Conversations with Friends(36)

I’ll do that, I said.

Fine, said Melissa. Nick will show you where we keep the vases. I’ll go and help Derek fix the dining room up. Thank you all very much for your hard work this morning.

She left the room and shut the door hard behind her. I thought: this woman? This is the woman you love? Nick took the flowers out of my arms and left them on the countertop. The vases were in a cupboard under the sink. Evelyn was watching Nick anxiously.

I’m sorry, Evelyn said.

Don’t you apologise, said Nick.

Maybe I should go and help.

Sure, you may as well.

Nick was cutting the bouquets out of their plastic with a scissors when Evelyn left. I can do all this, I said. You go get the lemons. He didn’t look at me. She likes the stems cut diagonally, he said. You know what I mean, diagonally? Like this. And he clipped one of the ends off at a slant. I didn’t hear her say anything about lemons either, I said. He smiled then, and Bobbi came into the room behind us. You’re going to take my side now, are you? he said.

I knew you were making friends without me, said Bobbi.

I thought you were tidying the bedroom, Nick said.

It’s one room, said Bobbi. It can only get so tidy. Are you trying to get rid of me?

What happened while we were gone? he said.

Bobbi hopped up on the windowsill and swung her legs to and fro while I clipped the flowers stem by stem, letting the cut ends fall into the sink.

I think your wife is a little on edge today, said Bobbi. She was not impressed with my linen-folding technique earlier. Also, she told me she didn’t want me ‘making any snide remarks about rich people’ when Valerie gets here. Quote.

Nick laughed a lot at that. Bobbi always amused and delighted him, whereas I could see I had on balance probably caused him more distress than joy.

For the rest of the afternoon Melissa sent us around to do various menial tasks. She didn’t think the glasses were quite clean, so I rewashed them in the sink. Derek brought one vase of flowers up to Valerie’s room, along with a bottle of sparkling water and a clean glass for her bedside table. Bobbi and Evelyn ironed some pillowcases together in the living room. Nick went out for lemons and went out again later for sugar cubes. Early in the evening, while Melissa was cooking and Derek was polishing silverware, Nick and Evelyn and Bobbi and I sat in Nick’s room looking around vacantly and not saying much. Like bold children, Evelyn said.

Let’s open a bottle of wine, said Nick.

Do you have a death wish? Bobbi said.

No, let’s, said Evelyn.

Nick went down to the garage and brought up some plastic cups and a bottle of Sancerre. Bobbi was lying face up on his bed, just the way I usually lay there after he made me come. Evelyn and I were sitting side by side on the floor. Nick poured the wine into cups and we listened to Derek and Melissa talking in the kitchen.

What’s Valerie like, actually? Bobbi said.

Evelyn coughed and then said nothing.

Oh, said Bobbi.

After we had all finished our first cup of wine, we heard Melissa calling Nick from the kitchen. He got up and handed me the bottle. Evelyn said: I’ll come with you. They went out together and shut the door. Bobbi and I sat in the room silently. Valerie had said she would be in town by seven. It was now half past six. I refilled Bobbi’s cup and my own, then sat down again with my back against the bed.

You know Nick has a thing for you, don’t you? Bobbi said. Everyone else has noticed. He’s always looking at you to check if you’re laughing at his jokes.

I chewed on the edge of my plastic cup until I could hear it crack. When I looked down, a vertical white line had formed from the rim. I thought of Bobbi’s performance in the game the night before.

We get along, I said eventually.

It could totally happen. He’s a failed actor and his marriage is dead, those are the perfect ingredients.

Isn’t he more like a moderately successful actor?

Well, apparently he was expected to get famous and then he didn’t, and now he’s too old or something. Having an affair with a younger woman would probably be good for his self-esteem.

He’s only thirty-two, I said.

I think his agent dropped him though. Anyway he seems like he’s embarrassed to be alive.

I felt a growing sense of dread, a thin and physical dread that began in my shoulders, as I listened. At first I couldn’t figure out what it was. It felt like dizziness, or the strange blurry sensation that precedes being violently ill. I tried to think of what might be causing it, things I had eaten, or the car journey earlier. It was only when I remembered the night before that I knew what it was. I felt guilty.

I’m pretty sure he’s still in love with Melissa, I said.

People can be in love and have affairs.

It would depress me to sleep with someone who loved someone else.

Bobbi sat up then, I could hear her. She swung her legs down off the bed, and I knew she was looking down at me, onto my scalp.

I get the sense you’ve given this some consideration, she said. Did he make a pass at you or something?

Not as such. I just don’t think I would enjoy being someone’s second choice.

Not as such?

I mean, he’s probably just trying to make her jealous, I said.

She slipped down off the bed, holding the wine bottle, which she passed to me. We were sitting on the floor together then, our upper arms pressed together. I splashed a little wine into the cracked plastic cup.