24
On Memorial Day weekend I finally saw Fran for the first time in over a year. We had both been invited to a cocktail party given by a friend of ours from boarding school. She came over early to pick me up, and when I opened the door my first impression was that despite being dressed up she looked haggard, a little hollow-eyed. But Fran was one of those people whom exhaustion becomes, it made her seem more alive, somehow. After we’d hugged, she plopped herself into the baby rocking chair. “Listen, kiddo,” she said, “I just want to get this out of the way before we start catching up. You have no idea what you put me through this spring. It was a crime, what you did.”
“Franny, you don’t understand, I was like a vegetable.”
“You know what suicide is? Murder in the first fucking degree.”
“You have no right to judge me. You have no idea what it was like.”
She was silent, rocking, and then she said: “I’m sorry I didn’t come to visit you in that place. You know how it is with me.” When we were teenagers, Fran’s mother had gone through several breakdowns and she’d had to leave school to check her into Payne-Whitney. Fran would never talk about these trips, although once she told me that when she was nine, right before her parents got divorced, she’d found her mother passed out on the pantry floor. “Tranquilizers, of course,” Fran told me. “Mom was never very original.” As neither I had been.
“How’s your summer job?” I asked, handing her an opened beer.
“Fucking corporate politics. All the other interns are up there, you know, working this long weekend. They got browbeaten into it. They all live in terror, essentially.” Fran, who had been at the top of our class and graduated Harvard summa cum laude, had never known this kind of terror.
“You’re not up there,” I said.
“Nope. I’m taking my chances.” She took a swig of her beer. “So how’s it feel to be back outside?”
I’d tried to explain it to Valeric. Sometimes I still simply didn’t belong on this earth. The triggers were everywhere. That morning when I was struggling back to my apartment with grocery bags, the glance of a strange man burned me to the ground and I’d thought: What right have I to be here?
And there was Ma, phoning practically every night. Sometimes I picked up, sometimes I didn’t. Yesterday she’d asked what I was doing this weekend. “Go to a barbecue maybe?” She was being her most charming and I recognized the tone—it was the voice she used with Marty. I told her I wasn’t doing anything special. “You know I don’t get a bill from Valeric this month,” my mother said.
“You won’t be anymore. She’s sending them to me now.”
“I can pay, Sal-lee. I didn’t mean say I wouldn’t pay.”
“It’s all right, Ma. I’ll take care of it.”
There was a space full of her breathing and then she said, “Well, I just call to say Happy Memorial Day.”
I thought of greeting cards.
“Thanks, Ma. You too.”
Fran asked if I had cigarettes.
I found a pack and handed it to her. “Take it. I’m trying to quit.”
She lit up and exhaled. Then she said: “I’m having an affair with one of my professors.”
“Affair? You mean he’s married?”
“She’s married.”
“Come again?” But I’d heard what I’d heard.
“Surprised?”
“Does this mean you’re bi, or something?”
“Maybe. I don’t think so though. I think this might be who I am.”
I wanted to ask: What about that guy with the boat in Wellfleet you lost your virginity to? Or the French tutor you almost eloped with sophomore year? But I didn’t have to ask. I already knew. Suddenly it made all the sense in the world.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
“Well, it was like there was this door in front of me and I kept thinking, What’ll happen if I step through, and when I did I realized there hadn’t been any door in the first place. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Kind of.”
“She’s very smart. Very verbal.”
“Sounds great.”
Fran dropped her cigarette into the beer bottle and began picking at the label. “I’ll tell you, Sally, it’s different with a woman. You don’t have to condescend. Or worse, be condescended to.”
“You seem very okay with this.”
“The whole idea of coming out, well, it’s so unpleasant, isn’t it? Why do you have to announce anything? Why can’t you just be yourself, live your life?”
“What does your mother think?”
“I haven’t told anyone except you. The thing is, my mother probably wouldn’t give a shit. My father would be amused.”
“It’s actually kind of hip.”
“Hip to the outside world. To me, it’s my fucking life. And don’t worry, Sally,” she added, addressing my secret thoughts, “I’m not attracted to you. You’re not my type.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I like more meat on the bone.”
“Okay, okay.” I thought about telling her about Lillith, what there was to tell, but I didn’t. I felt lonely in a way I hadn’t before.
“I can see you’re ready to rock at Alicia’s.” Alicia, whose party we were invited to, was actually more Fran’s friend than mine—they’d attended elementary school together.
I had on the hibiscus dress. “Yeah. What do you think?”
“Foxy. And that’s just as well. I heard Carey might be there.” Fran had always liked my husband.
“Oh, great.”
“He has a new girlfriend.”
“I know.”
“I think he’s still carrying a torch for you though.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “I got Alicia a bottle of Merlot. Do you think we should bring flowers too?”
“Relax, Sal. Wine will be fine.”
“I’m sorry I’m such a nervous wreck. This is my first social event since I’ve been back.”
I had never been to Alicia’s apartment, which was on Beekman Place. In the old-fashioned wood-paneled lobby, a liveried doorman phoned up to announce us. He said, “Miss Fischel and Miss Wang.” Fran tapped her toe on the slick marble floor. She looked like she belonged; I didn’t. I’d had no idea how rich Alicia was until once when I was at the dentist I’d picked up a copy of Town & Country and found her name on the list of the most eligible heiresses in the United States.
Alicia herself answered the door wearing a fuchsia minidress and decadently high stiletto heels, in the style of the Latinas in my neighborhood. Why did all the women I know have such terrific legs? Her hair, which was almost as dark and straight as mine, was cut in a severe angled pageboy. Diamond drops fell casually from her ears. As she gave kisses to Fran and me, I saw that the love seat in the foyer was strewn with expensive-looking women’s purses. One that particularly caught my eye was a clutch made of colored straw in the shape of a watermelon.
I wanted to turn around and go home.
But Alicia was already pulling us in and saying gaily, “Forgive the decor of this place, it’s actually my stepmother’s, she’s really into this froufrou stuff.”
I saw what she meant. The place had kind of a European clutter to it, valances fringed in gold, photographs in ornate silver frames scattered on tables and shelves, lots of small eccentrically shaped chairs and ottomans that I couldn’t identify but knew were extremely valuable. In what seemed to be the main room stood a ring of people holding glasses, talking and laughing very loudly.
I offered my wine. “Oh, good,” Alicia said, examining the label, and Fran and I followed her to the kitchen, where I felt safer. A kitchen was a room in which the agenda was obvious. You could always find something to do in a kitchen. It was also where the bar was. Fran and I mixed ourselves gin and tonics, using tall glasses that had levels marked off with pictures of different animals. The top picture was a monkey, and the bottom was a jackass. I made my drink strong, and after a couple of swigs I was able to follow Fran into the living room.