LITMIR.BIZ

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a smiley, “Nothing new to report!” Facebook had not yet reached Catherine’s lower-tier state school, but Orla didn’t need it; she could picture how well her friend had moved on. She imagined Catherine’s soccer teammates with tight stomachs and clean faces, fussing over Danny the first time he came to visit. She imagined them teasing Catherine about being a lightweight, and putting her gently to bed when she proved them right. There was only one thing she really wondered about her old friend: how long she and Danny would be together.

      She got the answer she wanted a few weeks after college graduation. Orla moved straight back to Mifflin, to make good on a deal she had struck with her parents: she would live at home and work locally for one year, to save money before moving to New York. She had secured a job covering town council meetings for the newspaper that fell on Mifflin’s doorsteps.

      One night, a week before she was due to start at the paper, Orla ran into Catherine while picking up takeout at TGI Fridays. (Jerry was fond of saying that the chain’s Jack Daniel’s chicken was the best dinner on earth, that “you”—who “you” was had never quite been defined—“can keep your Michelin-star joints.”) When their eyes met, Orla was holding her father’s credit card, and Catherine was holding a drink with a flashing scrotum plunged into the ice.

      “It’s my bachelorette party!” she crowed, grabbing Orla’s elbow to anchor herself. “Danny and I are getting married next month.” Her eyes widened and she dug her fingers into Orla’s arm. “Stay!” she pleaded. “Hang out.” Orla phoned home, hoping for an out, but Gayle joyfully insisted that Orla forget about bringing home the food and enjoy herself.

      Catherine’s soccer friends—there were three of them—looked exactly as Orla had envisioned. They were bright and healthy, sculpted muscle covered in skin that was somehow tanned and freckled at once. They all had hair that looked like it was only worn down on special nights like this—too long, too limp, and vaguely damp-seeming, but somehow on the whole not unappealing. Catherine fit with them perfectly, Orla thought, though it was her old friend who, for once, had a good haircut. Catherine’s braid was gone, replaced by a pretty bob, the golden ends of which twisted into her mouth as she spoke.

      “This is Orla,” Catherine said, and Orla didn’t miss what happened next. The friends’ eyes narrowed at the mention of her name. They looked at each other. They straightened. It was obvious: they had heard, at an earlier time, a memorable explanation of who she was.

      Orla took her penis straw. She endured the torrent of inside jokes. She was careful not to let anyone catch her looking at the clock. Catherine more or less ignored her for the rest of the night, until it finally ended and the bossiest of the soccer girls jingled her keys. “Okay,” she said to Catherine, taking the drink right out of her hand. “Let’s get you home.”

      Catherine shook her head. “It’s out of your way,” she said. “Orla will take me.”

      Orla had her car from high school—the boxy, cat-eyed Taurus. She watched as Catherine popped open the glove compartment, an automatic reflex, and pulled out the little book of Orla’s old burned CDs. “The one with the Incubus,” she slurred, rifling.

      “I forgot those were in there,” Orla said. She was surprised to find herself suddenly on the edge of tears, and grateful that Catherine seemed too drunk to notice, her index finger swaying as she pointed out the turns.

      The house was a small brick Cape with white metal awnings over the windows and a black horse and buggy embedded in the screen door. “Wait here a minute,” Catherine said. She got out of the car and stomped toward the house, missing every bluestone paver in the path. Mulch splintered upward as her heels sank into the earth. The concrete stoop’s metal railing wobbled as she gripped it.

      He’s in there, Orla was thinking, her eyes on the front window. Danny is in there.

      And then she saw him, rising from the couch opposite the window to answer Catherine’s knocks. He rubbed his eyes as he ambled across the room. The light was behind him; all Orla saw was his outline, the shadows of his features. He opened the door and looked out through the screen, but Catherine prodded him back as she pushed inside the house and pulled the door shut behind her. Orla gripped the wheel. Was she still supposed to wait?

      A minute later, Catherine reappeared. She stumbled back toward the car. In her hand was an envelope, rimmed in black-and-white damask. She got back in the car and thrust it at Orla. Orla clicked on the overhead light and disassembled it quickly. The card she pulled out began: “Together with our families, Daniel and Catherine...”

      “Oh,” she said. “Catherine, that’s—You don’t have to.” She tilted the wedding invitation. Even in the dim light, she could see that the words were slightly askew, cocked toward the top right corner of the card. Catherine must have printed these herself. The lump in Orla’s throat grew, and she realized suddenly why it was there: she did not want to go to this wedding, she did not intend to go to this wedding. But the gesture overwhelmed her; she had been so cruel, and Catherine was being so nice to her. At least, that was what she thought until Catherine started speaking again. Her voice was suddenly so intense, so oddly charged, that Orla looked up, as startled as if she had screamed.

      “You were at the bachelorette party,” Catherine said, “so it’s only proper you’re invited.” Orla watched as she opened the glove compartment again and began to rummage through it. After a moment, she found what she was looking for—a pen—and handed it to Orla point first, stabbing the small glinting end at her palm. She nodded at the invitation. “Just pick your entrée now,” she said. “Save you the stamp.”

      Orla swallowed and looked toward the house. The couch was vacant now, the room surrounding it dark.

      “He’s not coming out,” Catherine said. She lifted her arm to the edge of the car door and rested it there, where the window was all the way down. She dragged her nails back and forth on the vinyl. She smiled at Orla—a knowing smile. “He’s not coming out to see you.”

      The lump in Orla’s throat dried up, chased away by a settling calm. She felt the same way she did when she sat down to an exam she was well prepared for. Whatever theory Catherine had, right or wrong, was just that: a theory, lacking evidence. Orla had been so careful not to create any evidence, and she was not going to stammer.

      She looked at Catherine. “Of course he’s not,” she said evenly. “It’s late.” She looked down at the invitation and scratched her finger over the date. “I’m not sure I can make it, actually.”

      Catherine cut her off with a laugh. She clapped a hand to her mouth, like she hadn’t meant to let the sound out, then dropped it and giggled again. “But where would you be?” she said. “I know you always thought you’d be somewhere else, but you’re here. You’re around.” She grabbed the card back, then the pen. She clicked its point in and out, in and out. “Chicken or steak, Orla?”

      “I’ll have to check the date,” Orla said.

      Catherine snorted. She made a violent X next to the steak option. She got out and slammed the door, leaned down near the open window. “I’m glad you’re coming, Orla,” she said. “I think it’s important you be there to see this.”

      But Orla wasn’t there to see it. The Monday after she ran into Catherine, she emailed the newspaper editor who was meant to be her boss. Something had come up, she explained. Something undeniable. Gayle was apoplectic about Orla reneging on the offer; she left the editor her own rambling voice mail, spelling her full name and saying that she had raised her daughter better than this.

      A week later, Orla agreed to sublet a room that didn’t exist yet from a girl named Jeannette in Chelsea. Jeannette explained it over and over: the place was a one-bedroom, and she’d wanted to live there alone, but she found she couldn’t afford it and needed someone else to chip in. Did Orla understand—she would have to put up a wall in the living room to box off some space for herself. Orla said she got it, she didn’t mind, and yes, she understood: the cost of the wall was hers to bear.

      On

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