by Sally Rooney
What’s that? he said.
I’m in France.
I was self-conscious about repeating such a simple sentence, even though I didn’t think anyone else was listening.
Oh, you’re in France, are you? he said. That’s right, sorry. How’s it going out there?
It’s been very nice, thanks.
Great stuff. Listen, your mother is going to give you the allowance next month, okay? For college.
Okay, fine, I said. That’s fine.
Bobbi signalled to me that they were going inside the ice-cream shop and I smiled what I felt was probably a maniclooking smile and waved them away.
You’re not stuck for money, are you? said my father.
What? No.
The old saving, you know? It’s a great habit to get into.
Yeah, I said.
Through the windows of the shop I could see a long display of ice-cream flavours beneath the glass, and Evelyn’s silhouette at the counter, gesticulating.
How much do you have saved now? he said.
I don’t know. Not a lot.
A great habit, Frances. Hm? That’s it. Saving.
The phone call ended shortly after that. When the others came out of the shop, Bobbi was holding two ice-cream cones, one of which she gave to me. I felt a terrible gratitude that she had bought me an ice cream. I took the cone and thanked her, and she scanned my face and said, are you okay? Who was that on the phone? I blinked and said, just Dad. No news. She grinned and said, oh, okay. Well, you’re welcome for the ice cream. I’ll have it if you don’t want it. In the corner of my eye I could see Melissa lift her camera and I turned away irritably, as if Melissa had wronged me by lifting her camera, or by doing something else a longer time ago. I knew it was a petulant gesture, but I’m not sure Melissa noticed.
*
We smoked a lot that night, and Nick was still kind of high when I got to his room, after everyone else had gone to sleep. He was fully dressed, sitting on the side of his bed and reading something on his MacBook, but he was squinting like he couldn’t see the text that well, or it was just confusing. He looked good like that. He was maybe a little sunburnt. I guess I was probably high too. I sat on the floor at his feet and let my head rest against his calf.
Why are you on the floor? he said.
I like it down here.
Oh hey, who was that on the phone earlier?
I closed my eyes and leaned my head harder against him until he said, stop that.
It was my dad on the phone, I said.
He didn’t know you were here?
I got up on the bed then and sat behind Nick, with my arms around his waist. I could see what he was reading, it was a long article about the Camp David Accords. I laughed and said, is this what you do when you get high, read essays about the Middle East?
It’s interesting, he said. So hey, your dad didn’t know you were over here, or what?
I told him, he’s just not a very good listener.
I rubbed my nose slightly and then put my forehead on Nick’s back, against the white cloth of his T-shirt. He smelled clean, like soap, and also faintly of seawater.
He has some issues with alcohol, I said.
Your dad does? You never told me about that.
He closed his MacBook and looked around at me.
I’ve never told anyone about it, I said.
Nick sat back against the headboard then and said: what kind of issues?
He just seems to be drunk when he calls me a lot of the time, I said. We’ve never talked about it in depth or anything. We’re not close.
I got into Nick’s lap then, so we were facing one another, and he ran his hand over my hair automatically like he thought I was somebody else. He never touched me like that usually. But he was looking at me, so I guess he must have known who I was.
Does your mother know about it? Nick said. I mean, I know they’re not together.
I shrugged and said he had always been the same way. I’m a pretty horrible daughter, I said. I never really talk to my dad. But he gives me an allowance when I’m in college, that’s bad, isn’t it?
Is it? he said. You mean you think you’re enabling him, because you take the allowance but you don’t hassle him about the drinking.
I looked at Nick and he looked back up at me, with a slightly glassy, earnest expression. I realised he really was being earnest, and he really did mean to touch my hair like that, affectionately. Yeah, I said. I guess so.
But what are you supposed to do instead? he said. The whole financial dependency thing is so fucked up. Everything definitely improved for me when I stopped having to borrow money from my parents.
You like your parents, though. You get along with them.
He laughed and said, oh God, no I don’t. Are you kidding? Bear in mind these are the people who made me go on TV when I was ten wearing a fucking blazer and talking about Plato.
Did they make you do that? I said. I assumed it was your idea.
Oh no. I was very troubled at the time. Ask my psychiatrist.
Do you really see a psychiatrist, or is that part of the joke?
He made a noise like hmm, and he touched my hand sort of curiously. He was definitely still high.
No, I have these depressive episodes, he said. I’m on medication and everything.
Really?
Yeah, I was pretty sick for a while last year. And, uh. I had a bad week or two over in Edinburgh, with the pneumonia and all that. This is probably a very uninteresting thing to tell you about. But I’m feeling okay now anyway.
It’s not uninteresting, I said.
I knew Bobbi would know what to say in this situation, because she had a lot of opinions about mental health in public discourse. Out loud I said: Bobbi thinks depression is a humane response to the conditions of late capitalism. That made him smile. I asked him if he wanted to talk about being sick and he said no, not desperately. He had his fingers in my hair, at the back of my neck, and his touch made me want to be quiet.
For a little while we kissed and didn’t talk at all, except occasionally I would say something like: I want it so much. He was breathing hard then and saying things like hm, and oh, good, like he always did. He put his hand under my dress and stroked the inside of my thigh. I held his wrist on a sudden impulse and he looked at me. Is this what you want? I said. He looked confused, like I was posing a riddle which I might answer for him if he couldn’t. Well, yeah, he said. Is it … what you want? I could feel my mouth tightening, the grinding machinery of my own jaw.
You know, sometimes you don’t seem that enthusiastic, I said.
He laughed, which wasn’t really the sympathetic response I expected. He looked down, his face was a little flushed. Do I not? he said.
I felt hurt then, and said: I mean, I talk a lot about how much I want you and how much fun I’m having and it’s never really reciprocal. I feel like I don’t fulfil you a lot of the time.
He lifted his hand and started rubbing the back of his neck. Oh, he said. Okay. Well, I’m sorry.
I am trying, you know. If there are things I’m doing wrong I want you to tell me.
In a slightly pained voice he said: you’re not doing anything wrong. It’s me, you know, I’m just awkward.
That was all he said. I didn’t really know what to add, and anyway it seemed clear that no matter how unsubtly I fished for his reassurance he wasn’t going to provide it. We went on kissing and I tried not to think about it. He asked if I wanted to get on my hands and knees this time and I said sure. We undressed without watching each other. I put my face in the mattress and felt him touch my hair. He put his arm around my body and said: come here for a second. I knelt upright, I could feel his chest against my back, and when I turned my head his mouth touched the rim of my ear. Frances, I want you so badly, he said. I closed my eyes. The words seemed to go past my mind, like they went straight into my body and stayed there. When I spoke, my voice sounded low and sultry. Will you die if you can’t have m
e? I said. And he said: yes.
When he was inside me, I felt as though I had forgotten how to breathe. He had his hands around my waist. I kept asking him to do it harder, although it hurt a little when he did. He said things like, are you sure that doesn’t hurt? I told him I wanted it to hurt, but I don’t know whether I really did. And all Nick said was, okay. After a while it felt so good that I couldn’t see clearly any more, and I wasn’t sure if I could pronounce whole sentences. I kept saying, please, please, though I didn’t know what I was asking him for. He held a finger to my lips as if to tell me to be quiet and I took it into my mouth, until he touched the back of my throat. I heard him say oh, no, don’t. But it was already too late, he came. He was sweating, and he kept saying: fuck, I’m so sorry. Fuck. I was shivering badly. I felt that I had no understanding of what was happening between us.
By then it had started getting light outside and I had to leave. Nick sat up watching me put my dress back on. I didn’t know what to say to him. We looked at one another with agonised expressions and then looked away. Downstairs in my room I couldn’t sleep. I sat on my bed, holding my knees against my chest and watching the light move through the chink in the shutters. Eventually I opened up the window and looked out at the sea. It was dawn, and the sky was silvery blue and exquisite. In the room above I could hear Nick walking around. If I closed my eyes I felt that I was very close to him, close enough to hear him breathing. I sat at the window that way until I heard doors opening upstairs, and the dog barking, and the coffee machine switched on for breakfast.
15
The following night, Evelyn wanted to play a game where we split into teams and entered names of famous people into a large bowl. You drew a name out of the bowl and your teammates had to ask yes or no questions about the name until they figured out who it was. It was dark and we were sitting in the living room with the lights on and the shutters open. Occasionally a moth would fly in through the window and Nick would catch it in his hands and throw it back out again, while Derek encouraged him to kill it. Bobbi told Derek to stop and he said, don’t tell me animal rights extend to moths now, do they? Bobbi’s lips were stained dark with wine, she was drunk.
No, Bobbi said. Just kill it yourself if you want it to die.
Melissa and Derek and I were on one team together, and Nick and Bobbi and Evelyn were on the other. Melissa brought out another bottle of wine while we were writing down the names and putting them into the bowl, though we’d already had a lot of wine at dinner. Nick put his hand over his empty water glass when Melissa offered. They seemed to share a look of some kind before she went away to refill her own.
First it was the other team’s turn, and Nick was drawing out the names. He read the first one and frowned and then went oh, okay. Bobbi asked if it was a man and he said no. Is it a woman? she said. Yes, yeah. Evelyn asked if she was a politician or an actress or a sportsperson, she wasn’t any of those. Bobbi said, a musician? And Nick said, not that I know of, no.
Is this person famous? Bobbi said.
Well, define famous, he said.
Do we all know who this person is? said Evelyn.
You both definitely do, Nick said.
Oh, said Bobbi. Okay, so, is this someone we know in real life?
He said it was. Melissa and Derek and I were sitting wordlessly watching this. I became very conscious of the wine glass in my hand, holding the stem too hard against my thumb.
Is it someone you like? Bobbi said. Or don’t like?
Me personally? Yeah, I like her.
And does she like you? said Bobbi.
Is that really going to help you figure out who it is? he said.
It might, said Bobbi.
I don’t know, he said.
So you like her, but you don’t know if she likes you, said Bobbi. Do you not know her very well? Or is she mysterious?
He shook his head and laughed to himself, like he found this line of questioning extremely stupid. I sensed that Melissa and Derek and I had all become quite still. No one was talking or drinking any more.
I guess it’s a little of both, he said.
You don’t know her very well and she’s mysterious? said Evelyn.
Is she smarter than you? Bobbi said.
Yeah, though a lot of people are. These questions don’t seem very strategic.
Okay, okay, said Bobbi. Is this person more emotional, or more rational?
Oh, rational, I guess.
Like, unemotional, said Bobbi. Emotionally unintelligent.
What? No. That’s not what I said.
A dull heat rose into my face and I looked into my glass. I thought Nick seemed faintly agitated, or at least not cool and relaxed like he usually pretended to be, and then I wondered when I’d decided he was pretending.
Extrovert or introvert? said Evelyn.
Introvert I would think, Nick said.
Young or old? said Evelyn.
Young, definitely young.
This person is a child? said Bobbi.
No, no, an adult. Jesus.
An adult woman, okay, said Bobbi. And do you think you’d find her attractive in a swimsuit?
Nick looked at Bobbi for an excruciatingly long second, and then put the piece of paper down.
Bobbi already knows who it is, said Nick.
We all know who it is, Melissa said quietly.
I don’t, said Evelyn. Who is it? Is it you, Bobbi?
Bobbi grinned a little mischievous grin and said, it was Frances. I watched her, but I couldn’t figure out who this performance had been aimed at. Bobbi herself was the only person who found it amusing, but that didn’t seem to bother her; she looked like it had played out just as she intended. I realised, stupidly late, that she had almost certainly put my name into the bowl in the first place. I was reminded of her wildness, her tendency to get inside things and break them open, and I felt fearful of her, not for the first time. She wanted to expose something private about how I felt, to turn it from a secret into something else, a joke or a game.
The atmosphere in the room changed after that round ended. At first I was afraid that the others knew about us, that people had heard us at night, that even Melissa knew, but then I realised it was a different quality of tension. Derek and Evelyn seemed instead to feel awkward on Nick’s behalf, like they thought he had been trying to conceal his feelings from me; and toward me they expressed a kind of unspoken concern, maybe that I would be offended or upset. Evelyn kept glancing at me with a sympathetic expression. After Melissa correctly guessed the name Bill Clinton, I excused myself to go to the bathroom, which was across the hall. I ran cold water over my hands and dabbed it under my eyes, then dried my face with a clean towel.
Outside in the hallway, Melissa was waiting to use the bathroom. Before I could step past her she said: are you all right?
I’m fine, I said. Why?
She drew her lips together. She was wearing a blue dress that day, with a low scooped neckline and a pleated skirt. I had a pair of rolled-up jeans and a crinkled white shirt on.
He hasn’t done anything, has he? she said. I mean, he’s not bothering you.
I realised she was talking about Nick, and I felt faint.
Who? I said.
She gave me an unwelcome look then, a look that suggested she was disappointed in me.
It’s okay, she said. Forget about it.
I felt guilty, knowing that she was making an effort to care for me, an effort that was probably painful to her. Quietly I said: no, look, of course he hasn’t. I don’t know … I think it’s nothing. I’m sorry. I think it’s just Bobbi.
Well, it’s a crush or something, she said. I’m sure it’s probably harmless, I just want you to know you can tell me if anything happens to make you uncomfortable.
I appreciate that, it’s very kind of you. But really, it doesn’t … it doesn’t bother me.
She smiled at me then, like she was relieved that I was all right, and that her husband had not been doing somethi
ng untoward. I smiled back gratefully and she wiped her hands on the skirt of her dress.
It’s not like him, she said. But I guess you’re his type.
I looked down at our feet, I felt dizzy.
Or am I flattering myself? she said.
I met her eye then, and I realised she was trying to make me laugh. I did laugh, out of gratitude for her kindness and her apparent trust.
I think I’m the one who should be flattered, I said.
Not by him, he’s completely useless. Great taste in women, though.
She pointed at the bathroom. I moved out of the way and she went inside. I wiped my face with my wrist and felt it was damp. I wondered what she had meant by calling Nick ‘useless’. I couldn’t tell whether she was being affectionate or vitriolic; she had a way of making them seem like the same thing.
We didn’t play for very much longer after that. I didn’t talk to Bobbi at all before she went to bed. I sat on the sofa until everyone else had gone too, and after a few minutes Nick came back. He closed the shutters and then leaned against the windowsill. I yawned and touched my hair. He said hey, that was weird, wasn’t it? With Bobbi. I agreed it was weird. Nick seemed cautious on the subject of Bobbi, as if he wasn’t sure how I felt about her.
Have you given up drinking? I said.
It just makes me tired. And I prefer being sober for all this anyway.
He sat on the arm of the sofa, as if he expected we would be getting up again shortly. I said: what do you mean all this? And he said, oh, all this stimulating late-night conversation we have.
You don’t like having sex when you’re drunk? I said.
I think it’s probably better for everyone if I’m not.
What, it’s like a performance issue? I don’t have any complaints.
No, you’re very easy to please, he said.
I didn’t like him saying that, though it was true and he probably did think so. He touched the inside of my wrist with his hand and I felt myself shudder.
Not really, I said. I just know you like it when I lie there telling you how great you are.
He grimaced and said: that’s harsh. I laughed and said, oh no, am I ruining the fantasy for you? I’ll go back to sighing over how strong and masculine you are if you prefer. He didn’t say anything then.