Losing the Light

by Andrea Dunlop

  But I didn’t want her to know it then. At that moment I was ashamed that I still cared about her at all. I wanted to be finished with her. I couldn’t let her believe that what she’d done could be fixed. She needed to know that we weren’t kids anymore, we had to face the fact that our actions could change the course of everything, that they had terrifying power. Like so many things that had happened that year, Sophie and I learned this lesson together, learned the bottomless pain of asking ourselves what might otherwise have been. When I think of her now, when I see her in my dreams, her swishing hair and her lovely long legs bare in the moonlight, I know I am still waiting for her to turn around. Those are the dreams that haunt me the most.

  I FLEW HOME early on Saturday morning. My mother met me at the airport and I cried when I saw her; whether out of relief or out of guilt that I would’ve left her if things had gone differently, I wasn’t sure. I had a week to rest, recuperate, and get over my jet lag before beginning work at Starbucks.

  With frightening speed, my time in France felt far away and remote. Some days I had to remind myself that I had been there at all. The events of the months since I’d been standing at the drive-through last summer seemed so extraordinary that they were like a hallucination, a fever dream. Yet, as Alex had said, I felt different being back in my own life: it felt more like playing a role than actually living. I knew what to do and when to do it. I knew how to put one foot in front of the other and get from morning to night, but it didn’t seem authentic; it felt as if I were trying to convince an audience that I was this person. I reminded myself that I had responsibilities and that school was an opportunity that shouldn’t be wasted. I tried to look to the future. I put the Cartier Love bracelet in the bottom of my jewelry box. Part of me hated the thing. I felt like wearing it would only call attention to the rest of my very non-Cartier life. And yet. It was a symbol that I was loved. I imagined my customers at Starbucks catching sight of it as I handed them their lattes, wondering about what kind of life I must lead to have been given it. As with everything else, I was stuck in the middle.

  I suppose I’d expected to feel that way that summer. What I didn’t know was that my sense of not being in quite the right life would never completely go away, that I would always feel as if I were waiting for something to come along and return to me all that I felt my life might have been when I was in France.

  I thought Sophie was deluded for staying in France, but then again, we were never playing with the same rulebook; some days I felt smug about being more sensible. Other days I just felt jealous. I understood why she’d stayed; it was hard to shake the feeling that by putting us on a collision course with Véronique and Alex, fate had given us an opportunity, had opened a door. Sophie was there pursuing it, and part of me resented her for her courage, perhaps even more than I resented her for everything else. Some days I was angry at her, and other days I longed for her. Whenever I received one of her frequent e-mails, I felt both converge with a force that made my stomach flip. One day I got a postcard, a black-and-white vintage photo of the newsstands along the Seine.

  Dear Brooke,

  I’ve found a charming little apartment in the 18th arrondissement. I wish we had spent more time in Paris. To think it was here all that time and we only came once! I’m not far from Montmartre, and there are lots of ex-pats but not many other Americans. It’s really so French you couldn’t believe. I do my shopping with a wicker basket and drink wine with lunch and the couple who live next door are always either fighting or having sex, and let me assure you they make plenty of noise doing both. Loving Paris, the only thing missing is you!

  Love,

  S

  In the beginning of the summer, her e-mails were cheerful. She told me in great detail about her neighborhood and what she spent her days doing: painting mostly and reading a lot. She was thinking of making good on her fib to her parents by actually joining an arts program. She had met some colorful-sounding friends in her neighborhood, a young French guy who worked at a bar near her apartment—whom she seemed likely to be sleeping with—and a couple of rowdy German girls who were living one floor above her. She’d even run into one of the old guys from Alex’s party, she told me. He’d remembered her, naturally, and had insisted on taking her to a fancy dinner—one of the best she’d ever eaten. She said frequently that she had room in her little bed for me if I wanted to come spend the rest of the summer there. I didn’t ever consider it, but nor did I want to tell her no, to tell her to stop writing.

  About a month after I returned home I received my exam scores. I saw the official-looking envelope with its clear address window and felt myself overtaken with panic. I took it with me to the kitchen and opened it slowly. What would I even do if I’d failed?

  I’d passed. Barely.

  Relief washed over me. So at least the consequences of my trip wouldn’t last into the following year.

  At first, being back home, being out of France, separated from my best friend and from the only other two people I’d spent any time thinking about during the past year, was like an open wound I tended to daily. I still thought about Alex constantly. I would stand behind the drive-through, watching customers approach and leave, or behind the register making change for the long morning lines that snaked from the counter to the coffee bar and observe the people with a mild disgust at their sheer ordinariness. They had never bothered me like this before, but I was spooked at the idea that here, among them, was where I belonged. I couldn’t even imagine Alex in the same room with these people; it seemed as if it would violate a law of the universe.

  Some days I was certain that getting on that plane was the right thing to do; other days I felt regret twisting in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I had overreacted to Alex and Sophie’s sleeping together; maybe I could have made it work to stay at least for the summer. I fantasized that I could even have ended up with Alex. Maybe. Visions of what I might be doing if I’d stayed sometimes kept me awake long into the night. I saw myself on the beach with Sophie, picking my way among the cobblestones with Véronique, wrapped in Alex’s arms watching the sun come up over the ocean through the giant windows of the master bedroom in Cap Ferrat. I would wake from the turbulent nights during which I had these visions feeling hungover and beat-up. June and July crept past, dragging me along.

  Dear Brooke,

  I wish you’d write. I know I said you didn’t have to but I wish you would. To be honest, I’ve been lonely since you left. I’ve found people to spend time with, but it’s not the same. There’s no one who really understands me here. The Germans are sweet but they’re silly, the kinds of girls who’d end up as dental hygienists if they were Americans. I don’t know what girls like that do in Germany. Probably get married, chiefly. It’s so hard for me to make myself understood. Everyone just sees “pretty rich American,” although I think people here think all Americans are rich. I guess it’s like you said, reality will always catch up to you.

  Love you and miss you,

  Sophie

  I nearly responded. But as I tossed around the words I might say to her, I couldn’t bring myself to write them. So things were falling apart? Okay. So what? I was working at a Starbucks in Chino for the summer—was I supposed to feel sorry for her? So her money and beauty followed her everywhere. Poor thing. In my heart I was stranded between wanting to go back and feeling as if her own vanity was the only reason Sophie wanted me there. Had I only ever been reflecting her light?

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We should have had each other there to process everything that had happened, to go into our senior year as best friends, to have our time in France be a precious thing between us, to be full of inside jokes, and to annoy everyone else by making asides to each other in French. She carried on thinking I’d left her, but in reality she had left me.

  My mother occasionally expressed worry at how morose I seemed, but she gave me space and was judicious with her questions. I suppose she knew I’d tell her the details when I was read
y.

  By August, the initial omnipresent ache had begun to fade a bit, but I wasn’t much happier. If anything, I missed being in the throes of all of that early pain and longing—it had at least still connected me to those experiences. Now, as I looked over the course catalog for school and started researching internships for the following year, I just felt that something huge and essential was missing.

  To pass the time, I started sleeping with Peter, my Starbucks manager, a surly but reasonably attractive college dropout. I nearly laughed in his face when he told me—clearly worried that I would get attached—that he didn’t have room in his life for a “serious girlfriend.” I promised myself daily that I would leave town as soon as I could, that I would not spend even one day working there after graduation. I received a few more e-mails from Sophie that were back in her upbeat tone, and then another telling me how lonely she was. Exasperated by this, I finally wrote her back.

  Sophie,

  Have you ever been to Chino in the summer? Probably not, so I’ll tell you what it’s like. It’s hot and dry and it smells. The smog out here gets so bad you can feel it in your lungs, and when there were forest fires in the valley two weeks ago, the Santa Anas blew so much smoke in that the sky was black and the sun turned red. We couldn’t go outside for two days, it was like the apocalypse. Most days I get up at 4:00 in the morning to open the Starbucks in time for the morning rush. I also never don’t smell like overroasted coffee beans.

  I’m sorry to hear that your summer in Paris is not all that you imagined. I guess you’ve got to know when to quit.

  Brooke

  She responded quickly, but it was as though she hadn’t actually read my e-mail. Now she was right back to sounding cheerful.

  More and more, her letters seemed strangely frozen in time, as though they were letters from the past that I had unearthed rather than active accounts of her current life. She simply felt so remote now, like someone who didn’t quite exist any longer. Until one day I received the e-mail I realized I’d been dreading.

  Dear Brooke,

  You will never guess who I ran into in Paris? Okay, that’s a lie, you’ve probably guessed already. Alex! I ran into him in the train station when he was coming back from Cap Ferrat for the weekend. We had a long dinner and all we could talk about was YOU, my love. I didn’t tell him we’d had a fight. I didn’t want to embarrass you, let him think we’d been fighting over him. It is pretty silly when you think about it.

  Ma cherie, you must come back to France. I’ll buy your ticket. No excuses! You must send us your travel dates tout de suite!

  All my love and kisses,

  Sophie

  I was stunned by her e-mail. The tone as though nothing had ever happened. I began e-mails to her over and over. Of course I couldn’t come to Paris, and what was she thinking telling me all of this? Of all the spoiled, stupid, harebrained ideas about how to get me back . . . But I sent none of them. To think of the two of them, in Paris, without me twisted the knife. Surely they had slept together. Everything I started to write felt pathetic, made me feel petty and beneath them.

  A week later I received yet another e-mail.

  Dear Brooke,

  I think we’re at a point where I need to be frank. Because I’ve tried being loving and conciliatory and it seems to have no effect on you. I see your side of things, I really do. I know you were hurt when you found out about Alex and me, but I think you’re being childish drawing things out like this. And honestly, I think I’m being really generous offering to pay for your ticket out here, and it’s pretty rude to just not answer my e-mail at all. I know you’re upset but you’re letting your pride get in the way and it’s ruining everything.

  Love,

  Sophie

  Somehow the accusatory tone of her e-mail made me panic momentarily. I hadn’t realized how secure I’d felt, having the moral high ground. I felt a flash of feverish contrition and began typing an apologetic reply. But a moment later, I was banging the backspace button on my keyboard. What was I doing? She couldn’t just demand that I come to her in France. This whole thing was absurd.

  Two days later, I got home from my evening shift and grabbed some leftover potato salad from the fridge. I collapsed into a kitchen chair, exhausted from being on my feet all day. I started idly pawing through a stack of mail and discovered a thick envelope with numerous stamps addressed to me. It was from Paris.

  I pulled out an Air France ticket: LAX to Charles de Gaulle, leaving Tuesday afternoon and landing midday Wednesday in Paris. My jaw dropped. Was this real? The ticket must have cost thousands of dollars. There was a note inside.

  Dear Brooke,

  Still waiting to hear from you. But I realized the other day that I’ve been letting you labor under a false belief all of this time and that it’s fueling your stubbornness. Namely, I’ve let you think that Alex was yours first. I’ve let you go on thinking that because I figured it would hurt you even more to know the truth. But now I see it’s the other way around, you think I stole him from you but I didn’t! The night you know about wasn’t the first time. So there it is. We were sharing him all along and we could have gone on doing so if you hadn’t been so small-minded about it. We’re supposed to be more than this to each other. My love, your jealousy is unbecoming. You should really let it go. Not a good look.

  I’m heading out to Cap Ferrat this weekend. Alex wanted me to come before but I felt bad about going because of you.

  Just get on the plane on Tuesday and we’ll figure things out when you get here.

  Love,

  Sophie

  I had the queer feeling of realizing something I had always known. Not suspected: known. Alex had never been mine. Behind my back, she’d always had him. And now she was going to reclaim her prize. Memories rapidly unspooled in my mind: the drunken night in Cap Ferrat when I’d fallen asleep on the sofa—had they then? What about in Paris? What about every time I wasn’t with one of them? I saw their bodies coming together over and over, their luminous, mirrored smiles facing each other, breaking into laughter between kisses.

  “Mom?” I hollered.

  “Yes, dear? Must you scream?”

  She had already been heading into the kitchen and was right behind me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Do we have mailing stuff?”

  “Hmm.” She pulled open a drawer. “I only have one stamp left, I need to get some more. What do you need it for?”

  “Never mind, I’ll go to Kinko’s.” I shoved the ticket in my purse. I walked by my mom and back to my bedroom. I grabbed the Love bracelet from the bottom of my jewelry box and dropped it into my purse.

  “Honey, what is that? Are you okay?” my mom asked from my doorway.

  “Yeah,” I said bitterly.

  “Are you sure?” My mom gently grabbed my elbow as I tried to brush by her. I stopped for a moment, tempted to fling myself into her arms and tell her the whole story. Yet I knew that she couldn’t understand.

  “I am, Mom.” I forced a smile. “I promise. I just have to run an errand.”

  I sat down at the Kinko’s console to type out a letter to go in with the package. Some new fury boiled up inside me and my fingers felt hot on the keyboard as I typed.

  Sophie,

  I suppose I should have known. Maybe I did know and I just didn’t want to believe it. No wonder you don’t want to come back home; if this is how you treat your friends, you’ve probably got none left here. I know you want so desperately to believe that you are more than a pretty rich girl, and yet you use your looks and your money as weapons every chance you get. I suspect you know you’d be nothing without them, that they’re the only reasons people tolerate you to begin with. This whole thing isn’t half as daring and original as you think it is. After all, you’re not the first dumb American to confuse being a free spirit with being a slut. You always said you thought I could see the real you, and I guess I finally do. And I suspect that Alex does too.

  Brooke

  The
words came from somewhere inside me that I’d never seen. I’d never called someone a slut before. It seemed like an outlandish word to call another woman. On some level I knew I didn’t want to say these things to Sophie, didn’t want to hurt her even if she’d hurt me. But I was propelled by something deeper now. The plane tickets had caused something to come loose in me. It felt as though she were taunting me: Look how I have everything you want, look how easy it would be for me to give it to you. Look how generous I am. I shredded the plane ticket into many pieces and deposited them in the envelope with the letter. I dropped the bracelet in and sealed the envelope closed, placing it in the outgoing mailbox before I could give it another thought.

  I went home in a blur of tears. That night I raided my mother’s prescription sleeping pills and went to bed.

  I had an e-mail from her on Monday.

  Dear Brooke,

  Are you happy? I went to Cap Ferrat and they sent me away. Alex was there with another woman and he pretended to barely know me, acted like he’d never invited me. But YOU heard him, he said anytime. ANYTIME. And Véronique was there, she threatened to call the police if I didn’t leave. Some guy who was with them drove me to the youth hostel in Cap d’Ail and they took me in after he bribed them. I spent the night on a cot.

  What else? I failed my tests and my parents are insisting I come home. I can’t go back. I can’t.

  I know you didn’t mean to ruin everything. Write me back. Come to France. I need you.

  S

  I was confused until I realized that she couldn’t have received my package yet. She didn’t know. I shook as I read her e-mail. I closed my computer and went to work.

  Several days later our phone rang in the middle of the night. I was awakened from a deep sleep, and as I stumbled for the phone, I realized: Sophie had gotten her mail.

  “Who’s calling?” my mom asked blearily from her bedroom.