“You’re not even a temp, anymore,” she says.
“I’m asking a serious question here, Lauren.”
“Don’t be insane,” she says. “I’m not hiding you from them. I’m protecting you from them.”
“Well, you can see how a guy might get the wrong idea,” he says. “It’s not like I’m saying take me home to meet the folks.”
“The folks,” she says. “Let’s talk about something else, okay?”
“Are you sure Sarah is your best friend? You never sound all that psyched about her.”
“I don’t? Yes, I’m sure. Obviously. Look, we’ve known each other for years, and maybe we’re a little different now, as grown-ups, but there’s a long history there. We go way back, as they say.”
“You seem a little on edge, though, when you talk about her. You know what I mean?” He’s dicing garlic.
She isn’t sure what to say. She’s annoyed. She’s known Rob four months, she’s known Sarah twenty-one years.
“I’m just saying, sometimes it doesn’t sound like you’re best friends. You seem a little . . . annoyed by her,” Rob says.
“Everyone’s friends annoy them sooner or later, right?” She drinks. “She’s my best friend. I can’t explain it.”
“I didn’t mean to make you mad,” he says. “I thought we were just talking.”
“We are just talking.” She’s being short with him but she can’t stop herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. It’s—” She doesn’t know how to complete the thought. It’s complicated. It’s her way. It’s private. All of those things, though this last is too mean—she doesn’t think Rob should be allowed to talk to her about Sarah. Four months, fine, but they don’t know each other. She can’t be known in so short a time.
“Hey.” He puts the tongs down on the counter and looks at her seriously. “You there? I’m sorry if I said the wrong thing. I’m just curious about Sarah. I’d like to meet her. She’s a big part of your life. It seems right that I would know her.”
She looks down into her glass. He is right. “You’re right. Never mind. Let’s focus on the task at hand. Can I help?”
“I don’t know, Lauren. I run a pretty serious kitchen.”
She climbs off the stool and goes to stand beside him in the kitchen. Things are very organized in there: cutting board, bowls, the pepper mill. She’s seized with a powerful urge: to take him by the hands and pull his arms around her, to feel the weight and warmth of his body behind her, to feel him, there, a real human being, hers, to just stand there for a moment, quietly. She doesn’t do this, though she doesn’t know why. She reaches up—he’s taller than she is—and grabs the towel from his shoulder. She tosses it over her own with a flourish, like Isadora Duncan with her fatal scarf.
“Let me show you how it’s done,” she says.
Chapter 15
The morning is cool. Sarah is in the library, waiting for it to be eleven past the hour, when the local channel recaps the forecast, but also hiding from Willa. It doesn’t work.
Willa sweeps in with purpose, takes Sarah by the hand. “Don’t worry, darling, it’s going to clear.” Willa shakes her cell phone in the air triumphantly. “I’ve got an app. Hour by hour. It’s saying noon. So don’t you worry.”
Sarah isn’t worried, in fact; it’s April, what did they think? She no longer cares about whether the weather will hold, but Willa seems almost to want her to be unhappy. If Sarah is petulant, that will give Willa something to do; if Sarah is grumpy, that will reinforce Willa’s value. Sarah doesn’t want it to rain, obviously, but she wants Willa to somehow be proven wrong. After tomorrow, she’ll never have to see her again. She turns the television off before the weather report even comes on and goes upstairs to wait.