CHAPTER 8

Lunch with Elle

Leda sat casually so that once her friend Elle got there she would think, look-at-Leda-my-casual-friend-who-sits-so-casually. This was not something she knew or understood; rather it was embedded in the posturing she associated with waiting for someone. She wanted to look impossibly relaxed so she kept fixing her hair and taking small sips of water. It was the only way to be sure that she looked prettiest and was hydrated. When Elle gets here I will tell her about that guy who talks to me at the bagel place and offered me a parfait. Elle will laugh, she thought, and fixed her hair again.

Elle was the kind of girl who looked like a paper doll. This was mostly due to her adept mannerisms, and the clothes she wore, which emphasized how unimaginably small her frame was. People would say things to Elle like: “Look how skinny your thighs are! Your thighs are like my arms.” Elle would disregard these comments by saying: “I love cheeseburgers!” As Elle walked into the restaurant Leda thought, I wish I was more linear like Elle, but I’m glad my breasts are bigger than hers.

“I am so sorry that I’m late. Have you ordered? Cute purse, by the way.” The girls embraced before Elle sat down.

“Oh, thank you! And seriously, don’t even worry about it, I just got here. You look great.”

“Do I? I feel like I haven’t slept in days.”

“You really do.” She did, exceptionally put-together, as if someone had simply folded the perfect outfit over her.

“So before we get into anything else. I have some news,” Elle said.

“What?” Leda imagined that the news was in connection to a pair of shoes Elle had sent her six pictures of over the last week and a half.

“I got an internship with a publishing house!”

“Oh my god. Are you serious? That’s fantastic!”

“I know. I’m so excited.”

“What publishing house?”

“It’s called Besting Publishing. They publish neuroscience textbooks that are marketed to universities in Honduras.”

“That sounds great!”

“I know, that doesn’t sound that interesting, right? But it’s a good start, and I mean, it’s hard to get any of these types of internships because so many people apply, and there are usually only like three spots.” Elle took a drink of water and looked around the restaurant nervously.

She thinks I don’t think this is a big deal. She’s worried it’s not important, Leda thought. “This is a really big deal. It’ll be really important.”

Elle smiled. “Thanks. I think publishing is the place for me. I mean, it has to do with what I love, books, and on top of that there are a lot of good-paying jobs if you can work your way in. You have to network is the thing. The thing is to network. Have you ever had the Cobb salad here? It’s so good.”

Leda looked down at the silverware she had prematurely unwrapped from her napkin before Elle arrived. She had attempted to put the fork and knife back into the napkin, but it looked too messy so she just separated them.

“I haven’t.”

“We’ll have to order it…unless you were thinking something else?”

Leda was planning on ordering the grilled cheese and tomato with French fries. Salad for lunch was a distant notion she associated with mortgages and weddings. Elle ate salad now. Last week they’d had lunch, and she ordered some kind of steak dish with cheese melted on it.

“No, I’d love to try it!” Leda said. She was not about to eat fried food in front of paper Elle.

The waitress came over and Elle ordered with fast control. Her voice clicking on words like iced tea and dressing on the side. Leda thought of how best to order. It was a thin thought sequestered between futile motions of public consciousness. She came to the conclusion to use the word just a lot and to flutter her hands.

“I’ll just have the Cobb salad too. And just water is fine,” she said, fluttering her hands.

The waitress nodded. Just had been successful.

“So what’s new with you, Led? Any news?”

Leda thought about the boy and the parfait, but she figured she should wait with that anecdote now that Elle had such big news.

“Nothing, really…You remember that story I sent to that literary journal? I got a letter from the editor, and she said even though this story isn’t right for them, she really liked my writing and would love it if I sent something else.”

“That’s awesome!”

“Thanks, yeah. I was excited about it. Are you taking Pam’s class next semester?”

“No.” Elle sat up very straight. Her torso looked like a washboard. “I think I’m going to focus more on publishing from now on.”

“I hope you keep writing, though. I always really liked your stories.” She thought back to a story Elle had written about a woman who sold combs.

“Yeah, I mean, I will. It’s just, as far as things go professionally, it’s time for the fantasy to end, you know? I mean, it’s all well and good to keep writing, but I also want to set realistic goals.” Elle smiled.

“Yeah, I get that.” Leda recognized the familiar wave of cruelty and cattiness that lingered in the comment, a rich but common display of the unabashed hatred and simultaneous press for superiority any woman could feel for another woman at any given moment.

“I guess I’ve always figured the fantasy is supposed to last at least through college,” she said. She knew her response was bitchy, but that bitchiness was survival in a friendship like this one.

Elle did a sort of sideways nod and looked out the window. “I guess I don’t really know what I want,” she said.

She seemed sad, and that sadness surprised Leda, in at least as much as here it was right in front of her. She felt like for a moment she could see it all: small, paper Elle in her oversized clothes waiting for Cobb salad. It wasn’t fair to let the vulnerability of her friend stay open like that.

“There’s this boy who keeps talking to me at a bagel place, and he gave me a free parfait.”

“Are you serious?” Elle lit up at the endless potential of talk of an anonymous boy. The girls theorized as they picked at their salads over what the best way was to approach the situation so that she and parfait-bagel-guy would marry. They came to the conclusion that the next time Leda came in for a bagel she should say, “That parfait you gave me was delicious.” The plan was seamless through the glow of easy lunchtime conversation.

On the way out of the restaurant they decided to go for coffee at the same café Leda often frequented. As they sat down, she felt a calm fall over her through the familiarity of the place. The smell was warm and sharp. It was loud in the usual way. Elle ordered a complicated coffee. She got tea.

“The thing is, I’d like to cut my hair shorter,” Elle said.

“How short?”

“Like a bob or something,” she said, touching her hair.

“I think that would be pretty.”

The girls walked out together talking about Elle’s internship. She appeared very sure of herself, as was evidenced in the way she carried her shopping bags and how she clicked on words like opportunity and branding.

“I can’t wait to be working,” she said.

“Oh, is it paid?”

Elle shifted the shopping bags. “No, but it’s like a job.”

Leda nodded, figuring “like a job” meant something for a twenty-year-old or at least for Elle. I hope I never have to have “like a job,” she thought. She looked down at her purse. Here is my purse, which is a purse, and here is Elle, who is like an adult. She is almost an adult but less so than my purse is a purse.

Leda noticed Elle limped a little as they stepped off the curb to cross the street. “You’re limping. Did you hurt yourself?”

“I rolled my ankle while pretending to be a ballerina in my room,” Elle said.

The girls said their goodbyes on the corner. Elle walked off limping a little, with handfuls of shopping bags around her emphasizing the smallness of her frame. Leda imagined Elle in her bedroom holding on to internship as she danced to Cobb salad and bobbed hair. She looks so linear, thought Leda, like she could just blow away.