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Yes, she could pick. The worst was “Jones.”
“I would have invited you, but you wouldn’t have come.”
“That’s true.”
“And you are … staying home and watching a movie with Drew.”
“Yes.” Sometimes Carmen made it easy for her.
“That’s just sad.”
But never that easy.
“No, it’s not sad. It’s what I like to do. Anyway, we can’t all be rich and glamorous.”
“Len, I’m not demanding glamour. You’re just not allowed to be that boring.”
Lena laughed. “Hey, did you do the kissing scene yet with the renegade cop?”
“No, that’s Friday. He has terrible breath.” Carmen’s voice was swallowed by what Lena guessed was a bus plowing by.
“Can you come to New York next weekend?” Carmen’s voice was asking when it came back.
“So you and Effie can take turns biting at my flesh until I’m dead?”
“Oh, please. Len. It wasn’t that bad last time.”
“How about the drunk DA who asked if he could give me a sponge bath?”
“Okay. I promise I won’t drag you to any dinner parties or introduce you to any men this time.”
“Anyway, I can’t. I’m teaching Saturday morning and I’ve got a painting to finish.” Lena was genuinely looking forward to a quiet weekend in the studio.
“You haven’t been here since Labor Day. You used to come all the time. What happened?”
What happened? That was a good question. And it wasn’t just the slobbering DA to blame. She’d gone all the time when Bee, Carmen, and Tibby all lived in a pile on Avenue C. She had gone every weekend. But that was a long time ago—more than three and a half years ago. Before they’d lost the lease, before Tibby had moved in with Brian and subsequently moved to the other side of the world, before Bee had moved to California, before Carmen had gotten semi-famous and taken up with the infernal Jones. Before her little sister, Effie, had moved to New York in a blur of open bars, pedicures, and sample sales, chewing up Manhattan from one end to the other. New York felt different now.
“I won’t make you do anything,” Carmen promised. “You don’t have to buy, wear, or say anything. I can’t speak for Effie, star journalist, but I will leave you to wander around the Met for two days if that’s what you want. Anyway, Jones is gonna be out of town.”
That made it slightly more tempting.
“You’ll let me know,” Carmen said, stealing the words from her mouth.
Lena thought of something. “Hey, Carma?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Did Tibby text you about something coming in the mail?”
Carmen must have ducked into a store or a lobby, because it was suddenly quiet. “Yes. Weird, huh. You didn’t get anything yet, did you?”
“No.” Lena hadn’t checked her mail slot yet today. She made a note to do that, with some combination of excitement and speculative concern. They heard from Tibby little enough that they circulated the news quickly when they did.
“Nothing good ever comes in the mail,” Carmen opined.
Carmen was so attached to her iPhone she might have had it sewn into her skin if iSurgery were offered at the Apple store. She didn’t trust information that came any other way. But Lena liked the mail. She was talented at waiting.
Carmen’s phone started beeping. It always did that eventually. “My manager,” Carmen said. Her voice was once again immersed in street noise. “Talk to you. Love you.”
“Bye.”
Lena had less than ten minutes of peace before her phone rang again. This time it was her mother from the car. She could always tell that particular connection.
“Hi, sweet. Just checking in.”
“Okay.” At least her voice was broken in now.
“How are things?” Her mom sounded relaxed, which meant she probably hadn’t talked to Effie yet. She usually called her two daughters in a row, and Lena and Effie agreed, it was always better to get the first call. Her mom was a worrier. After she talked to Effie, she was tight with concern about all the parties and the credit card debt and the crazy goings-on. After she talked to Lena, she was tight with concern about the absence of parties and credit card debt and crazy goings-on. Lena insisted that her mom worried about Effie more, but Effie insisted that no, it was definitely Lena.
“She’ll die in her bed alone or with cats” was Effie’s cheerful summary when anyone asked about Lena. But then, Effie’s idea of a quiet night was getting home from the clubs at three instead of five.
“How’d you sleep?”
Her mom always asked that, however near or far from sleep Lena might have been. “Fine.” That was how she always answered, however well or unwell she’d slept.
“Did you have lunch?”
Lena glanced up at the clock. Should she have? “Yes.”
“What did you eat?”
“Mom. Why do you need to know that?” It was as though her mother believed if she stopped asking, Lena would stop eating. If she stopped calling, Lena would stop talking. If she stopped bothering her, Lena would cease to be. It wasn’t enough she had given Lena life at the beginning. Her mom seemed to feel the need to do it every day.
“I don’t. I was just asking.”
She loved her mother and depended on her mother, and yet every single word her mother said annoyed her.
“A turkey sandwich. How’s Dad?”
“Fine. I talked to Ariadne about the painting. She says forty by forty-eight would work, but do you have anything with more blue?”
“With more blue?”
“She’s redecorating. She bought a new couch.”
“Seriously, Mom. More blue?”
“I’m just passing along what she said.”
“I don’t have any other landscapes that size. I have figures, but they aren’t blue.”
“Lena, don’t sound mad. She wants to support you.”
Lena knew that. And she could have used the sale. If she didn’t want her mom pimping her paintings to suburban friends with blue sofas, she’d have to submit to showing her paintings in the normal way. Two times she’d been given spots in group shows, once in Providence and once in Boston. Both times she’d sold her paintings and gotten unambiguously positive write-ups in the local press, and both times she’d gotten an outbreak of cold sores so bad she could barely eat for days. When the dealer called to read her the review in the Herald, her feet sweated straight through her socks. Even good things could be traumas to her.
“Well, who knows. Maybe the muse will come.” Her mom wanted to wrap it up without an argument. Lena heard her turn off the car.
“The muse doesn’t get to pick the color.”
“I’ve got to go, darling. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Lena hung up and glared at her feet. The next time the phone rang, she wouldn’t answer. She would let it ring itself out. She would be like Bee and lose her phone, maybe even stop paying the bills until the phone company turned off her service. Then she could enjoy a little quiet and not have to invent turkey sandwiches or defend her way of being.
But the phone began to ring less than an hour later and she didn’t let it go. What if it’s Tibby? She knew it wasn’t, but she couldn’t suppress the thought. When was the last time Tibby had called her? When was the last time Tibby had even responded to an email? But she thought of Tibby’s recent text and she couldn’t let the phone go past the second ring, even though it was obviously not Tibby, but rather Effie, or possibly Carmen telling her what movie she should rent tonight.
In some way she didn’t like to admit, Lena was always waiting for a call. Not from the people who were always calling, but from the ones who never did.
“Bridget, what are you doing?”
Bridget looked up. Eric was mostly blotted out by the setting sun as he strode up the walk, pulling his tie loose and his collar apart as he always did in the final stretch of his way home from work.
S
he stood and kissed him on the lips. “We don’t really need this anymore.”
“That’s my nightstand.”
“You can just pile the books on the floor, can’t you?”
