It was in the fall of Alice’s eighth year in Park Slope that she threw out her couch. She already had two chairs; there was never more than one person over; if she wanted to sleep with that person, the bed was in the other room. The couch was simply unnecessary. More furniture – prey to this same brute logic – followed it curbside, and soon all that remained in the apartment was a bed, a dresser with an in-built mirror, two plastic chairs, a small square table of pale wood, a low gate at bedroom door to keep out her dog, Fergus, and his bed in the unmaintained and underutilized kitchen. Her enjoyment of this elimination process was such that she carried it over to her wardrobe, too, ridding herself of all designer items. What remained were t-shirts and canvas pants, her uniform, to which Will had last weekend contributed his pair of black denim.
Alice paused in the doorway as Fergus ran a figure-eight through her legs, the frantic click of his nails on scratched wood. The newly barren apartment, with its large windows and the wide crooked planks of its floor, seemed to be saying something like, “You can do whatever you want, as long as you’re getting rid of something.” She shook off the thought, fastened the leash, and entered the crisp November air. In Minnesota it had always snowed by now, Alice thought, recalling the fine white powder that would blanket the immense lawn of her grandparents’ Edina McMansion, now sold, and her thrill at making the first imprint in the crust. Will had told her that a billionaire might soon solve climate change by shooting aerosols into the sky, reflecting sunlight, or something. She disbelieved him not out of scientific knowledge nor even skepticism of technology, but from a hard-won life lesson: that snow was not coming back.
Last weekend had been the sixth time they hung out and had been unanticipated, even unwanted. But he had been drinking at Lavender Lake, mere blocks away; he had readily acceded to her demand that “nothing happen”; she was sort of obligated, given prior agreement; and the bed had been cold and empty. “Good boy,” he had said, sinking to the floor to embrace Fergus, who barked frantically as the door opened and then leapt onto his supine chest. “Such a good boy. She doesn’t tell you enough what a good boy you are, no she doesn’t, does she.” He paused and gave a drunken giggle. “She doesn’t tell me enough either.”
Alice used her foot to push skeptically at the backpack he had let fall. It was one a.m. She wore a large ecru t-shirt and black gym shorts and slippers, while Will had on a striped oxford shirt under a heavy grey sweater, dark blue denim and brown boots. His face was flushed.
“What’s this?”
“I brought…” He trailed off, staring into the dog’s face. Perhaps a surge of nausea hit him now; he closed his eyes, and breathed in deeply through the nose. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“I brought you pants,” he said very calmly. Fergus growled as a car alarm sounded very far away.
“This sounds sexual. You know how I feel about sexual things,” she deadpanned.
“You said you wanted those pants I was wearing the other day. So I thought it would be funny if I, like, brought them to you.”
His eyes were still closed. She bent down, unzipped the backpack, brought out the pair of black jeans, and lifted them to the light for examination. Then, suddenly feeling that she was being watched, she looked down. Beneath long brown lashes made translucent by overhead lighting Will’s eyes were open and squinting in her direction. The dog was still on his chest, inspecting cautiously something at his shoulder. Alice and Will regarded each other silently and in that moment—for just that one moment—a fierce, burning sensation rose up in her chest, a desire to protect or maintain him at all costs. She was thirty-one, while he was twenty three.
The same black pants, now tailored down to her slim frame, rode up on her hips as Fergus pulled her up to a family of four. There was a girl with blond wispy hair, and a slightly younger boy of straight black hair and serious mien. The girl threw her arms around the dog, who stood proudly to attention, his bulging eyes expressing stupid contentment.
“Curtis,” she said officiously. “This is an almond dog.”
Her partner gave a solemn but quick nod, avoiding Alice’s gaze with the embarrassment of very young children. As the parents extricated their daughter – the father lifting the girl to his chest over protest, the mother giving the affectionate and yet guarded pleasantries generally exchanged by women of a similar age – she watched the boy’s face flicker with private experience. He wore a tight, uncomfortable smile, and was edging his way behind the mother’s short legs. As they walked away he smelled her leather jacket; and she, unconsciously, drew him in closer. A wind passed down the block, lined by gingko leaves turned yellow and roughly-hewn, several-storied stone, causing the daughter to run forward making small, skipping leaps.
It seemed to Alice that everything beautiful withered and fell away, and the older you got, the faster this process happened. Will had been for one night a great thing, for two nights a good thing, and thereafter a burden, a heavy one that nonetheless had to be handled with care – like a large glass vase. It had happened every time she tried dating these past two years, online or off. The cycle was obvious: the greater a burden he felt to her, the more she treated him like one, the more he tried to prevent it, the greater a burden he became. She could discern in his behavior the inverted outline of her rejection: always asking questions, always making plans. Tonight, even, she had agreed to go to his friend’s party. He had asked her in bed, when the next weekend had seemed vague and far away, and that vagueness had made it seem plausible she might feel differently. But now the day was here, and she hadn’t yet cancelled nor was she intending to go. She turned over her options. She didn’t want to be cruel; hopefully he wouldn’t text; she had to tell him no. She looked on affectionately as Fergus made a neat, quick circle, lifted his hind leg and pissed. His stream halted, precisely and abruptly, and he ran forward towards the family down the block. The leash began to strain as he veered out into the street.
Something whined across her left, making a noise like that of a knife being run across synthetic fabric. The attendant blur was a garish, improbable blue. She yanked on the leash; it cut deeply into her hand; the dog’s yowl was eclipsed by the noise of the speeding car.
Fergus, astonished at the violence done to him as he was dragged to the curb, was barking uncontrollably. The car had passed; Alice breathed in relief. Fergus did a quick circle; pissed again. And then, with a sudden clarity, Alice recalled the sounds from seconds before. Two dull thuds, like heavy weights being dropped on a blanket-covered surface. She turned in the direction of the vehicle. The SUV was pulled to the side of the road, half on the curb. Its motor was still running. She walked towards it – towards the crowd that had begun to gather, towards the screams and the yells, and towards the two children’s bodies lying small in the street.
◆
She was always going to cancel. Will had become used to this habit of hers; he didn’t mind. Accepting her rudeness made him feel like an adult. “This is what a real relationship is,” he told himself. “Two people formed enough to do or not do what they want.”
But to simply not respond? This was something else: a genuine problem of ethics. There were rules for this sort of thing, he thought fervidly, rules of engagement intended to make the battlefield of dating just an inch less cruel. He stared into his phone in front of his Bedford Stuyvesant apartment building, attempting to will a response into existence. He harangued, cajoled, victimized and pleaded with Alice, the immaterial correspondent who resided, like a genie in a lamp, within his device. And then he texted her again.
“What’s up??? Please respond.”
She instantly responded, “hey, i’m sorry” and, in that same instant, forgiveness bloomed in his chest like a tropical flower come to season with one enormous push. The flower unfurled its petals to reveal a fuzzy, peach-colored pistil, and softly ejected a cloud of spores that plumed up and then gently, oh so gently, drifted down in celebratory, pacifying banks. He had never appreciated her more. Unable to bear the thought that she might think him angry at her, even for a moment, he responded before she had finished typing a follow up. “Hey! Don’t worry about it at all. It happens.” He gazed at the three undulating dots. These were the movements of her thin, pale fingers, her ragged whitish cuticles. And then Will set out for the party, departing from the chipped grey steps on which he had been standing vigil. Alice was still typing, but by now he almost wished she wouldn’t come. Why spoil his good feelings with further contact? And then there was the possibility that this unending typing was the workshopping of a “things are over” text. A logical response, perhaps, to his four frustrated missives—sent at 9:18, 9:40, 9:57, and 10:10 p.m. The typing signal winked out of existence. A few moments later, it returned. Though the crisp day had become a very cold night, Will felt slightly feverish. He sent another message.
“Hey—can’t text now sorry almost at Sariah’s party. 5135 Pacific if you wanna come, but whatever.”
Another near-instant response: “ok.”
Once at the party each drink, drug, conversation and song fell, like a raindrop, on the thin glaze of dirt that occluded his thoughts. Music came from a laptop hooked up, via a sheath of variously colored wires, to a soundboard and two large black speakers set on an white Ikea desk pushed near the door in the living room of Sariah’s one-bedroom apartment. Back and forth Will went between the small kitchen just off the entrance, where four to five men stood, their positioning subject to constant revision as people wormed their way through to the refrigerator or to the liquor on the counter, and the would-be dancefloor of a living room, where three or four groups sat in clusters, the occasional person rising and picking their way round furniture and over upturned limbs to get a drink or use the bathroom, which sat at the rear of the apartment, opposing the bedroom. In front of a worn green couch there sat a small round low glass table. It bore a curated but everyday mess of magazines, artbooks, ashtray, and also an oval mirror with a pale wooden handle. Four women sat on the couch, including Sariah, the birthday girl, who perched on the arm. In the half-light, Sariah’s top appeared to be made of tissue paper, pink and diaphanous. She was already rather drunk when Will arrived; now and then a general cry went up as she listed from the armrest. These cries were invariably and abruptly cut short when she righted herself, like the cheers in a soccer stadium when an attack was rebuffed. Newly arrived guests made a pilgrimage to the couch to wish her a happy birthday and each one of them received a hug and the same joke: “Another lousy year, huh?”
Will sat on the floor next to a walnut-hued rocking chair, upholstered in rough stained white fabric. Mary Shannon, a friend of Sariah’s, sat in the chair. Charles Baikoff and Mark Reed sat against the wall nearby. It was close to two in the morning and the dark room was crowded with bodies. The foursome, in order to be heard over the music, spoke to one another in restrained yells. Now and then Mary leaned down to exchange whispered remarks with Will. Will, whose cheeks felt flush and heavy, whose lips felt numb and weightless, and whose lower chest flickered with a felicitous, burning sensation that sent up fumes that fogged his head, leaned on the rocking chair, his arm along the seat. Mary had her feet firmly planted on the underlying rug to hold it still against his weight.
Just now he prodded the side of her leg.
She leaned over. “What’s up?”
“Do you want to go up to the roof? I sort of want to smoke.”
“Mmm.” She considered the proposition as a mysterious smile played across her lips. She ran her fingers through her hair, auburn in the daylight and cut in a loose, artful arrangement to the neck, several strands splayed across her temple. Her eyes performed their customary slight squint. Overall, her moon face and regal demeanor— her penchant for warm flowing cardigans—gave one the impression that she had constantly just heard a joke, or perhaps perceived some slight cruel irony.
“Want to go?” he repeated. “Just for a minute.”
She nodded in assent.
They made to rise but both halted when they noticed Sariah, risen from the couch, shakily circumnavigating the room in their direction. The question she was addressing to various partygoers filtered through over the noise: “Where should we go next?” Then, just as Sariah made to step over Will’s legs, she stumbled and fell. After briefly wrapping her arms around Mary’s shoulders, who loosely returned her embrace, she sunk to the floor. Scattered laughs came from other parts of the room, but everyone soon returned to their conversations. There was anonymity in the music, the dark, the general drunkenness—the compounded engulfment of the senses made one feel alone even in company, like the roar of some immense surf.
Sariah lay flat on her stomach, giggled, and then crossed her arms over the edge of Will’s knee. “Hey,” she said. And giggled again. “She’s drunk,” said Mary loudly elongating the ‘u.’ Charles and Mark rose, talking about going to the roof, wondering if they would need jackets.
Charles, wearing as usual a loose fitting Hawaiian shirt with three buttons undone to the midriff, waved off Mark’s suggestion. “Climate change,” he said absently, and swayed a little bit. “Brah,” he added as punctuation. He went on his toes and surveyed the crowd, as if scanning for dry land from a crow’s nest, while Mark furrowed his brow, nodded once, and said, “Right,” in a slow, ironic drawl. And then they left, extricating their jackets from the pile near the door without comment. After all: the cigarettes were in the jackets.
“You can smoke in here,” called out Sariah after them. “They can smoke in here,” she repeated quietly, sadly.
“You don’t want that,” said Mary, still smiling down at Sariah. She petted her head. “You’ve got to get to bed.”
“Yeah,” said Will. He felt the warm sharp pressure of Sariah’s chin on his knee. He shifted uncomfortably, aware of Mary’s eyes flickering between him and Sariah. “You should go to bed,” he said, and withdrew his leg. Sariah sunk fully down to the floor.
“I don’t want to go to bed,” she said petulantly, and began rolling back and forth in protest. She ended up on her back and shifted up so that her head was propped on Will’s thigh. “I want to go out.” Sariah’s elbows were bent inwards, her arms were crossed and her shoulders were scrunched together. Letting out a half-moan, she began running her palms along her sides, stroking herself through the gauzy material of her shirt.
“Darling,” said Mary, extending the ‘a.’ “Oh darling, I’m going to take care of you.”
Will was relieved when Mary rose from the chair, knelt down next to Sariah, firmly took her hands away from her body, and began stroking her fringe of black bangs. Sariah giggled and gave a Garfield smile. She reached out so that she had one hand on Will’s midriff and one on Mary’s shoulder. “You guys…” she breathed in contentment. “Let’s go to my room.”
Mary shushed her and glanced up at Will, laughter in her eyes. He smiled back. Sariah had tried to sleep with Will several times since she and Thomas had broken up, which would have been flattering were it not for the fact that she was simply trying anything to make herself happy – were it not for the fact that he was a promissory note for a momentary sweetness that, if called in, would swiftly turn bitter. Though he didn’t realize it, being treated as such bothered Will precisely because he held many such promissory notes himself; and then there was the fact that he himself had hit on her one night while drunk, implanting in her the idea of them sleeping together to begin with. In any case, Mary’s display of caretaking instincts had now breathed new life into the smoldering ember of goodwill in him as well. Sariah was his friend, he had to remember. And he did want to be a good partner in caretaking to Mary.
“Yeah,” he said. “We’re going to get you to bed, OK?”
They took her in their arms and carried her the few steps to her bedroom.
The room was sparsely decorated. A tatami mat stood in for a bed. The furnishing gave the impression of bare minimum, that this was the greatest exertion an otherwise décor-minded person could bring to bear at this time. A small rug sat parallel to the mat, piles of clothes were stacked neatly on the floor, and a long thin mirror stood slant against the wall. One corner held a pile of painting materials. They lay Sariah down.
“Do you need anything? Do you want some water?” asked Mary gently.
“I’ll get her some water…” said Will.
“No don’t leave,” cried out Sariah. “I don’t want water; everyone stay.”
Will hesitated in the doorway until Mary gave signal for him to go on. Outside it seemed the party was emptying: all the guests were on their feet, putting on shoes and coats, responding to text messages, divvying up drugs, calling cars and in some cases pairing off. Will filled a red plastic cup with water and returned to the bedroom. He knelt down, placing a hand on Mary’s shoulder as he did so, enjoying her structured warmth.
“I can’t tell what she’s saying.” Mary took the water and held it near Sariah uncertainly.
Will leaned forward: “Sariah—Sariah—what do you need? What’s up?” She shifted uncomfortably and said something that sounded like, “Don’t go” or maybe “What’s up?” He exchanged a concerned look with Mary. “What… Do… You… Want…” he repeated.
Sariah’s eyes opened and slowly gained focus. When she finally replied, it was in a calm, wistful voice.
“I want to travel the world.”
Mary let out a gasp, keeled backwards, and pressed into Will’s side as she curled up in hiccup-like laughter. Sariah went up on one elbow, mimicking their now-shared laughter without understanding. “That’s so funny,” she said, a broad grin on her small ruddy face. Then a dissonance rippled across her features; her shoulders twitched; she began pulling compulsively at her neckline as though stricken by fever. Before they could stop her—with a dramatic tearing noise as a seam came undone—she pulled off her shirt altogether, threw it to the side and turned towards them topless. “Hey…” she breathed, leaning forward. “You guys should stay.” The gauzy pink shirt, after briefly fluttering in a draught, came to a rest at the foot of the mat.
“Sariah!” cried Mary in a horrified tone of secret vicious delight. “You’re drunk.”
Sariah made a noise of frustration, flopped back on the bed, and crossed her arms over her chest. There were no complaints as Mary went about preparing the bedding in business-like fashion, fluffing the down, stacking the pillows, re-shirting Sariah and angling her to the side. And yet Sariah’s face, as Mary concluded, adopted a melancholy, brooding aspect. Her face expressed the realization that another night of drinking had come to end without bringing any change in one’s life, a realization perhaps particularly hard come-by on birthdays and holidays.
Now Will and Mary stood next to the mat, huddled over Sariah like a somber mourning family. It appeared to Will – correctly – that Mary’s caretaking instincts were waning. She had performed the role and performed it well; but now she was faced with the prospect of spending hours by Sariah’s insensate side. And she was drunk, as indicated by the red glow to her cheeks, the way she performed indecision as a crinkle of the eyebrows and a slight wetting of the lips.
“How about we go up to the roof, smoke, like we said earlier? Then we can come back down and check on her.”
Mary hesitated.
“We can’t stay here all night,” Will insisted. “We’ll just put the water right there.”
Mary agreed. She knelt down, issued some whispered mandates to Sariah. Will flicked off the lights. And, as they made the door, her head rested briefly on his shoulder.
◆
Sariah Hong’s bad year started one month late: in February, when her mother called to say that she had breast cancer. At first, the conversation was about Sariah’s tattoo, the already fading, poorly-stenciled floral design on her upper right arm. “We spend so much money to send you to college, and you put that… shit on your body? Why?” A double mastectomy followed shortly thereafter; chemotherapy well into the summer. And then—in imitation of her mother, as though in a therapist’s wet dream—Sariah’s hair began to thin. Strand by strand she pulled it out, worrying at it right after she woke, mostly. Thomas yelled at her when she pulled at it in bed, so she confined her habit to the shower. The drain became clogged with fine black hairs.
She didn’t get into graduate school. She got a new job—and hated it. She attended a painting residency in Vermont—and cheated on Thomas. She found a new apartment and there her sleep became rare and disturbed, an enemy lying in wait at the close of each day.
At six a.m. every morning, caught between uneasy sleep and the prospect of waking life, it would seem that two immense walls of a flickering grey material were closing in. She crawled forward against the biting wind, her lips chapped, her hands torn, and her vision failing in the crepuscular light. Then came the howler, prowling at the edges of awareness and emitting snuffling, covetous noises. When she felt a small wet tongue poke the heel of her foot—then a thunderous tear would come, jolting her to consciousness. This time, however, the noise never came. Instead a series of rhythmic thumps began, first slow, then fast. A mouth, small and sharp, bit into her right breast. Talons pressed in below the ribcage, jabbing according to the rhythm of the drumbeat. A single ray of light played upon his face: his tongue, impossibly long, lolled outwards, and two bright black eyes—she rolled off the mat, kicking out, and stumbled half-risen from the bedroom. Tears and mucus dripped from her face, she couldn’t decide if she was clutching the blanket to herself or trying to throw it from her as though a snake, she banged into the table, fell to the floor, and crawled to the door. The knocking abated. “Help,” she cried. There was no response. And then came a series of urgent light raps. For several moments Sariah stared at the door and then, slowly rising, her fog beginning to dissipate, turned the lock. The door swung in as she fell to the floor, blanket underneath. “Help,” she whimpered again.
Strange noises, impossible to sort into words, issued from the small form that was lit from behind by the hallway’s light. Inside the apartment it was dark except for the dull repetitive flashing of the disco ball, set in the far corner. The landscape felt strange and unfamiliar to Sariah, like she had been made tiny and set in a mountain range of household objects. The person took a step forward, hesitating just past the doorway. Eventually some words became clear.
“Will…?” said Sariah, the blanket pulled around her shuddering form. “Do you know where Will is? I need him.” She didn’t hear the response, as, when she tried to rise, everything tiled to the right. She fell back down. The person took a few steps forward and, after a brief pause, knelt. Sariah reached out a hand and grasped her arm; the down was soft, and the stranger looked at the contact in confusion. For several moments, Sariah feared that this was a friend whose face had been wiped from her memory by drugs. This sparked recollections: the party, the bedroom, Will, lines of cocaine on the small mirror… the fractured images swam, circled, self-immolated, impossible to place in linear fashion.
“It’s my birthday,” said Sariah suddenly. “Are you here for my birthday?” She coughed, released her hold on Alice. “Another lousy year, huh?”
“I think so,” said Alice cautiously, retreating slightly. “Will said to come here. Are you alright? Sorry, what’s your name?”
Sariah hesitated, considered the questions; faint memories of Will and Mary. “No,” she said. “They all left me.” Tears returned to her eyes; her side began to ache viciously where it had hit the table. “They left me alone and I’m going to die here. I think I’m hurt.” Clutching her side, she glanced up to see the effect this was having on the stranger. It was only then that she noticed Alice herself appeared somewhat distraught—her eyes were red behind her thick black glasses, her face puffy. Sariah suddenly felt guilty. “Why are you crying?” she said, going up on one arm. “No don’t cry. I think I’ll be OK.” She even gave a weak, cautious smile.
Alice gave a soft, high laugh. “No, no I’m fine.” After one final hesitation she put a hand on Sariah’s arm and pulled the blanket over her. “Hey—do you want some help? Some water maybe?” Sariah nodded happily. “What a nice person,” thought Sariah as Alice found the kitchen. The sound of running water was comforting, like the banging of steam in the pipes, and she drifted back into a warm pleasant senselessness. When she came to Alice was crouched next to her, offering water. Sariah took the drink and held it unsteadily near her lips.
“You know Will?”
“Yeah,” said Alice. “He’s a friend of mine.”
“Can I tell you something?” asked Sariah. “You won’t tell?”
Alice nodded.
“I kind of like him a little bit, I think,” she said. And then her face crumpled. She had the sudden sense that a forgotten disaster had struck, that some horrible embarrassment had been enacted upon her. Maybe she had told Will she liked him? Had everyone left because of something she’d done? Dread rushed in to fill her pre-hangover blankness like the ocean into a tidal pool. “But I don’t think he likes me. None of them do; they left me here; I embarrassed myself. And I was so sad on my birthday. Another lousy year.”
“Well,” said Alice after a pause. “I hate birthdays, you know, so it’s OK.”
By now Sariah was beginning to get a better look at the stranger: her face was perfectly smooth—almost impossibly so—and even in spite of the puffy cheeks, the unbrushed hair, she was beautiful. Small black tattoos lined her arms, Sariah saw as Alice removed her jacket. She was so pretty; it wasn’t fair. “I’m a mess and they all hate me because of it. Ever since I broke up with Thomas and moved here it’s been so sad. And I’m getting older every year and it just gets worse. Soon no one will want me.” When Alice gave an amazed laugh in response to this last comment, Sariah turned away hurt. She was being humored, like the drunk she was.
“No, no hey—it’s ok. Just, how old are you?”
“Twenty-three,” replied Sariah reluctantly. “Wait what time is it… twenty-four. Fuck.”
“I’m thirty-one. I wouldn’t worry about it yet.”
Sariah took a second look and gasped: “You look so young! You’re so pretty! You’re not thirty-one.” And then a dim outline of a memory returned. Her head again grew heavy, flush—it seemed to her that she was teetering on the precipice of a deep abyss even as a series of powerful, tumbling waves threatened to send her over edge. And then a flash of lightning made itself known above the surging water. “Oh, you’re the one with Will, I’ve heard about you.” She moaned. “Now you’re going to tell him, and… fuck… fuck… I’m sorry.”
“I won’t tell him; but it’s ok, it doesn’t matter. I don’t think…” Alice trailed off, unsure of what to say. Her face had grown dark, Sariah saw when she peeked out from behind eyes shut tight in embarrassment. “We’re not dating anyway. Maybe you could be good for him.”
“No!” cried Sariah. “You can’t do that!”
“What?”
“You’re so pretty and he’s… he really likes you, I heard.” She recalled Will talking about his new flame the weekend before last. Around four in the morning, after quite a few drinks, he had confessed to harboring dreams not only of dating Alice, but of marrying her, having children with her. “Not that I want that,” he had said. “But you know, her age… and I… I think it could be something real, you know…” Sariah had found this immensely attractive, noble even. Now she rose halfway up and gripped Alice’s shoulders. “You can’t—he really likes you… he said…”
“Yeah?” said Alice curiously, her darkening thoughts seemingly interrupted.
“Well, don’t tell him I told you, but I think he’d really… do anything for you. Like… I think he would have kids with you, or something, you know?”
Alice let out a peal of laughter; Sariah joined in, happy for the relief. But laughter brought nausea. Sariah shuddered and gestured urgently towards the bathroom. Alice hauled her over, pushed open the door, and positioned her near the toilet. A series of emissions followed.
Now both of them were seated on the floor of the bathroom, Sariah draped over the toilet, wiping her face, and Alice leaning against the sink above. Sariah looked up, her stomach more or less at rest. “Do you want kids?” she asked abruptly.
“I don’t know,” said Alice quickly. After a moment she added: “I guess maybe if it works out, but it might not, which is fine.”
“But you’d be so good at it! If you want to you should have kids. I want kids I think.”
“Maybe. But it’s not that simple.”
“Why not? Because of…” Sariah paused, searching for the words. “Global warming?”
“Well, I don’t live near my parents, and I might be more willing if I lived near them. I could probably afford help, but, still…” Alice shifted uneasily, a faraway look on her face.
“What about your husband—Or partner, or whatever,” giggled Sariah in correction.
“I don’t know who that would be, and a lot depends on that, I guess. Or just the situation I’m in.” She paused and then added, “I have a dog now.”
“I like dogs.”
“But there’s also, I think as I’ve gotten older… you realize there’s a lot at stake in having a kid. I don’t know if I want all this—” she gestured around the small bathroom vaguely “—for someone who doesn’t have any choice.” She paused for a moment, and then, in a matter-of-fact voice: “I’m thinking about moving.”
“It’s pretty shit out there,” said Sariah grumpily. “Lousy year after lousy year.”
“Exactly,” said Alice with a tired smile. Then she sunk to the floor and shudders began to wrack her form. Sariah was confused when she saw the heavy flow of tears; she crawled the short distance between them and wrapped her arms around Alice. “It’s OK,” she said. “I’m OK; don’t cry. Everything will be OK.” Sariah patted her on the back and repeated that she was OK. “You’d be so good at being a mom. I bet you’re good at everything. Can I meet your dog?”
Sariah joined in on Alice’s tears without quite knowing why. Then came a loud noise from the living room. Hurriedly separating, wiping off tears, they made their way out. Will and Mary stood just inside the door, their torsos pressed half together, his left hand in her right pocket, an expression of commingled surprise, drunkenness, joy, alarm, shame, and defiance on Will’s face—and a bewildered one on Mary’s.
◆
The cold roof was made warm by drink. After climbing the four flights of stairs they had found Mark Reed, Charles Baikoff, and Winston F. with a bottle of Svedka, stumbling around in figure eight patterns as they exchanged repartee, now and then passing the bottle as if a partner in a dance. Will was disappointed they weren’t alone, Mary could tell as she joined the carousing. The grumpy way he sat off to the side at the rickety metal table; she understood the invitation. Did he think they were going to huddle in a corner and make out? It seemed to her that an impossible expanse of time existed between now and the next morning. It seemed to her that each pull from the bottle further expanded that time, struck a blow against the coming day. She wanted to tell this to him; to explain that he had nothing to worry about, that they could make out later, always later. But by the time he rose to join the revelry she had forgotten that thought.
Her illusion was cruelly cut short when Mark, Charles and Winston called a car to leave. A kind of betrayal, an abrogation of a shared, implicit promise. But her protests went ignored as the three clambered down the stairs, their loud review of the party (“7.8, just short of Best New Party”) echoing out from the roof door that stood always ajar, no doubt waking the neighbors. Leaning against Will she noticed the numbness of her hands, the beginnings of a shiver. It was time, she decided, to settle down for the night. She asked if he wanted to come over to her apartment. He squeezed her side in affirmation. They began to tramp down the stairs to recover Will’s phone, charging in the kitchen, and as they did so a warm anticipatory tingle grew in Mary’s chest, fanned by the regular collision of their hands and torsos.
“Do you have keys?” he asked as they approached the door.
“I think I left it unlocked? Shit. Maybe…” She felt Will’s hand in her pocket, rooting around, and laughed. To her relief the door swung open as she pushed. They stumbled in. “No keys needed bucko,” she said and gently pushed him away. He gazed down into her face, on the verge of leaning in for a kiss.
“What?” said Sariah.
The hand vanished from her pocket; the warm body withdrew. Will started talking before Mary had time to disambiguate the figures before her. The first thing he said was that, “Charles, Mark and Winston had just been upstairs—just leaving, I mean—and we came down…” Sariah was nodding along, a hazy but happy expression to her face, while the stranger next to her looked perplexed. Mary reached out towards Will, hoping to draw him back in. Why was he saying all this? It was time to go. But Will moved another step away and continued to speak with a nervous verve. A sinking feeling set in as Mary took a closer look at the stranger’s reddened, puffy eyes, belied by the broad smile that appeared now on her face. Quite abruptly one had the sense she was on the verge of laughter. She made small noises of agreement as Will spoke and amusedly flickered her eyes over Mary, who decided enough was enough. “Excuse me; who are you?” she said. Mary took ahold of Will’s arm as a faint shudder ran through his body.
Alice introduced herself as her grin continued to grow.
“Well, it’s lovely to meet you—but I think it’s time for…”
Will cut Mary off.
“When did you get here? I didn’t see anything from you; I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I had some stuff go down earlier, but I wanted to stop by. It’s alright; I’ve spent some good time with the birthday girl here.” She turned affectionately towards Sariah, who was beginning to sway on her feet, her eyelids sinking shut as though weighted down before jumping back up and the process repeating. Alice went a few steps over and supported her. “I think it’s time for her to get to bed though.”
“I put her to bed earlier,” said Mary. “When did she—when did you get up, Sariah?” Sariah muttered about bad dreams and let her head rest on Alice’s shoulder. Mary looked over at Will for help with a pleading, confused expression. Finally, after a long pause, Will gave a nod of decision. “Mary—do you want to help Sariah to bed?” he said, avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room. It wasn’t the best plan, he knew. It wasn’t even really a plan. Mary stiffened in response to his words and on her face (as Will could just perceive from the corner of his downcast gaze) blossomed a disbelieving glare. “She needs you,” he said quietly, guiltily. He swayed a bit in place and allowed his eyelids to droop shut as protection against that look.
With a sharp sigh Mary stormed over to where Sariah swayed, extricated her from Alice, and helped her back to the bedroom. Now Will and Alice stood alone about five paces apart, the disco-ball casting its uniform dapple over their faces. Will was caught between two warring forces of indignation. On the one hand, she was obviously about to dump him, not to mention she was the one who didn’t want to be “in a relationship,” so what right did she have to get angry at him now? On the other—well, she didn’t seem all that angry. And that was worse. Her attitude, he finally decided, was a kind of overcompensation: she was trying to prove she wasn’t angry so he wouldn’t suspect how much she cared for him. “So,” he said finally. “How are you?”
“I’m OK,” she said. Her grin softened a little. Will thought he could detect that look she sometimes gave him—that look he liked to pretend wasn’t pity. “You OK? You seem a little… snowed in.”
“Oh, you know—another night like the rest of them. A little bit too much to drink.” He hesitated, swayed again. “What are you doing here so late?”
“Oh, I was just in a bit of a mood earlier. Sorry for not getting back to you.”
“No worries…do you… want to get out of here then?”
Her eyebrows shot up, and she turned to look back where Mary was ministering to Sariah. “You sure you’re not busy?” she said with a smile. He grinned a little in response. Of course he would forgive her: she was wearing his pants.
He offered to come to her place; she accepted. They began to gather their things.
“Should you—are you going to tell your friend we’re leaving?”
Will hesitated as he struggled with his boots. “I guess I should?”
“Probably.”
Will turned back towards the living room just as Mary strode out of Sariah’s room. Her arms were crossed, her jaw was angled high. It was like the authorities had arrived to render their decision on some matter of grave local import. “Hey Will,” she said curtly, to which he nodded from his awkward bent position, frozen in place with one hand yanking at the pull loop on his right boot. “I’ve decided I need to stay here with Sariah. She needs someone to properly take care of her. Apologies and thanks for the fun night.” She nodded at Alice as well—“Thank you for taking care of her while we were upstairs, but she needs a friend to stay with her tonight. After all, it is her birthday.” And then she turned and re-entered the bedroom.
Alice and Will exchanged silent, mirthful looks, and burst into laughter as they made their way down the stairs. The car came in only two minutes. They bundled themselves into the back and Alice rested on Will’s shoulder and as they pulled down the silent Brooklyn streets he began to snore, now and then giving a sharp intake of breath. A feeling of peace came to her. Why bother to tell him? Of course, he would leap at the chance to comfort her, swear that he understood. But he wouldn’t. Wouldn’t understand why she’d been paralyzed for twelve hours after, clutching Fergus to her chest in bed. Wouldn’t understand the images on repeat, the tangled flesh on the pavement. No, it was better not to tell him. And besides, tomorrow she would cut things off. She extricated herself and examined his sleeping face. His breath syncopated to the periodic strobe of the streetlights outside. His jaw muscles tensed and untensed as he ground his teeth. Vague discomforts flickered across his brow.
Quietly, very quietly, she said, “I’m going to hurt you tomorrow,” and moved back over, settling into the declension where his shoulder met his chest. She would sleep the whole way home, unaware of the big soft wet flakes that had begun to fall over Brooklyn, turning to water as soon as they hit the ground and forming large puddles at the intersections but still, at least for the moment, enameling the limbs of the trees that lined Eastern Parkway. The year’s first snowfall descended, too, upon an deserted roof in Crown Heights, where an empty glass bottle of vodka, several discarded packs of American Spirits, a lidded bucket of what appeared to be urine (there since early summer) and Charles Baikoff’s wallet lay to receive this benediction. It drifted into the stairs through the door that had been listed open, and fell in a slow, diagonal fashion against the windows of the unusually tall brick building. It would snow all night.
On the sixth floor Sariah played big spoon to Mary, pressing her face into the cotton-clad back. There were no nightmares now, not with someone by her side. Just the warm press of the comforter, the softness of a body. Somewhere in the apartment a window was open and a cold draft brushed across her face as she lifted it to whisper, “Mary?”
“Yes, darling?”
“Tomorrow…”
“Yes?”
“I’m quitting drugs and drinking tomorrow.”
“That’s an excellent decision; you know I’ve been telling you to cut back.”
“You’re right. You’re always right.”
Sariah sighed, listening to the almost imperceptible taps of the snowfall.
“What?” asked Mary.
“Another lousy year, huh?”