Sarah lowered Sylvie—slowly, slowly—into the crib, aware of her still-warm cheek—the left one, where Sylvie’s had rested. Every movement, right down to the rhythm of Sarah’s shallow breath, felt exposed, criminal. As soon as Sylvie made contact with the mattress, she began to wail. Sarah closed the door behind her before anyone could see she’d been inside. No one was in the hallway. Feathery shadows traversed the walls. She darted down the hallway just as Kiki climbed the last of the stairs; she must have taken them two at a time.
“She’s crying,” Sarah said, with every intention of seeming relaxed, but it came out strangely grave.
“Yep,” Kiki said, passing her by. “I heard her on the monitor.”
Had Sarah, while she was in the baby’s tranquil room, said anything out loud? She hadn’t seen the monitor. Had her desperation transmitted into the kitchen as Matthew and Kiki and Kiki’s friends discussed her odd behavior?
Had she spoken?
She remembered only the sweetness of that cheek. How much time had elapsed?
Kiki disappeared into the baby’s room, and Sarah just stood there, frozen at the top of the stairs, facing the wall of books.
I know where the books want to go, said Leda. They’d moved into their third apartment as a family. Matthew unpacked in the living room. Daddy, let me, she said. I know where they’ll be happy. Boring books can live on the bottom. It’s safer.
Sarah sat—not downstairs joining in, not in the cozy reading nook beneath the picture window, but on the cool, hard staircase. It was possible that Matthew was stirring or chopping in the kitchen, but he could go either way on being helpful during a group meal.
I swear, he’d finally exploded, a couple of months ago. I swear I haven’t heard from her. What’s wrong with you that you think I wouldn’t tell you? Would you keep something like that from me?
Would she? She didn’t know.
He was in the kitchen now, downstairs, doing what he did so easily: charming strangers into friends. She appreciated this about him; she appreciated knowing him so well.
They were still married.
Once they’d been strangers, Sarah and Matthew. They had been young and entirely separate. She liked to remember this. Also that he’d been in the engineering program, that his parents wouldn’t help him pay for school, that they’d wanted him to go to community college. After several weeks of watching him make strange choices in Acting 101 mostly involving silence, she found herself walking alongside him one day after class. By the time they reached their bikes, both locked up outside the same building at the end of the block, she’d learned that he’d enrolled in the class because his grades had dipped because he never participated in seminar discussions, so he’d summoned the courage to see a therapist at the student health center about his crippling shyness about public speaking, and the therapist had decided what Matthew needed was a semester of acting.
You don’t seem shy, Sarah had said.
Nice, he said. I guess it’s working.
Then he’d kissed her. That shy stranger. The wind picked up. She was twenty; he was twenty-one.
They sat in the shade of an oak tree in Madison, Wisconsin. It was a little too cold to be sitting outside. She was wearing a Victorian-style lace shirt. Ripped jeans. Brown oxfords. She didn’t remember dates and anniversaries; it was weather and clothing for her. Matthew in a blue flannel shirt. Flannel stretched over a pair of broad shoulders still generally carried erotic promise for her. Unoriginal? You bet. But there it was: flannel. Blue. Wind. A stick scraping through dirt. Patches of unmowed grass. He cracked all of his knuckles. He cracked his back.
SHE HEARD A DOOR OPENING. She was never in the right place. She should have been downstairs helping already. Instead of hurrying to the kitchen right then, she took a book off the shelf and pretended to be deeply interested in Jewish Buddhists. Kiki passed her on the stairwell, giving the thumbs-up that Sylvie had gone back to sleep. Sarah mirrored her gesture and followed Kiki downstairs. She’d been wrong about Matthew. He wasn’t talking to anyone; he wasn’t even drinking beer. Karim and Heather were in a heated discussion, but Matthew was focused on a design magazine, sipping red wine. He had a nearly full bottle in front of him. Sarah took a glass from the open shelf. They were both, she noticed, instantly making themselves comfortable here. He didn’t look up.
“Why do you get to say whether someone’s gender identity is real or not?” Heather erupted. “How are you so confident?” She turned to Kiki. “How is he so freaking sure about this?”
“Well,” said Kiki, raising one thin eyebrow, “you know.”
Heather nodded, gave a shrug. “It’s the Karim show.”
Karim laughed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Shh,” hissed Heather, nodding toward the kids across the room. “It means, you know, Karim decides.”
He was shaking his head, laughing. “Please.” He stopped laughing. “We all decide. Some folks just decide some crazier shit. No he no she but they? They is going to the store? Really, now? They is?”
“They are,” said Heather. “They are. Are. It’s a plural conjugation. We’ve gone over this.”
“Do you even know anyone who’s gender nonbinary? Either of you?”
“That’s not the point,” said Heather.
“Who’s to say who anyone else is?” Sarah found herself saying out loud.
“Right?” said Heather, sizing Sarah up with what felt like newfound respect.
“I mean,” Sarah continued, “I can be really judgmental, trust me, but if a person has the wherewithal to decide who they are and what they want to be called, well, have at it and, I mean—congratulations. You know who you are? Seriously? Godspeed.”
Karim laughed. Even though Sarah agreed with Heather, she liked him better.
Karim and Heather moved on to discussing when they should get the boys off the iPad, and just how much, exactly, exposure to technology did or didn’t shape a child’s personality, which had essentially the same effect on Sarah as a conversation about cars. She wondered if Kiki was as engaged as she appeared.
Sarah leaned over to Matthew and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Matthew nodded.
Then he went from sulkily drinking and flipping through the magazine to making a convincing show of being helpful. Before Sarah could bring herself to start chopping the remaining pile of herbs, Matthew had filled a pot with water. The banter of Karim, Heather, and Kiki grew indistinct, buzzing, as suddenly all that mattered was getting Matthew to look at her. She needed further acknowledgment from him, she wasn’t exactly sure why, but without it she felt unmoored. She was trying to be patient, but when she couldn’t hold back anymore, she mouthed, I’M SORRY, the words overenunciated with an aggressive display of eye contact.
The stove’s pilot light had gone out and Karim had been unsuccessful in relighting it, and now Heather was trying and failing, and—while clearly not French—crying out, “Merde,” as if fulfilling Sarah’s unspoken request for just one more example of what constitutes an annoying person. When Matthew took over, he used his Zippo lighter, the one he still carried though he’d quit smoking years ago.
“That’s great that Sylvie fell asleep again so quickly,” Sarah offered stiffly to Kiki.
Kiki nodded vaguely. Sarah remembered her friend as effortlessly efficient in the kitchen, but now she only alternated between sipping beer and working through an elaborate knot in her hair. Although this may have been nothing more than evidence of a new mother’s fatigue, it was easy enough to imagine that Kiki’s discernibly slower rhythm was an attempt to stall while deciding how to handle having heard Sarah over the baby monitor. That she knew Sarah had gone into her daughter’s room, picked her up, cuddled her until she cried, and snuck out of the room like a failed kidnapper.
“Sylvie’s perfect,” Sarah blurted out, laughing for good measure. As if self-awareness could somehow counteract such obvious naked longing.
Kiki smiled—was she blushing?—and gave a modest thanks.
“Those little lips and all that dark hair,” Heather chimed in. “Forgive me, but my ovaries are pulsing.”
“All right, all right,” said Karim. “Let’s go then.” He grabbed her waist.
“He wants a baby.”
“I think we got that,” said Sarah.
“I’ve always wondered about that expression,” Kiki said. “About ovaries. Does that actually happen?”
It was impossible to tell whether Kiki was mocking Heather or asking a frank question.
“I don’t actually ovulate, you know, naturally,” Kiki said. “So I don’t know.”
“Oh,” said Heather, “I didn’t mean to—”
“I never have. Or at least no one seems to think I ever have.” Kiki shrugged and started grating Parmesan cheese. “I’m just grateful to the entire field of reproductive medicine.”
“It is incredible what they can do these days,” Sarah said quickly, sounding glib and idiotic. Could her sentiments be any lazier? “So Sylvie was—”
“Very much planned; donor egg. Arman’s sperm. IVF.”
“Sounds like,” Matthew ventured, “you may have answered that question more times than you might have liked.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind people’s curiosity. Most people just ask if she was an accident.”
“I mind,” Sarah said.
“What’s that?” Heather asked.
“I mind people’s curiosity. I’m sorry.”
“I remember,” said Kiki.
“What?”
“I remember how you hated when people nosed around, fished for some kind of story about why you had a baby so young.”
“Only in New York. Elsewhere I was nothing special.”
“How old were you?” asked Heather.
“When I had my daughter? Twenty-four.”
“What’s her name?”
“Well, you also looked younger than twenty-four,” said Matthew. “You were usually carded at bars. That added to it.”
“I guess I did look really young. I remember feeling ancient.”
“A baby will do that to you,” said Kiki.
Sarah found herself unable to bear Kiki’s being even slightly negative. “But—”
“But what?”
“You just look so young. You really do.” Though Sarah was ready to lie about so many other things, she somehow needed Kiki to understand this was true.
Kiki waved her off in a way that reminded Sarah of the man on the subway, how he’d dismissed the relevance of time.
“I just never know,” Kiki persisted, “when people use that expression, like you just did—about their ovaries pulsing—if it’s real. Seriously. Is it just, you know, a dramatic turn of phrase? Or can you actually feel your ovaries?”
“I’m out.” Karim laughed again; they all ignored him.
“Well, yeah,” Heather said. “I mean, sometimes.”
“You can actually feel them in your body?” Kiki was starting to sound—though Sarah could have been imagining it—confrontational.
“You can,” Sarah acknowledged. “I mean, I have.”
“Well, I can’t. But who knows? I could still be a late bloomer. Can you imagine? And, defying all odds, local woman begins ovulating at age fifty.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you,” Sarah said.
Heather started taking the plates and napkins outside; Karim went to start up the grill.
“I’ll bring the glasses,” Sarah called. “Do we need knives?”
No one answered. But then Matthew and Sarah were finally left alone with Kiki, and Sarah wasn’t about to move.
Matthew said, “Kiki—”
“I just didn’t want kids until I did, you know?”
Matthew poured himself more wine.
“I didn’t know,” Sarah said. “About your ovaries.”
Kiki was sort of laughing, but clearly nothing was funny. “Come on. How would you have? Even I didn’t know until I tried to get pregnant.”
“I know, but—I’m sorry. I can still be sorry. That you had to go through any of that.”
“I did feel furious at basic biology for so long. I was supposed to have a kid before I was remotely interested in having one, just because I might want one someday. Almost everyone I talked to said I would regret not having done it. I knew plenty of women making the decision to do it even though they were ambivalent, but it seemed like an awfully big one to make, based on maybe, you know, possibly changing my mind. And Arman was so focused on his career; I guess he was hesitant, too, but it was mostly me. So we were careful. And then one day I didn’t get my period and instead of being worried, I was crazily excited at the thought that I could be pregnant. I wasn’t, of course, but the desire to be pregnant—it came on so strong I couldn’t see straight. I became consumed with regret and obsessed with having a baby just like everyone said I would, which honestly made it so much worse when I couldn’t.”
Sarah felt a jolting pang of homesickness for her family’s old apartment, the one where they’d moved just before Leda started middle school. The living room was painted the palest gray; Sarah must have tried ten different shades.
“Did you ever consider not having her? Leda, that is,” Kiki corrected, reddening. “You know what I mean.”
“You mean did I think about getting an abortion when I was twenty-three? Yes. I did.” Sarah didn’t look at Matthew. It had been so long since she’d thought about any of this; Kiki had never before asked, so Sarah felt she should answer honestly, in the spirit of their friendship. “Matthew was still Catholic then.”
“And I loved her,” he said. “And she loved me. There was that part, too.”
“There was.” Sarah nodded, chastened, smiling at him.
She could see a thought pass across Matthew’s face. It settled over his deep-set dark eyes and olive skin, full lips, and reddish stubble. She pictured that pale gray wall in their old apartment at the end of an ordinary day; how quickly a shadow can consume the brightest room. She dug her fingernail into the rough wooden table. The windows reflected rich colors all around them. No Benjamin Moore Calm here. No Dew, Solitude, or Dawn. The water was boiling and Kiki put in the pasta, gave the sauce a stir.
“Was it hard on you?” Sarah asked. “Trying to get pregnant?”
Kiki tasted the sauce and took her time swallowing; she sloshed beer back and forth in the bottle. “Yeah.”
This was as far as the conversation would go. Kiki was up for talking about her ovaries and her deep ambivalence about motherhood and how many years earlier (it was a different life for Kiki, too, Sarah reminded herself) she hadn’t wanted any part of it, but she clearly had no interest in talking about what followed. What changes of heart and mysterious forces led her to this moment: listening to a baby monitor in upstate New York with two people she used to know well and who now might as well have been strangers.
Kiki’s current friends were outside. It seemed more and more likely that she’d asked them to stay so as not to be alone with Sarah and Matthew. Kiki might not have originally invited them to spend the night, but—especially with Arman in the city—she’d wanted a buffer.
“Well, she’s here. Your baby.” Matthew raised his glass. “And you got a girl. Lucky you.”
“Lucky me.” Kiki nodded with a smile so radiant Sarah was surprised there weren’t tears.
Out the window Sarah saw a flash of fire. She caught her breath before realizing it was only the charcoal grill.
WHEN THE KIDS had finished eating and were set up with a movie, and the outside table was cleared and reset, and when a bottle of rosé was poured and two more plunged into a tub of ice, Karim raised his glass. “To Kiki.”
“Hear hear,” Sarah said.
“And to meeting Sarah and Matt,” Karim said, his glass now in their direction. “You have such good taste in friends,” he said to Kiki. “Here’s to, you know, you know—bringing us all together.” Karim put his other arm around Kiki with a playful squeeze.
Across the creek a light started flashing. At first Sarah thought it was some kind of tasteless decoration, but it was inconsistent, like someone with a flashlight goofing around.
“You really don’t know who lives there?” Heather asked.
“Nope,” Kiki said. “Just a guy. Some guy.” Karim and Heather smiled along with Kiki at what was obviously an inside joke. “I’ve spent so much of my time here indoors with Sylvie. There’s the hot sun and the napping and, I don’t know, life. Anyway, I get the feeling he isn’t my type of person.”
Heather grabbed the flashlight at the side of the grill. “Snob.” She flashed the light twice in quick succession.
“Right, I’m a snob. You got me. The privilege. My privilege. Go ahead.”
“I’m teasing,” Heather said. “Jeez.”
Sarah felt a reflexive jolt of panic at the notion of this conversation. That she had made her first film at all—that she’d had the audacity to think she could—and then how she’d thrown her good fortune away, all the while being supported by Matthew … she knew Kiki must have been thinking the same thing: if anyone here was guilty of inequitable privilege, it was definitely Sarah.
The light across the way flashed three times.
“I wonder what he looks like,” said Heather.
“Of course you do,” said Kiki, and Karim laughed.
“This is really good,” said Matthew, taking second helpings of the pasta and slightly burned vegetables; Sarah wondered if he was uncomfortable or barely paying attention.
Heather flashed the light four times, then put the light beneath her face and gave a maniacal laugh.
“You are not going to get to know our neighbor, Heather,” Kiki said. “Not gonna happen.” She was smiling but there was obviously plenty of history here.
“Please?” asked Heather, as the light across the way flashed five times. “Sarah, you do it.” Heather passed the light across the table.
Sarah shook her head, but then, not wanting to be too dour, flashed the light once.
“Go on.” Heather laughed.
Sarah wasn’t sure whom she was reacting to when she flashed it twice more, then just lost count and kept on flashing.
“Are you seven years old?” Heather laughed. “He’s going to come over here now.”
“You told me to!” cried Sarah. She was trying her best to be fun, though she felt pretty strained.
“I’m really not up for this.” Kiki closed her eyes and took an audible breath. “Can we just have a calm meal?”
Sarah set the flashlight down. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry, honey,” said Heather.
“Some of us just really don’t want to meet our neighbors right now,” muttered Kiki. “Once you all leave, who do you think will have to actually interact with him and deal with the consequences?”
“I know,” said Heather. “I’m stopping.”
“I’m sorry,” said Sarah. “That was stupid.”
It was hard to tell exactly how bothered Kiki was, and Sarah realized she was leaning forward in her chair toward her as Matthew was leaning back. He looked suddenly distracted or indifferent to this exchange, and she was never quite prepared for when he exempted himself from a conversation. Sometimes it seemed as though he lost interest in a moment just as she became fascinated.
Sarah noticed a diamond speck embedded, fetchingly, in the flat cartilage of Heather’s ear. “So what about you two?” she asked Heather and Karim. “How did you meet? Why do I have a feeling it’s a juicy story?”
Matthew shifted in his chair, obviously disapproving of Sarah’s prying, which was infuriating, given how Heather carried herself as if she were practically begging to spill secrets.
“I cheated,” Heather said, instantly proving Sarah correct. “I mean, with Karim. He was my friend and I fell in love with him.” She took his hand.
Everyone kept quiet.
Sarah nodded, momentarily thrilled to invest in someone else’s highs and lows, be they petty or monumental. Why hadn’t she understood earlier today how preferable it would be to focus on other people?
“It was messy,” Heather said. “But it worked out.”
For now, Sarah did not say.
Heather gave a crooked smile. “I knew I’d be resentful if I kept shutting myself down. I never thought I wanted to be married to anyone besides my ex. But it was … so much bigger.”
“I do wish you hadn’t lied to him at first,” Kiki said.
“I know.” Heather nodded. “But—” She cut herself off, as if she knew whatever she’d intended to say would be indefensible to Kiki.
“Though you told me you thought he already knew,” Kiki said almost pleadingly, and Sarah realized Kiki had been a friend of this ex, maybe still was. “Don’t you remember that? Right after he found out? You said you thought he’d known but was maybe okay with it?”
“He didn’t know.” Heather finished her wine. “I was lying then.”
“Oh,” said Kiki. Sarah saw Kiki’s face change along with Karim’s. His easygoing manner was suddenly and completely gone. “Oh.”
“If I’m honest”—Heather’s voice was free from any nuances that might be construed as even vaguely apologetic—“I think most people stay together out of fear. Most people would be happier if everyone met someone new every seven years or so. And if everyone knew they could find someone great every seven years or so, everyone would do it.”
“That’s bullshit,” said Matthew.
Sarah took a sharp intake of breath; she was surprised to hear him speak up.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s obviously not a popular position,” Heather said.
“I just don’t think it’s true.” Matthew’s voice was quiet and direct. “People might go outside their marriage because it’s exciting, but they also do it to keep themselves separate.” He put down his fork. He didn’t drink. “That’s fear. Or, you know, maybe in your case, true love.” He shrugged. “You’ll see, right?”
“How long have you been married?” Heather asked, with no small amount of aggression. “Your daughter is an adult, right? You’ve been together most of your lives?”
“We separated for a couple of years,” Sarah found herself saying. “Recently.”
“You did?” Kiki looked so obviously crestfallen that Sarah wanted to say she was joking.
“Yeah,” said Matthew, “but it was a good thing, our separation. It was good.”
“Really?” Sarah said, before she could stop herself. She felt her face break into a terrible mocking smile.
“Yes. But I don’t really feel the need to dwell on that story right now.” Matthew looked around the table. She didn’t know where his gaze was going to land. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up as if the table were on fire, as if Matthew were telling a ghost story around that fire. Then she realized that he was telling a ghost story, and that their story was a ghost story; only the ghost changed with each telling. Sometimes Leda was the ghost but not always.
THE KITCHEN DIDN’T have a dishwasher and the sound of the faucet running was comforting. By the time Heather and Karim disappeared upstairs with the kids and the dishes sat on the drying rack, the larger bowls resting on towels, Kiki had fallen asleep on the couch. Matthew and Sarah stood behind her, watching how she clutched a pillow, how she’d curled herself into a ball.
“Did you tell her the truth?” Sarah whispered.
He didn’t answer immediately, and she didn’t press him.
Finally, he shook his head. “I wanted to.”
Sarah picked up a cream-colored mohair blanket and shook it out before smoothing it carefully over Kiki. Then Sarah followed Matthew upstairs.
He kept quiet, and she had no interest in talking—not about why she’d smiled that terrible smile and publicly questioned whether their separation had been a good idea, and certainly not why she’d told Kiki such a ridiculous and important lie. Matthew stretched out in bed, under several thin blankets, and either fell asleep or pretended to. She used to sometimes resent that he’d drop off so quickly at night, but these days she could barely remember that petty impulse. She was genuinely happy for him if he could get a good rest and had grown protective of his sleep. Because she couldn’t. The insomnia had improved in the past several months, but the mugging might have cemented her struggle. Her first bout had been in college, but after graduation, while living in downtown Manhattan—the best place to be an insomniac—she stopped worrying so much about it. Because after a few weeks of writing in the same restaurant in the middle of the night, she realized she enjoyed being awake and productive during those hours, and this recognition allowed her to plan a life for herself. Now, when she thought about her youth—her brief true youth—she thought of diligence, rice pudding, blue pen on colored index cards. She imagined bright lights in a bustling restaurant from midnight to 4:00 a.m. Being surrounded by some people eating breakfast, some lunch, and some dinner simultaneously and how this disorganization of people’s internal clocks filled her with a sense of tremendous freedom.
The floorboards creaked as she made her way to the bathroom in the hallway, which was pink tiled and too bright, and she kept her eyes down, avoiding the mirror as she washed her hands. When she went to dry them, her thumb brushed against something large and caught in the hanging white towel. The something fluttered so wildly she’d thought it was a bird or a bat, but she swallowed her shriek as she realized it was the biggest moth she’d ever seen, glistening black and fiercely batting the air while going nowhere. Wings beating, light shining, heart pounding—she fell back into the hallway and raced down the stairs.
In the living room, Kiki had burrowed herself under the blanket, and her sleeping mass formed a sculpture moving ever so slightly with breath. One large window revealed only darkness, the outdoor string of lights was switched off, and it was as if Sarah were waiting for the neighbor to flash his (probably drunken) signals again. Or she was waiting for someone to thread the reel, to project images of daytime, any day would do. Or maybe she was waiting for the day to begin. The screening would skip back several hours or days or even years, or all the way back to the first night in the garden with Kiki and Arman, with Leda’s toys underfoot.
She sat down next to Kiki.
What did she remember from this time in her life, when Leda was Sylvie’s age? A low-level hum of anticipation. It had ushered her through that first freezing winter and helped her push a stroller so fast and far that she never once remembered feeling cold. She looked up: snow-heavy branches; she looked down and the baby’s still-blue eyes peeked out from the depths of the stroller.
With the lightest touch, she placed a hand on Kiki’s foot; she imagined it would help her feel more grounded. Instead, she felt a light-headed rush, as she realized this was an empty heap of blanket. Kiki must have gone upstairs.
OUTSIDE WITH LEDA that winter there’d been quiet electricity. Her film (her film!) was coming out in theaters in New York and Los Angeles the following fall. This had not seemed possible, but she was too consumed with feeding and changing and snuggling Leda to linger on any one thought for too long. For the first time since college her insomnia had vanished; she could barely stay awake at night. What did she see in those moments before sleep? Not her daughter’s eyes, or her slow-blooming smile as she lighted with seeming disbelief on her first falling snow. Not Matthew, walking through the door smelling of beer, with a bounty of bagels and M&M’s from craft services, courtesy of whatever film he was shooting for next to nothing. Not the reviews that would or would not run when her film came out, or what their life could look like in the wake of success or failure or different choices. Every time she fell asleep she always saw the clock at 2:00 a.m.; she saw her colored index cards and her blue rollerball pens bright in artificial light. In her fantasies she was alone and focused.
Sarah crawled under the blanket. She felt she was crawling into Kiki’s skin. She was cradling Sylvie; she was setting a table; she was walking with buoyancy no matter her age or mood. Only when she heard tires over gravel and saw a flash of headlights did she realize she’d been asleep.
An engine cut out. She awaited the car door closing and the footsteps approaching, and—with somnambulistic logic—knew she had to get up, it was time to get up, and she forcefully threw off the blanket. She was suddenly overcome with claustrophobic heat, and without even realizing she was doing so, she opened the screen door and went outside.
It was humid and cool. Crickets and the sound of faraway cars rolled over the faint ripple of the creek. With only the town’s streetlamps on in the distance, the view seemed dingier and more ominous. As she stood at the side of the house, she collected herself by counting her breaths, peering around toward the front, anticipating a stranger.
Arman. Sitting in the car. His shock of blue-black hair.
She didn’t approach, didn’t wave from where she was standing.
A mild fall evening in their garden, after Leda had gone to sleep. Arman had been more subdued than usual, and when she’d asked if he was all right, he’d reported that an agent who’d initially pursued him and with whom he’d met several times had officially declined to represent him after coming right out and explaining that, though he admired Arman’s talent and range, his look was limiting. When Arman had pressed the agent to elaborate, because Arman was no rube and had simply wanted the agent to feel uncomfortable, he’d been told that there were only so many terrorist and cabdriver roles and the agency already represented an actor of that type. Arman was a third-generation Armenian American from a leafy Detroit suburb. People have no imagination; on this they all agreed. People don’t see.
He was every man, now, alone inside his parked car in the middle of the night, vaguely illuminated by a phone. When he finally did get out of the car, it was with one movement and he was headed in her direction. She hurried away—why?—sinking into the hammock as quietly as she could. It was darker under the trees, and the hammock’s cotton was slightly damp. She watched him sit down at the outdoor table; he leaned forward and rested his head on his arms.
She rose from the hammock and realized that no matter how she did it—at this point, in this spot and hour—she was going to alarm him. She figured calling out from farther away would be less frightening. “Hi, Arman.”
“Fuck—” He whipped his head around. “What the—?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—” She started to laugh.
“Wait”—he was whispering now—“Sarah?”
He started laughing, too, as he rose from the table to give her a hug. He smelled like clean sheets and something stronger, like the funk of the soybean farm where she’d worked during the summer after her freshman year in college. “What the—?” He held her out in front of him in a fatherly way that felt silly and surprisingly sweet.
“What?” He was still holding on. “Why are you laughing at me?”
“I’m not, I’m not. You did know we were coming, right?”
“Of course I did.” He let go of her arms. “I just didn’t expect to find you awake, outside, at five a.m.”
Now he squinted slightly. He leaned in to touch her face and she flinched.
“What happened?”
“Long story.”
“Oh, I bet.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” She smiled. Such a tender instinct, to touch her face—tender and startling.
“Did the baby wake you?”
She shook her head. “I bet? What does that mean, Arman?”
“Your face is banged up. That’s usually complicated, isn’t it?”
“I suppose.”
“Hey,” he said, quieter now. “You okay?”
She nodded.
“Plus”—he smiled—“you’re complicated.”
“You haven’t seen me in years—”
“Doesn’t matter—”
“And already I’m complicated?” She could still feel the slight touch of his fingers on her face and tried not to blame herself for that. He’d barely touched her—had it even been a full second before she’d flinched?—but she could feel the lingering warmth, the slight callus.
He shrugged, laughing. “I’m teasing you.”
“Yes, well, I was mugged at gunpoint.”
“No shit?”
“Absolutely no shit.”
“Oh, man, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. Well, that’s what happened.” She sat down at the table. “Yesterday.”
“Damn.” Whereas someone else might have become more alarmed and animated upon hearing this news, this dose of reality seemed to settle him down. He shook his head as he yawned. “Was Matt with you?”
Sarah nodded.
“Well, that’s a relief, at least.”
“Is it?”
His laugh sounded more like chastisement. “Hey, do you want a drink?”
Sarah shook her head.
“Mind if I get one?”
“Nope.” Even if the sun would start rising in about an hour, it felt like the dead of night. She watched him stretch as he headed into the house. The way he moved—you could tell he was an actor, or maybe a martial artist; he had that self-conscious muscularity. He was rangy and stocky at once. She thought of that restaurant, open 24-7 with its scramble of meals and schedules. She faced the creek and the neighbor’s flag but imagined Arman opening the fridge.
“I’m sorry I said you were complicated,” he said, coming back to the table with a bottle of beer.
“It’s fine. I am.”
“I am, too.” He sat beside her, not too close and not too far.
“I know.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, okay. I hear you.” He yawned his way into a smile. “We’re all—y’know—really fucking complicated.”
Arman looked older in a way that betrayed a lot of late nights. She hadn’t expected that. Though maybe it was cultivated? The beard was a nice touch, especially with the hair on his head still so thick and short. Had he grown the beard for a role?
“Long shoot?”
He nodded.
“How’d it go?”
“It went well, thanks.” He sounded strangely polite.
By the time he’d finished a few swigs of beer, she could tell he was unhappy about something. She hoped the source of his unhappiness was particular and not a more general midlife malaise, for which she had little patience. She was about to ask him about it—his unhappiness—but then reconsidered.
He stayed quiet in a way that felt awfully loud.
“Do you want to tell me something?”
He looked at her but said nothing.
She tamped down the urge to ask what was wrong, to be too greedy for information.
He cocked his head, appraising her. “There’s always been something a little clueless about you.”
“Clueless?”
“Yes.”
“Clueless.”
“Yes. As in, not having a clue. Being conveniently surprised. Maybe I should say purposefully clueless. I should probably stop talking but—what the hell—I’m not going to.” He took another swig of beer. “I wasn’t on any film set.”
“Okay.” She envisioned the nodding and listening faces of her support group.
“Okay?”
“Arman.”
“What?”
Out with it is what she wanted to say, but she was trying to be—or at least trying to appear—patient. “Okay,” she said instead.
“You don’t want to know why I lied?”
She looked at him and felt such a surge of affection that she thought, I should get up. I should get up and move away. “Of course I want to know.”
“I’m being stupid,” he muttered. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Suit yourself,” she said lightly, trying to keep true disappointment out of her voice. Was he cheating on Kiki? If she thought this, why was she acting so nice to him?
“Maybe when the sun is out. Maybe when I’ve had some sleep.” He continued to drink his beer; they both looked out toward the creek.
“You can though,” she said. “Tell me, I mean.”
He continued to nod and suddenly it seemed as if he might cry.
“You can tell me whatever it is.”
“Sarah.” He shook his head. “My neighbor! I’m happy to see you.”
“I’m happy to see you, too. Let’s go inside.”
“Nah, I’m staying up.” He glanced at his phone. “The baby will be awake soon.”
“She’s perfect, by the way.” Sarah glanced at the sky, still dark. “Just beautiful.”
“I know.” He smiled. “I can’t believe it.”
Sarah’s smile turned into a yawn. “I’m sorry—” She yawned again. “I couldn’t sleep earlier, but now”—she turned toward the house—“I’m just so tired.”
“Wait—how’s Leda?”
“Leda?” she asked, strangely breezy.
“Yeah, Leda.”
She shook her head.
“Well, she’s young,” he said. “Right? She’s young.”
Sarah gripped the door handle, turning it, but still not going inside.
She pictured the back of Leda’s head, the way her hair went from straight to curly in only one fist-size patch at the back the first time she stopped using. After Leda was released from the gorgeous and expensive rehab facility, they’d lived together for two months in a nearby one-bedroom rental. Matthew came and went, depending on his travel schedule. Sarah and Leda went hiking every morning at the crack of dawn, ate the same salad with blue cheese and pears at the same café for lunch. They went to a hair salon in Scottsdale and asked for chin-length haircuts. They’d laughed their way through an afternoon, through a harmless impulsive decision.
Leda said, The last couple years have been horrible, haven’t they?
Leda said, I have put you through hell.
Sarah fiddled with sugar packets, keys, the newly blunt ends of her hair.
Leda said, I’m so sorry, Mom.
Sarah reached for Leda’s hand, the edge of her sweater, her face.
We’ll look back on this time as transformative, Sarah said. We’ll come to understand just how much we’ve learned.
The morning after the haircut Leda was gone and so was Sarah’s cash and favorite pair of emerald studs.
“Congratulations, Arman. I haven’t said that yet, have I?”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Congratulations. You’re a father.”
“It still just feels…”
“Unreal?”
“Yeah.”
“It’ll probably feel like that for a very long time.” The rusted metal handle of the screen door was growing warm in her hand. She finally gave it a push.