The History of Us

by Leah Stewart

  “You should be more sympathetic? Like you in particular?” Heather’s hands stilled.

  “Right,” Eloise said. She pulled away and looked up at Heather.

  “Because . . . ” Heather looked back. “Because he knows about me?”

  Eloise nodded. “Claire figured it out,” she said. “She figured it out and she told him.”

  “Oh,” Heather said. “And that upset you, too.”

  “I can’t believe she told him,” Eloise said. “I can’t believe she figured it out. Why didn’t she ask me about it? Why did she just assume? And what if she’s told Theo and Josh? I mean, Jesus. Thanks for letting me in on your discussion of my personal life.”

  “And why can’t they know about your personal life?” Heather asked, her tone sharp. She stepped away from Eloise, her hands dropping to her sides. “They’re your kids.”

  Eloise shook her head. “That’s just another thing you don’t understand.”

  “I’ll tell you what I do understand,” Heather said. “I understand that you’re ashamed of me.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” Eloise said.

  “I’m not saying you think I’m embarrassing. I’m saying you think the fact of me is embarrassing. The fact of our relationship. You’re ashamed to be with me.”

  “I certainly am not.”

  “You’re ashamed to be with a woman. If I were a man you’d have told them who I am to you a long time ago.”

  “No, I wouldn’t have,” Eloise said. “They’d probably have guessed.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Heather said. “I don’t believe it wouldn’t be different.”

  “It’s not shame or embarrassment that keeps me from telling them. It’s privacy. I felt so exposed, like this guy had something on me, like he won.”

  “If you didn’t hide it, it wouldn’t feel like that,” Heather said. “You spend way too much time confusing silence with strength.”

  Eloise had all this anger and it wanted to go somewhere. Not at Heather, she reminded herself. Not at her. Heather had every right to be frustrated, not just at this moment but globally. Eloise had known perfectly well, beneath her agitation and her desire to share it, that the very fact that she saw Claire’s knowing as a problem would remind Heather of what she feared most in being with Eloise—that Eloise was keeping some wiggle room. And Eloise had dumped it on Heather anyway, as if what she’d desired most in the world was a hurtful fight. “Silence is strength,” she said. “Haven’t you ever heard of John Wayne?”

  Heather folded her arms and considered this. “If you’re John Wayne,” she said finally, “who am I? The schoolmarm? The hooker with a heart of gold?”

  “I think you’re more schoolmarm than hooker,” Eloise said.

  “I can’t decide whether to be insulted by that.” Heather turned away, going back to her task, willing to drop the fight. Why was she willing? Why did she take care of Eloise? Why, after Eloise had been testy and ungrateful and unwilling to talk, would Heather still tell her where she’d put the floss she’d bought only because it was Eloise’s brand? “Heather,” she said, “why do you put up with me?”

  “Well, I love you, don’t I,” Heather said, opening another drawer. “And I know you love me. I know you want to be with me. I know I’m not just kidding myself.”

  “I do love you,” Eloise said. “I could have a job in Chicago, if I didn’t.”

  Heather went still. After a moment, she closed the drawer and turned to Eloise. “What are you talking about?”

  Eloise wished she hadn’t said anything. They’d been at the end of the argument, the denouement. Some part of her, some devilish, contrary part, must have wanted to keep it going. “Jason Bamber offered me a job in Chicago.”

  “Who is Jason Bamber?”

  “That guy who came to speak here. Remember?”

  Heather made a face that said she remembered. “What kind of job?”

  “Editor of a historical journal he’s starting.”

  “When did he offer it to you?”

  “That night when I went to see him.”

  Heather nodded slowly, taking this in. “And when did you say no?”

  “Uh.” Eloise hesitated. “I didn’t.”

  “I see.” Heather stepped away from the counter, looking around at the half-sorted mess as if she’d never seen it before. “So you kept this a secret, which I’d like to think was so you wouldn’t upset me but was probably because you were actually thinking about taking it. So you were making that decision without me. Then you finally brought it up so you could get credit for not taking the job, only to reveal that you haven’t actually said no to it.”

  Eloise said, “I—”

  “Jesus, Eloise,” Heather said. “How much do you expect me to take?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Okay. Then explain it in a different way.”

  Eloise took a breath. She puffed out her cheeks, pressing her lips together. Then she shook her head. She couldn’t explain it. Heather was right. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Will they give you the job if you want it, just like that?”

  “More or less. But I’d still have to go through the process. I’d still have to interview.”

  “So go do it.”

  “What?” Eloise had no right to be hurt. She knew that and was hurt anyway. “You want me to move to Chicago? You’re breaking up with me?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said go interview. I’m sick of going around and around with you like this. You want to be here with me or you don’t. You go and interview and decide on your own if you want the job.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?” Heather said. “You weren’t including me in the decision, so go ahead and make it by yourself.”

  “Would you come? If I took it?”

  Heather sighed. “I don’t know. Just go. Just take me out of the equation. I’m sick of feeling like your dirty secret, like your all-purpose obstacle.” She crossed the kitchen toward Eloise with such angry purpose Eloise flinched. But Heather just reached past her to grab her bag from the table. Then she started for the door.

  “Heather—”

  “Just go,” Heather said again, not stopping. “Consider me officially out of your way.”

  18

  Friday morning Josh packed a bag and left it in the car when he went to work, so that he could go straight to Adelaide’s afterward, and not interrupt whatever would be going on with Noah and Marisa at Noah’s place. It had taken him a week to ask Adelaide if he could spend the weekend with her when Marisa came. He’d thought about not asking, about finding someplace else to stay. He couldn’t help feeling like asking was a test. Like everything was a test. Every moment that he was with her and she didn’t tell him about whatever it was that might take her from him, the guy she just met—every one of those moments was a test she failed. Or maybe it was a test he failed. Maybe every moment she wondered whether he was worth telling, and again and again he proved he wasn’t. Finally he asked her if he could stay the weekend. Of course, she said, like he should have taken her agreement for granted.

  They had a double date planned with Noah and Marisa that night—dinner and maybe a drink afterward. This had been Noah’s idea. Josh didn’t want to go out with Noah and Marisa, he’d never wanted to. He foresaw little pleasure in combining their tension and unspoken anger with his own. But Noah had asked, and it had never even occurred to Josh to refuse. Why hadn’t it occurred to him? Instead Josh had suggested they might want to be alone on Marisa’s first night there, and Noah had smiled uncomfortably and said they’d been fighting a lot, so, no, not really. Josh knew they’d been fighting. He’d heard Noah on the phone, saying things like “You keep saying that, but nothing you do suggests that you mean it,” and Josh had lain there on the futon in Noah’s study and thought bitter thoughts about love.

  About what he’d heard Adelaide say, he’d said nothing. After the party he’d been awake half the night replayin
g the moment—the words she’d used—and abusing himself for saying nothing. He left her place for work the next day without mentioning it and then spent the next several days trying not to think that history was repeating itself. Maybe he hadn’t really liked a girl between Sabrina and Adelaide because no one had struck him as likely to provide the necessary amount of emotional abuse.

  Claire called midday, while he was at lunch with Ben, and he picked up the phone and frowned at her name on the screen. The phone vibrated insistently in his hand. Ben paused in the consumption of his sandwich to watch him. “Girl trouble?” he asked, when Josh put the phone down without answering it.

  “Indeed,” Josh said. The other day, Adelaide had asked him if he’d spoken to his sisters lately. “No,” he’d snapped, “and I’m not going to.” Both of them were so surprised by his sharpness they let a moment of quiet pass, and then started talking about something else as if the exchange had never happened.

  “Want to discuss?” Ben asked.

  Josh shook his head, and then amended his response. “It was my sister,” he said. “I’m pretending I’m an only child.”

  “Ah,” Ben said. He took another bite and spent a moment contemplatively chewing. “How’s that going?”

  “Great.” Josh grinned at him. Ben was an only child. “I just pretend to be really, really self-involved.”

  “And spoiled,” Ben said.

  “Super spoiled,” Josh said. “Super, super selfish.”

  Ben stared into his iced tea glass as if dismayed to find it empty. “I’ve always been a little jealous, honestly. When I was a kid I had imaginary siblings.”

  “I bet imaginary ones are a lot less trouble.”

  “No doubt,” he said. “But also imaginary.”

  “I know what’s happening here,” Josh said. “There’s a moral to this story.”

  Ben shrugged. “No moral. I just always figured, you know, if you had a sibling or two, you’d be a little less alone in the world.”

  “That’s a moral,” Josh said. “You’re teaching me a lesson.”

  “All I’m saying is that Katie and I are going to have more than one kid.”

  “I’ll call her back, okay?”

  Ben feigned innocence, putting his hands in the air. “What do I care? I’m too busy being oblivious and self-involved.”

  “I didn’t say oblivious.”

  “It goes along with self-involvement.”

  “Well, why don’t you teach me that, instead?” Josh asked. “I’d like you to teach me that.”

  He waited to listen to Claire’s message until he was back at his desk. “Joshy,” she said, “I really need your help with something. Please call me back.” The longer he waited to call her back, the less he’d want to. So he went ahead and pressed Send, hoping for voicemail.

  But she answered. She answered with happiness in her voice. “There you are!” she said.

  He supposed it wasn’t fair for this to annoy him, with its suggestion that she’d been trying to reach him for days when in fact she’d made no more effort than he to get in touch. Scratch that—it was fair. “Here I am,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at home,” she said. “Did you see Eloise’s email? I’m thinking of going over to the house.”

  “What email?” He called up the screen as she spoke.

  “The one about seeing if we want anything from the house.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He was scanning it. He’d clearly read it earlier, without having absorbed a word. “I guess I’ll need to do that, too.”

  “I thought maybe we could go together.”

  He looked at his computer like it might have a response to this suggestion. “I can’t go right now, though. I’m at work.”

  “I thought maybe after work.”

  “I can’t do it today.”

  “But she said by the end of the week.”

  “Did she?” Josh looked at the screen again. “Oh yeah. I guess I didn’t take her that seriously. She can’t sell the house. She doesn’t own it yet.”

  “But she’s so pissed at me. I don’t want all my stuff thrown out.”

  “I don’t think she’d do that.”

  “Did you think she’d throw you out of the house?”

  “Well,” Josh said. “No.”

  “Please go with me,” Claire said. “I can’t handle seeing them by myself.”

  “I don’t think they’re there. Theo’s not, I know that. And I’m pretty sure Eloise is staying with Heather.”

  “But they might be there. You can’t guarantee they won’t be.”

  “You could call first.”

  “Then I’d have to talk to them.”

  Josh sighed. “You have to talk to them sometime.”

  “Please, Joshy. Just go with me. I need you. You’re the only one who’s on my side.”

  He wasn’t sure this was an apt characterization, but he couldn’t say no to her. Who could he say no to? He couldn’t say no to anyone. He hadn’t wanted to stay at Adelaide’s place the night of the party. Not even the promise of sex had seemed worth the extra time in the humiliation of her company. But she’d asked, and he’d said yes, because that was what he did.

  “Fine,” he said to his little sister, this insistent girl. “I’ll do it. Fine.”

  Josh didn’t want to look through his own things, let alone all the furniture that belonged to Eloise. He’d come back after the first weekend at Noah’s and packed most of his clothes, and now he didn’t want to go back into his room. Was there any chance Eloise would throw out his guitars, the band posters, all that memorabilia of his modicum of success? Go ahead, he thought. I dare you.

  He paced the downstairs for a while, at one point forcing himself to stop and consider the couch. Did he want this couch? Couches were expensive, so it might be good to take it, if he had someplace to put it, which he didn’t but should. What an idiot he was, that he hadn’t found his own place yet. He’d been staying with Noah like the arrangement was temporary without making any attempt to plan his next step. Was he awaiting rescue? Had he—this question smacked him upside the head—had he been waiting to see if Adelaide would ask him to move in?

  He groaned aloud. He had to get out of this house. He really did. He went upstairs to hurry Claire along.

  She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, looking through a bin labeled CLAIRE: 2 TO 11. When he walked in she looked up with a smile. “Are you about ready?” he asked.

  “Look at this,” she said, holding up a child’s drawing of two little girls in pink tutus.

  “Did you draw that?”

  “No,” she said, still smiling, “you did.”

  He nodded, looking away. “Ballerinas everywhere,” he said. “Not a drop to drink.”

  “That must be one of those references I don’t get,” Claire said mildly. She bent back over the bin.

  “Why don’t you just take that?” Josh asked. “Take the whole thing.”

  Claire looked up at him with her unearthly eyes. “I guess so,” she said. “I guess Eloise doesn’t want this stuff.”

  “I don’t know why you’re mad at Eloise,” he said suddenly. “You’re the one who left.”

  “I’m not mad at her,” Claire said. “That’s not it.”

  “You’re the one who took off,” Josh said. “We didn’t even know where you were, and then when she finally sees you, you announce that you’re going to take her house.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She was sitting frozen, holding a birthday card in her hand. On the front it said, Because you’re 3.

  “She’s not behaving well,” Josh said. “But you can’t really blame her.”

  “I thought she’d be more . . . ”

  “More what?”

  “More open,” Claire said. “More understanding.”

  “What did you want her to understand?”

  Claire lifted one shoulder and dropped it, her eyes fixed on his face and wide. “Love,” she said, like it
was a question.

  “Are you serious? Love? Are you serious?” Josh shook his head. “You’re an idiot, Claire.”

  “What?”

  “You’re wrecking your life over this, can’t you see that? This guy isn’t a port, he’s an iceberg. You’re drowning and you don’t even know it.”

  She was staring at him with her mouth open. The stupid shock on her face provoked him.

  “How can this be news to you?” he said. “Can you really not see what’s going on here? You’ve sacrificed yourself. You’ve given up who you are, and it’s not worth it, it’s not worth it in any way. He’s not worth it. The worst part is on some level you know he’s not worth it.”

  “That’s not true,” she said. “I love him.”

  “Maybe you do,” he said. “And maybe you just wanted an excuse to give up. You were tired and you were uncertain and you didn’t want to be in charge of your own life anymore so you handed it to him. This pale, bald, forty-something developer with a kid. Is this some father thing? Some daddy complex? But, Jesus Christ, Claire, you never had a father. I can’t believe you’d want to take somebody else’s away.”

  Her eyes were full, and then spilling over, and this, too, annoyed him. “That’s not what I did,” she said. “He still sees her.”

  “That’s what you did,” he said. “At least be honest.”

  “Josh,” she said, “why are you being so mean to me?”

  “I hate what you did,” he said. “I hate what you’re doing. I just hate it. It makes me sick.”

  “I thought you understood.” She put her face in both hands. She said, her voice muffled, “What do you think I should do?”

  “You should fucking leave him, Claire. For your own self-respect.” He heard those words come out of his mouth, and the echo of Theo’s voice saying them. “I have to go,” he said.

  “Wait a minute,” Claire said, and she was crying hard when she said it, but he didn’t wait. He left her in the room where she’d lived, back when they all lived together.

  Josh had to knock on Adelaide’s door and stand waiting with his bag, because of course he didn’t have a key. It didn’t take her long to open it, so at least that was something. “Hey,” she said with a smile.