The week after they got back from Paris, David suggested that he and Laura stop for a drink at an outdoor café in Vondelpark. “I need to talk to you about something,” he said.

They were on their way home from school; they often cycled back with a larger group as far as the corner of Stadionweg, where they would split up. David and Stella usually biked the last stretch together: Laura lived at the edge of the park, David in the city center, on Looiersgracht.

“What’ll you have?” David asked, trying to catch the waitress’s eye.

“Do they have Pernod here? Probably not.” Laura smiled at him a bit naughtily, but David didn’t smile back.

“I wanted to talk to you about that too,” he said.

Finally, they both ordered beer; Laura thought David would start in right away about her affair with the history teacher, but he didn’t.

“I’ve been thinking about Zeeland,” he said. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something. Ask you first, to hear what you think, and the others after that.”

“Well?” In two weeks’ time they were planning to go back to the house in Terhofstede, with the same group; this time, though, a few things would be different. Two days after they got back from the field trip to Paris, Lodewijk’s mother had died. And this would be the first time that a “couple” would be there: Herman and Stella.

“It’s your house,” David said. “Your parents’ house, but still. Mostly your house. However you look at it, it’s up to you to decide who goes along and who doesn’t.”

Laura didn’t say a thing, just looked around to see if their beers were coming.

“So what do you think about Herman and Stella?” David asked. “I mean, it was pretty weird, the way it went…at least I thought so. I mean, Herman’s my friend, but I thought the whole thing was out of line. That’s what I told him too.”

“What did you say to him?” Laura asked, suddenly concerned. She considered David her best friend, the kind of best friend you’d never get involved with romantically, and therefore all the more reliable. David was just a sweet guy, maybe a little too sweet; he always wanted to do the right thing by Laura, but despite all his good intentions it seemed as though he tried to protect her too much, the way a parent might shield a child from shocking or bad news. That made her feel claustrophobic at times, but she never dared say so.

“I told him he should have waited till we got back to Amsterdam,” David said. “With Stella, I mean. I thought it was out of line to do that in your house. In your parents’ house.”

“But why? What’s so out of line about hooking up with my best girlfriend?” Laura tried to make it sound as normal as possible—calm, collected, as though it made no difference to her—but there was no way she could get the underlying sarcasm out of it; David must have heard it too.

“Exactly that: your best girlfriend. I think that’s weird, you don’t do things like that. That’s not being respectful of other people’s feelings.”

Laura felt a sudden flash of heat at the base of her throat; she had to do her best now to make sure that heat didn’t reach her face. “What feelings? What do you mean?”

“Laura, I’m your best friend. There’s no need to try to fool me. I saw it with my own eyes. And I probably wasn’t the only one. The way you looked at Herman. How you tried so hard not to let anyone see that you liked him. I watched it happen, the way you completely fell apart when he and Stella—”

“Fell apart?” Laura felt the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, she covered her face with her hands in an attempt to hide them from David. “What are you talking about?”

Then she actually started crying. David rose from his chair, then reconsidered and slid his chair around the table, a little closer to her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want…This is exactly what I didn’t want. Does Stella know what you think about this? How you feel, I mean? Have you two ever talked about it?”

“Oh, that fucking bitch!” Laura said. It was out before she had even thought about it—but it was precisely what she thought.

“Yeah,” was all David said; he raised his arm as though to put it around her shoulders, then let it drop.

“I wish she was dead,” Laura said. It was a thought that had never come up in her before, not that explicitly, but she sensed that some other force—some other voice—was expressing her feelings perfectly, without a single thought beforehand. In any case, it came as a relief, as though she had finally stuck a finger down her throat and vomited; the queasiness was over now. She stopped crying, wiped the tears from her eyes, and smiled at David. “I wished she was dead, for a while there,” she said. “It’s better now, actually.”

And David smiled back; that was what made him her best friend, Laura realized again, he didn’t say the wrong things, he didn’t say, for example, that you couldn’t say things like that about your best girlfriend.

“All things considered, it just seems wiser to me if Herman and Stella didn’t go along to Terhofstede this time,” David said. “I already hinted at that to Herman, but I haven’t said anything to Stella. Herman understood, I think. But of course it’s up to you.”

“What did he understand?” Laura suddenly felt icy inside—her crying jag seemed a thing of the distant past, centuries ago, as though she had never cried in her life.

“That it might be difficult for you. He hadn’t meant to hurt you, he said. If it bothered you, he was willing to stay home. That’s a possibility too, of course, that Stella goes along but not Herman.”

“Hurt me?” Laura spoke very quietly, she was completely in control, she told herself. She looked David straight in the eye. David, her “best friend,” but then a best friend who believed too fully in his own goodness—in his own good intentions. There was no way she could get angry at him, he would never understand that, but not being able to get angry at him made her even more furious. “What did you say to him, exactly?”

“Laura…” David slid his chair back a little, so he could get a better look at her. “Laura, I didn’t tell him anything except what was already clear as a bell. Everyone saw it. Herman’s not blind either. He understood right away, that’s what I thought was so good of him.”

So this was the price one paid for having a best friend, Laura realized. You also had to accept it when they ruined everything for you. Out of the goodness of their heart. Out of pity. She thought she really might have to vomit at any moment.

“I have absolutely no problem with Herman and Stella coming along,” she said. “Absolutely no problem whatsoever.”

“Laura…”

“Don’t ‘Laura’ me. It’s my house, isn’t that what you just said? My parents’ house? Okay, then Herman and Stella are very welcome there too. End of discussion.” She stood up, their beers still hadn’t arrived. “I’m going. See you at school tomorrow.”