“Forgive me. I’m old,” she says. “I’ve had a lot of time to think.”
How old could she possibly be? She couldn’t be over fifty. Not possible. I need this friendship to work, mostly because she’s warm and fun and funny and I love her, but also, I need to know what products she uses.
Probably La Mer.
“The kitchen is right over here,” she says. We duck through a low doorway. We walk down two steps and through another hallway, which opens up into a giant kitchen. Literally. A kitchen for giants.
Every piece of equipment, every appliance, every utensil, is gargantuan. There’s a stove the size of a Mini Cooper. A fireplace I could walk around inside. Copper pans hang from the ceiling. The floor is alternating black and red tiles.
Sophie glides over to the counter and sets the bag of berries down, then spins around to turn the oven on.
She begins to rummage through the cabinets and procure things. Bowls. Wooden spoons. Sieves. Canisters of flour and sugar. A set of tin measuring cups. A rolling pin.
“Would you like anything? Coffee? Tea? I have some lovely floral teas,” she says.
“Sure,” I say. “What can I do? Put the water on?”
She shakes her head, and in a swift motion, she turns the stove on, shifts a copper kettle over the flame and returns to setting up on the big butcher-block island.
She makes the dough, talking me through the process as she goes. I’m watching her closely, but I’m not listening to what she’s saying. It’s too hard to pay attention. She’s so mesmerizing. The sound of her voice. The grace and precision of her movements. She presses the dough into a white ceramic pie dish, pinching along the edges.
“Now,” she says, sliding the dish into the fridge, “the berries.”
“I’m useless,” I say as she begins to stir them with sugar and the juice of two lemons. “You’re doing everything.”
“You’re good company, Annie. I’m enjoying your company.”
It’s such a nice thing to have your presence acknowledged as something of value. For a moment, everything glitters.
“What is it?” she asks. “Something on your mind?”
“I was just thinking that this is nice,” I say. “You’re fun.”
“Really?” she asks, smiling like I just named her Miss America.
“Yeah,” I say. “Why are you so surprised? You’re a very chic and fun person.”
“I don’t know,” she says, bashful. “Some people find me . . . I don’t know. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea.”
I lift my literal cup of tea to her. We’re drinking rose-and-pear tea, a blend she made herself. It’s delicious. “You’re my cup of tea.”
“And you’re mine,” she says.
She lifts hers. We pretend to clink. The cups are too delicate to risk the damage of an actual clink. Fine bone china adorned with flowers.
Is this how it happens? Is this how you make friends as an adult? You stumble upon someone wonderful, and all of a sudden, you’re close?
“I’m sure your friends in the city miss you,” she says, examining the blackberry filling.
“Most of my friends left the city a long time ago. They got married and bought houses and had cute babies they send me pictures of. You know that newborn pose,” I say. I clasp my hands together and put them to one side of my face, hunch over the counter to demonstrate.
“They can’t do much else, you know,” she says. “They’re limp as noodles. And so loud. Tiny, toothless beasts.”
“I take it you don’t have children?” She samples a small spoonful of the filling. She considers the taste.
“No. I’ve never had the desire. I suppose it’s made me a pariah, especially in my youth. It was expected, and I shunned the expectation. They say things are better now, that society is more accepting if you don’t want to become a mother. I’m not sure if I find that to be true. Either you want babies or, if you don’t, you must want to eat them.”
When I don’t say anything, she looks up at me and says, “Never mind me. I’m being dramatic. Bitter, I suppose.”
“No,” I say. “You have a point. And I think once you have kids, it’s such a different life. Maybe it’s hard to stay friends with someone who doesn’t, because they can’t relate. I don’t know.”
It’s easier to think that I lost touch with my friends because they got married and moved away and procreated, but I’m not sure it’s the truth. I remember the complaints when Sam and I first got together. We never see you anymore! We miss you! Come out! Let’s have brunch! I didn’t want to. I was too in love. I wanted to spend every spare minute with him. Gallivanting through the grocery store, taking day trips to the Bronx Zoo, to the Brooklyn Museum, having wild new-relationship sex.