Read The False Friend for Free Online Page B
Authors: Myla Goldberg
“I set it to Alarm instead of Radio, and I’ve got the volume turned up all the way. Not that I’ll need it. As long as you’re gone, I’ll be the girls’ only option for their morning walk.”
For years Celia had figured she would live alone: a small apartment in Ukrainian Village or Wicker Park shared on alternating weekends with a boyfriend who would have his shelf of the medicine cabinet, his bureau drawer. Their lives would sporadically intersect from Friday to Sunday, phone calls leavening the time in between. She had been perplexed by people who did it differently, had theorized that they were somehow less busy. In high school and college she simply had not had time to meet people. There were marches to organize and fund-raisers to plan, poems to read and meetings to attend. Herchronic overcommitment and loneliness had felt inherent, conditions like diabetes or color blindness that demanded their own concessions. Then she had met Huck.
“So you’re going to visit your mom tomorrow at school?” he asked.
“She said I could come anytime after eleven.”
“And before that?”
“I don’t know,” Celia said. “I’m going crazy thinking about it.”
“I think you should take a Xanax and sleep in.”
“I don’t need it,” she said. “I’m totally worn out. I feel like I’ve been awake for years.”
In the silence that followed, Celia heard the sound of rhythmic breathing through the receiver. Then it faded and Celia knew that Huck had returned the phone to his ear.
“Was that Bella?” she asked. “Tell her that I miss her too.”
“I love you, Ceel.”
“You’re my very only,” she whispered. Once she had hung up, she stared at the silent phone in her hand.
She recognized what was happening to them now because it had happened once before. Six years ago, Celia’s roommate had suddenly moved to Austin and none of Celia’s other friends had needed a place to live. She wouldn’t have been able to ask him any other way. Huck had left the apartment he’d been sharing with two other early-career teachers, and had moved into the roommate’s vacated bedroom. Huck’s desk was the only employed furnishing in that otherwise idle room, but Celia wouldn’t let him call it his office. She maintained separate voice-mail boxes and itemized the long-distance bill, all toavoid straining the inner mechanism that had thus far permitted this deviation from her life’s previously planned course. She’d assured Huck that these measures were not meant to keep him at a distance but to preserve the closeness they had, an explanation that satisfied him for a few months before he began to drift away. Then as now, it had happened slowly, as if he were gradually winding down. He gave up conversation in favor of watching movies and playing guitar. He dressed for work in stained shirts, put dishes in the drying rack that were still encrusted with food, and tripped over Bella or Sylvie lying in their usual places. When he had suggested that they buy their own place, pool their savings for a down payment and apply their signatures to adjacent dotted lines, he hadn’t phrased it as an ultimatum, but the fatigue in his voice had scared Celia more than the prospect of saying yes. The change in him was so gratifyingly immediate, her own relief so intoxicating, it had been easy to convince herself that purchasing an apartment was a solution rather than a stopgap measure. In retrospect, she saw that the apartment had only bought them four more good years, a grace period that had expired with the birth of Celia’s nephew. She’d thought she and Huck had become inured to births, but then Daniel’s baby pictures had arrived, showing him with his aunt’s eyes. One night, Huck asked Celia if she wanted to go off the Pill, and she said no. He had not asked again.
Celia realized only after she had left the couch that she should have stayed downstairs. The guest bed stretched empty on either side of her. The heating
For years Celia had figured she would live alone: a small apartment in Ukrainian Village or Wicker Park shared on alternating weekends with a boyfriend who would have his shelf of the medicine cabinet, his bureau drawer. Their lives would sporadically intersect from Friday to Sunday, phone calls leavening the time in between. She had been perplexed by people who did it differently, had theorized that they were somehow less busy. In high school and college she simply had not had time to meet people. There were marches to organize and fund-raisers to plan, poems to read and meetings to attend. Herchronic overcommitment and loneliness had felt inherent, conditions like diabetes or color blindness that demanded their own concessions. Then she had met Huck.
“So you’re going to visit your mom tomorrow at school?” he asked.
“She said I could come anytime after eleven.”
“And before that?”
“I don’t know,” Celia said. “I’m going crazy thinking about it.”
“I think you should take a Xanax and sleep in.”
“I don’t need it,” she said. “I’m totally worn out. I feel like I’ve been awake for years.”
In the silence that followed, Celia heard the sound of rhythmic breathing through the receiver. Then it faded and Celia knew that Huck had returned the phone to his ear.
“Was that Bella?” she asked. “Tell her that I miss her too.”
“I love you, Ceel.”
“You’re my very only,” she whispered. Once she had hung up, she stared at the silent phone in her hand.
She recognized what was happening to them now because it had happened once before. Six years ago, Celia’s roommate had suddenly moved to Austin and none of Celia’s other friends had needed a place to live. She wouldn’t have been able to ask him any other way. Huck had left the apartment he’d been sharing with two other early-career teachers, and had moved into the roommate’s vacated bedroom. Huck’s desk was the only employed furnishing in that otherwise idle room, but Celia wouldn’t let him call it his office. She maintained separate voice-mail boxes and itemized the long-distance bill, all toavoid straining the inner mechanism that had thus far permitted this deviation from her life’s previously planned course. She’d assured Huck that these measures were not meant to keep him at a distance but to preserve the closeness they had, an explanation that satisfied him for a few months before he began to drift away. Then as now, it had happened slowly, as if he were gradually winding down. He gave up conversation in favor of watching movies and playing guitar. He dressed for work in stained shirts, put dishes in the drying rack that were still encrusted with food, and tripped over Bella or Sylvie lying in their usual places. When he had suggested that they buy their own place, pool their savings for a down payment and apply their signatures to adjacent dotted lines, he hadn’t phrased it as an ultimatum, but the fatigue in his voice had scared Celia more than the prospect of saying yes. The change in him was so gratifyingly immediate, her own relief so intoxicating, it had been easy to convince herself that purchasing an apartment was a solution rather than a stopgap measure. In retrospect, she saw that the apartment had only bought them four more good years, a grace period that had expired with the birth of Celia’s nephew. She’d thought she and Huck had become inured to births, but then Daniel’s baby pictures had arrived, showing him with his aunt’s eyes. One night, Huck asked Celia if she wanted to go off the Pill, and she said no. He had not asked again.
Celia realized only after she had left the couch that she should have stayed downstairs. The guest bed stretched empty on either side of her. The heating