Free I'm So Happy for You by Lucinda Rosenfeld Page A

in her ear, and, after their dinners finally arrived, nearly an hour later, eating off her plate.
    Halfway through the meal, Adam turned to Jonathan and said, “Enjoying your French-I-mean-Freedom fries?”
    “Is someone talking to me?” Jonathan asked. He turned around in his seat as if the voice had come from a neighboring table.
     Finding no one there, he went back to his dinner. To Wendy’s relief, Adam left it at that.
    Finally, dinner was over. The four of them passed through the velvet curtain and onto the sidewalk. A taxi pulled up as if
     on cue. “Good night, Brooklyn,” Jonathan announced without eye contact, before he disappeared into the backseat.
    Daphne lingered on the sidewalk. “Well, it was so great to see you guys. Adam,” she said, throwing her arms around him, “I
     swear I haven’t seen you in, like, a year!”
    “That’s not true,” said Adam. “I see you every time you come out to the Slope, which happens—wait—have you ever been to our
     apartment? We’ve only lived there for four years.”
    “Shuuut uuuup—of course I’ve been there!” Daphne said with a broad grin.
    “Suuuuure.”
    “You’re so mean to me.”
    “It’s only ’cause I love you.”
    “Yeah, sure—”
    “I do.”
    “Prove it.”
    Wendy smiled. She’d always found it gratifying to see other women flirting with her husband: it made him seem worthy of flirting
     with and was therefore a compliment to her. She also suspected that Adam enjoyed the attention more than he let on, especially
     when it came from Daphne. It was she who had introduced Wendy to Adam. The three of them had been at a party in the East Village
     thrown by an aspiring singer-song-writer-womanizer named Donal Wendy-Couldn’t-Remember-His-Last-Name, who wore women’s headbands
     in his lanky brown-blond hair. He and Adam had gone to college together. Daphne had slept with Donal once, or maybe it was
     twice. (It was unlikely she remembered his last name, either.) That was Wendy and Donal’s only connection. But the few times
     a year they’d see each other, he’d hug and kiss her hello as if they were old and close friends. (For a while, for Wendy,
     the city was filled with people like that—people who squeezed her tight, and said, “Yo—Wen!—Where you been?—Baby—I’ve missed
     you!” as if they’d actually thought about her once since they’d last met. And then, one day, it was no longer like that. One
     day, those same people started walking right by her like the virtual strangers they actually were. And it was jarring but
     it was also kind of a relief.)
    Neither Adam nor Daphne had ever satisfyingly described their meeting for Wendy. As she understood it, Daphne had plucked
     Adam off the sofa in Donal’s living room with little more than, “Will you come meet my friends?” Then she’d dragged him through
     the crowd to Donal’s bedroom, where Wendy stood talking to another now-lost acquaintance. “Wen—you have to meet my new best
     friend, Adam!” Daphne had said, her hand in his. “Isn’t he adorable?” She’d laid her head on Adam’s shoulder.
    Always obliging, Wendy had said, “Hey.”
    “How are you?” he’d answered.
    “Fine, except I can’t breathe,” she’d told him. It was one of those apartment parties that was so crowded you literally had
     to shove people out of the way—that or climb over furniture—to get to the other side of the room. (Somehow, only Daphne had
     managed to move freely.)
    “I have clove cigarettes if you want one,” Adam had offered. “They always drive away a few assholes.”
    Wendy had smiled, amused, and said, “I’m okay, but thanks.” From the beginning, there had been an immediate connection between
     her and Adam—a shared misanthropy laced with humor and longing. Was that it? In any case, Daphne had done Wendy the biggest
     favor that a friend could do; hadn’t she? And yet, over the years, Wendy had come to resent the fact that Daphne had found