Even for Harriet, the eye roll she executes is grand. “The champagne isn’t because you kissed Katrina, asshole. It’s because I sold a book.” With sudden stiffness, she threads her hair over her ear. “Just got the news.”
I’m stunned silent for a second. In the pause, she reaches for another flute and pours champagne for both of us. “I—” I falter, finally composing myself. “Congratulations, Harriet. That’s fantastic.”
She raises her glass in a quick cheers gesture, then sips. “Yeah, I’m pretty stoked, honestly.”
“Why didn’t you say you were writing something new?” The question surfaces from me once I’ve checked over my memories of every recent conversation with Harriet. We’ve talked about her teaching, her previous book . . . Nothing new. Before Only Once and everything, I remember how feverishly intense she would look when she was laboring on some new idea. They consumed her so much we couldn’t help but discuss plot points, world details, or character choices whenever we would get together. The past few weeks have been the opposite.
She only shrugs in response to my question. “I wasn’t sure how real our friendship was.”
I open my mouth then close it.
There was nothing incriminating in Harriet’s reply, nor is there in her expression. She waits calmly for my response. It’s the nice counterpart to her cutting frankness and wit—she doesn’t hide grudges or deal in ominous insinuations.
I set my glass down, feeling shitty for not knowing she’d been writing, shitty for giving her reason to not tell me, shitty for not even understanding that I had. “I’m . . . sorry, Harriet,” I say, meaning it. I’ve relied on her one-sidedly—I mean, I’m standing in her kitchen uninvited because I drove over on instinct when I needed distraction. “It’s my fault. Sincerely.”
Narrowing, her gaze returns to me. “What’s going on here?” She purses her lips, sipping once more from her glass. “We don’t actually talk about our problems.”
She’s right. Now is different. “It’s something I’m trying out,” I say honestly.
She regards me, something surgical in her inquisitiveness, like she’s peeling past my words to find their heart. “This is related to Katrina somehow,” she says. Before I can reply, she waves her hand, flippant again. “On second thought, I don’t want to know.”
“I shouldn’t have dropped our friendship because I couldn’t face things with Katrina,” I say, pressing past her redirection. While I’m not used to this kind of opening, I have momentum now. I’m not giving it up. “You have to know it wasn’t about you.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem,” Harriet returns, the first hint of frustration entering her voice. “It wasn’t about me. Everything in your and Katrina’s lives is about each other. Whether you’re friends with me, whether you’re not friends with me—it all comes down to what’s happening between you two.”
I rub my neck. Guiltily, I understand exactly what she’s saying. I remember how often over the past few years I’ve congratulated myself on not missing my friendship with Katrina, on how much happier working on my own makes me, only to realize I was still . . . fixating on Katrina. Harriet’s called me out on my myopia, and it feels like a kick in the gut. “I know I’ve been a shitty friend,” I say feebly, “but I want to point out I’ve hung out with you this whole trip, even while Katrina and I hated each other.”
“Oh my god,” Harriet snaps. “You literally never hated each other.”
This stops me. It felt like hatred, I want to say. Except I don’t. Because . . . I know, deep down, it never really did.
“You’re writing a book about divorce,” Harriet continues, “and somehow it’s the most romantic book I’ve ever read.” The gentle sincerity in her voice gets me to pull my eyes from the window overlooking her pool, where I’ve had them fixed like a penitent kid in the principal’s office, and study her expression. She looks a little sad. “You and Katrina are incapable of hating each other,” she says.
Heat steals up my neck, into my cheeks. Harriet’s small smile confirms she’s noticed. Was I really so easy to read? I’ve practiced nestling characters’ innermost insecurities and instincts under layers of coping mechanisms, obfuscations, unreliable narration. Was every one of my own emotions just scrawled over me for everyone to see? I thought I was submerging them in fiction. It turns out I wasn’t hiding anything.