Cackle(21)

“I’m useless,” I say as she begins to stir them with sugar and the juice of two lemons. “You’re doing everything.”

“You’re good company, Annie. I’m enjoying your company.”

It’s such a nice thing to have your presence acknowledged as something of value. For a moment, everything glitters.

“What is it?” she asks. “Something on your mind?”

“I was just thinking that this is nice,” I say. “You’re fun.”

“Really?” she asks, smiling like I just named her Miss America.

“Yeah,” I say. “Why are you so surprised? You’re a very chic and fun person.”

“I don’t know,” she says, bashful. “Some people find me . . . I don’t know. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea.”

I lift my literal cup of tea to her. We’re drinking rose-and-pear tea, a blend she made herself. It’s delicious. “You’re my cup of tea.”

“And you’re mine,” she says.

She lifts hers. We pretend to clink. The cups are too delicate to risk the damage of an actual clink. Fine bone china adorned with flowers.

Is this how it happens? Is this how you make friends as an adult? You stumble upon someone wonderful, and all of a sudden, you’re close?

“I’m sure your friends in the city miss you,” she says, examining the blackberry filling.

“Most of my friends left the city a long time ago. They got married and bought houses and had cute babies they send me pictures of. You know that newborn pose,” I say. I clasp my hands together and put them to one side of my face, hunch over the counter to demonstrate.

“They can’t do much else, you know,” she says. “They’re limp as noodles. And so loud. Tiny, toothless beasts.”

“I take it you don’t have children?” She samples a small spoonful of the filling. She considers the taste.

“No. I’ve never had the desire. I suppose it’s made me a pariah, especially in my youth. It was expected, and I shunned the expectation. They say things are better now, that society is more accepting if you don’t want to become a mother. I’m not sure if I find that to be true. Either you want babies or, if you don’t, you must want to eat them.”

When I don’t say anything, she looks up at me and says, “Never mind me. I’m being dramatic. Bitter, I suppose.”

“No,” I say. “You have a point. And I think once you have kids, it’s such a different life. Maybe it’s hard to stay friends with someone who doesn’t, because they can’t relate. I don’t know.”

It’s easier to think that I lost touch with my friends because they got married and moved away and procreated, but I’m not sure it’s the truth. I remember the complaints when Sam and I first got together. We never see you anymore! We miss you! Come out! Let’s have brunch! I didn’t want to. I was too in love. I wanted to spend every spare minute with him. Gallivanting through the grocery store, taking day trips to the Bronx Zoo, to the Brooklyn Museum, having wild new-relationship sex.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my friends cornered me in the bathroom to accuse me of ditching them for my new boyfriend, Josiah. He was my first serious boyfriend, and I was obsessed with him. I remember crying and telling my friends that I was sorry, that I’d be better about making time for them. I promised that I would sit with them at lunch again, go to the movies on weekends. But after they confronted me like that, I really didn’t want to. It was mean. So I continued to spend all of my time with Josiah. And after he and I broke up, I started dating Drew. Then Sean, then Griffin and, after a brief intermission, Sam.

I’ve been accused of being the type of girl who always needs a boyfriend. A “relationship girl.” It never bothered me until now, because this lost-at-sea feeling proves the cruel hypothesis.

“I like children,” Sophie says, creating a pretty lattice pattern with strips of dough. “Some of them, anyway. And I don’t judge anyone for wanting to have them.”

“No, I didn’t think that.”

“Good,” she says. “Shall I stick this pie in the oven, then?”

“You mean that oven big enough to fit a few small children?”

She laughs. “Oh, Annie, you’re wicked.”

“Maybe,” I say.

“This will go in for about an hour,” she says. “I feel like I’ve gobbled up your whole day. You’re welcome to stay, of course, darling, but I thought I would give you an out.”

“I don’t have other plans, but I don’t want to put you out,” I say.

“Annie,” she says, “that was just a courtesy. I’ve actually kidnapped you and you don’t know it yet.”

“Damn,” I say. “I’m locked in a castle and being fed pie. Please, someone help!”

“I am known for my viciousness. Come, let’s venture somewhere else. Do you like to read? I’ll show you the library.”

She takes my hand and leads me back through the mirror hallway and into the foyer. We go through a different archway, down a flight of stairs and then up another flight of stairs to the library.

Oak paneling, coffered ceilings, bronze accents. Everything about the room is rich and dark, steeped in tawny light. There’s a marble fireplace that reaches all the way to the ceiling, carved with such incredible detail that I have to fight the urge to rush over and touch it, to run my fingers along each individual swirl, every last groove.