When the phone rang, I am by the stove, searing fresh venison loin and savoring the aria of my favorite Handel Funeral Anthem, a selection that Sam would have described as awful, but I see as the appropriate soundtrack for the deer who had provided dinner.
I don't want to answer, as the crisping of the meat and the soprano are in a delicate conversation, one moment of inattention could lead to a missed high note or a charred meal. Finally, though, I decide to at least see who was calling, as it might have to do with my husband's disappearance. I don't recognize the number but take a chance. Always a mistake.
"Gwyn! A few minutes is all I need. I just have a question about this chifferobe I might buy."
Like that the aria is already half over and the loin overdone. Such is Anya's role in my life and always has been since she was eleven and I was ten. When Anya kicks the ant bed, I'm the one who winds up covered in red bites.
"That would be Sam who knows about chafferobes," I say. "Are you even sure what you have really is a chifferobe?"
"Well, Sam, then. Let me speak to him."
"He's gone."
"Gone? Oh! Gone. You finally kicked that asshole out, didn't you? I mean, I'm sorry. I get why you found the guy appealing, I think. That rogue thing after your stuffy parents controlling you all those years. But he just always seemed skeezy to me."
I cradle the phone on one ear and try to get the loin out with some tongs. Maybe I can deglaze the pan and salvage the meal with a sauce, but even as I try to block Anya out, I can feel myself caving, because this is the first time anyone has been on my side. That I even thought of myself as the funeral music, Hannibal Lector-gourmet type begins to feel overblown. The fact is, I know something has happened to Sam, and I'm bothered by it.
Anya's telling me to turn off the freaking funeral music, that it's depressing, and come drink some gin. I leave the venison to die in the pan and go to choose a coat. Brown or red? I wonder.
I reach for the red.
The hotel bar is a dump turned hipster hangout with giant 70s orange stained glass fixtures hanging down like wasp nests, pleather booths, and hopeful artists with tattoos. We sit in two wooden barstools with backs that swivel, and Anya orders us both martinis up with twistsâ€"our early drinks. She stands up to hug me and I watch all the dudes flash a leering look. They don't even know they do it; it's like a white flash over the room and then all they all go back to their jaded affect. Anya is that tall blonde type that goes over big in bars. Even hipster bars. It doesn't matter she's thrown on an old thrift store down vest, has knobby tights, and convenience story robbery-styled knit hat pulled down over her long hair, she still radiates Swedish ski maven. I'm more the lost Bronte sister type. Left to wander the moors I guess I'd do pretty well, luring a few Heathcliffs here and there but the city, while well-stocked with bars, is severely lacking in moors. I suppose that was why I put up with Sam. If I squinted he didn't seem skeezy at all.
"Tell me," Anya says. "Tell me everything."
I open my mouth to talk and then she goes on about this guy she met last week at a bar. A dumb guy but with huge blue eyes. Okay for a shag, Anya says, as if she's British. There's more to this story than getting laid, though, I think. There's always more to an Anya story.
My first love was Bobby, short for Robert Widgeon Hough III, had the black wave of hair and the expensive jeans. I had planned my Valentine for the post office for weeks, carefully sorting through the box of drugstore selections, setting aside the exact Batman one that I felt he would like the best. After messing up the first three Batmans, I had perfected how to fit my full nameâ€"Gwyneth Cordelia Baldwinâ€"in the tiny white space up the side of the black cape. When Bobby came up to my desk with a tiny heart-shaped box of candy with a giant pink bow, I thought it was the worst and best thing I had ever seen. Even at seven I knew that the present was corny, but somehow the corniness made it more desireable, that a boy would be willing to expose himself like that.
Then he handed the box to the tall blonde girl who sat next to me.
"Gross," she said. "As if."
Bobby stood there, stunned. He had never experienced anything but oohs and aahs before.
"But I am kinda hungry and these cupcakes suck."
The girl shrugged and turned her back to Bobby as she went to face me.
"I'm Anya," the girl said. "Want some?"
Bonded over the dismissal of Bobby, we wolfed down the box and high on sugar, pretended to ask to go to the bathroom and then snuck into the cafeteria to go steal ice cream cups. The lunch ladies caught us and told us to stop right there. Anya ran but I stood still, not knowing anything else. My parents were brought in and told and they were hysterical, yelling at me until I sobbed from not even understanding what I had done anymore. It is one of my worst memories with them. Sometimes I'm mad that Anya simply ran away and got away with it. More often I kick myself for not running away, too.
"Drugs," I say. "I finally figured out he dealt drugs."
"No shit," says Anya.
We're on to Kentucky bourbon now. It is after midnight and the bar is filling up with young women in careful vintage dresses and guys in flannel. We're a bit old for here but the drinks are kicking in. Anya keeps saying she wants to show me something in her room, and I am pretty sure I don't want to see whatever it is in her room.
"Hey, what about the chifferobe? Is there one?" I say.
"I'm getting around to that," says Anya.
"To what? How can you 'get around' to it? Either you have one or you don't."
"I don't see that it really matters."
"Except that you called about one. So why else call? Are you hiding drugs in antiques like Bobby? It was pretty sad scheme. You aren't the type for a sad scheme."
"Just come up for a second."
"Oh, god," I say.
"Don't judge just yet."
"Judge what?"
"I don't know. Listen, I just need to grab my wallet from upstairs, come up."
Anya gets up and heads for the elevator. This is an old trick. The one where she leaves me and I don't want to be left alone so I go after her. The elevator dings and opens and I know there is something going on with Sam and the drugs. I feel the familiar tug of wanting to go along, get in on the adventure, and the voice that tells me that I could get back home and salvage the meal. The door is closing and a bearded dude talking on his phone is slow, so he bumps into the doors and they open up again. Anya looks up and off the side and I know this is more than a prank at stake.
"Wait," I say. "Wait up for me."
