Chapter 5 #11
“I mean, I actually don’t think so. For the first time, I can see her clearly. Like, I think I kind of made up a personality for her. It’s helpful, being here, seeing her in her real life. She’s just kind of … normal.”
Katie throws her head back and snorts with laughter. “Of course she’s normal, Susan. She’s like the most normal person ever. I’ve been trying to tell you that for years and you never wanted to hear it.”
“I don’t know how you deal with me.” Susan sighs. “Okay, so what’s going on over there?”
“I do have news,” Katie says, and by the look on her face Susan can’t tell if it’s good news or bad news. “We’ve decided to stay on Long Island.”
It takes all Susan’s effort to keep from audibly gasping.
“Jake is going to get his real estate license. We found a house near my parents. It just makes more sense, you know? I’ve been having nightmares about that woman who died falling down the subway stairs with her stroller. I don’t want to raise a kid in the city.”
“That does make sense,” Susan says. Even if she wasn’t aware of it, she knew on some level this day would come. “So you’re going to, like, send him to Half Hollow Hills and join the PTA and drive his friends to the Walt Whitman Mall on weekends.”
Katie laughs. “I guess I am. It doesn’t sound so bad. I mean, we were pretty happy growing up, weren’t we? We were angsty as fuck, but nothing really bad ever happened.”
“Not to us,” Susan says.
“That’s all I want. Something boring and safe.”
In the background, Susan hears Allen start to cry.
“Sounds like your other phone is ringing,” Susan says.
“It’s the mom alarm.” Katie picks Allen up and brings his face to the phone. “Say hi to Aunt Susan, Al,” she says.
Allen looks directly into the camera. Then his face turns reddish purple and he lets out another devastated-sounding wail, as though he can’t believe he has to exist in a world with screens.
“Same, dude,” Susan says.
“I should go,” Katie says. “If he doesn’t go to bed soon, he turns into a pumpkin. Or a demon. But I love you. I’ll call you soon.”
“I love you, too,” Susan says. “Thanks for calling.”
“I always want to be calling,” Katie says. “If I ever don’t, it’s because there’s a baby yelling at me. It’s not because of you.”
“I know,” she says. “But thank you for reminding me.”
They get off the phone and there’s a knock on the door of the guesthouse, as though Eliza has been listening on the other side of the wall, waiting for Susan’s call to end.
“Do you want to come to the farmers market with me?” Eliza says.
“Give me ten minutes,” Susan shouts from the bed.
In her old life in New York, Susan would have needed an hour to get ready to go anywhere.
But she’s seen enough of this city to know that everyone looks rumpled before noon, and so she doesn’t second-guess what she sees in the mirror: sheet marks still on her face, T-shirt wrinkled from being balled up on the floor, hair sticking out all over the place.
She’s starting to look so much like her mom, which is a little scary. She puts on her sunglasses.
“Do you mind if we walk?” says Eliza, who is wearing loose terracotta- colored linen overalls and a baseball hat, looking like the poster girl for an advertisement that says VISIT CALIFORNIA!
It’s only a mile to the farmers market, but it’s all hills, and Susan is sore from so much hiking this week. Still, it’s a nice walk, and beautiful at this hour, when everything is quiet but for the birds and the occasional ambitious jogger.
They don’t talk about what happened last night. In fact, they don’t talk at all. It’s like they have nothing left to say.
Finally, as they get closer, Eliza says, “I’m so excited.” Her walk is more like a skip now. She’s bouncing. “I think there should finally be peaches today.”
The market is smaller than Susan expected, but it’s quaint: white tents covering tables overflowing with produce so gorgeous it looks like a food stylist arranged it.
A young girl walks by wearing green cargo pants and a pink leather wristband with metal studs.
“Wow, I had that same exact bracelet in high school,” Susan says. She’d worn it the night she and Eliza met, but she doesn’t say this. Some memories are too specific to be shared.
“I think that one is probably Valentino,” Eliza says. “Can you imagine? Did you ever think the aughts would become cool again?” She shakes her head with amazement. “That is how I know we’ve gotten old.”
“I knew we were old when Gen Z discovered the Mountain Goats on TikTok,” Susan says.
Eliza laughs. “I have no idea what any of those words mean.”
“You’re probably better off.”
“Oh, yay!” Eliza squeals, tugging on Susan’s arm and taking her to a table that’s covered in peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums.
“Would you like to try anything?” the man working there asks.
He slices off pieces of white peach and hands them each one. It’s hot and slippery and juicy, and when Susan puts it in her mouth, she has to stop herself from groaning. She’s never had anything so sweet.
“Fuck,” she says. “Why is that so good?”
“First peach of the season, baby,” Eliza says. “We’ll take six,” she says to the man.
“Twenty-five dollars,” he says.
Susan laughs, but when no one else does, she stops.
As they walk away, arms loaded down with produce, Susan says, “You know, when we first met, never in a million years would I have pegged you for someone who would grow up to be excited about the first peach of the season.”
“Well, if you think about it, you didn’t really know anything about me at all.”
“I guess I still don’t,” Susan says, and there’s a certain relief that comes with saying it. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“You do think it was Kyle, right? Who took the picture?”
Eliza slows her gait, giving Susan a sidelong look before answering. “I know it was.”
“How, though?”
“There was never any doubt in my mind. He was the one who invited me out, to a party at Megan McDonald’s house, do you remember her?
He picked me up in that stupid fucking Jeep.
He held my Solo cup while I went to the bathroom.
I mean, we were there together. I was kind of obsessed with him at that point.
I felt like I’d won the lottery. Everyone was jealous, I could tell from the way they glared at me.
I even let him kiss me in front of everyone. ”
“Then what happened?”
Susan hopes it’s okay that she’s asking these questions, but after last night it feels like nothing is off-limits.
“I don’t remember. When I woke up in my bed the next afternoon, I was wearing my underwear and socks. My clothes had been folded at the edge of my bed. My parents were conveniently out of town for the weekend. I was, in theory, old enough to take care of myself for a couple of days.”
Susan feels nauseous. “Oh, god.”
An older couple with a large poodle walks by, the dog pausing to lick the moisture from Susan’s ankles.
When the couple is out of earshot, Eliza says, “I just didn’t think he’d have let anyone else get close enough to me that night to take me home.
We were all over each other. I didn’t think much of it that day, to be honest. I thought I just drank too much.
Part of me even thought it was sweet that he’d folded my clothes, although I wasn’t sure why he’d needed to take them off.
I wasn’t sure why I’d slept for eighteen hours, either.
Why I couldn’t remember anything. Why my head hurt so much. ”
There’s something different about Eliza’s voice as she tells Susan the story this time. Like she’s never said it out loud like this before. She fictionalized it for her screenplay, but maybe in doing so, she removed herself from her actual experience.
“I understood when I saw the photo a few days later. Some random girl from school emailed it to me.” She shudders, remembering. “I’ll never forget the chill as it loaded on my screen. His sneakers were even visible in the photo, in the mirror next to the bed, but the flash covered his face.”
They turn and begin walking up a hill so steep, Susan can’t see the other side.
Eliza keeps talking, not out of breath at all.
“So here’s the worst part. I couldn’t bring myself to confront him about it.
I told myself maybe I just didn’t remember telling him he could take the photo, and maybe someone else sent it out?
I don’t know. I was good at lying to myself.
I thought if we’d had sex—I mean, if he’d raped me—that even if I couldn’t remember it, I’d probably wanted to do it.
I know that’s fucked-up logic, but I was just a kid.
And then, for whatever reason, I still couldn’t stay away from him.
I kept seeing him, kept going to parties with him, and, yeah, I kept hooking up with him. ”
She stops talking to search Susan’s face, as if to see if she’s being judged.
“Go on,” Susan urges.
In all the years they’ve known each other, this feels like the first time Eliza has ever been honest with her.
Eliza sighs. “Every time we hooked up, I promised myself it was the last time. But then we’d be at some house party and I’d think, well, maybe this is my chance to get the power back, or have a do-over, or something.
I don’t know. I liked that it was almost like I was stringing him along.
But it’s hard to remember what I was thinking, because I’d also started to drink. A lot.”
They reach the top of the hill. The sun is higher and hotter now, and Susan is drenched in sweat.