names deliberately as a drumbeat, watching for a reaction between each. I thought I saw one after Alex, a tiny pulse around her eyes, but I couldn’t be sure.
“So you were a later friend. I thought for a second you were one of her earlier roommates. In Calhoun Lofts, right?”
“Right. Calhoun.” I wasn’t keeping up, wasn’t saying the right things.
“I see.” She watched me scuff my shoes across the welcome mat, and, feeling childish, I bent and started to unlace them.
“Lindsay,” she repeated. “I do remember you. Edie liked you.”
Liked to control me, maybe. “Well, you know how wonderful she was. Thanks for letting me step inside for a second.” I lined my shoes up by the door. “I’ve been thinking about her a ton, and honestly, just seeing your face—seeing the resemblance, it helps. I know that sounds crazy.” I looked down at my hands. Suddenly I was twenty-three and obsequious to grown-ups again.
When I looked up, Mrs. Iredale was giving a tired but real smile. “Thanks for saying that.”
“She was just magnetic. From the very first time I met her, I remember being captivated by her. So much wit and sparkle and life.”
Mrs. Iredale was one of those people who stares blankly as you speak, waiting until the end to react. It creeped me out and tripped up my speech—like when you’re on the phone and hear your voice echoing back.
“How did you know her again?” she asked.
“I met her back in…let’s see, 2008. Through Sarah, actually, whom I knew from working in magazines.”
She looked around. “Would you like to sit down? I think I left the coffee on.”
“Sure.” I followed her into the kitchen. “So as I was saying, Sarah and I met randomly and, you know, quickly became friends.” She held up a carton of half-and-half and I nodded. Then she frowned like I’d made the wrong choice. “So Sarah had me over to their apartment one night. That was back when they lived with those other girls.”
“I liked them,” she interrupted, leading me into the living room. “We had them over for dinner a few times.”
So she’d clearly liked the old roommates better than the SAKE ones. Had she not approved of Edie moving in with Alex so quickly?
“Well, Edie and I just really hit it off. And we became friends and hung out all the time at my apartment near Calhoun or, you know, at their place. It was…it was such a good era, having that really close-knit little group of friends.”
Mrs. Iredale perched on a love seat and blinked at me, both hands wrapped around her mug. Her tempo unnerved me, the random things she would and wouldn’t respond to.
“Robert and I didn’t really get a chance to know that group,” she said finally.
“Well, we all became friends right after we graduated from college,” I said. “The rest of us had just moved to New York. Maybe Edie just wanted that…that sort of faux independence you think you’ve got when you’re in your twenties. I remember feeling so grown up.”
Mrs. Iredale cocked her head. “Looking back on it, I feel bad for you guys,” she said unexpectedly. “I mean, not you in particular. Your generation. Promised everything and then, you know. Toppling off a cliff.”
“You mean…?”
“The recession. Obviously it hit those of us with mortgages and retirement accounts harder. But…Edie graduated in May 2008, poor thing.” She made a gesture, her fingers winging upward, and I felt the hairs rise on my arms: exactly the same motion Edie made. I hadn’t seen it in ten years.
“You know, I think that’s the reason a lot of people back then—my age—would take on this really affected air, just this blanket disapproval of everything,” I said. “Like ‘Oh, this band sucks, and that book sucks, and mainstream society is lame, and capitalism is a joke.’ If you refuse to align yourself with anything, you don’t give anything any power.”
“Interesting.” From her terrible posture, she lowered her head and took a sip of coffee. “Edie was like you. Always quick to cobble together a narrative and fit everything into the bigger picture. When she was small, she’d make little books that told the story of her day before.” She laughed, a rich, musical sound. “Eventually they just kept showing her making her book about the day before. They got pretty boring. But she loved it, her little record-keeping. And then the second she could write, she was filling up diaries as fast as we could