Friends and Strangers - J. Courtney Sullivan Page 0,139

pushing the door into the kitchen, she expected to see Gaby there, to smile at her, to laugh. Each time, it was a shock to find her gone.

Several times each day, sitting in a lecture hall or feeding Gil his bottle, Sam cringed, thinking back to the letter she’d written, how George had told her to consult Maria and Delmi and Gaby, but instead she had just gone ahead and done it, so sure that she knew what the outcome would be. She had only succeeded in making things worse for them. And she had been a terrible friend to Gaby. Her regret was a heavy object pushing down on her chest, making it hard to breathe.

She went out of her way to avoid walking by President Washington’s house now. On the rare occasion when she had no choice but to do so, Sam had to look in the other direction. She kept thinking of the alumnae dinner she had agreed to work in a few weeks’ time. She couldn’t tell Maria that she no longer wanted to do it. Sam hoped that things would be different by then, though she couldn’t imagine how.

* * *

—

The second Sunday in March, at six o’clock in the evening, Sam knocked at the open door of Andrew and Elisabeth’s house.

In unison, they called, “Come in!”

She found them in the kitchen.

Elisabeth sat at one of the high-backed stools, a glass of red wine in her hand.

Andrew stood over a gleaming silver contraption on the counter. To the side of it was an open egg carton, a glass measuring cup, a bright yellow bag of semolina flour. The machine whirred. Long strands of dough flowed out through holes in the front. It reminded Sam of the Play-Doh Fun Factory she and her siblings used to fight over when they were kids.

“Sam!” Andrew said. “I got the old pasta maker out! Haven’t used it since the move, but tonight’s the night. We’re having fresh fettuccine. Hope you’re hungry!”

His tone was extra upbeat. He sounded like a mom in a television commercial.

“He’s acting weird because you caught us in the middle of an argument,” Elisabeth explained.

Andrew shook his head, rolled his eyes.

“What?” Elisabeth said. “It’s Sam. She knows everything about us. She could probably hear us arguing from outside.”

“I couldn’t,” Sam said.

She picked up the baby monitor and stuck out her lower lip at the sight of Gil in striped footie pajamas, sprawled on his back in the crib.

“I know,” Elisabeth said. “Don’t you want to eat him?”

“Wine, Sam?” Andrew asked.

“Sure, thanks. I can get it.”

“Sit,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

Elisabeth said, “It’s actually good news that brought on this disagreement we’re having. We should toast. Andrew got invited to a conference for inventors in Denver. Lots of investors go. It’s prestigious. Big deals are made there every year.”

“That’s great,” Sam said. “Congrats.”

They raised their glasses, clinked them together.

“I’m an alternate,” Andrew said. “They didn’t pick me first round, but I got the call today. Some guy who makes drum pants got meningitis, so there’s an opening.”

“What are drum pants?” Sam said.

Neither of them seemed to hear her. They were looking at each other, locked into a silent exchange she couldn’t read.

“Only trouble is, he has to leave tomorrow at the crack of dawn,” Elisabeth said. “He’s abandoning me for my last week of shots. No big deal, I’m only doing the shots for him.”

“Jesus,” Andrew said with an exasperated smile.

“Kidding,” Elisabeth said. “Sort of.”

Lately, they seemed to be getting along again, though since Elisabeth started the injections, she had been off-kilter, not quite herself. She felt tired and bloated and irritable. Andrew was acting extra attentive. He was often still home when Sam arrived to work in the morning, giving Gil breakfast, getting him dressed, so Elisabeth could sleep in. He read up on the best foods for her fertility and slipped them into whatever he was making for dinner. Elisabeth said he never mentioned he was doing this, but she could tell.

“Last night, as a starter, he served me a bowl of bone broth,” she had reported on Friday. “It tasted like shoes.”

Now Andrew said, “I don’t have to go.”

“Stop saying that. You’re going.”

“Okay, so it’s four more days of the regular shots and then the big one on the fifth day,” he said.

“The trigger,” Elisabeth said.

She looked at Sam. “They call it that because it feels like getting shot in the ass. I might be able to give myself the other ones,