Chasing Mercury

by Kimberly Cooper Griffin

  “We were on our blanket in the secret meadow.”

  “Ah. Our secret meadow,” sighed Elizabeth. A sadness fell over her at the thought of it, like it always did these days.

  “Remember when we used to do that? Talk all day while watching the sky?”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “Yep. But I remembered. You described your house one time and that night I drew it so I would remember.”

  “You did?”

  “Yep. Down to the stainless steel countertops and the fireman’s pole dropping from the bedroom balcony into the pool.”

  “Oh my god! I remember!”

  “It’s why I became an architect.”

  “To build me a house?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Layce stroked her hair and Elizabeth closed her eyes. If she could, she would have purred like a cat.

  “Are you happy, Layce?”

  The pause was so long, Elizabeth thought that maybe she forgot to ask out loud. She was about to ask again when Layce finally answered.

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “I’m not sure I know what happy is,” said Elizabeth and she was kind of surprised she’d said it. The response had just come out of her without her thinking it and her own words struck her as kind of deep and melancholy. It was as if she was feeling someone else’s feelings. Suddenly, she felt very alone.

  Layce rolled Elizabeth over and Elizabeth looked up into Layce’s eyes.

  “Sure you do.”

  “I know how to be comfortable, but I don’t know how to be happy.”

  Layce studied her face for a moment.

  “I think I know what you mean, Eliza.”

  “But you’re happy. That’s cool. What makes you happy, Layce?”

  “This. Talking with you makes me happy. Being done with school makes me happy. Feeling like I’m about to start my life makes me happy.”

  “Being with Andrea.”

  Layce paused, but her eyes grew soft.

  “Yes, being with Andy makes me happy.”

  “I don’t have any of that…”

  “Hey…!” laughed Layce, pretending to be offended.

  “Yes, talking with you makes me happy. Hanging out with you does. But it makes me sad sometimes, too. So, that cancels it out.”

  Confusion filled Layce’s face.

  “Hanging out with me makes you sad?”

  “Yes. Because I know it won’t always be like this.”

  “Yes, it will. If we want it to be.”

  “No. It won’t. We won’t always live together like…” Elizabeth tried to explain, but Layce interrupted her.

  “But we’ll always be friends. We can…”

  “Things will change. Maybe you’ll go live with Andrea. And when I come over—because I will come over—a lot—I won’t be able to get you drunk and lay in your lap.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  “No. I won’t. It wouldn’t be fair to Andrea… or whoever it is you end up with.”

  “If they’re not cool with it, they won’t be in the picture. Andrea included.”

  “Layce. You don’t mean that.”

  “No. I get it. Our relationship will evolve. It will be okay. But the other stuff… Kev, you being a doctor…”

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. And the hiccups started. She laughed.

  “I can’t even make up my mind what to specialize in. You know why? Because I know my mother expects me to go into politics.”

  “You hate politics. You aren’t even registered to vote.”

  Elizabeth reached up and put her hand over Layce’s mouth.

  “Shhhh! That’s a secret!”

  They giggled and Layce let Elizabeth’s hand rest against her lips for a few seconds before she reached up and removed it.

  “But seriously, you hate politics.”

  “I know. It’s what she wants, though. It’s always been The Plan. Oh, I’ll finish my schooling, and get my medical license, fighting the political path all the way. But I have no idea what I want to do after that. My life is in limbo and I don’t know how to get out of it.”

  “But Kev—doesn’t he make you happy?”

  Elizabeth stared at Layce, then rolled her eyes.

  “I can’t believe you, of all people, would ask that question, Layce.”

  “So, why are you still with him?”

  “Because… because… what else is there?”

  “Love. Romance. Passion. Just to name a few things.”

  “I get as much of all of that from him as I’m bound to get with anyone else.”

  “You just haven’t experienced it, Eliza. You’ll see it and feel it when you come across it. Maybe you need to get away from Kev to allow yourself the possibility.”

  Elizabeth almost said that she had, once upon a time, on a floor in a club house filled with sleeping teammates, and again a few days later she’d risen to higher heights in their secret meadow. But she wasn’t drunk enough to go there. She knew her eyes would say it, though, so she rolled back onto her side, facing away from Layce, and stared at the champagne bottles again.

  “I’m afraid of what I would find.”

  “What are you afraid of, Eliza?” asked Layce, gently rolling her back to face her again.

  Elizabeth just looked into Layce’s eyes and saw that Layce knew. She didn’t have to answer. So she just closed her eyes and cried. She’d fallen asleep crying, and she’d woken up the next morning, covered in a blanket that Layce must have tucked around her, with a head that felt like a truck had run over it.

  Two weeks later, Layce accepted one of the offers she’d been given, from an architectural firm in Los Angeles. And before Elizabeth had gotten over the shock, she and Andrea moved out to California. Elizabeth pretended to be supportive, but inside she had died just a little. It helped that, even in all of the rush to move, Layce had still found time to go on their annual trip to Guatemala. They acted the same, they still shared a tent, but there was a sadness lingering over everything.

  Over the next year, Elizabeth found herself too busy to make it out to Los Angeles to visit, but she and Layce talked on the phone several times a week. When the invitation to Layce’s wedding came, scheduled for the same week as their annual trip to Guatemala, Elizabeth had to decline, even though Layce begged her to be her best woman. Elizabeth’s justification was she couldn’t short the team two of the regulars they counted on, but she and Layce knew it wasn’t that at all. They didn’t talk about it, and though their friendship cooled down a little bit, it still didn’t disintegrate.

  The final year of medical school was tough, and Elizabeth found the mind-numbing pace of her coursework a welcome distraction. She still talked to Layce, but she didn’t have time to dwell on her own happiness or get too upset hearing Layce plan her family. One day she realized that, while she had managed to talk to Layce at least twice a week on the phone, she hadn’t talked to Kev in over a month, and when she looked back on the last year, she had only seen him twice—when they both went home for Christmas, and a couple of days over spring break. And she’d talked to him less than twice a month the rest of the year. She began to understand that she couldn’t follow through with marrying him.

  By the time medical school was over, Elizabeth still had no idea what she was going to do with her career, other than she would stay at Johns Hopkins for her residency. Once again, she had let life just happen to her, taking the path laid out for her.

  On the day she was leaving Guatemala—three days earlier than planned because the nightmares of the baby falling from her arms had kept her awake each night and she was beginning to feel a little delirious between the fatigue, the heat and the humidity—she received the call from Layce that Andrea had given birth to seven pound, three ounce Elizabeth Simone. With a baby named after her, and an elated Layce on the phone, Elizabeth had run out of excuses not to visit, so she made plans to fly out to meet her little namesake. She’d had almost two years to get used to the fact that Layce
’s life was with someone else. She missed Layce, but it was time to evolve. She went back to Baltimore and packed up her things, took off her engagement ring, sucked up her courage, and went out to Los Angeles to see Layce and her family.

  “God, it’s good to see you, Eliza—I mean, Doctor Tollworthy,” said Layce, holding her at arm’s length, before pulling her in for another long hug. “I was starting to think I’d have to contract some rare disease that only you would know how to cure just to see you again.”

  They were standing in the bright sunshine, on the Arrivals sidewalk in front of LAX. It smelled of cigarette smoke, jet exhaust, chlorinated smog, and the vague idea of suntan lotion and salty air.

  “It’s good to see you too, Layce,” said Elizabeth, not wanting to let go. But she did. “Whoa. Look at you. All Los Angeles hipster with your hair and elegantly casual attire.”

  “Shut your mouth. Hipster? Ugh.”

  “Your hair is cut like a Showtime lesbian and, what? No more jeans?”

  Layce looked elegant in tight houndstooth pants, a tight buttoned-up vest with no shirt under it, and a funky scarf.

  “Are you kidding? I’d be in jeans twenty-four by seven if I could. These are my work clothes. I just left the office to pick you up. They take architecture very seriously in the City of Angels, and it’s not what you know here, it’s what you wear.”

  “Well, I like it. You look all grown up.”

  Layce looked at her with a bright smile and playfully yanked the hood of Elizabeth’s sculling team sweatshirt over her head.

  “So do you. I’m not sure what’s different… I think you’ve been wearing that particular sweatshirt since junior high.”

  Elizabeth laughed as she pushed the hood back and smoothed her hair.

  “It’s called malnutrition and stress. Otherwise known as the medical school diet, combined with Montezuma’s Revenge. Those L.A. celebrities you have out here, with all their juice and color-coded diets, can’t even compete. Send them to med school and a month in Guatemala, then they can talk.” Sleep deprivation and mild depression factored into it, too, though Elizabeth couldn’t bring herself to say it. Not right then, surrounded by swarming arrivals and the constant movement of cars jockeying for room at the curb.

  Layce hugged her again and then pushed away, spinning her around toward the trunk of a shiny black BMW.

  “I’ve missed you so much, Eliza! I still can’t believe you’re here. Come on. There’s a little someone I want you to meet,” said Layce, picking up Elizabeth’s suitcase and swinging it into the trunk of the idling car.

  “I can’t wait to meet my namesake,” said Elizabeth, telling the truth. She ran her hand over the roof of the car. “Nice ride, Layce.”

  “It was a wedding present from my parents. I posted all the pictures on my social profile.”

  Elizabeth didn’t tell Layce she hadn’t visited her profile since a night over a year earlier, right before Layce and Andrea got married and after a horrible day of exams. She had gotten drunk all by herself and, thankfully, had passed out before sending a private message to Layce that she had typed out in a drunken haze. She didn’t even know she had it in her to write such things, but, boy had she! Disjointed and difficult to read, it had described what she was sure Layce and Andrea did in the privacy of their bedroom. She’d read it the next morning, mortified by her vivid imagination. She’d erased the note thanking the Universe she hadn’t sent it. She’d stayed away from the social site ever since.

  On the drive to Layce and Andrea’s house Elizabeth distracted herself with the scenery, questions about the new baby, and describing her final exams. She had passed all of the necessary boards with a lot more ease than she thought she would. But then again, she had been abnormally focused in her Quest to Avoid and studying was a great tool.

  When they got to the house, she expected to see newborn chaos: a baby crying, a frazzled mom, and the place in disarray. But the serene scene they walked into was just the opposite. Andrea looked just as good as the day Elizabeth had first met her, one of the lucky few to whom baby pounds didn’t seem to stick. The baby was beautiful and happy and the house was not the disorderly mess she had envisioned. To Elizabeth’s surprise, it didn’t pull at her heart to see Layce give Andrea a quick kiss hello. The scene actually made her smile. Layce seemed so happy, which in turn, made her happy.

  Three days later, she was certain she had gotten past most of the things that had made her avoid seeing Layce all these months. She enjoyed the company of Layce and Andrea, who were good about not being too affectionate in front of her, but the small gestures she did see didn’t seem to affect her as they once had.

  One night, they decided to order out for pizza. The restaurant Layce and Andrea raved about didn’t deliver, so Layce and Elizabeth drove down for pick up. The pizzeria was an unassuming shop directly across the street from the beach. Surf competition memorabilia decorated the small interior, and the smell of baking bread in a wood-fired oven enveloped them as they walked through the door. They placed their order and took a seat on the patio and watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean as they waited for their pizza to be ready. Pale pinks were already starting to tinge the sky near the horizon and the sun reflected a narrowing path of diamonds across the indigo water.

  “You should have let me pay, Eliza. You’re a guest in my town.”

  “We always trade, and if I remember correctly, you bought last time.”

  “If so, that was a long time ago, Eliza, and I actually think you’re lying.”

  “No! No! I remember! It’s definitely my turn—a million times no take-backs.”

  “No fair!” cried Layce, slapping her arm. Elizabeth just laughed and felt her heart grow warm at the successful evocation of the familiar refrain they had used since middle school. Its deployment, if uttered before anyone else, was a guaranteed win for any argument. Some things would always be just theirs. A pang struck her heart at the thought and she tried to find a way to change the subject.

  Layce saved her the trouble and handed Elizabeth a pair of fake IDs they had made several years earlier.

  “Remember these?”

  Elizabeth laughed when she saw the IDs still had a couple of years before they ‘expired’. They looked authentic.

  “I can’t believe you still have these,” said Elizabeth, looking down at the ID card displaying a picture of a much younger her on it, but had a different version of her name. It featured a birthdate making her several years older.

  “I found them in one of my old wallets when I was going through things the other day. We spent a fortune on them, and you would never use it. You made me keep it for you.”

  “I was terrified we’d get caught. My mother would have skinned me alive for doing something as stupid as that.”

  “You were always so cautious. Kev used one of his dad’s old licenses all the time to get beer at that rundown gas station just out of town. If he got away with it, I’m sure you would have been fine. These are good. I guess that’s why they cost so much. We’d have committed the perfect crime if you weren’t such a chicken.”

  “I know. I’m pathetic. Always afraid of getting in trouble.”

  “We still had fun,” said Layce, sliding her own fake ID back into her wallet while Elizabeth held onto hers, studying the picture on it. “I keep meaning to ask you, where’s your ring?”

  Elizabeth looked at her hand.

  “Oh, yeah. I left it back in Baltimore.”

  Layce crossed her legs, resting her ankle on her knee and picked at a string on the cuff of her pants.

  “How does Kev feel about it? Speaking of which, you haven’t mentioned him since you got here.”

  “I haven’t talked to him in over a month,” said Elizabeth. She knew it would be news to Layce, but it was par for the course for her.

  “A fight?”

  “No. We don’t normally talk all that much.”

  “Is this a new thing?”

  “Not really. This la
st year has been worse, mostly because of my exam schedule and all the cases he’s been working at his dad’s firm, but we’ve never been much for talking on the phone.”

  “So, what’s with the ring?”

  Elizabeth gazed out over the darkening ocean, watching the silhouettes of the last diehard surfers bobbing past the breakers, waiting for the next perfect wave.

  “I finally realized I was never going to marry him.”

  Layce was quiet for a moment.

  “Does he know?”

  “I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it in so long. I should never have accepted his proposal in the first place. I knew back then I would never marry him.”

  “Hmmm…” said Layce, her eyes trained on a couple of surfers in wetsuits, rinsing off in a nearby public shower.

  “Hey,” said Elizabeth, getting up. She’d spotted something at a vendor cart parked on the sidewalk in front of the pizzeria. She picked up a soft toy. “I’m going to get this for little Elizabeth. Is that okay? I want to be the auntie who showers her with elephant toys. It will be our thing.”

  “Sure. It sounds great,” said Layce.

  Elizabeth paid for the toy and slipped it into her bag. A few minutes later, their order was up and they took the pizza back home.

  Later that night, after Layce and Andrea went to bed, Elizabeth stepped out into the beautifully landscaped backyard. She pulled out a deck chair and sat by the dimly lit pool, as she had every night since she had arrived in L.A. She’d been sleeping better at Layce’s, but the dreams still haunted her, and she avoided going to sleep because of it. Since Layce and Andy slept around little Elizabeth’s schedule, they turned in earlier than her, and she enjoyed the alone time she found in the quiet setting. She went through the moments of the day in a sort of mental journal, having given up the actual writing in them when school had gotten too intense. She kept meaning to pick it up again.

  Several minutes later, the sliding glass door opened and Layce appeared, wearing pajama bottoms and a tight tank top showing off her athletic build, and, in the evening chill, her perfect nipples. Elizabeth stifled a sigh. It was a look that had driven her silently crazy for years. Layce probably never even noticed how Elizabeth’s heart raced at the sight of her in the outfit.