Friends and Strangers

by J. Courtney Sullivan

—

  Sam called her parents’ house one Sunday at the usual time. After two rings, she heard a new outgoing voicemail message recorded by her sister Caitlin.

  You’ve reached the O’Connells. We’re not home right now. We will probably cry when we learn that we missed this call, so please leave a message at the beep. Tell us everything. Do not leave out a single detail.

  Strange, Sam thought.

  The line went silent. She couldn’t remember if she’d heard a beep.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said. “Umm. I was calling to—”

  Suddenly, the sound of Caitlin’s laughter broke through.

  “Sam, it’s me. I was kidding.”

  Sam groaned. “Put Mom on.”

  Her mother sounded pleased when Sam told her Elisabeth and Andrew had started inviting her to Sunday dinners. She insisted Sam not go empty-handed, that she bring them flowers, at least. Sam understood the sentiment, but felt certain this would be awkward. She wouldn’t know where to get flowers, other than the Stop & Shop on the outskirts of town, where there were always a few wilting arrangements in a refrigerated case. She would no doubt ruin everything by bringing them baby’s breath or something equally objectionable.

  Lilies are only suitable for a memorial service, Elisabeth had said once, and Sam cringed, thinking of how much she liked lilies and hadn’t realized until that moment that she shouldn’t.

  “Clive suggested I bring them something too,” she told her mother, even though it wasn’t true, because it never hurt to frame Clive in a positive light. Her mother sometimes asked how he was doing, but she did so in such a pinched tone that Sam could tell she didn’t want an answer. Sam’s father never mentioned Clive at all.

  Her family hadn’t met him yet. Sam’s mom asked her not to tell her siblings how old Clive was. She hadn’t told Clive that.

  Her brother, Brendan, had been with his girlfriend Katie since eighth grade. Katie fit so seamlessly into their family that an outsider observing them might think she was a cousin. Brendan and Katie’s future was clearly drawn. They would marry, have two kids, buy a house in their hometown.

  This was what Sam’s parents wanted for all their children. Sam was a pleaser, a good girl. She didn’t want to upset them. She wished they could understand that her being with Clive was not a form of rebellion. She had simply fallen in love.

  * * *

  —

  On Fridays, Elisabeth saw her shrink at ten and went to Pilates at two-thirty. Sam didn’t know what she did in between, but she never came home before four. Other days of the week, Elisabeth might pop in and out, keeping Sam on her toes. If Gil was napping, Sam would wash all but one dirty dish, which she saved as a prop, to scrub when Elisabeth came through the door, giving the appearance that she was doing something other than sitting on the sofa, reading back issues of The New Yorker.

  But on Fridays, she was unsupervised. On Fridays, Sam and Gil had their own routine. She hadn’t mentioned it to Elisabeth.

  The second Friday in October, as usual, Sam filled two bottles with formula. She dressed the baby in his puffy red coat and soft fleece shoes, and strapped him into the stroller.

  She left a note, in case: Gone for a walk!

  Then she locked the door with the spare key Elisabeth had given her, and they were off.

  Laurel Street was a pretty, tree-lined block. Black SUVs sat in most of the driveways, imposing as sentinels, guarding big houses in shades of white and gray. The modern mother would not be caught dead in a minivan. Though when you thought about it, an SUV was just a boxy version of the same. Sam once said as much to Elisabeth, who said, “Exactly. Andrew tried to talk me into getting one. But there is no way.”

  Through the slats of backyard fences, Sam could make out signs of life. A fat Labrador lay on its side in the sun. A grandmother pushed a toddler on a swing. On front lawns, bicycles were tossed down and strollers left abandoned, for naptime or to catch a ringing telephone. The kind of people who lived here had no fear that when they came out again, these objects would be gone.

  Foss-Lanford Hall stood at the farthest edge of campus, a five-minute walk from Elisabeth’s house. All Sam had to do was go to the end of Laurel, turn right on Main, then travel onward for two blocks until she reached the tall hedge that separated the college from the world. On one side was a yellow Victorian with a swing on the front porch; on the other, the plain brick building that housed Sam and a hundred of her peers.

  No visitor to Foss-Lanford was ever so adored as Gil. In a matter of weeks, he had become the communal baby, a mascot of sorts. Sometimes Sam left him with someone while she ran to write a note on a friend’s whiteboard or grab coffee downstairs. Occasionally, when she returned, her room was empty. But she never worried. She knew Gil was safe in the arms of some besotted young woman.

  Isabella burst into tears when she held him. Shannon would say, “I’m sorry, young man, but I am not a baby person,” before picking Gil up, and refusing to give him back.

  Now, like most Fridays, Sam pushed the stroller down the long corridor that led to the dining hall. The women who worked there, all of them mothers, loved Gil most and knew best what to do with him.

  Sam passed through the empty dining room, footsteps echoing on the linoleum. The floors had been swept clean. The wooden tables gleamed.

  She could hear Maria laughing.

  Sam pushed Gil’s stroller toward the sound, and through the swinging doors that led to the kitchen.

  It was at least ten degrees warmer on the other side. The windows were covered in steam. Delmi kept plants on the high windowsills—a cascading jade; an array of succulents; aloe that resembled long fingers, which the women cracked open when their hands bled from washing dishes in winter. At the center of all that green, a painted statue of the Virgin Mary peeked out from behind the leaves.

  Sam saw them before they saw her. Delmi was at the counter, chopping heaps of peppers and onions. Maria and Gaby stood side by side at the island in the center of the room, breading chicken breasts. Maria dunked each one into a huge silver bowl of raw eggs, then handed it to Gaby, who rolled it in a mountain of breadcrumbs and laid it flat on a cookie sheet.

  They talked, as they did all day, every day, rapid-fire and without looking up at one another.

  “He should have been fired by now,” Delmi said.

  “He’s doing just what they want him to,” said Maria. “He’s playing the role of the bad guy. He’ll probably get promoted.”

  “That asshole should try living off twelve bucks an hour,” Gaby said. “See how he likes it.”

  “Gabriela!” Maria said. “Watch your mouth!”

  Still, Maria laughed. She had tears in her eyes from laughing.

  “What asshole?” Sam said.

  They all looked up.

  The room fell silent.

  She felt for the first time like she had barged in on them.

  Then they adjusted, relaxed.

  Delmi unstrapped Gil from the stroller and took him in her arms. She was his favorite. She made a funny face he loved, filling her cheeks with air, then pretending to pop them. Gil laughed every time she did it, and Delmi was happy to do it again and again.

  “I have treats for you,” she said in a singsong voice, carrying him into the pantry.

  She returned a moment later, placed the corner of a saltine on his tongue, and let it dissolve there like a communion wafer.

  “Who were you talking about? Who’s the asshole?” Sam said, her nosiness getting the better of her.

  She had never heard either of the older women swear. Doing so in front of them felt illicit, even if she was just repeating Gaby.

  “The head of RADS,” Gaby said. “You know. Barney.”

  RADS stood for Residence and Dining Services. Though Sam had technically worked in the department her first three years of sc
hool, she couldn’t have named the person in charge until last year, when Barney Reardon took the job.

  Gaby had told Sam everything. How Barney was hired to cut the budget and did so by cutting their pay, when the kitchen staff hadn’t gotten a raise in eight years as it was. How the new health insurance plan was useless.

  Ironically, Gaby said, she had only left her better paying restaurant job because she had no benefits and Maria had convinced her that, with the baby, she needed decent insurance. She’d had some complications after Josie was born. Super high blood pressure that landed her back in the hospital twice. She was supposed to follow up with a specialist, but she still hadn’t.

  “What would be the point of even knowing if I need surgery or whatever,” Gaby had said at the time. “A five-thousand-dollar deductible. Who has five thousand dollars to pay a doctor before getting any coverage?”

  Sam shook her head, though she had only a vague idea of what the word deductible meant. She was still on her parents’ insurance and had never had to deal with the specifics.

  Maria and Delmi had never once complained to Sam about anything. When Gaby came along, it was a revelation.

  Now, when Gaby said Barney Reardon’s name, Maria clucked her tongue, bringing the conversation to an end.

  Delmi plopped Gil in the stroller with a new cracker.

  “Okay, chiquito. That’s a good boy.”

  Maria said, “Sam. Get the cookie dough out of the fridge and scoop it onto some parchment, will you? We’re behind.”

  It was kind of ridiculous, how much it meant to her to be asked. To feel like she still belonged among them.

  * * *

  —

  That afternoon, Isabella and Sam laid Gil down on Isabella’s bed with a couple of toys and played with him while they watched TV. Ramona, Shannon, and Lexi all came by to see him. Gil beamed at each visitor, as if he’d been expecting them.

  As Sam was leaving the dorm a few hours later, she saw Gaby coming out of the ladies’ room by the front door. She was dressed to go home, in jeans and high-heeled boots. Her long hair hung at her shoulders.

  “Hi, Gil!” Gaby called. She moaned. “Seeing him makes me miss Josie so much. By the way. Her birthday party is gonna be the second Saturday in November, at my house. Can you come?”

  “Of course!” Sam said. She made a mental note to write this down.

  “Great, I’ll text you the address.”

  “I miss our Friday paycheck walks,” Sam said. “I feel like I don’t even know what’s going on with you.”

  “I know. You’ve been busy,” Gaby said.

  It was true, but it felt like an accusation.

  “Sorry,” Sam said. “This nannying job has made my weeks so full.”

  “And the boyfriend,” Gaby teased.

  “Yeah. That too.”

  “I miss having you in the kitchen. The other student workers don’t even look at me. I’m not sure they know I speak English,” Gaby said. “Or maybe they’re just scared of me.”

  “That sounds more likely,” Sam said.

  They laughed.

  “What was going on earlier, in the kitchen?” Sam said. “That whole thing about Barney Reardon.”

  “My aunt was pissed at me for telling you who we were talking about,” Gaby said.

  “Why?”

  “She doesn’t think it’s right to discuss our issues with the college in front of a student.”

  “It’s not just some student,” Sam said. “It’s me.”

  “I know, but Maria has her opinions on how things should be done.” Gaby paused, like she was considering whether or not to obey her aunt’s wishes. Then she said, “You know how only three dining halls on campus stay open June through August?”

  “No,” Sam said.

  During the school year, the college prided itself on offering dining in almost every dorm, so that students could eat where they lived, an approximation of home. Sam had never considered what happened in the summer.

  “Well, they do,” Gaby went on. “Three dining halls, down from fifteen. Everyone scrambles to get a job in one of them. If you don’t, this cheap-ass place lays you off for the summer and rehires you at the start of the school year. Three months without pay or benefits.”

  “Professors get paid for the summer months, don’t they?” Sam said.

  “I mean, I think so,” Gaby said. “They must. Anyway. This morning Barney announced that, next summer, only one dining hall is gonna stay open. So, even fewer jobs. My aunt is freaking out. She’s too nice. She and my mom. They want to help everyone. They send money home to so many relatives, money they don’t even have.”

  On one of their Friday walks last year, Gaby had filled in the gaps in what Sam knew of Maria’s story.

  Along with her sister, Gaby’s mother, Maria came to America from El Salvador as a teenager, after her brother and father were murdered. She married an American, a guy in the military, whom Gaby described as a total scumbag.

  Soon after they divorced, left alone with two young children, Maria fell in love with someone else. Like her, he was from El Salvador. They married. Through Maria, he got his citizenship. Then one day he told her he had never loved her. He had a family in Texas. A wife and kids. He only wanted his papers. He left, and Maria never heard from him again. Technically, they were still married. She saw no need to divorce because, from then on, she considered herself done with men.

  It was hard for Sam to imagine Maria this way, as assertive and happy as she now seemed. She wondered where all those dark memories were stored. It was a bit like hearing stories of her grandfather going to war. Sam couldn’t imagine the old man in the armchair dodging bullets, even as she knew that he had.

  Sam had once cried in Maria’s arms because her sisters had the flu and couldn’t come for Family Weekend. Maria had allowed this, had comforted her as if it was a problem worth mentioning.

  Gaby told Sam that her mother and Maria were considered the lucky ones in their family. Their undocumented cousins, newer arrivals to this country, boarded vans before dawn each morning and were transported to local farms, where they worked for less than minimum wage, fourteen-hour days, seven days a week, with no overtime pay.

  This was why, Gaby said, Maria was careful never to complain.

  “At the end of the school year last year, after Barney had cut everyone’s pay, Maria was so worried about making ends meet that she went through the trash all over campus, collecting things students left behind,” Gaby said now. “Do you know how humiliating that was for her? These girls, the things they throw away—”

  “I know,” Sam said.

  In the final days of her sophomore year, she had acquired a cast-off mini-fridge, a rug, and a pair of lamps that her mother deemed nice enough to put in the family room at home.

  “Even in the kitchen, they told us to throw away an almost-new blender, boxes of dishes, a six-hundred-dollar mixer that worked perfectly fine.”

  Sam nodded. The school periodically replaced such things, long before they needed replacing.

  “Maria sold all that crap, to pay some bills,” Gaby said. “Not that she got much for it. But still, she felt so bad, so embarrassed. You know she prides herself on being professional. Everything on the up-and-up. I told her that’s her right. She has to survive.”

  “Of course,” Sam said.

  “It’s even worse for poor Delmi. At least Maria’s sons, my cousins, they contribute. Delmi’s kids are, like, thirtysomething and they all live off her. She can’t even make rent at this point.”

  “What about you?” Sam said. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Gaby said. “This job is just temporary for me. Hopefully soon I’ll have enough saved so that me and Josie can move out of my mom’s. And then eventually, I’ll get around to finishing school.”

 
Gaby’s words made Sam feel guilty. She had wondered many times what it must be like for Gaby, having to serve three meals a day to college girls whose lives were so much easier than her own.

  Gaby looked past her. She said, “The princess wants you.”

  Sam turned her head to see Isabella on the stairs.

  Isabella paused halfway down.

  “You forgot your phone,” she said, dangling it over the railing.

  “She can’t be bothered to do those last few steps,” Gaby said softly, as if narrating a nature film. “The princess is tired. Maybe her maid could come and carry her the rest of the way.”

  Sam didn’t think Isabella could hear her. But still.

  She looked from one friend to the other. She regretted, now, the things she’d said about Isabella when she was gone. Sam had inadvertently made Gaby despise her, when she had only been trying to say that Isabella was lovable in spite of her entitlement. Hadn’t that been her point?

  Isabella didn’t like Gaby either. She seemed intimidated that Sam should have a friend she didn’t know. She watched Gaby’s expressions in the dining hall and said, “What flew up her ass?”

  Sam was happy not to be working in the kitchen this year. She got to sleep later. Caring for Gil was so much easier than that job had been. But she felt bad eating with her friends as Gaby worked. Especially when Isabella put her feet on the table, or left a pile of crumbs when she was done, further convincing Gaby that every bad thing she believed about her was true.

  * * *

  —

  Sam and Gil walked in the front door at ten to five, later than usual. Elisabeth’s car pulled into the driveway soon after.

  When she came in, she was on the phone, talking fast. “I feel like I’m closing in on something interesting,” Elisabeth said.

  She looked at Sam and rolled her eyes.

  “Frankly, I need the money,” Elisabeth said. “I can’t tell you how much I need it. Long story. A bad investment.”

  Without a word exchanged between them, Elisabeth took Gil from Sam, placed him in his bouncy seat, reached into her wallet, and pulled out the week’s pay in cash.