Friends and Strangers - J. Courtney Sullivan Page 0,123

to do it, to try.

They passed the Times building and she looked up at the newsroom, staring for a minute as if her former self might come to the window and wave.

Elisabeth quickened her pace. She didn’t want to run into anyone she knew.

“Doesn’t it feel weird to be here as just another tourist?” she said.

“Yes,” Andrew said. “I love it.”

All through the show, she wondered what Sam and Clive were up to. She hoped it went without saying that she didn’t want them to leave the hotel and go traipsing around Times Square with her baby.

Afterward, they took a cab downtown for dinner at the Little Owl, their old favorite. It was early. They had the place to themselves. They talked about the play, and what to order.

The waitress brought them a bottle of wine.

They clinked their glasses together.

Elisabeth took a sip. “That’s good,” she said.

Andrew tried his, and nodded in agreement.

“Do you know, I think Clive believes Sam is going to marry him,” Elisabeth said.

She thought she saw a twinge of exasperation on her husband’s face, but she kept going.

“If he gets his way, he’ll whisk her off to England and she’ll never get a job in the galleries.”

“If they get married and she’s a UK citizen, then who knows?” he said. “She could get a gallery job in London.”

“You heard him! If they get married she’ll be barefoot and pregnant, making jam in the Cotswolds in a year.”

“You don’t even know what the Cotswolds are,” Andrew said.

“He talked her out of graduating Phi Beta Kapa,” she said. “So that he could hang out with her more this semester. That’s not what someone does when they have your best interest at heart.”

She had tried to change Sam’s mind, and Sam had said, What’s the point? So I can get bragging rights for one day when they call out my name at graduation?

Elisabeth knew that was Clive talking. She should have said as much. She should have been more forceful.

“Sam doesn’t know enough to know what a loser he is,” she said now. “She’s impressed by him because she’s a child, basically. Anyone old enough to rent a car seems mature to her. He’s taking advantage of her youth.”

“Seems like he’s crazy about her to me,” Andrew said.

“Seriously? That’s your takeaway?”

“Okay, fine, it’s a slightly creepy dynamic. But I don’t have to date the guy. What do I care? There must be something she sees in him.”

“Yeah, he’s hot.”

“He is?”

“He’s not my cup of tea. But objectively speaking, yes. He has that sleazy-hot thing going.”

“Sleazy hot.”

“And they have tons of hot sex.”

“She told you that?”

“Not in so many words, but can’t you tell from looking at them? But what does he want with her? If he wants to be married so bad, there are thousands of attractive, lonely thirty-five-year-olds in London he could call.”

“Is that so?”

“I’m assuming. But anyone age appropriate would be too smart to get involved with a guy like him, you see?”

“You really hate his guts,” Andrew said.

“I love Sam. I want the best for her.”

“Do you think she’s smart?”

“Yes. Why would you even ask that?”

“If she’s smart, she’ll figure out what’s right on her own.”

Elisabeth considered this.

“Once Sam described to me this big wedding she wants to have,” she said. “It was all very childish, the kind of thing a little girl would come up with. I should have seen it then. She’s caught up in a fantasy.”

Andrew shrugged.

“But that’s not like her, is it?” she said.

When he didn’t answer, she said, “Your father thinks he’s a weirdo, too. He said as much over the phone after he picked Clive up at the airport. He also said he thinks the whole going to London after graduation thing is a way of avoiding reality. Getting a job, facing rejection, all that.”

“If George thinks it, then it must be true,” he said.

“Yes. We have to find a way to get her away from him.”

“I was kidding,” Andrew said. “Can we talk about something else please? I sense you going over to the dark side.”

He was right. Here she was, out with her husband, in the place she’d been longing to be for months, and she couldn’t let herself enjoy it. She was fixated on her babysitter’s love life instead.

Living in the city, you could easily blame it for your unhappiness—there was always a train delay or an angry stranger to accuse of ruining your day. One of the riskiest parts of leaving was that you