stood by helplessly but also visibly relieved that I had taken over, though she kept apologizing.
“Maybe we should order in,” she muttered, eyeballing the still-pink flesh of the chicken as I began to toss the strips into the pan. Angie had a fear of death by microbacteria.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make it edible,” I said, slicing up the last cutlet and stirring it into the mix.
By the time we sat down to eat, I was feeling like myself again. In control. Satisfied. And no longer in the mood to dwell on things that might have been. I hadn’t really lost anything. I was still the same Grace Noonan I was the day before. There was no funeral to attend, no condolences to accept. I wasn’t, technically, the grieving family. So technically, there was nothing to grieve, right?
I had also come to a decision, despite Angie’s prodding that I meet this newfound aunt and sister. Although I was more curious about them than I let on, I decided I didn’t want to know them. Didn’t want to care for the family who had only contacted me out of a sense of obligation.
“That was delicious, Grace,” Angie said, leaning back in her chair, having eaten so heartily of the stir fry once she had been assured the chicken wouldn’t kill her, she looked ready for a cab ride downtown and a pillow. That was fine with me. I was more than ready to be alone.
Unfortunately, Angie had other ideas. “So, I brought over a toothbrush and a change of underwear….” she began.
“Oh, Angie, you don’t need to stay,” I immediately protested. But feeling bad at the hurt look in her eyes, I relented.
She beamed. “Great. I’ll run out and get us some Double Chocolate Häagen-Dazs. This is gonna be fun, Gracie. Just like old times when we used to do sleepovers back in Brooklyn….”
It was more like old times than even I expected, especially when Angie forewent the sofa bed, insisting instead on sharing my bed.
So there we were, lying side by side in the dark, just like when we were in junior high. We had indulged ourselves on ice cream while Angie talked excitedly about the location Justin had found to shoot the opening scene in his film. We eventually moved on to other topics we shared in common, like men.
Angie listened quietly while I expressed my relief over having Ethan out of my life. “I don’t think he would have handled this whole business with Kristina Morova very well….” I said, unexpectedly bringing up the subject I had studiously avoided all evening.
I felt Angie’s eyes on me in the dark. As if she sensed the unease I was feeling. Without saying a word, she took my hand in hers. And despite this independent front I was trying to put on, I was painfully glad I wasn’t alone right then. Even so, it wasn’t until I heard Angie’s breath fall in the deep, rhythmic pattern of sleep that I allowed myself to weep.
I’m not sure how long I let the tears roll quietly down my face, my body shaking with the effort of holding back any sobs that might wake Angie, but the tide eventually stopped, allowing me to turn and look at my sleeping friend with a sad smile. I really hadn’t lost a thing, had I? I still had my best friend. My family, whom, I realized with a sudden shiver of unexpected anxiety, I needed to call.
There was no hurry, I thought as I felt myself slip into sleep. And I was nearly submerged in a blissfully unconscious state when the sound of a cell phone ringing jarred me awake once more.
“Shit,” I heard Angie mutter. She glanced at me as I eyeballed her groggily. “Sorry, Grace,” she said, scrambling from the bed.
I watched her shadowy form move across the bedroom and out the door, which in her hurry to get out of the room, she had left ajar. Open just enough for me to hear her rummage through her pocketbook, locate the still-ringing phone and silence it.
“Hey, sweetheart…” I heard her say.
Justin, I realized drowsily.
“I know, I know. I miss you, too, baby….”
I felt my insides soften along with Angie’s voice as I imagined Justin in their apartment alone, longing for Angie just as surely as she was longing for him.
To be so loved—
My heart sank with sudden swiftness.
I realized I had lost something tonight. Something even greater than a fifty-one-year-old woman I had never known, yet was bound to in the most intimate of ways.
Hope.
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