I'm So Happy for You

by Lucinda Rosenfeld

  “Not that pasty-faced guy.”

  “He’s cute!”

  “Please—he looks like he has TB.” The weekend before, Wendy had accompanied Daphne to the Friday night hip-hop party at the African American student union, where Eduard and his posse had stood together in the corner, laughing and dancing in place and wearing what appeared to be the same chain-link-patterned button-downs and Girbaud jeans.

  “Well, his family owns diamond mines in Guyana, plus a bathing suit company in Brazil,” said Daphne.

  “I’m so impressed,” said Wendy, who secretly, sort of, was.

  “Pretty pleeeaaasssseeee?” Daphne angled her head entreatingly.

  “Fine.” Wendy ultimately consented with a heavy sigh, as if the sacrifice were large, even though it was no sacrifice at all. For in anointing Wendy her chief confidante and protector in times of trouble, Daphne had infused their relationship with a combination of intimacy and obligation that, to Wendy, felt like family. Or, at least, what Wendy, who had grown up with a single mother and no brothers or sisters, imagined family to feel like. (From what Wendy gathered, her father, Donald, if not a one-night stand, had been no more than a two-or-three-night one; Wendy had met him only twice—both times during her childhood. From what she remembered, he looked distressingly like the bearded “lover” illustration in her mother’s semihidden copy of The Joy of Sex. The last Wendy had heard, he worked in forest preservation and lived in Washington State.)

  But it wasn’t just that Daphne made Wendy feel needed. It was that Wendy had never felt so clever, so convinced that the world was tamable, so excited to be young and alive, as she did in Daphne’s company. And if most of the excitement belonged to Daphne, it was also true that Daphne had the ability to turn even the most mundane encounter (a chance meeting with a TA in the grocery store, an awkward kiss from a frat boy) into a triumph of wit and ingenuity. In that way, she made Wendy feel like part of the Big Story. And if Daphne had a tendency to make everything about herself, she was also warm and loving, even if her expressions of affection sometimes seemed insincere.

  “You’re my favorite person in the entire world,” she told Wendy before air-kissing her in the vicinity of both cheeks. “Do you want to borrow something to wear?”

  Wendy picked a stretchy geometric-patterned minidress and a navy blue men’s blazer out of Daphne’s vastly superior wardrobe. But no sooner had she got in the car—Daphne drove her father’s old Saab—then she began to regret her outfit. She wished she’d worn her ripped Levi’s. She felt too exposed—not just physically. (Wendy’s other greatest fear about her friendship with Daphne was that people would think she was trying to be Daphne; Wendy knew enough to know she never would be.)

  In college, all the rich foreign guys hung out in one clique. The majority hailed from Western Europe. Thanks to a couple of charismatic Iranian-American premed students whose families had emigrated to the US after the overthrow of the shah, however, they were collectively known around campus as the “Persian Versions.” Nearly all the PVs lived off-campus, most of them in a four-story luxury apartment complex that overlooked a roaring river that ran along the outskirts of campus. Eduard de Hurtado, who was from Madrid by way of Monte Carlo, and his roommate, Boaz Rothschild Heidelberg, who was from Caracas via Switzerland, lived on the top floor. “Hellllooooo?” Daphne called out as she opened their door, Wendy one step behind. (That Eduard and Boaz left it unlocked made them seem even richer than they probably were.)

  The two girls found the two boys seated on a deep-pile white rug. Eduard was smoking a cigarette, his blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, his knees bent and splayed, his back pressed against a low-slung beige sofa, while Boaz, his legs crossed in a modified lotus position, transferred the contents of a zip-lock bag into the bowl of a grotty-looking pipe. Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here was playing on the stereo. A thick glass coffee table piled with newspapers, ashtrays, and a box of imported marzipan had been pushed off to the side. Behind them, a set of sleek glass doors with gleaming gold hardware led to a wrought iron balcony. At the sight of Wendy and Daphne, Eduard rose to his bare feet and exclaimed, “Las muñecas!” His spider legs were encased in tattered blue jeans, his sculpted chest in a tight raspberry-colored Lacoste polo shirt. Although Eduard was a chain-smoker who never exercised, he had the build of a championship swimmer.

  Boaz, who was smaller and slighter, was wearing a pair of Adidas track pants and a wrinkled white button-down that appeared not to have been laundered in several months. His beard was stubbly. His eyes were bloodshot. He was deathly pale. At best, he was interesting looking. He didn’t get up.

  “Huh,” he said, before returning to his drug-related activities.

  “You remember my roommate, Wendy—right?” said Daphne.

  “Encantado,” said Eduard, slowly pressing his lips to the back of Wendy’s hand.

  “Hey,” said Wendy, who was still trying to figure out what muñecas were. She thought back to Spanish class. Apples? No, that was manzanas.…

  Now Eduard turned his full attention to Daphne, whom he kissed on both cheeks, then again on the first cheek, muttering, “Guapacita” between each peck. Then he said, “Please—you will sit,” and motioned for Wendy and Daphne to join him and Boaz on their shag rug.

  “Aren’t you guys going to offer us a drink?” asked Daphne, tugging at her own miniskirt.

  “Impatience!” declared Eduard. Then he raised one eyebrow. “A quality I like in a woman.”

  Wendy rolled her eyes at Daphne, who laughed and said, “Eduard—you are so full of shit!”

  In time, Eduard produced a bottle of Campari and another one of club soda. He pushed the glass table back onto the rug and placed the bottles on top of it. Soon, Wendy found herself in possession of a highball glass filled with an orangey pink liquid that tasted like cherry-flavored cough syrup. “Yum,” she said, then felt stupid for having used such an infantile expression.

  It was another five minutes before Boaz opened his mouth. “Ganja?” he said, lifting his pipe and eyebrows at Wendy.

  Finally, she’d been given an opening to display her keen wit. “No, thanks,” she answered. “I only use herbs when I cook.”

  Boaz knit his brow in confusion. Or was it contempt? In either case, Wendy’s joke had fallen flat. She felt like disappearing into the flokati rug. “Wendy’s just kidding around,” said Daphne, clearly trying to help out. “She doesn’t actually cook.”

  Daphne declined Boaz’s offer, too. (For all her other indulgences, she wasn’t a pot smoker.) So the boys began to pass the pipe amongst themselves, their thumbs pointing up and out as they positioned a pink plastic Bic lighter over the bowl. Soon Boaz was doubled over with laughter and muttering, “Detective Asshole requests your presence.”

  “You are kindly requested to wait in the waiting room, Señor Asshole,” Eduard replied, eliciting a new round of convulsions.

  “Hey, it’s bad manners to tell private jokes in front of visitors,” said Daphne.

  A minute earlier, Pink Floyd had gone quiet. Eduard took the opportunity to grab her hand and say, “You select the next song. Yes?” Encountering no protest, he led Daphne over to the stereo—leaving Wendy alone with Boaz.

  Maybe she wanted to impress him. Maybe she was just trying to fill the time. Maybe she was hoping the pot would relax her. “Is there any left of that?” she asked, motioning at the pipe with her chin. “Maybe I’ll have one hit.”

  “Please,” said Boaz, crawling over to where she sat. He placed the pipe in her fingers, then held his lighter over the bowl as Wendy slowly breathed in.…

  The pot—or maybe it was hashish—burned her throat. It also made her feel less negative toward Boaz. Genesis’s Three Sides Live had replaced Pink Floyd. “Follow you, follow me,” sang Phil Collins. Behind her, Wendy could hear Daphne giggling, “Shuuut uuuppp!”

  “Come—we go to the balcony,” said Boaz, holding out his hand.

  Wendy took it, unable to think of a reason n
ot to.

  A rope hammock had been strung up between two of the balcony’s sides. In the darkness it reminded Wendy of a giant spiderweb. Boaz climbed in and she followed, inching her buttocks across the net, then lifting her legs over the side as carefully as she could so she wouldn’t expose her underwear. In the process, their ankles brushed against each other, imbuing Wendy with sudden longing for a romantic attachment of her own. For a few minutes, the two of them lay motionless and silent, listening to the frenzy of the river below. Finally, Boaz spoke: “We are insignificant specks on the earth’s surface. You realize that, finally.”

  “On the other hand, trees and rocks don’t have brains,” offered Wendy, with the hope of saying something interesting and provocative that would set her apart in Boaz’s mind. “So maybe we are special.”

  “How do you know trees don’t have brains?” Boaz shot back.

  “I don’t know for sure!” Wendy laughed, taken aback by his accusatory tone.

  Boaz pulled a pack of Rothman cigarettes out of the pocket of his rumpled shirt and slowly lit one. Then he turned his gaze on her—in the darkness his eyes looked like pink marbles—and smiled smugly. “Why is it that you feel you must try to be agreeable?” he asked.

  Enraged by the suggestion, Wendy strained to think of a comeback that would shame and embarrass him. But the pot made her brain feel like sludge. All she could get out was: “That’s a very rude thing to say to someone you don’t know.”

  “I saw you inside.” Boaz gestured with his cigarette toward the glass doors. “You feel overshadowed by your friend. You should have more confidence. You’re attractive, too—in a more unconventional way.”

  Blood rushed to Wendy’s cheeks and temples. With one line, Boaz Rothschild Heidelberg had destroyed her entire fantasy of herself and Daphne as a meeting of equals, each with her own attributes, neither more powerful than the other. “Fuck you!” she cried, furiously extricating herself from the hammock. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  But he does, Wendy was thinking as she yanked open the sliding doors and reentered the living room.

  She found Daphne seated on the low-slung sofa beside Eduard, who was running his hands through her mane and flicking his tongue at the underside of her neck while she moaned, “You know I can’t” in a supple voice that was clearly lacking in conviction. Neither one of them seemed to register Wendy’s entry. And Wendy suddenly didn’t have the nerve to disturb them, to remind Daphne that she’d promised they’d only stay an hour, to jolt Daphne out of her enchanted world.

  That was what it was like to be one of the beautiful people, Wendy thought as she skulked down the hall toward the front door, the Gipsy Kings’ “Bamboleo,” which had replaced Genesis on the stereo, growing fainter with every step. Your own life was so vivid that you barely noticed anyone else existed. It never even occurred to you to look, never mind to care what other people thought of you. That was the secret: the secret of obliviousness. You could act as hysterically as you wanted, but since it was always ultimately about your own reflection, no one ever really got under your skin.

  The next morning, Daphne accused Wendy of abandoning her, and Wendy didn’t argue otherwise, if only because she couldn’t bear to admit what had happened with Boaz.

  Looking back, it seemed to Wendy that as needy as Daphne frequently acted, she’d always had a way, however unwittingly, of making Wendy feel even needier.

  But that’s ancient history, Wendy reminded herself on her way out of the 9th Street station in Brooklyn. It wasn’t Daphne’s fault that some rich Venezuelan in college had made Wendy insecure about her looks and personality. It didn’t matter, either. Wendy felt ashamed and embarrassed that she even remembered minor incidents from her late adolescence. Daphne probably had no recollection of who Boaz Heidelberg was, never mind Eduard de Hurtado. (Wendy was the type of person who remembered the name of every kid in her fourth-grade class.)

  And when she thought about how much had changed in the fifteen years since that night! In her twenties, Wendy had worked hard to create her own identity and life apart from Daphne. Then, one day, she’d woken to find their positions seemingly reversed: Wendy’s name published on a masthead for all the world to see, her bed and home full, while Daphne was anonymous, alone. Or at least most of the time she was. A homeless man, his beard caked with dirt, sat slumped in the stairwell that led to the street, muttering to himself. Daphne isn’t in that bad shape, Wendy thought as she passed him. Yet there were few traces of Daphne’s former glory—her free apartment, her fading beauty, a married guy who stopped by once a month when he happened to be in town.

  Wendy, on the other hand, had a husband and a career. She had peace of mind, too. And if she’d never been a great beauty like Daphne—had always wished she were taller, had never liked her nose, had the typical complaints about her thighs—she’d reached a truce of sorts with her flaws. She was also proud of her long, thick brown hair. I should feel sorry for Daphne, Wendy thought. And she did. She also thought of the wonderful times they’d had together: their backpacking trip through Belgium after college, their “summer shares” in Fire Island (their last summer, Wendy had had to pry a deer tick off Daphne’s leg—and had somehow enjoyed it), the countless alcohol-fueled confessions they’d traded at bars and restaurants and on each other’s sofas over the years.

  Even so, Wendy needed a break from Daphne’s problems. She didn’t even want to say her name out loud for a few days. Which was why, later that evening, back home in Brooklyn, Wendy told Adam she’d met up with Maura for a drink after work. (She knew he’d only ask her what she was doing at Daphne’s place, then imply it had been Wendy’s fault for showing up.)

  “How’s my Lady of Perpetual Graduate Student–dom?” he said.

  “Oh, you know, toiling away,” said Wendy, amazed at the facility with which she’d always been able to lie to her husband. “She’s on some kind of cleansing grapefruit diet, so she didn’t even drink.” (Had that last detail really been necessary?)

  And the next day at work, when an email arrived from Daphne, Wendy waited to open it until she’d finally finished editing Leslie Fletcher’s Medicare screed. And when she did so, she performed a quick scan rather than conduct a careful exegesis, which would have been her normal inclination. It said: So sorry for worrying… good friend… I know I’m pathetic… Obviously, I need help… I don’t expect you to listen… Asking for your patience… Sorry again… Your friend, Daf.

  Fearing that not answering might be interpreted as a form of escalation—and also secretly eager to assert her superiority and indifference—Wendy wrote back, “D, It’s fine. Let’s talk later, W.”

  That’s some sort of progress, she thought.

  But by the following Sunday, Wendy’s resolve to put distance between herself and Daphne had begun to falter. She woke that morning to find that she had her period again, even though she and Adam had had sex on two of her three most fertile days the previous month. That something she’d always taken for granted should turn out to be so elusive—that her life could be reduced to charting her menstrual flow on graph paper and examining her cervical fluid for signs of elasticity—made Wendy feel angry, ashamed, and disoriented. What’s more, she had no one to complain to about how frustrated she felt at still not being pregnant. Bitching to Adam was out of the question. He would only remind her, as he always did, that they had each other (and Polly), which was the important thing.

  And that he got tired of listening to her complain all the time.

  And Wendy didn’t feel right complaining to her other friends who weren’t married. (At least you have a husband, they were sure to think, if not to say.) She wasn’t comfortable calling her friends who were already mothers, either. They were probably busy with their children, anyway—at least Pamela was. (Even though it was Sunday, Gretchen was probably attending a strategy session to end poverty in Africa.) Moreover, the pity in their voices—even if it was mostly projected; even if, in Gretchen’s case, it
was fairly clear she’d rather be anywhere than at home playing patty-cake with her twin babies—only made Wendy feel worse.

  And for all of her problems, all of her hysteria, Daphne was the rare person who could hear other people’s news and not immediately think about herself. Or at least Daphne gave that impression. (And was there really any difference?) Plus, on account of the many hours that Wendy had spent listening to Daphne talk about Mitch, she felt able to natter on about her own neuroses in a way she didn’t with anyone else—especially now that she’d fired her therapist.

  Wendy already missed the patter of their private language, with its rising and falling cadences, its ample use of hyperbole, especially on Daphne’s part, too. “You’re kidding!” she’d say. And “I’m dying!” And “That’s just BEYOND!” Daphne’s spoken English sometimes seemed to be composed entirely of exclamations. Which is maybe why Wendy never felt that Daphne was minimizing her pain.

  And even though Wendy was the one who was supposed to be mad, she’d begun to worry that Daphne might be mad at her, too. (Why else had she not called?)

  And what if Paige had stepped in to fill the void created by Wendy’s retreat?

  It was also true that Sundays had always depressed her. There was too much pressure to relax. And the apartment seemed too quiet, even with Adam in the living room. Or maybe it wasn’t quiet enough. She could hear him all the way across the apartment, crunching loudly on tortilla chips while he watched the Sci Fi Channel on TV.

  And was it Wendy’s imagination or, since the advent of text-based communication, did the phone never ring anymore? Then it did.…

  The caller ID said “J. Sonnenberg.” Wendy didn’t know anyone by that name. But she was bored and curious. (She was always curious.) And the receiver was right next to her on the bed, where she lay leafing through a home furnishings catalogue, simultaneously loathing and longing for the fantasy of generically upscale domesticity intimated by a photograph of an immaculate suburban “mudroom” with individualized footwear cubbies labeled “Aidan,” “Zach,” and “Olivia.” “Hello?” she said.