Free Dive From Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer Page B

A never-left-home, never-moved-from-boyfriend-to-boyfriend, never-surprised-anyone look? In Viktor and Ania’s little bathroom between dinner and dessert, I looked at myself in the medicine cabinet mirror. Dark hair, blue eyes, a longish neck that had embarrassed me once but that was fine now—enviable even, according to Jamie. I looked and looked, but I couldn’t figure out what Kilroy had seen.
    The next morning I woke with a headache. I’d stuck with beer while everyone else had drunk Viktor’s Polish vodka, but I’d stuck with a little too much of it and I felt terrible. I drank a big glass of water before my shower and another after, and then it was time to go to Jamie’s.
    We’d made up by then, which was a good thing, since she was throwing a going-away brunch for Christine that morning. Christine was moving to Boston for graduate school, and although it seemed wrong for us to gather without Mike, we had to observe the occasion somehow.
    Moving to Boston. I envied her.
    On my way over I picked up some flowers for Jamie—gerbera daisies, which she loved. I say we’d made up, but actually our answering machines had: she’d called and left a Just wanted to say hi, talk to you later kind of message on my machine; then I’d called and said the same kind of thing to her machine; and by the time we actually connected we were able to chat about nothing for ten minutes, just the amount of time we needed to spend on the phone in order to feel that everything was OK, by which point it was.
    It was Sunday morning and Miffland was quiet, sleeping off Saturday night. Across the street from Jamie’s a shabby brown house had been extravagantly toilet-papered, streamers of it hanging from the peaked roof and festooning the maple tree in the front yard. I climbed the steps up to Jamie’s porch and knocked. The yellow house next door reminded me of the party I hadn’t gone to, of the guy Jamie’d been interested in.
    “Fleurs!” she said when she opened the door. “Carrie, you doll.”
    “You like them?”
    “I love them, obviously. Come on, come in.”
    She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and then led me through the dining room, where the table was set with cloth napkins and a glass bowl of strawberries in the center. It was just like her to have everything ready, looking nice, and I felt a pang of regret. There’d been a time when I would have arrived early to help.
    “It looks great in there, Jamie,” I said once we were in the kitchen. “Christine’ll be really happy.”
    “You think? It’s not every day someone moves to Boston.”
    “Thank God, right?”
    “At least it’s not you.”
    “Why would I move to Boston?” I’d been standing across the room from her, and now I went over and put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry about last week,” I said quietly.
    She turned and hugged me. “It’s no biggie. Anyway, I’m sorry, too.”
    I thought of what she’d said, how concerned she’d sounded. She had no reason to be sorry.
    “So did you go anyway?”
    “To the party?”
    “Duh.”
    A funny smile came over her face, and although I knew exactly where she was going, I had to ask. “And?”
    “He passed out on my bed.”
    “Drew?”
    “Approximately thirty seconds after we lay down. I didn’t know what to do—I was on the verge of going to get his roommates to drag him home. I ended up sleeping on the couch. I mean, it’s one thing sleeping next to someone after you’ve … you know. It’s another to sleep next to a drunk you hardly know.”
    I didn’t point out that she wouldn’t have known him much better if they had made love. Fucked. Whatever.
    “You’ll never believe what happened the next morning.”
    “What?”
    “I woke up to the sound of him puking his guts out in the bathroom. The door was open, and when he looked up and saw me standing there he tried to stand up, and he threw his back out!”
    We both laughed hard. “That’s priceless, Jamie. I