“Nothing. I—” Sadie sighed and bit her top lip, a habit her mother was always on her about. “You know I’ve been spending a lot of time with Ed—”
“Oh my God,” Lil repeated, her jaw flopping open. “Is it?”
Sadie nodded. “Definitely. Michael’s been in Florida most of the fall.”
“Yeah. What is he doing there again?”
“I don’t know.” It was true. He told her almost nothing about his assignments, though Lil and Dave refused to believe this. Beth had read enough spy novels to know it was true. Sadie took a tentative bite of noodles. Telling Lil was a relief. She was no longer completely alone.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Lil, waving a hand in the air. “Oh my God,” she said again. “Ed Slikowski. Have you told him?”
Sadie shook her head.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will he be happy?”
“I don’t know.” Sadie ate another bite. Suddenly, the gates had opened. She was ravenous. “I think so. He’s been, you know, saying, ‘Hey, let’s just get married—’”
Lil snorted. “Have you ever dated anyone who hasn’t said that to you?”
“Yes—”
Lil again waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever. So you’re going to tell him and get married?”
“I guess.”
“And what are you going to tell Michael?” Lil seemed, now, to be angry at her, as if Sadie’s problem was one she envied.
“I don’t know. He thinks everything’s fine. Or, I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t.”
“Sadie,” said Lil. Her mouth settled into an odd smile. “Oh my God. This is crazy.” Sadie nodded. “You and Ed barely know each other—”
“That’s not really true—”
“He’s been gone since October. How much could you have seen him?”
“He came in a lot,” Sadie protested.
“He didn’t call us—”
“Well…” He’d come in, specifically, to see her. Four times. Taking the red-eye on some no-name airline. Though it had started before he’d left—for San Francisco, to shoot this film he’d written with his friend Jonathan, and then somehow gotten backing for—in much the same way it had started with Michaeclass="underline" a phone call to her office, a few days after Dave’s party. “I kind of want to talk about Tuck’s book,” he’d said. “I’m getting a little nervous about it. I just sort of want to put that all behind me, not have it all dragged out again.” Well, don’t worry, she’d almost said, since it looks like Tuck’s never going to turn it in. “I could take you to lunch. As compensation for listening to me whine.” And so she had found herself at the sushi place on Fiftieth, over by the McGraw-Hill building—Ed with his beard and his faded T-shirt (“Watertown Little League”) pleasantly out of place among the suits—talking about everything but Tuck’s stupid book, which had already taken up way too much of her time and emotional reserves, and thinking, You’re the one who should be writing a book. His pale, pale gaze unsettled her even more so than had Michael’s darker, softer one a year or so before, when they’d met in a similar midtown restaurant; and even as she told herself, Oh no, oh no, he’s not interested in me, this is about the book, she knew that there would be more, that she would follow this where it went (though she hadn’t thought it would go here). The next night, he’d taken her to an opening, crowded and loud, impossible even to see the small photographs that lined the walls. “This is dumb,” he’d said after a minute, putting his arm around her and guiding her out of the gallery, to a dark restaurant down the street. “I have a boyfriend,” she’d told him suddenly. “Right,” he’d said, smiling. “Me.”
“Where would you guys live?” Lil asked now. This question had, of course, crossed Sadie’s mind, but she’d banished it as too advanced for her current position. Her own apartment, which she loved, was small, the parlor floor of a narrow brownstone, divided into two rooms and a tiny kitchen. And Ed was homeless. During his tenure in New York—three-odd years—he’d sublet a friend’s place on Wyckoff Street, a garretlike chain of slope-ceilinged rooms, just a few blocks from her own place. (“I can’t believe I never ran into you,” she’d said when she discovered this.) There was room in that apartment for a baby, she supposed, but the friend had reclaimed it and Ed had put his few possessions in storage before he left for San Francisco. All fall, he’d stayed with friends in Oakland. Now he was in L.A., at his mom’s in Pasadena—“It’s death”—directing another video, for a band she’d never heard of. He’d be back in two weeks to start editing and was planning, she knew, on staying with her. “We could manage in my place for a while.” She sighed. “I definitely can’t afford something bigger in my neighborhood.”
“But Ed has money, right?”
Sadie shook her head. He’d made nothing off of Boom Time, in the end, nothing but his salary. And he’d dipped into his own funds for the movie. How deeply, she didn’t know. But—and this was the thing about Ed—he didn’t care, at all. He just seemed to trust that all would be fine.
“I guess, my point is, it just seems like a lot, all at once. Like you guys need to see if you’re right for each other, before you have a baby.” Lil was leaning in toward Sadie now, her eyes widened to dramatic proportions. Sadie knew this face. Lil’s serious face. Her I-know-what’s-best-for-you face. Sadie hated this face.
“I completely agree. But I don’t know if we have a choice.”
“You do. I mean—” Lil lowered her voice. “You don’t have to have it.”
Sadie nodded. “I know.” Tears, unbidden, were rising into her eyes. It was all a bit impossible. She didn’t have to have it, she knew. And yet she couldn’t not have it. “I just. I feel like I do.”
“You don’t”—Lil grabbed her hand—“it’s just societal pressure. We’re in the middle of a baby boom. Everyone’s having kids. I feel like I want one, even though I know we’re not ready—”
“Who’s ever ready?” Sadie truly believed this.
“People who are married.” Lil’s voice had regained its previous sharpness. She gripped Sadie’s fingers harder and rested her elbows on the table. “Settled. Who have enough money.”
Sadie shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. I don’t feel pressured to have it. I feel like I should have it.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and, with a shudder, caught her breath. “It feels like the right thing. Like the right thing to be happening to me now. Like, it’s good.” Lil looked at her, nodding. “Like, I needed something. I’m just”—the tears came again, sending a hot ache through her sinuses—“so sick of everything.” She fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief. “I told Ed, months ago, that I broke up with Michael.”
“Sadie—”
“I tried to do it and then I just couldn’t. I kept thinking I’d wait until he was in town, then he’d come in for a day and I just couldn’t.”
“Sadie—” She held her hand up to Lil and shook her head no. She couldn’t stand to hear Lil’s recriminations, nor could she justify herself. She didn’t know why she’d done it, done any of this. Though the usual psychobabble had occurred to her: She’d been an unpopular child, an undesired teen. She’d come into her beauty late. She hated, more than anything, to disappoint those who loved her. But there was, wasn’t there, the possibility that she was morally bankrupt? Or a monster of narcissism, who needed everyone to be in love with her? (She, who’d been so stalwartly alone through college, while her friends twittered over this guy or that one.) She’d done the same thing to Tal, hadn’t she? But then there was simply Michael, that even as she found herself withdrawing from him, saving her thoughts, her stories, for Ed, she still, somehow, desired him: the broad expanse of his chest, the low rasp of his voice, even the way he held himself remote from her. Was this why she’d not told Lil about Tuck’s affair? Because who was she to judge him? Had she not done the same thing? Twice? Was it different because she wasn’t married? Because Tal and Michael had both been out of town? She’d told herself that it was, but she knew, really, that there was no difference. Dishonesty was dishonesty. Cowardice was cowardice. “Everything just feels so pointless,” she heard herself saying, though she’d not actually thought anything like this until the words began coming out of her mouth. “It’s all, like, where are we going to eat for dinner? What movie are we going to see? Do we publish this in the fall or the spring?” She looked down at her plate. “There’s no urgency to anything. No reason for anything.”