Darling Rose Gold(49)

I picture my friend Mary up on the mantel among her angels, stripped naked, hot tar poured down her back, wearing seraph’s wings of filthy pigeon feathers. She holds her hands together in prayer.

“We’ve all seen her jogging around the block,” Mary says, gritting her teeth. “That girl is being starved or poisoned again. She may not be able to see through you, but the rest of us are watching. We know you brainwashed her. And if baby Adam so much as catches a cold on your watch, I’ll call the police so fast, you won’t see the handcuffs coming.”

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by the accusation, given all I’ve been through. The truth is, I haven’t put anything in her food. Rose Gold and I have been sharing meals, which means if I’d tainted the casseroles or soups, I’d also have been poisoning myself. Even if she were ridiculous enough to be afraid of my cooking, that doesn’t explain why she’s not making her own food.

“I know she started visiting you during your last year in prison,” Mary says. “Before that, she hated your guts, wanted nothing to do with you. I don’t know how you changed her mind, but since then, she’s been acting different.”

“Different how?” I ask.

“That’s enough questions. It’s high time you left my house.” She ushers me—rather forcefully, I might add—off her couch and down the hallway.

As I near the door, something clicks into place. Mary thinks I’m to blame for Rose Gold’s size. They all think I’m to blame. What if that’s what Rose Gold wants? What if she’s trying to turn them all against me by pretending to be sick?

“If you love Rose Gold, if you’re even capable of love, you will move out of her house and leave her alone.” Mary opens the door and shoves me outside.

“Mary—”

She silences me with a stony expression. “Take care, Patty.”

The door closes in my face. I am left standing on her stoop, speechless. The dead bolt clicks.

I pound on the door. “Mary, what if she’s making it up?”

No response.

I pound again. “Mary!”

Still no response.

I pound a third time. “Mary, maybe she’s lying.”

On the other side of the door, Mary sighs. “I was there for you,” she says, sounding more tired than angry now. “I held your hand and listened to you cry. I made you dinners and gave you money. You were like a sister”—here her voice wobbles, and I can tell she’s trying not to cry—“to me.”

I hang my head. She clears her throat. I imagine her dabbing her eyes, regaining her composure. I hear her pad down the hallway. She’s done with me.

I move away from the front door and sit on the stoop, my head in my hands. I don’t think I can muster another ounce of peppy Patty positivity today.

One afternoon Mary and I decided to make French macarons. I got powdered sugar and almond flour everywhere when I forgot to put the lid on the food processor. By the time we’d piped the batter onto baking sheets and cleaned up the kitchen, we were exhausted. We settled onto Mary’s couch to catch up on All My Children and were horrified when our favorite hunk, Leo du Pres, plummeted to his death over Miller’s Falls. While our macarons burned in the oven, we made plans to send an angry letter to the showrunners, demanding Leo’s return. We never did write that letter.

One spring Mary and I signed up for a 5K. For months we trained side by side, progressing from walking to slow jogging to running the three miles. Together we raised five hundred dollars from our neighbors and donated the money to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. On the morning of the race, we both had nervous jitters. Our goal was to finish in thirty-five minutes. We’d just crossed the starting line when Mary tripped over a stick and twisted her ankle. She insisted she still wanted to complete the race and could walk if I supported some of her weight. We crossed the finish line an hour and twelve minutes after we started.

One September Mary and I took the girls to the nearby cul-de-sac for wheelbarrow races. Rose Gold had been bedridden for days. She was too weak to run around outside, but she was bored out of her skull. So Mary and I wheeled her and Alex around in circles, huffing and puffing and laughing at how out of shape we were. Mr. Grover, a crotchety old man, stopped us for a lecture about the appropriate uses of wheelbarrows. Every time he turned to face Mary, I made hand puppets behind his back and imitated his stern expression, while Mary tried not to laugh. She even rolled her eyes once—the Mary equivalent of giving someone the finger—while he was chastising me.

I realize I have lost my closest friend, maybe for good. Even if I can get her to come to the door, she won’t believe me.

I turn and begin the long walk home, concentrating on the sidewalk in front of me. Glassy eyes peer from dark garages and second-floor windows. Every time I leave the house, everywhere I go—they watch me. I feel their eyes on me in the shower, while I’m napping in my recliner. They crawl across my skin, but when I look, they aren’t there.

I speed up, distract myself by replaying the conversation with Mary. I keep coming back to the same question: is Rose Gold sick or not? If not, what does she hope to gain by faking an eating disorder? Attention? Sympathy? Making my neighbors hate me even more? Regardless of her motive, if she’s starving herself, that still means she’s sick, right? Maybe she has depression or an adrenal insufficiency or cancer. Shouldn’t I find her some help?