410 PM Mia
A minute or so later Mia stood in front of another patio table, this one laid out with an assortment of snacks on an orange-and-black tablecloth.
Bowls of popcorn and purple tortilla chips.
A large plate holding four types of cheese, arranged in a semicircle around small heaps of dried fruit and nuts.
Sensing that Sasha was staring at her, she focused her attention on a tray of deviled eggs.
Directly before her was the bowl of purple tortilla chips.
She ate one without really tasting it, and thought of how an hour ago, after their discussion in the bathroom, they had gone downstairs together and into the backyard.
Mia’s feet had felt heavy—she kept thinking about all of the Miami restaurants and shopping recommendations she had texted Sasha over the course of the past week, which made her want to die; Sasha on the other hand had walked quickly and buoyantly, as if she had dropped off a heavy piece of luggage at an airport bag-check counter and was rushing to her gate.
She’d taken hold of Mia’s wrist as if she were a small child and brightly introduced her to that woman, Claire Matthews; Mia had half expected Sasha to whisper, “Now, say hello to the nice lady, Mia,” as she shook Claire’s hand.
For the next ten minutes, Sasha had talked about all her favorite articles that Mia had written for the Times, as well as the book she was working on.
At first this made Mia feel proud. Especially after what had happened in the bathroom, it was nice to hear Sasha show some interest in her life.
After a while, though, all the bragging struck her as strange: When was the last time Sasha had given a shit about her job?
Mia had the sensation of being trotted out before an audience, like a bear in a tutu trained to pirouette on a tightrope, and realized that what Sasha was really doing was bragging about herself.
She could have been talking about anyone—what was important wasn’t Mia, or Mia’s accomplishments, but rather that this woman Claire Matthews was impressed by who Sasha knew.
Basically: Sasha didn’t want Claire to think that she was friends with a bunch of losers.
Soon Mia had stopped listening, and started responding to all of Claire’s questions with a cold and impassive mm-hmm.
Why had Sasha never worked that hard to impress her?
Why had she so easily been able to cancel their plans without worrying how Mia would feel?
Sasha excused herself to explain to Cassie Lopez where the cupcakes were in the kitchen, and for a few awkward moments Mia had stood in silence, watching as Claire fluffed the ruffles on her dress.
Then Claire cleared her throat, pointed toward a cluster of small children, and asked Mia, “So, which one of those heathens is yours?” At first Mia was confused—she’d looked at Claire, and then at the children.
Once she understood, she took a large drink of wine and said, “Oh, I don’t want one of those—I tried it once and it wasn’t really for me.
” Claire’s eyes had narrowed slightly; she regarded Mia with the same fearful smile that Mia had received from a hundred other women her age, as if Mia’s childless status were a communicable disease.
To Cassie, Sasha said, “If you can only manage one of the trays, that’s totally fine,” before refocusing all her attention back to Claire.
Mia wondered: maybe the reason Sasha had never worried about impressing her was that she never cared what Mia thought.
She ate another tortilla chip, dipping this one into a bowl of watery salsa. Adam came to stand next to her. He was holding a glass filled with melting ice, and the tape on the bridge of his glasses was coming undone. With her mouth full Mia said, “Oh, hey.”
“Oh, hey. Have you had one of the cupcakes?”
Mia pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. She swallowed.
“No, why?”
“I think I got a weird one.”
“This whole party’s weird.”
“You’re not having a good time?”
“Are you?”
“I’m still trying to decide.” Adam placed his cup on the table.
He wiped his hands against his pants, removed his eyeglasses, and began cleaning their lenses on his shirt.
“I’ve been talking to this guy dressed up like a Ghostbuster for the last ten minutes.
He’s straight and kind of hot in, like, a daddy way?
Except he keeps asking me these intensely personal questions about the whole surrogacy process.
I mean, I just met him, and now I’m supposed to tell him if we’re using my sperm or Rami’s? ”
“Whose sperm are you using?”
“Unclear yet—that’s why Rami’s up in Norwalk. But we did this crazy test that screens for something like two hundred eighty-four genetic anomalies. It turns out that Rami carries three of them.”
“Like, bad ones?”
“I guess? One of them can make you lose your hearing when you’re, like, three years old. I forget what it’s called. Another one gives you cystic fibrosis. It’s really remarkable that straight people go around getting drunk and fucking and popping out babies without doing any of this stuff.”
“How many did you have?”
“None. Zero.”
“How would Rami feel about using your sperm?”
“He says fine. To be honest, I think he’s mostly upset that I had zero genetic conditions and he had three. He can be competitive about these things.”
Adam held the glasses up a few inches from his face and squinted through them. With a sigh, he lowered them again and scrubbed at the right lens. Mia ate another chip. She wanted to tell him: You know, those things are fake.
“Sasha bailed on our trip to Miami,” she said.
“You were going to go to Miami with Sasha?”
“Yeah, Adam, I told you about it over a week ago.”
He set the glasses back on his face.
“Okay, well, sorry. I’ve been a little distracted.”
Bits of salt clung to the tips of Mia’s fingers, and she brushed them against her coat. She said, “Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” and the sharp tone of her voice at once surprised and embarrassed her. Adam drew back his chin. She turned a few degrees away from him and ate another chip.
“Oh, okay,” he said.
“Look, it’s kind of shitty of her, all right? We never see each other anymore, so I go to all this trouble to plan a vacation and use a bunch of SkyMiles to buy a flight, and she seems all excited to go and then cancels on me with the dumbest excuse possible.”
“What was her excuse?”
Mia reached into her pocket for her tortoiseshell clasp. She pulled her hair up and off her neck.
“Something about childcare. I guess Theo has to go to Phoenix for work and Sasha’s babysitter can’t watch the kids.”
“Okay, Mia?” Adam squared his shoulders to her. “That sounds like a perfectly legitimate excuse.”
“It’s just very typical of her, is all I’m saying.”
Adam was quiet for a moment. Then he began shaking his head.
“Oh no,” Mia said. “Not you too.”
“You need to be nicer to her.”
“Explain to me how I’m not being nice to her.”
Adam set his hands on his hips. For a brief moment Mia saw him as a father, and herself as a child. Closer to the house, Richie talked to a little girl dressed as Elsa from Frozen. Laughing, he took her tiara and placed it on his head. The girl tugged at his shirt and he swatted at her hand.
“Sasha is obviously juggling a ton,” Adam said. “She’s got two kids, a full-time job, and, like, four bedrooms to decorate.”
“Why is that my problem?”
“I’m not saying that it’s your problem. I’m saying you need to check yourself before getting pissed at her for not deserting her responsibilities to go to Miami.”
Mia straightened her spine. She thought: This is not how this conversation was supposed to be going.
When she told him that Sasha had flaked on her, Adam was supposed to say, “Oh my God, Mia, she can be so selfish sometimes.” He was supposed to take her side, thereby shifting the balance of power that existed—had always existed—among the three of them.
Except that wasn’t what was happening. Instead Adam was pursing his lips disapprovingly, and telling her to “check herself,” which so far as Mia could recall was a phrase that she had never heard him use a single time over the course of their twenty-year friendship.
Instead of aligning himself with her, he was practicing his parenting skills on her, thus forming a de facto alliance with Sasha.
Now it was Mia who was the odd one out, Mia who would be the subject of the discussions and jokes.
They would say things like, “The best part about kids is that they give you an excuse not to go to Miami,” and “I think she’s really lonely. ”
Turning her head to the side, Mia slipped her hands into the pockets of her coat and felt its hem brush against her thighs.
Fallen leaves lined the base of the fence that encircled the backyard.
Nearer to the stage where Theo and his band were playing, a man dressed as Woody from Toy Story lifted a toddler in a Buzz Lightyear costume so he could bob for apples.
Mia thought of the cool, expressionless way that Claire Matthews spoke, of how Sasha clung to each and every movement.
She realized she had made a gross miscalculation; she felt herself becoming sick.
“Okay,” she said. “Fine.”
Adam rubbed her shoulder. “Good girl.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
He held up both hands. Then he said, “You want to come meet this hot Ghostbuster?”
“Is he married?”
“I think so?”
“Then no.”