Friends and Strangers

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Friends and Strangers Page 36

by J. Courtney Sullivan


  She handed him the page.

  “Well done,” Clive said.

  He was silent for a minute as he read President Washington’s response. Then he looked up and said, “How arrogant is this? Or indeed, if the individuals you’re referring to are actual people? It’s like she’s suggesting you made them up. What a twat.”

  Somehow Sam realized only then that she was upset not just because Maria had seemed so skeptical, but because what Clive said was true. President Washington’s reply to her letter was dismissive, calculated, almost accusatory. It was as if the woman who gave the speech Sam had watched again and again was someone else entirely.

  George pulled the pump from the tank and twisted the gas cap.

  “I don’t want George to know I did it,” Sam said. “I don’t want anyone to know yet.”

  “Why not? It was a great thing to do,” Clive said. “Most college girls have their heads so far up their own asses they’d never even stop to consider someone else’s needs.”

  It sounded like something Gaby would say.

  Gaby. What would she make of what Sam had done? Gaby had told her Maria wouldn’t want this. Why hadn’t she listened?

  Since she was a child, she had had a recurring nightmare about driving down a winding mountain road when she didn’t know how to drive. Sometimes, the brakes went out. The way Sam felt now reminded her of that sensation. She wished she could wake up, relieved to find that none of it had actually happened. She suddenly had a terrible feeling about what she’d done.

  When they got to the airport, George stayed in the car so Sam and Clive could say their goodbyes.

  They hugged on the curb outside international departures. Sam stood on her toes to reach him.

  Clive cupped her chin in his hand. “You’re the best girl in the world. I love you,” he said. “I’m proud of you for writing that letter.”

  “Don’t be,” she said.

  “I’m going to miss you like hell.”

  “You too,” she said. “I hate saying goodbye.”

  “I’m so glad we won’t have to do it much longer,” he said. “Soon, for the rest of my life, when I get on an airplane, you’ll be sitting beside me, not waving me off.”

  Clive held on tight until a policeman walked by and told them it was time to move along.

  * * *

  —

  That night before dinner, Sam walked into the kitchen and found it empty. Not just of people, but things. Delmi’s plants were gone, and the statue of the Virgin Mary. Even the photograph of Gaby’s baby had been taken down from the salad bar, just a speck of Scotch tape where it once hung.

  Sam heard a noise from the pantry. She found Gaby, stocking cans of green beans and tomato paste.

  “How did the meeting go?” she asked.

  “It sucked,” Gaby said coolly.

  “What happened?”

  “Your friend the president was pissed. Said whoever wrote that letter made her look bad. She actually accused the staff of being behind the whole thing. She said no student could possibly have known all those details. You know what I heard Delmi say to my aunt after? She said, ‘That letter sure does sound like Gaby on a bad day.’ ”

  Sam’s cheeks grew hot.

  Gaby went to her purse and pulled out a piece of paper.

  “What’s that?” Sam said.

  “The new code of conduct all service employees have to sign.”

  Gaby read aloud. “Section four: Employee satisfaction and communication. A positive and constructive relationship between the College and Staff is essential to the mission of the College. Thus, if the behavior, communication, or interaction on or off campus and/or online, of Staff Members reflects a loss of confidence in or serious disagreement with the College, Staff Members understand and agree that the College has the right to dismiss/terminate employment as determined at the College’s sole and exclusive discretion.”

  Gaby met Sam’s eye: “In other words, keep your mouths shut about what goes on here, or get out.”

  Sam started to reply, but Gaby went on.

  “Section nine: Personal Belongings. Effective immediately, no personal belongings are to be kept in campus kitchens. Handbags, coats, and other small personal items should remain in designated storage lockers. Refuse is campus property and shall not be removed from campus other than by designated sanitation professionals. Food and beverage are property of the College and should not be taken from campus at any time, for any reason. Failure to observe these rules will be considered theft and result in immediate suspension.”

  Sam stood there, mouth agape.

  “You wrote it, didn’t you,” Gaby said.

  It was not a question.

  “What the hell, Sam? I told you those things in confidence, as a friend. Not because I was looking for you to save the day. If I wanted the goddamn college president to know, I would have told her myself. Have I ever struck you as someone who has a hard time speaking her mind?”

  Sam laughed gently. But Gaby wasn’t laughing. She looked angry. Sam had never been on the receiving end of that look.

  Gaby took a long, deep breath, just as Maria told her to whenever some entitled student was irritating her.

  “By that definition of theft, I’ve stolen tons of stuff,” Sam said. “So have most people I know.”

  Gaby shrugged.

  “This is so messed up. We can stage a protest,” Sam said. “People on this campus love to protest. I’m serious.”

  “Just let these women take care of themselves,” Gaby said. “It’s what they’ve been doing all their life.”

  “But my friend George, he’s in that group. They help people who’ve been treated unfairly by the system. I could—”

  Gaby shook her head. “Drawing even more attention to this is the last thing they would ever want to do. We don’t have the luxury of crying about what’s fair and what isn’t. We’re not like you.”

  Sam felt foolish.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I feel terrible. I thought it would all be different. I should have signed my name. If anyone was going to get in trouble, it should be me.”

  “That wouldn’t have mattered,” Gaby said. “The school expects you to protest. And they expect you to move on and forget. They know what they’re doing. They just don’t care.”

  Gaby curled her hands into fists.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “I need a new job. A friend of mine makes good money as a nanny and she’s leaving her job soon. She said she’d put in a good word. I can’t exactly picture myself doing that. But maybe if I could bring Josie.”

  Sam thought maybe Elisabeth would hire Gaby after she graduated. She couldn’t quite see them together, but she could see Elisabeth being the type who would take pride in letting her nanny bring her own child to work.

  “You know the baby I nanny for. Gil,” she began.

  Gaby’s expression turned to revulsion, like she’d eaten something rotten.

  “Stop saying you’re a nanny,” she snapped. “You were never a nanny, Sam.”

  Sam was confused. “Yes, I was. I am.”

  “You have no idea what this feels like.”

  Sam wondered if somehow Gaby had the wrong impression of who she was, where she came from. She thought of something George had said about Elisabeth.

  “I don’t have some safety net either, you know,” Sam said. “I do get it. I’m worried about money all the time. My father’s job has been—”

  “Sam. Last year, your friend flew you to London because you were sad and it was her birthday. Who do you think you are?” Gaby said, voice rising. “You don’t have a safety net? You don’t have a family you can go home to, parents who would feed you and care for you if you needed?”

  She stretched out her arms. “This place isn’t a safety
net for you? Maria has no safety net. Maria is the safety net, for so many people.”

  “I know that. I love Maria.”

  Gaby scoffed. “Don’t say love. You just made her life ten times harder than it was to begin with. My aunt gets paid to be nice to girls like you.”

  The words stung. Sam felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

  “You’re gonna cry now?” Gaby said. “Am I supposed to make you feel better? After how you’ve treated me on top of everything else? Look. I get it. I was the temporary friend. Then your real friends came back and you didn’t need me anymore.”

  “No,” Sam said, “it was never like that. I’ve just been so busy.”

  “I have two jobs and a kid. Don’t tell me how busy you are,” Gaby said. “You’d better go. See? It says so right here. Section twelve: No fraternizing with students. Why don’t you go find your princess? I’m sure she has all the time in the world.”

  17

  WITHIN A FEW DAYS of her letter being published in the paper, things went back to the way they’d always been, as if the whole situation had never occurred. The student body did not rise up as Sam had imagined. The workers didn’t do so either. Instead, they signed the college’s contract and got on with it.

  Everyone but Gaby. Maria said the contract had been the last straw for her. She’d gotten a new job as a hostess at a chain restaurant in Weaverville.

  In the month that followed, Sam texted her several times, but Gaby never responded. When Sam checked Facebook, Gaby had unfriended her.

  But it seemed Gaby hadn’t outed her to the others. When Sam considered why, she figured Gaby felt responsible for telling her their troubles in the first place.

  Sam missed her. She still went into the kitchen most mornings for her coffee. To not do so felt like an admission of something. Muscle memory made it so that pushing the door into the kitchen, she expected to see Gaby there, to smile at her, to laugh. Each time, it was a shock to find her gone.

  Several times each day, sitting in a lecture hall or feeding Gil his bottle, Sam cringed, thinking back to the letter she’d written, how George had told her to consult Maria and Delmi and Gaby, but instead she had just gone ahead and done it, so sure that she knew what the outcome would be. She had only succeeded in making things worse for them. And she had been a terrible friend to Gaby. Her regret was a heavy object pushing down on her chest, making it hard to breathe.

  She went out of her way to avoid walking by President Washington’s house now. On the rare occasion when she had no choice but to do so, Sam had to look in the other direction. She kept thinking of the alumnae dinner she had agreed to work in a few weeks’ time. She couldn’t tell Maria that she no longer wanted to do it. Sam hoped that things would be different by then, though she couldn’t imagine how.

  * * *

  —

  The second Sunday in March, at six o’clock in the evening, Sam knocked at the open door of Andrew and Elisabeth’s house.

  In unison, they called, “Come in!”

  She found them in the kitchen.

  Elisabeth sat at one of the high-backed stools, a glass of red wine in her hand.

  Andrew stood over a gleaming silver contraption on the counter. To the side of it was an open egg carton, a glass measuring cup, a bright yellow bag of semolina flour. The machine whirred. Long strands of dough flowed out through holes in the front. It reminded Sam of the Play-Doh Fun Factory she and her siblings used to fight over when they were kids.

  “Sam!” Andrew said. “I got the old pasta maker out! Haven’t used it since the move, but tonight’s the night. We’re having fresh fettuccine. Hope you’re hungry!”

  His tone was extra upbeat. He sounded like a mom in a television commercial.

  “He’s acting weird because you caught us in the middle of an argument,” Elisabeth explained.

  Andrew shook his head, rolled his eyes.

  “What?” Elisabeth said. “It’s Sam. She knows everything about us. She could probably hear us arguing from outside.”

  “I couldn’t,” Sam said.

  She picked up the baby monitor and stuck out her lower lip at the sight of Gil in striped footie pajamas, sprawled on his back in the crib.

  “I know,” Elisabeth said. “Don’t you want to eat him?”

  “Wine, Sam?” Andrew asked.

  “Sure, thanks. I can get it.”

  “Sit,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

  Elisabeth said, “It’s actually good news that brought on this disagreement we’re having. We should toast. Andrew got invited to a conference for inventors in Denver. Lots of investors go. It’s prestigious. Big deals are made there every year.”

  “That’s great,” Sam said. “Congrats.”

  They raised their glasses, clinked them together.

  “I’m an alternate,” Andrew said. “They didn’t pick me first round, but I got the call today. Some guy who makes drum pants got meningitis, so there’s an opening.”

  “What are drum pants?” Sam said.

  Neither of them seemed to hear her. They were looking at each other, locked into a silent exchange she couldn’t read.

  “Only trouble is, he has to leave tomorrow at the crack of dawn,” Elisabeth said. “He’s abandoning me for my last week of shots. No big deal, I’m only doing the shots for him.”

  “Jesus,” Andrew said with an exasperated smile.

  “Kidding,” Elisabeth said. “Sort of.”

  Lately, they seemed to be getting along again, though since Elisabeth started the injections, she had been off-kilter, not quite herself. She felt tired and bloated and irritable. Andrew was acting extra attentive. He was often still home when Sam arrived to work in the morning, giving Gil breakfast, getting him dressed, so Elisabeth could sleep in. He read up on the best foods for her fertility and slipped them into whatever he was making for dinner. Elisabeth said he never mentioned he was doing this, but she could tell.

  “Last night, as a starter, he served me a bowl of bone broth,” she had reported on Friday. “It tasted like shoes.”

  Now Andrew said, “I don’t have to go.”

  “Stop saying that. You’re going.”

  “Okay, so it’s four more days of the regular shots and then the big one on the fifth day,” he said.

  “The trigger,” Elisabeth said.

  She looked at Sam. “They call it that because it feels like getting shot in the ass. I might be able to give myself the other ones, but not that. It’s a three-inch needle. I’m afraid I’ll pass out if I see it.”

  “Maybe we could ask my mother to come over and do the injections,” Andrew said.

  “Absolutely not,” Elisabeth said. “I think we should just hit pause on this and try again another month.”

  “After everything you’ve gone through?” he said. “You’re three-quarters of the way there.”

  “I could do the shots,” Sam said. “I know how. I did them for Isabella.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to do that,” Elisabeth said. “It has to happen every night at nine on the dot, after Gil is in bed, so you’d have to come over then. It would be such a pain.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. I’m happy to help.”

  “We’d pay you for the hour each night,” Andrew said.

  “Andrew!” Elisabeth said. “Honey, she’s doing this as a friend. Sorry, Sam, he’s clueless sometimes.”

  Sam wondered what she would have said had Elisabeth not intervened. She might have taken the money.

  “And what about the early morning appointments?” he said.

  “I can make them work,” Elisabeth said.

  “You’ll take Gil?”

  “I guess so.”

  Elisabeth reached over and squeezed her hand. “Thank you. I feel so much better about this now.”

  “I’l
l come back on Friday night and we’ll drive straight to the city the next day for the transfer,” Andrew said.

  Elisabeth nodded. “Good.”

  “I can’t believe you might have two kids by this time next year,” Sam said.

  “Two under two,” Andrew said, with wonder.

  “That reminds me, Sam,” Elisabeth said. “Gil turns one on May twenty-fourth. It’s a Sunday.”

  “The day after my graduation,” Sam said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you—each student only gets a handful of tickets to commencement. I’d love it if you could come, but I understand if you can’t. Those things are always long and boring.”

  Elisabeth looked like she might cry. “Of course I’m coming!” she said. “What if we have a party here that Sunday? A combined first birthday and graduation party. Your family can come. We’d love to host them. And Andrew’s parents. And—the neighbors? Your friends would be welcome, of course. My best friend, Nomi, will be here. I can’t wait for you two to meet.”

  “I don’t want Gil to have to share his birthday party with me,” Sam said.

  “You’re his favorite person. He’ll love it.”

  It was a generous offer, but somehow Sam couldn’t picture the party Elisabeth had in mind. Her mother would want to host something when she got home. Whatever Elisabeth did would be so much nicer. Her mom would be intimidated, or embarrassed, or—something.

  Sam couldn’t imagine Elisabeth observing her in the context of her family. Her parents still treated her like a child. Her mother would lick her thumb and run it back and forth across Sam’s lips instead of saying, “There’s something on your mouth.”

  “Think about it,” Elisabeth said. “It would be my pleasure. We’re going to miss you so much. There’s only, what, eight more weeks of classes left?”

  “I can’t believe that,” Sam said.

  “Neither can I.”

  “I’ll tell you who’s gonna miss you,” Andrew said. “My dad. We saw them yesterday and he couldn’t stop talking about you.”

  Sam smiled, but the mention of George made her chest feel heavy. She had skipped the most recent discussion group meeting, telling him she had too much schoolwork. The guys in the group were excited about a Benjamin Ross article in the Gazette, all about them. Sam didn’t think she could be alone with George in the car without telling him what she had done to Gaby and Maria and the others.

 

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