I'm So Happy for You (5 page)

“He’s your friend!” protested Wendy, wary of looking like a tagalong.

“But his roommate, Boaz, will be there, too.”

“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 not 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.)