What’s up?” said Wendy, reminding herself that it wasn’t Alyson who’d dumped a bag of flour on her head, then sold a movie
treatment mocking her marriage.

“I think the office is on fire?”

“What?!” Wendy breathed in. It did smell a little like smoke, she thought. But if there was a fire, wouldn’t the alarms be
going off? Though, now that she thought about it, she didn’t remember ever having seen any.…

Wendy stood up from her desk and walked out the door of her office and into the hall, Alyson tagging behind. She glanced from
left to right, then left again—just as a curling plume of white smoke wafted out the door to the kitchen. “Holy hell,” she
said to Alyson. Then she bolted down the hall, yelling, “FIRE—EVERYBODY GET OUT!!” An assemblage of terrible haircuts and
unkempt facial hair began to appear over cubicle walls and from inside office doors. “EVERYONE GET TO THE STAIRS!” Wendy cried.

Within fifteen minutes, the offices of
Barricade
were essentially wiped out. All eighteen staff members got out in time, but mostly because all one hundred sixteen pounds
of Alyson the Intern had thought to run to the reception area, swoop all one hundred eight pounds of Lois into her arms, and
carry the old woman piggyback-style down six flights of stairs. By the time the two of them spilled out onto the street, it
was awash in sirens and flashing lights. At the sight of Lois and Alyson, Wendy found herself bursting into tears and consuming
both in an enormous bear hug. Alyson cried, too. Lois remained predictably stoic. “You’d think Nagasaki was burning,” she
grumbled at no one in particular, causing both Wendy and Alyson to burst into hysterical laughter. That was how Alyson became
Wendy’s new best (young) friend.

Alyson also became the office hero. At an emergency staff meeting that evening at the all-white apartment on Union Square
that Lincoln shared with his choreographer partner, Randall, the Misanthrope Himself took the opportunity to praise her “commendable
work in rescuing the last surviving member of the Stevenson campaign.”

Not that Lois would admit to any such gratitude. “As if I need to live through another year of the Nixon administration,”
she muttered—to much giggling.

After the meeting, Lincoln offered Alyson the job of “assistant to the executive editor” upon her graduation from NYU, the
following January. And she gladly accepted, though not before reminding him that
Barricade
was her “favorite magazine ever.” The assumption was that by then, the magazine would have a new office. In the meantime,
they were all going to have to work from home.

Also in the meantime, early suggestions on the part of certain
Barricade
staff members that a right-wing conspiracy may have loomed behind the conflagration soon gave way to the mundane truth: the
fire had been started by the broken coffee machine. What’s more, the one working alarm, which was located in the elevator
bank, had no batteries in it. All the local newspapers and news channels carried the story. Just as all of Wendy’s friends
called or emailed over the next twenty-four hours to find out if Wendy was okay. Wendy’s mother called, too.

“Wendell—I’m so relieved to hear your voice,” said Judy, in a shaky voice when Wendy finally rang her back the next day. “I
was up all night worrying about you!”

“You were worried about me?” said Wendy in disbelief.

“Of course I was worried!”

“Oh, sorry—Lincoln had us all over to his house. I should have called you back when I got home, but it was really late. Also,
I guess I didn’t think you were the worrying type—at least, not about me.”

“I’m not made of stone!” cried Judy, “Truth to tell, I was worried about Adam, too. He must have been beside himself.”

“Actually, he was pretty mellow about the whole thing,” Wendy told her. “He mostly thought it was cool that I got to yell
‘Fire!’ in a crowded building.”

Judy cleared her throat imperiously. “Wendell, I think you need to seriously interrogate your desire to mock that husband
of yours,” she said, sounding like her old self. “He’s a good man, and it’s time you realized it.”

Not surprisingly, the only “friend” who didn’t check in was Daphne. Not that Wendy expected her to do so. It was rather that
the fire confirmed for her what she already knew but didn’t yet have proof of—namely, that her friendship with Daphne was
officially over.

Wendy didn’t miss Daphne so much as, without her ever-looming presence, she felt disoriented. For almost sixteen years, she’d
been anticipating Daphne’s reaction to everything that happened in the world—everything Wendy said and did, too. And now,
in a single day, that “early-detection system” had been rendered defunct. Contrary to Wendy’s fears, their mutual friends
didn’t abandon her. But Gretchen’s email aside, they remained scrupulous about not bringing up Daphne. Wendy wondered if she
would even hear about it when, presumably by the end of the summer, Daphne gave birth. Wendy also wondered what name Daphne
and Jonathan would choose for him or her. Would they go with something trendy like Milo or Tallulah? Or would they opt for
an unassailable classic like William or Elizabeth? And why did Wendy still care?

Her sense of the world being upside down was only enhanced by the fact that, for the first time in a decade, she found herself
working at home. Adam seemed as disoriented by his and Wendy’s new proximity as Wendy was. First thing each morning (which,
for him, meant ten thirty), he took to disappearing with his laptop to his favorite coffee shop. He didn’t return until practically
dinner. Wendy was waiting for the right moment to remind him that his twelve months of spousal support were now up. In the
meantime, Adam made plans to return to Newton for a few weeks in early August to hang out with his father, who was making
slow but steady progress. He didn’t invite Wendy to come along.

The evening before Adam’s departure, Wendy and Alyson went out for drinks. Wendy ended up telling her all about her fight
with Daphne. “Maybe you guys need to sit down and, like, talk?” suggested Alyson, who also took the time to teach Wendy how
to text. Maybe that was why, to Wendy’s astonishment, she found herself volunteering to pick up the tab.

The story might have ended there—in a stalemate marriage and a lost friendship—if Paige hadn’t contacted Wendy an hour after
Adam had left on the train, to see if the two of them could meet up later that day. “It’s sort of important,” said Paige.

Wendy couldn’t imagine what Paige so urgently needed to discuss with her, but she suspected it had something to do with her
falling-out with Daphne. Paige was probably trying to broker some kind of peace deal, Wendy figured. She had no conscious
interest in reconciling with Daphne. At the same time, she was intrigued by Paige’s intentions. Maybe also, Wendy was hoping
that Paige might reveal how Daphne was feeling about their breakup. (Sad? Relieved? Indifferent?) Wendy couldn’t help but
be curious. She was also eager to hear more about Paige’s unlikely new relationship with Daphne’s handyman/tenant, Jeremy.
Because as much gossip as Wendy consumed, it was never enough. There was still another story with the potential to bring color
and humor to her mostly monochrome days (and reflect positively on her own less-than-ideal personal situation). It was also
true that Paige’s absence from Daphne’s shower had left Wendy feeling more sympathetic toward her. Childless herself, Paige
had perhaps felt similarly ill-equipped to handle the scrum of mothers and babies. Wendy told her she’d be happy to meet her
at Guerrilla Coffee, on the western edge of Park Slope, at one.