Conversations with Friends(15)

8




That afternoon I lay on my bed smoking with the window open, dressed in a vest and my underwear. I was hungover and still hadn’t heard from Bobbi. Through the window I could see the breeze rearranging the foliage and two children appearing and disappearing from behind a tree, one of them carrying a plastic lightsaber. I found this relaxing, or at least it distracted me from feeling terrible. I was a little chilly, but I didn’t want to break the spell by getting dressed.

Eventually, at three or four in the afternoon, I got out of bed. I didn’t feel like writing anything. In fact I felt that if I tried to write, what I produced would be ugly and pretentious. I wasn’t the kind of person I pretended to be. I thought of myself trying to be witty in front of Nick’s friends in the utility room and felt sick. I didn’t belong in rich people’s houses. I was only ever invited to places like that because of Bobbi, who belonged everywhere and had a quality about her that made me invisible by comparison.

I got an email from Nick that evening.

hi frances, i’m really sorry about what happened last night. it was fucking stupid of me and i feel awful. i don’t want to be that person and i don’t want you to think of me as that person either. i feel really bad about it. i should never have put you in that situation. i hope you’re feeling ok today.



I made myself take an hour before responding. I watched some cartoons on the internet and made a cup of coffee. Then I read his email again several times. I was relieved he had put the whole thing in lower case like he always did. It would have been dramatic to introduce capitalisation at such a moment of tension. Eventually I wrote my reply, saying that it was my fault for kissing him, and that I was sorry.

He emailed back promptly.

no, it wasn’t your fault. i’m like 11 years older than you and it was also my wife’s birthday. i behaved terribly, i really don’t want you to feel guilty about it.



It was getting dark out. I felt dizzy and restless. I thought about going for a walk but it was raining and I’d had too much coffee. My heart was beating too quickly for my body. I hit reply.

Do you often kiss girls at parties?



He responded within about twenty minutes.

since i got married, never. although i think that might make it worse.



My phone rang and I picked up, still looking at the email.

Do you want to hang out and watch Brazil? Bobbi said.

What?

Do you want to watch Brazil together? Hello? The dystopian film with the Monty Python guy. You said you wanted to see it.

What? I said. Yeah, okay. Tonight?

Are you sleeping or something? You sound weird.

I’m not sleeping. Sorry. I was looking at the internet. Sure, let’s hang out.

It took her about half an hour to get to my apartment. When she did, she asked if she could stay over. I said yes. We sat on my bed smoking and talking about the party the night before. I felt my heart beating hard in the knowledge that I was being deceitful, but outwardly I was a capable liar, even a competitive one.

Your hair is getting really long, Bobbi said.

Do you think we should cut it?

We decided to cut it. I sat on a chair in front of the living-room mirror, surrounded by old pages of newspaper. Bobbi used the same scissors I used to cut open kitchen items, but she washed them with boiled water and Fairy liquid first.

Do you still think Melissa likes you? I said.

Bobbi gave me a little indulgent smile, as if she had never actually ventured that theory.

Everyone likes me, she said.

But I mean, do you think she feels a particular connection with you, in comparison to other people. You know what I mean.

I don’t know, she’s difficult to get a read on.

I find that too, I said. Sometimes I feel like she loathes me.

No, she definitely likes you as a person. I think you remind her of her.

I felt even more dishonest then, and a sensation of heat crawled up into my ears. Maybe knowing that I’d betrayed Melissa’s trust made me feel like a liar, or maybe this imaginative connection between us suggested something else. I knew I was the one who had kissed Nick and not the other way around, but I also believed that he’d wanted me to. If I reminded Melissa of herself, was it possible I reminded Nick of Melissa also?

We could give you a fringe, said Bobbi.

No, people mix us up too much already.

It’s offensive to me how offensive that is to you.

After she cut my hair we made a pot of coffee and sat on the couch talking about the college feminist society. Bobbi had left the society the previous year, after they invited a British guest speaker who had supported the invasion of Iraq. The society president had described Bobbi’s objection to the invitation as ‘aggressive’ and ‘sectarian’ on the group’s Facebook page, which privately we all agreed was total bullshit, but because the speaker had never actually accepted the invite, Philip and I had not gone so far as to formally renounce our membership. Bobbi’s attitude toward this decision varied greatly, and tended to be an indicator of how well she and I were getting along at a given time. When things were good, she considered it a sign of my tolerance and even self-sacrifice to the cause of gender revolution. When we were having a minor dispute over something, she sometimes referred to it as an example of my disloyalty and ideological spinelessness.