by Sally Rooney
Bobbi wore a tight cropped T-shirt and black jeans to the party. I wore a summer dress with tiny, fiddly shoulder straps. It was a warm evening, and the sky was only beginning to darken as we reached the house. The clouds were green and the stars reminded me of sugar. We could hear the dog barking in the back garden. I hadn’t seen Nick in real life for what seemed like a long time, and I felt a little nervous about it, because of how droll and indifferent I had pretended to be in all our emails.
Melissa answered the door herself. She embraced us in turn and placed a powdery kiss on my left cheekbone. She smelled of a perfume I recognised.
No gifts necessary! she said. You’re too generous! Come on in, get yourselves a drink. It’s great to see you.
We followed her into the kitchen, which was dim and full of music and people wearing long necklaces. Everything looked clean and spacious. For a few seconds I imagined that this was my house, that I had grown up here, and the things in it belonged to me.
There’s wine on the counter, and spirits are in the utility room at the back, Melissa said. Help yourselves.
Bobbi poured herself a huge glass of red wine and followed Melissa into the conservatory. I didn’t want to tag along so I pretended I wanted spirits instead.
The utility room was a cupboard-sized space through a door at the back of the kitchen. Inside were maybe five people, smoking a joint and laughing loudly about something. One of the people was Nick. When I came in someone said: oh no, it’s the cops! Then they laughed again. I stood there feeling younger than them, and thinking about how low my dress was cut at the back. Nick was sitting on the washing machine drinking from a beer bottle. He was wearing a white shirt open at the collar and I noticed that he seemed flushed. It was very hot and smoky in the room, much hotter than in the kitchen.
Melissa said the spirits were in here, I said.
Yeah, Nick said. What can I get you?
I said I would have a glass of gin while everyone stared at me in a peaceable, stoned-looking way. Other than Nick there were two women and two men. The women weren’t looking at one another. I glanced at my own fingernails to reassure myself they were clean.
Are you another actress? someone asked.
She’s a writer, Nick said.
He introduced me to the other people then, and I immediately forgot their names. He was pouring a large measure of gin into a big glass tumbler and he said there was tonic water somewhere so I waited for him to find it.
I’m not being offensive, the guy said, there are a lot of actresses.
Yeah, Nick has to be careful where he looks, said someone else.
Nick looked at me, though it was difficult to tell if he was embarrassed or just high. The remark definitely had sexual connotations, though it wasn’t clear to me precisely what they were.
No, I don’t, he said.
Melissa must have gotten pretty open-minded then, someone else said.
They all laughed at that, except Nick. I knew at this point that I was being interpreted as some kind of vaguely disruptive sexual presence for the sake of their joke. It didn’t bother me, and in fact I thought about how funny I could make it sound in an email. Nick handed me the glass of gin and tonic and I smiled without showing my teeth. I didn’t know whether he expected me to leave now that I had the drink, or if that would be rude.
How was the visit home? he said.
Oh, good, I said. Parents well. Thank you for asking.
Whereabouts are you from, Frances? said one of the men.
I’m from Dublin, but my parents live in Ballina.
So you’re a culchie, the man said. I didn’t think Nick had culchie friends.
Well, I grew up in Sandymount, I said.
Which county do you support in the All Ireland? someone asked.
I inhaled the second-hand smoke through my mouth, the sweet rancid taste of it. As a woman I have no county, I said. It felt good to belittle Nick’s friends, although they seemed harmless. Nick laughed, as if to himself at something he had just remembered.
Someone out in the kitchen yelled something about cake then and everyone left the utility room except for us two. The dog came in and Nick pushed her out with his foot and closed the door. He looked shy to me suddenly, but maybe only because he was still very flushed from the heat. That James Blake song ‘Retrograde’ was playing outside in the kitchen. Nick had mentioned in an email how much he liked the album, and I wondered if he had chosen the music for the party.
I’m sorry, he said. I’m so high I can’t really see straight.
I’m jealous.
I rested my back against the fridge and fanned my face a little with my hand. He held up his beer bottle and touched it to my cheek. The glass felt fantastically cold and wet, so much that I exhaled quickly without meaning to.
Is that good? he said.
Yeah, that’s incredible. What about here?
I shifted aside one of the shoulder straps of my dress and he rested the bottle against my collarbone. A bead of cold condensation rolled down my skin and I shivered.
That’s so good, I said.
He didn’t say anything. His ears were red, I noticed that.
Do the back of my leg, I said.
He moved the bottle to his other hand and held it against the back of my thigh. His fingertips felt cold brushing my skin.
Like that? he said.
But come closer.
Are we flirting now?
I kissed him. He let me. The inside of his mouth was hot and he put his free hand on my waist, like he wanted to touch me. I wanted him so much that I felt completely stupid, and incapable of saying or doing anything at all.
He drew away from me after a few seconds and wiped his mouth, but tenderly, as if he was trying to make sure it was still there.
We probably shouldn’t do that in here, he said.
I swallowed. I said: I should go. Then I left the utility room, pinching my bottom lip with my fingers and trying not to make any expression with my face.
Out in the conservatory Bobbi was sitting on a windowsill talking to Melissa. She waved me over and I felt I had to join them although I didn’t want to. They were eating clean little slices of cake, with two thin lines of cream and jam that looked like toothpaste. Bobbi was eating hers with her fingers, Melissa had a fork. I smiled and touched my mouth again compulsively. Even while I did it I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t stop.
I’m just telling Melissa how much we idolise her, Bobbi said.
Melissa gave me a levelling glance and took out a packet of cigarettes.
I don’t think Frances idolises anyone, she said.
I shrugged, helplessly. I finished my gin and tonic and poured myself a glass of white wine. I wanted Nick to come back into the room, so I could look at him across the countertop. Instead I looked at Melissa and thought: I hate you. This idea just came from nowhere, like a joke or an exclamation. I didn’t even know if I really hated her, but the words felt and sounded right, like the lyrics to a song I had just remembered.
Hours passed and I didn’t see Nick again at all. Bobbi and I had planned to stay the night in their spare room but most of the guests didn’t leave until four or five that morning. By that time I didn’t know where Bobbi was. I went up to the spare room to look for her but it was empty. I lay on the bed in my clothes and wondered if I was going to start feeling some particular emotion, like sadness or regret. Instead I just felt a lot of things I didn’t know how to identify. In the end I fell asleep and when I woke up Bobbi wasn’t there. It was a grey morning outside and I left the house on my own, without seeing anybody, to get the bus back to town.
8
That afternoon I lay on my bed smoking with the window open, dressed in a vest and my underwear. I was hungover and still hadn’t heard from Bobbi. Through the window I could see the breeze rearranging the foliage and two children appearing and disappearing from behind a tree, one of them carrying a plastic lightsaber. I found this relaxing, or at least it
distracted me from feeling terrible. I was a little chilly, but I didn’t want to break the spell by getting dressed.
Eventually, at three or four in the afternoon, I got out of bed. I didn’t feel like writing anything. In fact I felt that if I tried to write, what I produced would be ugly and pretentious. I wasn’t the kind of person I pretended to be. I thought of myself trying to be witty in front of Nick’s friends in the utility room and felt sick. I didn’t belong in rich people’s houses. I was only ever invited to places like that because of Bobbi, who belonged everywhere and had a quality about her that made me invisible by comparison.
I got an email from Nick that evening.
hi frances, i’m really sorry about what happened last night. it was fucking stupid of me and i feel awful. i don’t want to be that person and i don’t want you to think of me as that person either. i feel really bad about it. i should never have put you in that situation. i hope you’re feeling ok today.
I made myself take an hour before responding. I watched some cartoons on the internet and made a cup of coffee. Then I read his email again several times. I was relieved he had put the whole thing in lower case like he always did. It would have been dramatic to introduce capitalisation at such a moment of tension. Eventually I wrote my reply, saying that it was my fault for kissing him, and that I was sorry.
He emailed back promptly.
no, it wasn’t your fault. i’m like 11 years older than you and it was also my wife’s birthday. i behaved terribly, i really don’t want you to feel guilty about it.
It was getting dark out. I felt dizzy and restless. I thought about going for a walk but it was raining and I’d had too much coffee. My heart was beating too quickly for my body. I hit reply.
Do you often kiss girls at parties?
He responded within about twenty minutes.
since i got married, never. although i think that might make it worse.
My phone rang and I picked up, still looking at the email.
Do you want to hang out and watch Brazil? Bobbi said.
What?
Do you want to watch Brazil together? Hello? The dystopian film with the Monty Python guy. You said you wanted to see it.
What? I said. Yeah, okay. Tonight?
Are you sleeping or something? You sound weird.
I’m not sleeping. Sorry. I was looking at the internet. Sure, let’s hang out.
It took her about half an hour to get to my apartment. When she did, she asked if she could stay over. I said yes. We sat on my bed smoking and talking about the party the night before. I felt my heart beating hard in the knowledge that I was being deceitful, but outwardly I was a capable liar, even a competitive one.
Your hair is getting really long, Bobbi said.
Do you think we should cut it?
We decided to cut it. I sat on a chair in front of the living-room mirror, surrounded by old pages of newspaper. Bobbi used the same scissors I used to cut open kitchen items, but she washed them with boiled water and Fairy liquid first.
Do you still think Melissa likes you? I said.
Bobbi gave me a little indulgent smile, as if she had never actually ventured that theory.
Everyone likes me, she said.
But I mean, do you think she feels a particular connection with you, in comparison to other people. You know what I mean.
I don’t know, she’s difficult to get a read on.
I find that too, I said. Sometimes I feel like she loathes me.
No, she definitely likes you as a person. I think you remind her of her.
I felt even more dishonest then, and a sensation of heat crawled up into my ears. Maybe knowing that I’d betrayed Melissa’s trust made me feel like a liar, or maybe this imaginative connection between us suggested something else. I knew I was the one who had kissed Nick and not the other way around, but I also believed that he’d wanted me to. If I reminded Melissa of herself, was it possible I reminded Nick of Melissa also?
We could give you a fringe, said Bobbi.
No, people mix us up too much already.
It’s offensive to me how offensive that is to you.
After she cut my hair we made a pot of coffee and sat on the couch talking about the college feminist society. Bobbi had left the society the previous year, after they invited a British guest speaker who had supported the invasion of Iraq. The society president had described Bobbi’s objection to the invitation as ‘aggressive’ and ‘sectarian’ on the group’s Facebook page, which privately we all agreed was total bullshit, but because the speaker had never actually accepted the invite, Philip and I had not gone so far as to formally renounce our membership. Bobbi’s attitude toward this decision varied greatly, and tended to be an indicator of how well she and I were getting along at a given time. When things were good, she considered it a sign of my tolerance and even self-sacrifice to the cause of gender revolution. When we were having a minor dispute over something, she sometimes referred to it as an example of my disloyalty and ideological spinelessness.
Do they have a stance on sexism these days? she said. Or are there two sides to that as well?
They definitely want more women CEOs.
You know, there’s a distinct lack of female arms dealers, I’ve always thought.
We put on the film eventually, but Bobbi fell asleep while we were watching it. I wondered if she preferred sleeping in my apartment because being near to her parents caused her anxiety. She hadn’t mentioned it, and she was usually pretty free with the details of her emotional life, but family things were different. I didn’t feel like watching the film on my own so I switched it off and just read the internet instead. Eventually Bobbi woke up and then went to bed properly, on the mattress in my room. I liked having her sleeping there while I was awake, it felt reassuring.
That night while she was in bed I opened up my laptop and replied to Nick’s last email.
*
After that I went back and forth on the question of whether to tell Bobbi that I had kissed Nick. I had, regardless of my ultimate decision, meticulously rehearsed the way I would tell her about it, which details I would emphasise and which I would leave out.
It just kind of happened, I would say.
That’s crazy, Bobbi would reply. But I’ve always kind of thought he liked you.
I don’t know. He was really high, it was stupid.
But in the email he definitely implied it was his fault, didn’t he?
I could tell that I was using the Bobbi character mainly to reassure myself that Nick was interested in me, and I knew in real life Bobbi wouldn’t react that way at all, so I stopped. I did feel an urge to tell someone who would understand the situation, but I also didn’t want to risk Bobbi telling Melissa, which I thought she might do, not as a conscious betrayal but in an effort to weave herself further into Melissa’s life.
I decided not to tell her, which meant I couldn’t tell anyone, or no one who would understand. I mentioned to Philip that I had kissed someone I shouldn’t have kissed, but he didn’t know what I was talking about.
Is it Bobbi? he said.
No, it’s not Bobbi.
Worse or better than if you had kissed Bobbi?
Worse, I said. A lot worse. Just forget about it.
Jesus, I didn’t think anything could be worse than that.
There wasn’t any point in trying to tell him anyway.
I once kissed an ex at a party, he said. Weeks of drama. Ruined my focus.
Is that so.
She had a boyfriend, though, which complicated things.
I bet, I said.
*
The next day there was a book launch in Hodges Figgis and Bobbi wanted to go and get a copy of the book signed. It was a very warm afternoon in July and I sat inside for the hour before the launch pulling knots out of my hair with my fingers, pulling them so hard that little broken strands of hair tangled and snapped out. I thought: probably they won’t even be there, and I’ll have to come home and swe
ep up all these strands of hair and feel terrible. Probably nothing of import will happen in my life again and I’ll just have to sweep things up until I die.
I met Bobbi in the door of the bookshop and she waved at me. She had a row of bangles on her left wrist, which rattled elegantly down her arm with the waving gesture. Often I found myself believing that if I looked like Bobbi, nothing bad would happen to me. It wouldn’t be like waking up with a new, strange face: it would be like waking up with a face I already knew, the face I already imagined was mine, and so it would feel natural.
On our way up to the launch I saw Nick and Melissa through the staircase railings. They were standing next to a display of books. Melissa’s calves were bare and very pale and she was wearing flat shoes with an ankle strap. I stopped walking and touched my collarbone.
Bobbi, I said. Does my face look shiny?
Bobbi glanced back and scrunched up her eyes to inspect me.
Yeah, a little, she said.
I let the air out of my lungs quietly. There wasn’t anything I could do now anyway since I was on the stairs already. I wished I hadn’t asked.
Not in a bad way, she said. You look cute, why?
I shook my head and we continued up the stairs. The reading hadn’t started yet, so everyone was still milling around holding wine glasses expectantly. The room was very hot, though they had opened the windows out over the street, and a cool mouthful of breeze touched my left arm and made me shiver. I was sweating. Bobbi was talking about something in my ear, and I nodded and pretended to listen.
Eventually Nick looked over and I looked back. I felt a key turning hard inside my body, turning so forcefully that I could do nothing to stop it. His lips parted like he was about to say something, but he just inhaled and then seemed to swallow. Neither of us gestured or waved, we just looked at one another, as if we were already having a private conversation that couldn’t be overheard.