Eliza Starts a Rumor(44)

“If by protein you mean tequila, then yes.” She followed Eliza to the kitchen while asking, “How do you know that Mr. Barr is divorced?”

“Do you not remember how small a town this is?”

Amanda stared out the kitchen window and focused on the willow tree where they had once stashed their first bottle of alcohol—a Concord grape Manischewitz that Eliza had swiped from her grandma’s Passover Seder.

“I do. This whole day is making me feel like I’ve stepped into a time warp.” She shook her head. “And Mr. Barr still looks amazing. I can’t believe it.”

“Why can’t you believe it? You still look amazing.”

She cozied up to the counter like it was her neighborhood barstool to watch the sensation that was Eliza in the kitchen. Always prepared, she pulled limeade and pineapple juice concentrate from her freezer as if tomorrow were Cinco de Mayo and began the show.

“Please, Eliza. When you look at me, you still see an eighteen-year-old.”

“What do you see when you look at me?” Eliza asked, not really wanting to hear the answer. She threw an extra shot of tequila in the blender.

“An eighteen-year-old.”

“You do know that I have mirrors in this house, right?”

“Ha, ha. You’re beautiful, Eliza.”

“It is hard to believe that we’re middle-aged.”

“We are not middle-aged!” Mandy protested.

“Do the math, honey. I don’t know how long you’re planning on living, but I am most definitely middle-aged.”

Mandy wasn’t buying it.

“Age is just a number.”

“A statement probably attributable to an underage kid trying to get into a bar.”

Mandy chuckled. “I guess it doesn’t matter how old Mr. Barr is, then. Not that I have any intention of going down that road.”

“Mr. Barr was probably just a few years out of college when he started at Hudson Valley. I bet he’s around Carson’s age.”

“Don’t say Carson.”

Eliza laughed.

“You really are handling this all so well, Mandy. You hardly even bring it up.”

“Please. I’m not handling it at all. I ignore it—though it’s hard. Another woman came forward yesterday followed by another denial by Carson. With each one I feel further implicated for my silence. And confused. If you don’t come forward, you’re weak; if you do, you’re doubted.”

Eliza understood that. She stood in awe of other women’s bravery and felt wrecked when watching them get shot down. The doubt surrounding so many brave women from the mattress girl at Columbia University to Christine Blasey Ford at the Kavanaugh hearings ran though her mind.

Amanda must have been thinking similarly. “And even with all this talk, it feels like nothing ever really changes. Remember how we obsessively watched the Anita Hill testimony during senior year?”

Eliza remembered every second of it. It was during her first bout with agoraphobia. She was glued to the TV. She had no desire to discuss any of this.

“Not really—so long ago,” she lied.

“Really? I’m surprised. You cried the whole time. It’s all so upsetting. Thank God for Lexapro!”

She looked Eliza in the eyes, knowing she had taken an indirect path toward the topic that had been on her mind since their first heart-to-heart.

“And speaking of antidepressants, Eliza, maybe—”

Eliza turned on the blender, purposefully drowning out the obvious conclusion to Mandy’s sentence: “maybe you should see a psychiatrist.” She recognized that her problem did not seem to be going away, as it had back in high school. It really was time for professional help, but that would mean telling Luke and probably the kids. She wasn’t ready for that. She dipped two glasses in salt, popped in two paper umbrellas for the full effect, and poured each of them a drink.

“Cheers,” she said, not meaning it. They toasted and she took a sip for courage.

“I know it’s time to tell Luke, but I don’t want any of them to see me as broken. I’ve always been the one my family could depend on. They think I’m perfect, that I do everything perfectly. Look at this margarita, for God’s sake. It’s like I work at El Pollo Loco, not that I am el pollo loco!”

Mandy held it up for inspection. “It is a beautiful margarita.” Mandy kept it raised for her toast. “To us two crazy chickens!”

As they clinked glasses, neither knew whether to laugh or cry. Mandy took a big sip of her drink and asked, “You know how much I love you, right?”

“Is that the tequila talking, or are you talking to the tequila?”

Mandy laughed, harder than she had in a long time.

“No one in LA makes me laugh like you do.” She reached out her hand and put it on Eliza’s. “We’ll figure this out, Eliza.”

“We’ll figure out your stuff, too,” Eliza agreed.

“Please, I can’t even figure out if I should call the drama teacher Dean or Mr. Barr.”

“His name was Dean? That’s funny for an academic.”

“Of course. Remember Dean and DeLuca?”

Amanda remembered it like it was yesterday, while Eliza never seemed very interested in reminiscing. It often made Mandy wonder if her own tendency to live in the past came from her dissatisfaction with her current life, specifically her marriage to Carson. Was she longing for the glory days, like so many unhappy people seemed to do? Was that why she still felt the remnants of her schoolgirl crush on Dean Barr? Eliza had a more contrived crush on the shop teacher, Roy DeLuca, but she didn’t even seem to remember him. The summer before their senior year, the two girls would often take the train into Manhattan and explore different neighborhoods. On one such trip to SoHo, they had wandered into the famous market, Dean & DeLuca, and laughed that it shared a name with the teachers they were infatuated with. They even brought home shopping bags and taped them to their walls next to posters of the Brat Pack and Nirvana. Eliza’s mom was extra annoyed because she thought Eliza was now worshipping a food store the way she used to worship Rob Lowe. They loved that no one else knew the bags’ hidden meaning.