‘Lil, what happened? Granted, it’s been a few months, but last I heard, you were taking things slow and he was perfect. Of course, that was before that, that thing you dragged home, but …’
Another warning look, this time followed by a glare. I’d tried to talk to her about the whole Freak Boy incident a few dozen times, but it seemed like we were never really alone and neither of us had much time lately for heart-to-hearts. She immediately changed the subject whenever I brought it up. I could tell that more than anything she was embarrassed; she had acknowledged that he was vile, but she wouldn’t participate in any discussion whatsoever about the excessive drinking that was responsible for the whole episode.
‘Yes, well, apparently at some point that night I called him from Au Bar and begged him to come meet me,’ she said, avoiding eye contact, instead concentrating intently on using the remote control to switch tracks on the mournful Jeff Buckley CD that seemed to be on permanent replay in the apartment.
‘So? Did he come and see you talking to, uh, to someone else?’ I was trying not to push her away even more by being critical of her. There was obviously a lot going on inside her head, what with the problems at school and the drinking and the seemingly limitless supply of guys, and I wanted her to open up to someone. She’d never kept anything from me before, if for no other reason than I was all she had, but she hadn’t been telling me much of anything lately. It occurred to me how strange it was that we hadn’t bothered to discuss this until four months after the fact.
‘No, not quite,’ she said bitterly. ‘He came all the way there from Morningside Heights only to find me not there. Apparently he called my cell phone and Kenny answered and wasn’t all that nice.’
‘Kenny?’
‘That thing I dragged home at the beginning of the summer, remember?’ She said it sarcastically, but this time she smiled.
‘Ah-hah. I’m guessing Freudian Boy didn’t take that well?’
‘Not so much. Whatever. Easy come, easy go, right?’ She scampered off to the kitchen with her empty glass and I saw her pour from a half-full bottle of Ketel One. A very small splash of soda, and she was back on the couch.
I was just about to inquire as gently as possible why she was inhaling vodka when she had an article due the next day, but the buzzer rang from downstairs.
‘Who’s there?’ I called to John by holding down the button.
‘Mr Fineman is here to see Ms Sachs,’ he announced formally, all business now that other people were around.
‘Really? Um, great. Send him up.’
Lily looked at me and raised her eyebrows, and I realized that once again we weren’t going to have this conversation. ‘You look psyched,’ she said with obvious sarcasm. ‘Not exactly thrilled that your boyfriend is surprising you, are you?’
‘Of course I am,’ I said defensively, and we both knew I was lying. Things with Alex had been strained the past few weeks. Really strained. We went through all the motions of being together and we did it well: after almost four years, we certainly knew what the other wanted to hear or needed to do. But he’d compensated for all the time I spent at work by being even more angelic at school – volunteering to coach, tutor, mentor, and chair just about every activity someone could think up – and the time we did actually see each other was about as exciting as if we’d been married for thirty years. We had an unspoken understanding that we’d just wait things out until my year of servitude was over, but I wouldn’t let myself think about where the relationship might be headed then.
But still. That made two close people in my life – first Jill (who’d called me out on the miserable state of affairs on the phone the other night), and now Lily – who’d pointed out that Alex and I were less than adorable together lately, and I had to admit that Lily had, in her buzzed but nonetheless perceptive way, noticed that I was not happy to hear that Alex had arrived. I was dreading telling him that I had to go to Europe, dreading the inevitable fight that would ensue, a fight I very much would have liked to put off for a few more days. Ideally, not until I was in Europe. But no such luck, as he was currently knocking on my door.
‘Hi!’ I said a bit too enthusiastically as I pulled open the door and threw my arms around his neck. ‘What a great surprise!’
‘You don’t mind that I just stopped by, do you? I met Max for a drink right around the corner and I thought I’d say hi.’
‘Of course I don’t mind, silly! I’m thrilled. Come in, come in.’ I knew I sounded positively manic, but any armchair shrink could easily point out that my outward enthusiasm was meant to overcompensate for all that was lacking inwardly.
He grabbed a beer and kissed Lily on the cheek and settled into the bright orange armchair my parents had saved from the seventies, just knowing that one day they could bestow it proudly on one of their offspring. ‘So, what’s going on here?’ he asked, nodding toward the stereo, where a positively heart-wrenching version of ‘Hallelujah’ was blaring.
Lily shrugged. ‘Procrastinating. What else?’
‘Well, I have some news,’ I said, trying to sound enthusiastic to convince both myself and Alex that this was, in fact, a positive development. He’d been so excited about arranging all the plans for our homecoming weekend – and I’d been so pushy in getting him to do it – that it seemed downright cruel to be canceling on him less than a week and a half before we were going. We’d spent an entire night figuring out whom we wanted to invite to our big Sunday brunch, and even knew exactly where and with whom we’d be tailgating before the Brown-Dartmouth game on Saturday.
They both looked at me, not a little warily, until Alex finally managed, ‘Yeah? What’s up?’
‘Well! I just got the call – I’m going to Paris for a week!’ I said this with the exuberance of telling an infertile couple that they were having twins.
‘You’re going where?’ Lily asked, looking puzzled and distracted, not entirely interested.
‘You’re going why?’ Alex asked at the exact same moment, looking about as pleased as if I’d just announced that I had tested positive for syphilis.
‘Emily just found out she has mono, and Miranda wants me to accompany her to the shows. Isn’t that awesome?’ I said, a chipper smile on my face. This was exhausting. I was dreading having to go myself, but it made it ten times worse to have to convince him that it was actually a really great opportunity.
‘I don’t understand. Doesn’t she go to the shows like a thousand times a year?’ he asked. I nodded. ‘So why does she all of a sudden need you to go with her now?’
Lily had tuned out at this point and seemed to be engrossed in flipping through an old issue of The New Yorker. I’d saved every copy from the past five years.
‘She throws this massive party at the spring shows in Paris and just likes to have one of her American assistants be there. She’ll go to Milan first and then we’ll meet in Paris. To, you know, oversee everything.’
‘And that American assistant has to be you, and it has to mean you’ll be missing homecoming,’ he said flatly.
‘Well, it’s not normally the way it works. Since it’s considered a huge privilege, usually the senior assistant is the only one who gets to go, but since Emily is sick, then, yes, now I will be going. I have to leave next Tuesday, so I can’t go to Providence that weekend. I’m really, really sorry.’ I moved off my chair and went to sit closer to him on the couch, but he immediately stiffened.
‘So it’s