Trust Exercise(68)

In Sarah’s story, Karen and Sarah barely know each other. Sarah winds up in Karen’s car, Karen’s home, and even Karen’s mother’s bed essentially by accident. In the ethics of friendship this means that she owes Karen nothing, because they’re not friends; but in reality, as already revealed, this wasn’t the case. They were friends. Sarah was the best friend Karen ever had, while Karen was, at the time, the only friend Sarah had with a car, not to suggest this was Sarah’s reason for maintaining the friendship. In Sarah’s story Karen resents Sarah’s involvement with Liam, regarding it as an intrusion. There is likely some psychological truth to this. Girls are complicated. They rarely love each other without also hating each other. They often react to differences of situation with envy even if the difference, the thing their girlfriend has that they don’t, is a thing they never wanted in the first place. When Sarah began dating Liam—the way it really happened being so much simpler and more inevitable than the way it unfolds in Sarah’s story, because Sarah and Karen were always together, and Martin and Liam were always together, so that Sarah was almost obligated to get together with Liam once Karen was together with Martin—Karen did suffer a pang. Liam was, at a glance, better looking than Martin. And Sarah always had some intrigue or several, while Karen never had any. But the pang was fleeting. First of all, Liam was not so good-looking as Sarah’s story suggests. It’s true he had nice eyes and interesting bone structure. But his teeth were bad, as all their teeth were bad, and his Adam’s apple stuck out too much. As depicted in fiction he had a very weird vibe. In the matter of Liam’s weird vibe please refer back to Sarah. On this point she’s flawless, unsparing, she practically admits that Liam was a rebound/placeholder because her more prestigious/precocious intrigues had collapsed. So Karen suffered a pang, because she’d enjoyed, briefly, being the one with intrigue, but the pang didn’t just pass, it was wiped out, erased, by the greater pleasure of this best-girlfriends-double-dating situation. Not just willingly but happily did Karen drive herself and Martin, Sarah and Liam, around in her car. Not just willingly but happily did Karen, with Martin, watch Sarah, with Liam, saunter off into the topiary shadows of the corporate park.

As they drive home their last night from the corporate park Karen’s outfit is ruined by grass stains and her vision is blinded by tears. In the morning, without the originally planned school assembly featuring the principal you’ve met as Mrs. Laytner thanking them for “sharing their art across oceans,” the English People will finally leave. Mr. Kingsley will put them into three taxicabs and send them off to the airport without so much as a wave, though he might produce his tight-lipped, white-lipped smile. Parked outside Mr. Kingsley’s house on this departure eve, Martin hugs Karen’s head in his arms and strokes her hair with his nicotine-stained fingertips and says, “Oh, my sweet girl.” This romantic comment remains a landmark of Karen’s sexual life. The next day Karen and Sarah, conscious of their tragedy, skip school. Instead they go to a US passport office downtown. Because they are sixteen years old, “parental awareness” of their passport applications is “required” but incredibly easy to fake, far easier than faking the credentials for buying a beer. What a strange, neither-here-nor-there position for the government to take. Karen’s mother isn’t just aware of Karen’s plans, she’s ecstatic. She almost ruins it for Karen with her excitement. Sarah’s mother is the opposite of ecstatic but we’ve mentioned this already. Sarah pays for her own ticket, Karen’s mother helps Karen with hers, warning her to keep this escapade a secret from her father. Departure is six weeks away, as soon as the school year ends. In that time Sarah receives letters from Liam almost every other day. The letters are enthusiastic and stupid, like the letters of a dog. They sprawl across pages and pages, detailing such events as a car driving into a hedge and the driver having to climb out the back door because the front door was stuck on a branch. When not detailing such incidents the letters natter on about how pretty Sarah is and how much Liam is dying for their reunion. With each new letter Karen can see Sarah’s interest in Liam declining further. Even Karen, who initially scoured the letters for mentions of Martin, can’t bear to skim them anymore. Meanwhile Karen receives very occasional, jocular postcards from Martin that don’t seem to track with her letters to him although it’s clear he’s received them. “Hi there, Karen! Thanks for the tape. Super mix. How’s everybody in the US of A?”

In the days leading up to their flight, Sarah lives with Karen. She says her mother’s kicked her out, although Karen doubts it. Given Sarah’s mother’s disability it’s easier for Karen to believe that Sarah simply walked away. Sarah’s mother calls the house constantly, Elli pulls the phone into her bedroom and closes the door but Karen doesn’t need to hear to know what’s being said. Elli is playing the fellow adult, commiserating with Sarah’s mother about how stubborn girls are, promising Sarah’s mother she’ll bring Sarah around. As soon as Elli hangs up the phone she forgets all about Sarah’s mother until the next time the phone rings. All Elli cares about is helping them pack. She calls in sick to her receptionist job at a realtor’s office to take them shopping for the things they still need. One good scarf: they should both have one really pretty silk scarf to tie their hair back or to tie around their necks. Karen has never in her life worn a pretty silk scarf. And one cute light jacket, because it gets cold there, it’s not like here, remember when the English People brought all the wrong clothes? By one cute light jacket Elli doesn’t mean Karen’s ratty jean jacket, she means something like Sarah’s man’s blazer with the maroon silk lining that shows when you roll up the sleeves. Sarah has a vintage style that Elli adores; for hours Sarah and Elli try on Sarah’s clothes, put together different outfits, weigh the advantages of one item over another, the blazer, the old-man cardigan, the plaid kilt, the funky khakis from the Army Navy store. Just one suitcase, girls: sophisticated travelers travel light. Elli has never been out of the country. It’s possible she’s never traveled on a plane. Karen doesn’t know where Elli’s gotten these rules about silk scarves and traveling light. Karen herself has never been on a plane. Right after her parents first got divorced, Sarah flew to see her father a few times before he disappeared for good. “All by yourself?” Elli cries.