Chapter 39 Sienna
Chapter 39
Sienna
As soon as Renée sets the wine bottle down, Cassidy rises from her seat and fills her glass herself. No one seems more upset than Rosalie. Sienna fights the urge to intervene when Adam asks about a particular snowy day on campus.
“Do I remember?” Lucy asks. “It’s my favorite memory of college.”
“I thought I was your favorite memory,” Sienna says.
Henry’s silent, even though that’s the day he and Adam became “brothers,” stripping naked in the snow-covered mall for some ritual for Henry’s fraternity. He doesn’t mention it. Maybe his silence has to do with the fact that she saw Henry walk up to Adam and tell him to fuck off on the hike. Henry doesn’t usually get provoked that easily, and when she asked Adam about it on the way home, he brushed her off with a wave. She hates when he does that. Keeping her at arm’s length and in the dark.
Lucy’s retelling the story of their first snow day together and how they spent the morning at the campus bar, The Vous. “That was the first and last time I ever funneled beer.”
Sienna struggles with whether to dive in. Something has transpired between the men, but then Lucy details Adam and Henry trudging through the snow, the naked climb up the steps to Testudo, the turtle statue situated at the front of the library.
Adam laughs. “It’s a good thing smartphones didn’t exist back then.”
Sienna can’t help herself. “I still have to look at that picture every time I walk into Adam’s office.”
“What picture?” Penny asks.
“Oh, just these two clowns posing naked with the turtle. The gift that keeps on giving.”
This garners a round of laughter, and someone pops a joke about a certain shriveled part of the anatomy, and for a moment, they’re sent back in time, down a memory lane paved in tailgates, lecture halls, and all-nighters.
“Life was so much easier back then,” Sienna says. “Remind me why we were in such a rush to grow up?”
“Youth is definitely wasted on the young,” Leo says.
“Right?” Sienna agrees. “We had no way of knowing we were living our best years.”
“I’m living my best years now,” Adam says, smiling at her.
“You know what I mean. The innocence. No major responsibilities. Our world was small and insulated. Our biggest problems were getting to class on time ... passing Theater 110.”
“I hated that class,” Henry joins in. “That was my only D.”
“I took a theater class in college,” Leo says. “Got an F.”
They collectively laugh, traveling back in time.
They reminisce about a road trip to the Jersey Shore when they ran out of gas on I-95, and the year they went to Sienna’s house for Thanksgiving and played football with her brothers, and the exact moment they knew they’d become lifelong friends: the beginning of sophomore year, when Adam dropped out of school altogether.
Adam reaches for his phone, and Keyshia Cole’s “Heaven Sent” fills the air.
“Wow. That one takes me back,” Lucy says. “Formal. Baltimore Harbor.”
Penny and Leo meet each other’s eyes. “Different memory. Same nostalgia,” Leo says. “We had just had our daughter Amelia. The song was playing when we brought her home from the hospital.”
“You remember that?” Penny asks.
“How could I forget?”
“I miss that time in our lives.” Sienna hears the melancholy in her voice. She certainly didn’t have any strange phobias back then.
“You’re not that old,” Renée offers as she clears another round of plates.
They’re engrossed in conversation, noshing on pasta with shrimp and a basket of artisanal breads with sweet raspberry butter. Dishes are served and taken away; the table has a festive rhythm. Jean-Paul every so often interrupts with some interesting fact about meal prep. Sienna takes the first bite of the Italian steak, and the flavor melts in her mouth. The others follow with their praise. She notices Cassidy cutting the meat and moving it around her plate, but nothing reaches her mouth except the garnish, which has the nutritional value of a grain of sand.
Someone mentions COVID, who had it, who didn’t.
“I never had it either,” says Henry.
“How’s that possible?” Penny asks. “Leo and I ...” She stops. “I had it three times.”
“Same.” Leo raises his hand.
“I couldn’t taste anything for a month,” Sienna says. “It was scary. And strange.”
“I should only be so lucky,” Cassidy slurs.
Rosalie jabs her mother.
They talk about who should perform at the next Super Bowl halftime show, and whether Ozempic is a wonder drug or a danger. The table is loud and lively, and Sienna’s glad to see that Henry and Adam have resumed speaking, that whatever happened has passed. She watches the interactions between Henry and Lucy and wonders if maybe they’ll change their minds about the divorce. It doesn’t make sense to her. They seem perfectly normal together.
One turn of her head and she might have missed it, but she spots Renée by the sink, her eyes wide as she angrily whispers into Jean-Paul’s ear. The room is noisy with the conversation and clattering of silverware, and Jean-Paul shakes his head as though he can’t hear. And when Renée repeats it, her voice echoes loudly through the room: “They should have never let Michael Wall out of jail.”