When We Were Friends (32 page)

They hadn’t acted like they suspected me at all. They must not realize Star and I had left, or that I’d talked to Sydney since Molly’s disappearance. But they sure as hell suspected Sydney. Which meant that, almost definitely, things were going to get worse for her soon.

I wiped a sleeve over the sweat on my forehead, then went up to tell Star about the call, thinking it might ease her mind, hoping it would ease my own. But knowing this was only a temporary limbo we were in. An unbearable FBI-interrogation-type pause, before revelation.

If anything, the fear of what might come intensified the urgency with which I threw myself into this life. Knowing it all might end any day, I clung onto it, dug my nails inside it and wrapped it so tightly around myself it was all I could see.

Alex and I fell into a routine that I imagined was, except for the lack of sex, not unlike married life. Our time together was quiet, unhurried, talking without having to weigh words, or not talking without me worrying about the silence. He cooked our meals, I gardened and cleaned the house with Star; we both cared for Molly. We asked favors of each other without worrying about imposing, did favors for each other without expecting thanks.

In the mornings Alex researched and wrote while I played with Molly, painting while she napped, or immersing myself in one of the novels on Alex’s shelves. Star had started venturing to the front porch, something she’d never done back home, and I spent a good deal of time there with her, the two of us rocking back and forth in Alex’s new porch swing, listening to the wind through the trees.

When the weather was nice, Alex and I went out to shop or walk through the neighborhood, twice going on long hikes in the mountains with Alex carrying Molly in the Björn. As I walked behind them (admiring his very, very admirable backside), I found myself feeling this amazing tenderness for him that was nothing at all like the longing
I was used to feeling around good-looking men. Seeing Alex with Molly, the two of us playing, teaching, showing her the world, made me feel the pull of something huger than the three of us together.

One morning as I stood with him by the stove, trying to express my sadness for what Molly might never have, I told him about the photo I kept by my bed back home, myself and my father in the kitchen, me in a tiny apron and chef’s hat. “Every weekend night he’d stand me on a chair so I could watch him cook,” I said. “We pretended we were putting on a show,
The Father-Daughter Cooking Hour
, he called it. ‘My sous-chef will now stir in an egg!’ he’d say. ‘Ma’am, can you tell us where eggs come from?’ ”

“Brilliant. And yet you never learned how to cook.”

“Alas, no, but I did learn where eggs come from. Oh, and how to sift flour. You need me to sift any flour?”

“Into minestrone? Yeah, no, thanks.” He smiled into his pot, then turned to me and his smile dropped. “I thought it was hard for me losing my dad, but you were so young.”

“You lost your dad? I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

His face froze. “I … don’t really talk about it.”

“Sorry,” I said again, softer. I should’ve realized. He never talked about his family. All I knew about them was what they’d looked like, from the couple of photos he kept downstairs. I shook my head quickly and said, “With me, being so young probably helped. When you’re four you don’t really understand what death means, and by the time I actually got the fact he wasn’t coming back, the worst of missing him was over.”

“But it’s always there behind everything, right? Even when you’re not looking at it. Like … the chips on the cabinet doors. You’re so used to seeing them that you might’ve stopped noticing, but they definitely change the look of the kitchen.”

“They give it character,” I said.

“Yeah, but is it the character you want?”

I looked over at him, and he turned quickly away. “Okay,” he said, handing me his wooden spoon. “Now Miss Leah will demonstrate the art of stirring.”

I smiled and took the spoon, and he turned to raise his finger to an invisible camera. “Can you tell us, Leah, where pasta comes from?”

I turned in the direction he was facing. “ShopRite,” I said. “Or, in some cases, Thriftway.”

And standing there facing a fake camera, I felt a strange blurring of past and present, for the first time really looking at what it meant to lose a father. Not just chips on cabinets but the entire backbone of our family broken, its walls and floors. What would it be like for Molly not having a father or, worse, learning why she’d been taken from him? This was what I wanted to give her, the security I hadn’t felt since my father died, the sense I’d felt on my hikes with her and Alex that she was at the center of this self-contained entity, formed solely for the sake of protecting her. I knew what it had done to me, losing that sense. And that I’d give anything to keep Molly from becoming me.

I’d splurged on a pair of slim gray slacks from the only clothing store in town, and black boots with a good-sized heel. The boots changed the way I walked, pushing my chest forward, imparting a swing-hipped confidence, the fabric of my pants swish-swishing between my thighs. And as I walked with Alex to Susie’s barbecue, Molly cradled against me in her sling, I felt like something had changed in my muscles and ligaments. Leah Monroe: as Alex had called her, a woman of grace.

Here is Leah Monroe, strolling in the twilight with her husband and young daughter, on their way to a dear friend’s dinner party. Soon they will arrive and be greeted by hugs and exclamations, after which Leah will mingle effortlessly, charming the guests with her witty repartee
.

Susie’s house was at the end of the street, a ranch with purple shutters and a steeply pitched roof. The air smelled of charcoal and grilled meat, and walking toward it I felt suddenly ravenous. But I’d lost another two pounds in the past few days, and although those
first pounds had come off without any sort of intentional effort, I’d started purposely watching what I ate.

That morning I’d stood in my underwear a good ten minutes in front of the full-length mirror, sucking in my stomach and admiring the parts of my body that had previously been buried by Cheetos: my hip bone and clavicle, the crease under my butt and the muscles along the sides of my thighs.
Nice to finally meet you!
I’d wanted to say. Maybe I’d diet until I got to meet my ribs, and then accidentally-on-purpose stroll from the bathroom in lingerie, at the precise time Alex happened to be strolling through the upstairs hall. His gaze would follow me as I hurried to my bedroom feigning embarrassment, and as I got to my door he’d reach for my slim waist and—

“Leah!” Susie called, striding toward me with her arms outstretched. She was wearing an apron that reached almost to her ankles, printed with
Kiss the Cook
and a pair of lips. She pulled me into her arms and then bent to kiss Molly. “Well you’ve grown two inches!” she cooed. “Are you a big eater? Are you? Are you?”

“I brought some bouillabaisse,” Alex said. “Where should I put it?”

“You must’ve believed my chichi comment. I don’t even know for sure what bouillabaisse is.” She pointed across the patio. “There’s a buffet table over by the grill. Burgers should be off in ten minutes or so, and I’ll warn you not to try the oatmeal bars unless you want to feel really,
really
laid back. Miranda brought them, and you know Miranda.” She took my arm. “C’mon, Leah, I want to show you off to the folks you haven’t met.” And then she practically skipped with me across the yard toward the crowd on the patio.

That night was … how can I do it justice? Exhilarating? Brilliant? Heady? A happy blur of storytelling, Molly admired and passed adoringly from woman to woman; a night of laughter and probably too much to drink, and rapt attention to everything I said.

Because I did have—aided by a handful of beers—an exhilarating, previously untapped knack for witty repartee. There are times in your life when you know you’re absolutely
on
, in the zone, charisma channeled from some kindly muse (or the beer, or an oatmeal bar that I did try, just to see).

I had a sense why it was coming so easily: all the people around me who were a little bit “different.” Jack with his pink shirt and giggle; a man named Roy with a face textured like large-curd cottage cheese and a slim, braided gray beard that reached mid-chest; a woman named Valerie with wild hair and a gauzy dress that showed her underwear and bra-less breasts, one of those willowy, leathery, ethereal looking older women who look like they might be actual descendants of trees. These people might be considered oddities in the world where I’d grown up, but here they were listened to and respected even by the people who weren’t so odd, their opinions asked for, their awkward jokes laughed at. So for the first time maybe ever in my life I felt completely uninhibited, not worrying about whether they’d think I was interesting or intelligent or amusing, and so I became interesting and intelligent and amusing as a result.

What if all of them had gone through something like what I went through in high school? Imagine what would’ve happened if we’d found one another then; hundreds of us, maybe thousands, all of us banding together into our own separate, protected haven. Like a deaf university with a communal language only we could understand, and a deep-felt understanding of the prejudices in the world. We were the only ones who understood we weren’t inferior.

I was talking to Valerie when, from across the patio, I heard Molly start to cry. “ ’Scuse me,” I said, and strode to the buffet table where Susie was kneeling by Molly, trying to clean something off the front of her shirt. “Beer,” Susie said. “And no, I wasn’t trying to get her drunk. She was using the tablecloth as a pull-up bar, and she got a dousing.”

Molly flung her arms toward me, something akin to panic on her face. And as I knelt to take her into my arms, a miracle. “Mama, Mama!” she said.

I stared at her, everything inside me melting. “Molly?”

Susie watched my face. “Leah? Is that her first word? Oh it is, isn’t it! Molly said her first word!”

My eyes filled; I nodded silently, seeing everyone turn to watch us, Alex running over, kneeling by me and squeezing my shoulder.

“Mama!” Molly called again, and I lifted her and started to sob, and then to laugh.

I’m sure everyone thought I was overreacting to a milestone I surely must’ve expected. But still, as I sat there rocking Molly in my arms and hearing their buzz of appreciation, I could feel from them a communal sort of pride.

Later I sat by a fire pit with Molly cradled against me, the joy inside me hot and smooth like brandy, only half listening to the conversation around me. When I looked across the fire pit, I saw Alex watching me intently, face lit by the fire, unsmiling. Our eyes met and he held my gaze a full minute before Roy touched his arm to ask him a question, and he smiled slightly at me and turned to answer it.

And as he did, a weight slid slowly to my stomach and I sat there, frozen. Inside me only,
Oh
.

Here are Mr. and Mrs. Connor, walking home from their dear friends’ party with their sleeping daughter, Molly. After setting Molly in her new crib, they will retire to their bedroom. Where Mr. Connor will frenziedly tear off Mrs. Connor’s elegant clothes, popping buttons and ripping seams, throwing her underthings over his shoulder to leave a trail from the door to the bed
.

“That was fun,” Alex said.

I smiled. “Yeah, it was.”

“And Molly said her first word! I have to say I’m a little jealous that it was
mama
, but I’m sure it’s just because her tongue’s not dexterous enough yet for
Alex
. We’ll have to think of something easy for her to call me.”

Dada
, I thought. “We could pretend your name’s Bob,” I said.

“Bob? Seriously, Leah?”

“It’s a perfectly nice name. But okay, how about
Yaya?
It’s close enough, and it comes out of her mouth anyway at least half the time she opens it, so you can do a Pavlovian thing, jump whenever you hear it.”

“Yaya.” He looked down at Molly, patting his chest. “Yaya!” he said.

“Yeah, that’ll only work if she’s awake.”

“Tomorrow, then.” He smiled. “So should we gossip? That seems to be the thing people do after parties.”

“I really want to feel like we’re above that. Although …” I shook my head slightly. “Okay, I have to ask it. What exactly is Susie and Jack’s relationship?”

His mouth twitched a quick smile before he said, “I guess it’s evidence of how cruel life can be. They’ve been friends since they were kids, and I think Susie’s been in love with him for at least that long, but …”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s what I thought.”

“But they’re so good to each other. It made me think, when I first met them, that maybe it was a sign just having a companion in life could be enough. But now when you see how she looks at him, I don’t know.”

I felt a soreness in my chest. I walked on a few steps, thinking, before I said, “It’s better than nothing though, isn’t it?”

“Is it? In some ways I think it’s worse.”

I thought of the nights I’d spent in bed with books, living vicariously, trying to use the story lines about lovers and children to fill the hollowness. No. It wasn’t worse.