Friends and Strangers

by J. Courtney Sullivan

  The president stood alone for just a second. She looked in Sam’s direction, met her eye. Sam imagined some other, braver reality. She imagined running toward her, making demands that could not be ignored.

  While it is impossible for me to address your specific accusations without knowing who you are—

  She wished she could say: Here I am. Now you know.

  The words she’d recited in bed came back to her.

  President Washington, you claim to celebrate women, but there are women who have worked on this campus for decades and have nothing to show for it. Shouldn’t we feel ashamed? Why won’t you make it right? What’s the point of shining a light on the truth, if the truth just sits there, unchanged. Tell me. Please. Tell me.

  The president clinked a silver spoon against a glass.

  The room fell to a hush.

  “Good evening!” she shouted, her voice full of energy. “Welcome home!”

  The alums hooted and cheered.

  “We’re here tonight to celebrate you,” President Washington said. “Your generous donations helped us reach an all-time fundraising goal this year. We were able to break ground on the new engineering building; to begin talking about a state-of-the-art library. To welcome the largest class yet of our Lucretia Chesnutt fellows. Raise your hands, ladies. Don’t be shy.”

  From their spots throughout the crowd, ten or twelve fellows put up their hands. They were the only black women in the room, other than the president herself. If there was something uncomfortable about that, President Washington didn’t seem to notice.

  Sam saw Shannon among them. Shannon noticed her at the same time. She rolled her eyes.

  Something occurred to Sam then. The president’s mansion was a place to go and draw hearts in chalk on the driveway, on her birthday, on Valentine’s Day. They all loved her, and showed their love with abandon. It felt personal. But President Washington had never shown them anything like it in return. She was playing her part, doing her job.

  She works for the company, not us.

  Gaby was supposed to have been here tonight. But even if she hadn’t quit, she wouldn’t be in this room. All the workers passing canapés were students. The full-time staff was hidden away in the kitchen.

  * * *

  —

  Saturday morning, they sat in folding chairs on the quad in their black caps and gowns, under a cloudless blue sky.

  Out of a class of seven hundred, Sam was graduating with the tenth-highest GPA. Some kind of magical thinking made her wonder if she might still get called for Phi Beta Kappa, handed that golden key, which had once seemed so important, and then had seemed superfluous, and now seemed like something she had earned but for one mistake. Maybe just this once, they would make an exception. But when the Phi Beta Kappa names were called, hers was not among them.

  When Sam crossed the stage to get her diploma, her family cheered, louder than anyone else’s, and she was slightly horrified, but also kind of proud. She walked slowly back, searching the faces. She realized once she was in her chair that she’d been looking for Elisabeth.

  That night after dinner, Sam walked to the corner of Laurel and Main, hoping she might be there. She stayed for a long time, watching cars zip past. She wondered if Elisabeth would still throw a party tomorrow, if there would be a balloon archway and champagne, all the things they’d talked about, just without her. Finally, Sam went home, the last night she and Isabella would ever spend in their room.

  Music blared. She could hear Isabella and Lexi and Shannon singing from halfway down the hall.

  When Sam reached the platform, Isabella nodded toward their room.

  “Look what came for you.”

  The door was open, exposing a vase of long-stemmed roses on Sam’s nightstand. The note read So proud of you, babe. Can’t wait to celebrate in person. Love, Clive

  Sam went out to the hallway, closed the door, and turned toward her friends.

  * * *

  —

  Before they got in the car to leave the next morning, she went to the kitchen for her last cup of coffee. It was early. Only Maria had arrived so far.

  Sam started to cry.

  Maria hugged her.

  “No tears!” she said. “This is a happy day. We’re so proud of you.”

  “I’ll miss you,” Sam said.

  “We’re going to stay in touch,” Maria said.

  Sam wanted to tell her that she had only wanted to help, that she was sorry.

  She said, “Will you please tell Gaby goodbye for me? And tell her to call me.”

  “Oh yes, she said to say congratulations,” Maria said.

  Sam could tell she was lying. Probably, Maria was trying to make up for what she had taken as Gaby being rude, or less than thoughtful. She didn’t suspect Sam of having done wrong for a second. That was the worst part.

  * * *

  —

  Later, smooshed into the back seat of her parents’ minivan between her television set and her suitcase and her siblings, Sam remembered the painting and felt a stab of regret. She had worked hard on it for weeks, tried to make it perfect, only to leave it propped on an easel, half finished, undone.

  20

  Elisabeth

  ELISABETH PUSHED GIL’S STROLLER across campus, listening to the birds.

  There was no one else around, not a single person. Overnight, the place had emptied out. The folding chairs, the stage, and the tent had been cleared from the quad. The grass was an unblemished green, as if the ceremony had never happened, as if the girls in their black caps and gowns hadn’t sat there in rows, fidgeting in nervous anticipation, high heels sinking into soft ground.

  Elisabeth could only be certain they had because she had seen them, briefly.

  Her invitation was postmarked the day of her terrible argument with Sam. It arrived two days later, a Wednesday.

  The morning after that, Sam was supposed to watch Gil for the first time since they’d argued. At the last minute, Elisabeth escaped to her office, telling Andrew to tell Sam that she had an important phone call with her agent. It was true, and yet she knew that had they not fought, she would have taken the call from home. She was being a wimp; she could admit that. She wanted Andrew to take the temperature of things and report back before she saw Sam later that evening.

  As soon as she reached her office, Elisabeth thought of the threat Sam had made and wondered if it had been wise to leave her alone with Andrew.

  Maybe I should do the same to you. See how you like it, she had said. The words so hostile, so unlike Sam.

  Elisabeth had told Andrew that Sam was mad at her because she had meddled in her relationship with Clive. She didn’t tell him the rest. Now she let herself imagine the worst. She pictured Sam and Andrew in the kitchen, the baby on Sam’s hip. Sam saying, There’s something you need to know about your wife.

  Andrew might actually leave her.

  Elisabeth was so consumed with dread over this that she didn’t pause to wonder what her agent would think of the chapters she’d sent. So when Amelia sighed and said, “Look,” just that one word surprised her. She knew what Look meant.

  “The book is technically good,” Amelia said. “It’s great. Everything you write is great, you’re a great writer.”

  “But?”

  “But we can tell your heart’s not in it.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Elisabeth said. She felt offended, even though it was true.

  “Why is this the book you’re writing now? What does it have to do with you, with your world, your obsessions?”

  “Not every book needs to be autobiographical,” she said. “My others aren’t. I’m a journalist.”

  “Sure. Of course,” Amelia said. “But let’s be honest. Women in sports? You hate sports.”

  Elisabeth was supposed to wr
ite about her obsessions? A book about women who commit fertility fraud against their husbands. A book about a woman unable to be normal, as much as she wished she could be. A book about a woman who meddled in a girl’s life when she should have been paying closer attention to her own.

  “What scares you?” Amelia said. “What would you give anything to stop thinking about?”

  It was all too much, the book and the situation with Sam. Elisabeth decided to hide out awhile longer in her office. She asked Andrew to get home early, make some excuse. She would face Sam tomorrow.

  But after that day, Sam never came back. In the week that followed, Elisabeth must have picked up the phone a dozen times to call and apologize for overstepping. But when she remembered things they both had said, she wasn’t sure how to talk about any of it. It was so raw, so awful.

  She decided she would go to the graduation ceremony, give Sam her gift, and say she was sorry. Nothing drawn out, just a simple I shouldn’t have. Forgive me. Maybe it would be bad—maybe Clive would confront her for interfering, or Sam’s mother would tell her she was a terrible person. But maybe all would be well, and they’d celebrate at her house the next day, as planned.

  Elisabeth wore a red shirtdress, flats, and sunglasses. She stood off to the side, away from the groups of family members, feeling out of place and a bit lonesome. It was a glorious sunny day. The blue sky set against the brick buildings gave the place a sharper focus and made everything look clean, perfect.

  When the grads filed in, she caught sight of Sam from a distance. She looked serious, determined, until her face broke into a smile, and she started to laugh. Elisabeth had never seen her laugh like that. Sam pulled away from the procession just fast enough to hug and kiss her relatives. They held a homemade sign. Elisabeth couldn’t make out what it said.

  She had miscalculated. She wasn’t wanted. She shouldn’t have come. She turned and walked away. When Andrew asked why she was home so soon, Elisabeth told him she had a headache and needed to lie down.

  Now, two days later, she was back. Headed for the white Unitarian church tucked behind the science building. Specifically, the College Children’s Center day care, located in the church basement, and run by Maris Ames, a soft and cheery woman with thick, almost-purplish hair.

  She met them at the door with a smile. Gil grinned back appreciatively.

  As of three days ago, he could walk. A step or two at a time, and then he’d fall down or grab hold of a piece of furniture. It was a milestone every child reached somewhere around this age, and yet Elisabeth and Andrew were awestruck.

  While Gil perused the classroom, pulling blocks and books and bins from where they belonged and dumping them on the floor, Maris explained that during the academic year, the school was staffed by students from the Early Childhood Education Department.

  “Lovely girls. Each handpicked by yours truly, and not a dud among them,” she said. “I can sense a hard worker when I see one. I’ve been at this for forty years. In summertime, we have excellent help as well. Older gals with experience. Grandmotherly types.”

  Elisabeth smiled. She liked this woman.

  Her neighbors said the school was overpriced. But one of the good parts about living in the city for so long was that she had a skewed sense of what things ought to cost. To her, almost everything here seemed reasonable, if not downright cheap.

  “And you’d have room for him soon?” she asked.

  “As soon as you’d like.”

  Elisabeth had been thinking of having Gil start the following week, but now she said, “Maybe at the end of July?”

  “Sure,” Maris said.

  It would give her that much more time with her baby, who felt less like a baby every day. Maybe Faye could sit with him some, since she’d be off for the summer. Elisabeth had vowed to herself to try and let her mother-in-law in more. They had no longer just moved here. They lived here. She ought to make a go of it.

  Things would be different, having Gil away from home all day, not being able to look in on him whenever she wanted. She thought he would thrive in the presence of other kids his age. But she would miss what they’d had this first year, the cocoon of the two of them, plus Sam.

  Sam had only been with them three days a week. Day care would be full-time. Elisabeth felt overcome with regret, knowing how much of his life would have nothing to do with her. It made her want to quit work and stay home doing arts-and-crafts projects with Gil for the next ten years, even as she knew that she’d lose her mind.

  Andrew’s fellowship was soon to end. He had no plan for what might come next. The provost at the hippie college had hinted at keeping him on in some kind of mentor capacity, but who knew where that would lead. She needed to write a book.

  When Elisabeth thought of Sam, she felt like she had ruined something, even though their arrangement would have come to an end anyway. She would still be standing here, scanning the brightly colored room for choking hazards as she pretended to listen to Maris Ames’s thoughts on the Montessori method.

  Elisabeth assumed Sam, like the rest of them, had gone home by now. She couldn’t believe there had been no goodbye.

  All day yesterday, she’d half expected her to show up.

  The party had not gone as planned. When they woke, the sky was dark and heavy with rain. Elisabeth tried not to care. There was nothing she could do about the weather.

  Even as she told herself this, she said to Andrew, “Today is going to be a disaster, I can tell. Yesterday was perfect. Why didn’t we do this yesterday?”

  “Because it wasn’t Gil’s birthday yesterday,” he said.

  “We should have canceled,” she said. “Done something just the three of us.”

  “It’s going to be fine,” he said.

  Nomi’s train was due to arrive at eleven. She was coming on her own and staying with them for two nights. Elisabeth had imagined her best friend looking on, admiringly, as she hosted a large, joyous affair. The kind of thing you could only do when you had a house and a big backyard.

  Elisabeth had had until a few days ago to change the order with the caterers. She waited because she thought there was a chance she and Sam would reconcile. Before she knew it, a man with one hundred and twenty shrimp puffs was asking if she preferred silver or Lucite trays for passing.

  There was enough food to feed Sam’s giant family and all her friends, when the only people coming were Andrew’s parents and a couple of his coworkers and whichever neighbors chose to attend.

  As Andrew was leaving to get Nomi at the station, a UPS guy delivered a giant blue-wrapped gift box. Elisabeth opened it. A present from her mother. The box contained expensive baby clothes, the kind that were gorgeous and that no baby would ever have a reason to wear.

  The card read Love, Gigi.

  “When did we decide that would be her grandma name?” Andrew said.

  “She decided, I guess.”

  Elisabeth smiled, in spite of herself.

  Andrew kissed her goodbye.

  Soon after he left, three guys with scraggly beards and straw hats arrived. One dragged an upright bass; another had a drum in his arms.

  “It feels like rain, doesn’t it?” Elisabeth said to them. “Should we be putting you inside, do you think, or would that be too loud?”

  They shrugged, indifferent.

  “Maybe start in the yard and we’ll play it by ear,” she said.

  The men from the balloon company were setting up out front when Nomi got there forty minutes later.

  She pushed past them, looking exasperated, and found Elisabeth in the hall.

  “I’m so sorry,” Nomi said. “I planned to bring wine. I thought we could stop somewhere on the way from the train. I had no idea there were still places where liquor stores are closed on Sunday. Are women allowed to vote in this town yet?”

  “Ha ha,”
Elisabeth said. “Hi!”

  When they embraced, she willed Nomi to look around, to say something nice about the house.

  “Your living room is a re-creation of the one in Brooklyn,” Nomi said. “That’s hilarious.”

  The balloon men needed a signature and her credit card. Elisabeth went to find her purse.

  Within five minutes of the men’s departure, two separate couples walked in without knocking, assuming a balloon archway signified an open house.

  “Where are we?” Nomi said. “Do you not have locks?”

  Elisabeth offered the band members fifty bucks to drag the archway out back, where nobody would see it, other than people they’d invited.

  By noon, everyone had arrived. There were twice as many cater-waiters as there were guests. They circled the yard, trying to look busy. The Laurels had all come and were downing flutes of champagne, standing in the corner, whispering.

  “Terrible women,” Nomi said, watching them from across the yard. “You can tell by looking. Who makes that dress the chunky blonde is wearing? Peg Bundy for Spandex?”

  Elisabeth had dreamed of this—having her best friend by her side to make fun of the Laurels with her. So why did she wish Nomi could try to blend in, and keep some thoughts to herself?

  In a way, she thought there was something to appreciate about how the Laurels always showed up for one another. And now, it seemed, for her as well. They could have easily skipped this party, but they were here, and making the best of it.

  The goth couple they had seen get married in the fall sat at the picnic table, holding hands. Elisabeth could not remember their names. The day of their wedding, Andrew got mad at her for making fun of them, for suggesting that they’d be divorced soon. It was kind of awful of her, now that she thought of it. Elisabeth gave them a wave. Maybe they had as good a shot as anyone.

  Still, she wondered if their weird energy was keeping people away from the food—right in front of them were platters heaped with charcuterie and crudités, sandwiches cut into triangles, bowls of fresh salad. In the middle of it all, a tower assembled from thirty blue-frosted cupcakes.