The women were drinking peach schnapps, telling stories about the worst things they’d ever done. They had already skimmed through the missing years in haste, as though the past were gruesome, the two decades of lost friendship something untouchable and rotten. Maybe it was, Nic thought. Melodie had said she was a real-estate agent in San Luis Obispo, still playing the field. Her face was so artificially plumped and frozen that it resembled a Greek-chorus mask that had slid between genres and settled on tragicomedy. Sammie was overripe, a bruised apple. Five kids with Hank, she had said with a sigh, all seven of them packed into the little house her mother had left her, in the same little town where the women had all grown up. Birdie was dying, the reason they’d all been summoned. She had only her friends and her parents these days, because she had been a freelancer, working alone, and her boyfriend had taken off at the first diagnosis, stealing the cat. Only Nic was the same as she’d been when they’d last seen her, just a little more droopy and wrinkled now—a law professor, one kid, divorced, chunky jewelry, the whole shebang. In this room, she was hyperaware of how boring her life was, but also that she was the one who was clearly managing the best. A surprise; fortune favoring the brittle.
Snow hissed against the window. The hospital moved in its mechanical intricacy behind the door. The three old friends were perched near Birdie, who lay pale and skinny from the neck down, though her face was unreal in its puffiness, as if covered by a floppy creature sucking on the bones of her skull. Only those darting blue-black eyes were hers.
Melodie was now saying that the worst thing she had ever done was at an awful party she’d catered in the hills, just after some bigwig cornered her in the pantry and touched her under her skirt. I threw a bottle of olive oil at his head and burst out into the dining room, she said. And then I realized that I no longer had to take any of this shit, and that I was done trying to charm this room full of rich people, and for what? A nonspeaking part in a movie never released in theaters and a cruddy little efficiency with a rodent problem way out in Encino? No, thank you. So I stole a $20,000 mink out of the coatroom and took off. I don’t even feel bad, because I’m like, if you have $20,000 to park in a coatroom, you have $20,000 to throw away on me. And I still have it in my closet. I mean, it’s ugly as sin. But sometimes when I’m sad I get naked and wear it, fur side in, and I feel at peace with my life decisions for, like, a hot minute.
They laughed, and then Sammie said in a sort of fast whisper that her worst thing ever was terrible and they were all going to hate her if she said it. And when they said, No, no, Sammie, come on, she got tears in her eyes and admitted quaveringly that she’d had an abortion.
That’s your worst thing ever? Melodie said. Christ, Sammie, I’ve had two abortions and I feel great about them. We don’t need to let men spawn in our bodies.
I’ve had one too, Birdie said. A quarter of the women in this country have them. Abortion’s morally neutral, I think.
I’ve had three, said Nic, who hadn’t even had one, but solidarity seemed the right call in this scenario.
Always one-upping us, Nic, Melodie said with a smile that, on her frozen face, was all teeth.
A series of emotions passed over Sammie’s face, but she finally settled into a large, tight solemnity, and they could see her judging them from behind it. Then the women were all looking at Nic, so she took a swig of schnapps and steeled herself and said, The worst thing I ever did was, I guess, what happened that summer just after we graduated, right before we all left home. I was babysitting for a couple who lived out on the lake, about six miles north of town. They worked at the opera. He was a set designer and she did costumes.
She was about to go into the whole story—the delicious old winterized camp that was painted a green-black, and its crisp white modern interior, the husband and wife like sleek seals, the toddler she loved like her own child, who slept with his hands curled near his ears—when she saw the other three exchanging looks and repressing their smiles, and that old whip of their judgment snapped out of the darkness of time and stung her. Nic cried out, What? What?
Oh my God, Melodie said. We were right. We totally knew it. We totally knew you were having an affair with the little boy’s father.
That’s actually why we stopped talking to you, Sammie said. We were so mad at you! You sexy little home-wrecker! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Birdie put her swollen, dry hand on Nic’s and said, I am sorry about the way we treated you. You were just a kid, not even 18. And we were so cruel to you that summer. We’re so sorry.
You were cruel to me? Nic said. I had no idea. I just thought we were all busy that summer and couldn’t hang out.
There was a long pause before Melodie said, Well, I mean, we three hung out. We just never called you. You were kind of persona non grata. We called you Nick-hole.
Yikes, Nic said. Wow.
I mean, in our defense, kids are pretty morally rigid, you know? Sammie said. I mean, it wasn’t right, what you did, or anything, but we definitely should have been nicer to you or, like, made some kind of attempt to understand or whatever. I mean, my oldest is only a few years away from that age, and I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure she’s having sex? Probably not with married men, but who knows anymore? She doesn’t tell me anything, and all these kids have this whole separate life online nowadays. Oh God! she cried, and looked off into the distance, blinking.
Nic tried to remember feeling left out and lonely that summer, but all that returned to her now was a kind of fullness, a warmth and smoothness and a sharpening of all the beauty that had surrounded her until the pressure inside her became so intense, she could hardly recognize anything beyond the confines of her own body. That summer still dazzled her with its light. She hadn’t even noticed her friends ignoring her; she had been too happy within herself.
Snow hissed against the window. The hospital moved in its mechanical intricacy behind the door. The three old friends were perched near Birdie, who lay pale and skinny from the neck down, though her face was unreal in its puffiness, as if covered by a floppy creature sucking on the bones of her skull. Only those darting blue-black eyes were hers.
Melodie was now saying that the worst thing she had ever done was at an awful party she’d catered in the hills, just after some bigwig cornered her in the pantry and touched her under her skirt. I threw a bottle of olive oil at his head and burst out into the dining room, she said. And then I realized that I no longer had to take any of this shit, and that I was done trying to charm this room full of rich people, and for what? A nonspeaking part in a movie never released in theaters and a cruddy little efficiency with a rodent problem way out in Encino? No, thank you. So I stole a $20,000 mink out of the coatroom and took off. I don’t even feel bad, because I’m like, if you have $20,000 to park in a coatroom, you have $20,000 to throw away on me. And I still have it in my closet. I mean, it’s ugly as sin. But sometimes when I’m sad I get naked and wear it, fur side in, and I feel at peace with my life decisions for, like, a hot minute.They laughed, and then Sammie said in a sort of fast whisper that her worst thing ever was terrible and they were all going to hate her if she said it. And when they said, No, no, Sammie, come on, she got tears in her eyes and admitted quaveringly that she’d had an abortion.
That’s your worst thing ever? Melodie said. Christ, Sammie, I’ve had two abortions and I feel great about them. We don’t need to let men spawn in our bodies.
I’ve had one too, Birdie said. A quarter of the women in this country have them. Abortion’s morally neutral, I think.
I’ve had three, said Nic, who hadn’t even had one, but solidarity seemed the right call in this scenario.
Always one-upping us, Nic, Melodie said with a smile that, on her frozen face, was all teeth.
A series of emotions passed over Sammie’s face, but she finally settled into a large, tight solemnity, and they could see her judging them from behind it. Then the women were all looking at Nic, so she took a swig of schnapps and steeled herself and said, The worst thing I ever did was, I guess, what happened that summer just after we graduated, right before we all left home. I was babysitting for a couple who lived out on the lake, about six miles north of town. They worked at the opera. He was a set designer and she did costumes.
She was about to go into the whole story—the delicious old winterized camp that was painted a green-black, and its crisp white modern interior, the husband and wife like sleek seals, the toddler she loved like her own child, who slept with his hands curled near his ears—when she saw the other three exchanging looks and repressing their smiles, and that old whip of their judgment snapped out of the darkness of time and stung her. Nic cried out, What? What?
Oh my God, Melodie said. We were right. We totally knew it. We totally knew you were having an affair with the little boy’s father.
That’s actually why we stopped talking to you, Sammie said. We were so mad at you! You sexy little home-wrecker! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Birdie put her swollen, dry hand on Nic’s and said, I am sorry about the way we treated you. You were just a kid, not even 18. And we were so cruel to you that summer. We’re so sorry.
You were cruel to me? Nic said. I had no idea. I just thought we were all busy that summer and couldn’t hang out.
There was a long pause before Melodie said, Well, I mean, we three hung out. We just never called you. You were kind of persona non grata. We called you Nick-hole.
Yikes, Nic said. Wow.
I mean, in our defense, kids are pretty morally rigid, you know? Sammie said. I mean, it wasn’t right, what you did, or anything, but we definitely should have been nicer to you or, like, made some kind of attempt to understand or whatever. I mean, my oldest is only a few years away from that age, and I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure she’s having sex? Probably not with married men, but who knows anymore? She doesn’t tell me anything, and all these kids have this whole separate life online nowadays. Oh God! she cried, and looked off into the distance, blinking.
Nic tried to remember feeling left out and lonely that summer, but all that returned to her now was a kind of fullness, a warmth and smoothness and a sharpening of all the beauty that had surrounded her until the pressure inside her became so intense, she could hardly recognize anything beyond the confines of her own body. That summer still dazzled her with its light. She hadn’t even noticed her friends ignoring her; she had been too happy within herself.
by Lauren Groff, The Atlantic | Read more:
Image: The Atlantic
[ed. See also: Let’s All Read More Fiction (The Atlantic).]
