Death and Other Interruptions

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Lying in bed all day, it turns out, does not preclude being incredibly busy. My room hosted a revolving door of guests. Somehow the word got out that Jennifer needed visitors once again—dead fiancé season having ended months ago—and not only did Julia and Ethan come every few days, but Rashad, Susan, Amy, David, and even—thankfully, only once—a gaggle of the same girls who had come to pay homage to their sad friend months ago. This time, they all came together and stayed only a half hour, skirting any topic that could potentially be delicate and thus anything potentially meaningful in any way. Of course.

As awkward as their visit was, I was glad they had come. It clarified the borders of our newly defined relationship, solidifying us all as former friends who are polite for old-times' sake. It was a relief to put the past behind me so concretely, to know I wouldn't have to keep up any pretenses, and I found myself not at all sad to see those friendships fade so instantly. It was strange to think they would have been bridesmaids at my wedding, that if things had gone as they were supposed to, these would have been my dearest friends, and having them at my wedding would have meant everything to me. Now I was grateful that they only stayed 30 minutes. They left me with a stack of gossip magazines and a level of exhaustion disproportionate to such a brief visit. "Oh, I'm so sorry we have to go! We're taking a yoga class and if we're not there on time, Bruce will kill us! He's such a hard teacher." "Hard being the operative word," another murmured dreamily, and they all tittered.

Rashad, on the other hand, could come and stay for hours and would only leave me feeling refreshed and simultaneously relaxed. He would always bring reading material and offer me my choice of the stack before choosing his own. He'd settle quietly into the chair my mom had set up next to my bed and flip quietly through his paper or magazine or book, occasionally looking up to share something interesting he'd just read. It was always the most comfortable visit of any of them, and I felt no pressure to play hostess, though often something he said would set off an interesting exchange of thoughts and ideas that could leave me reflective for the rest of the day. Occasionally he would pick up the gossip magazines my friends—that word was a habit, in the same way I would refer to all my classmates in high school as a friend, no matter how little time we'd actually spent ever exchanging words—had brought, snorting indelicately at almost every page. "Who are these Kardashians?" he would ask, and then he would listen in disbelief as I told him why they were famous.

Occasionally Mom would sit in for these visits, listening to our discussions and inserting her own ideas when she felt compelled (which, being my mom, was often). Whenever this happened, I would entertain short but colorful fantasies of the two of them falling in love and marrying, thus establishing Rashad as a more permanent fixture in my life and a real stepfather instead of the strangely limbo former-father-in-law position he currently filled. These fantasies would be cut off by the rude interruption of reality, as I knew that they were as unalike as Rashad and Susan, as unlikely a pair as his first marriage. Ever since Mom had spoken to me about dating, I wondered about her romantic life. I wondered about a lot of her life, so much of which had clearly been successfully hidden from me. And, even though she had initiated our months of silence, I felt a bit guilty that I had let it happen with so little protest.

Susan, for her part, would sweep in dramatically and stay only briefly, filling each visit with inanely chipper chatter about her middle aged gossip—which friend was getting Botox, which friend's former boob job was finally starting to deflate, which enemy was just diagnosed with breast cancer but-she-had-it-coming. The first time she came she had asked if she could lift up my shirt to talk to my tummy, and I reacted so violently to that idea that even she, who I'd always wondered if she was as dense as she seemed or just enjoyed the privileges of being treated as a child, knew not to suggest it again. "I'm just so excited to be a grandma!" she explained, and once again I felt a strangely positive feeling toward her.