Close Your Eyes

4

In Chicago, Sylvia had a forty-five-minute layover. She found a pay phone inside a McDonald’s and dialed Victoria’s cell again, breathing in the smell of french fries and ammonia. A large man in a cowboy hat ate a salad in the booth next to the phone. He sipped an extra-large soda through a straw. The mouth sounds nauseated Sylvia.

Victoria answered on the first ring. “Sylvie!”

“Hey,” said Sylvia, her whole body relaxing at the sound of her friend’s voice.

“Sylvie,” said Victoria. “What’s shakin’, bacon?”

“I’m coming to New York,” blurted Sylvia.

“What?” said Victoria.

Sylvia said nervously, “I left Ray. I finally did it. I’m coming to New York.” She giggled, a girl’s laughter. “Can you believe it?”

“Wow,” said Victoria. “Yes, left on Fourteenth. Sorry, Sylvie, I’m in a taxi.”

“Victoria?” said Sylvia.

“This is a bad time for me. I have a lot going on right now.”

“Victoria,” said Sylvia. “You always said—”

“I know, I totally know,” said Victoria. “You are the best friend. You’re so, so good to me. You came when I was at Hazelden, and Betty Ford, too.”

“And Passages,” said Sylvia, who had been trying to help Victoria get sober for years. “And I took care of your girls …”

“You’re so awesome,” said Victoria.

“I watched your daughters for ten days while you and Uli went to France,” Sylvia soldiered on. “Well, now I need you. It’s a long story. But I’m actually on my way. I was hoping I could maybe, just until I get on my feet, you know … I could maybe …” She pressed her lips together. It appeared that Victoria was going to make her grovel. “Vee,” she said, “I’m in a bad spot. I’m going to need somewhere to stay.”

“Shit, sorry. Here! Pastis!” said Victoria to the cabbie. “Let me call you tomorrow, Sylvie. I’m late for an appointment. A doctor’s appointment.”

“At Pastis?” said Sylvia angrily, recognizing the name of a hip restaurant. She had read the New York Times in the club library for years, idiotically making note of eateries she wanted to try and off-Broadway shows she wanted to see. In a leather chair, she would circle all the things she wanted to do in Manhattan, and then she would hang the newspaper back up on the wooden rod so some dot-com millionaire could page through it while enjoying an après-ski drink.

“Love you!” cried Victoria, hanging up.

Sylvia held the pay phone for a while, knowing that when she set down the heavy receiver, she would have to reevaluate her flimsy plans.

She turned around, and the man in the cowboy hat was staring. “What?” she asked.

“Not a thing,” said the man. “I’m just eating my Southwest Salad.”

“Hmm,” said Sylvia. “I’m going for the Quarter Pounder with cheese myself.”

“I don’t blame you, miss,” said the man. “Can’t say I blame you a-tall.”

When Sylvia reboarded, the bus was completely full. She squeezed next to a heavyset woman. The woman began playing ballads so loudly on her iPod that the whole bus could hear. Sylvia found herself soaking in the profundity of Bonnie Raitt’s wisdom: I can’t make you love me if you don’t.

What could Sylvia have done differently along the way to have ended up somewhere else—somewhere like Paris, maybe, or Omaha, Nebraska? On HGTV the week before, she had watched a young couple shop for their first home in Charleston, South Carolina. That seemed like a good place, with a simple yet mellifluous name: Charleston.

Sylvia wanted to be loved.

She and Ray had started out strong. He was much older, and she’d admired his tweedy jackets, which had circular suede patches on the elbows. He wore his graying hair combed back, a lion’s mane. He had authority, and he smelled like tangerines. He was an elegant skier, and everyone in town knew him and spoke admiringly of his animal portraits. For months Sylvia thought he had actually read some of the leather-bound books in his house. (In his defense, when she asked, he freely admitted that he had bought the whole collection from an antique store to “make things look distinguished.”)

Your whole life could change in an instant, Sylvia mused. Certainly, she had never guessed that the time she’d rolled over and said, “Okay, but make it quick, hon” (half asleep while Ray yanked at her nightgown) would be the moment she’d become a mother. Who knew? She hadn’t even had an orgasm.

The first time Ray had asked her to get rid of a baby, Sylvia had been thirty. When she saw the lines on the pregnancy test from the 7-Eleven, she wasn’t sure how she felt. She told Ray over dinner at Campo de Fiori, and he poured her a glass of Chianti and said, “I think I’ve told you how I feel about babies, Sylvia.”

“I know,” she’d said. “Right. So I guess that means—”

“Yes,” said Ray. “I’ll make an appointment. It doesn’t hurt, but you should take a few days off. You’ll get pretty worked up and cry a lot.”

“You talk like you’ve been through this before,” said Sylvia.

Ray leaned over the table to kiss her on the forehead. “I’m twelve years older than you,” he said without further explanation.

The second time she was thirty-seven and tried to argue Ray out of the abortion. “This might be my last chance to be a mother,” she’d said.

“I think you’d better decide whether you want me or a baby,” said Ray. “I’m trying to be impartial, dear, though I hope you’ll choose me.” Sylvia had chosen Ray and another horrible visit to the Aspen Valley Hospital, followed by a home-cooked meal. (He’d made the same meal as the time before! Meat loaf and garlic mashed potatoes.)

Four years later, Sylvia had stopped taking the pill. When she began to feel her breasts swell and her sense of smell sharpen—she’d yelled at one of the personal trainers for making microwave popcorn that made the membership office stink for days—she bought a test and took it at work in the ladies’ locker room. Listening to a group of women chatter in the hot tub, Sylvia saw that she was pregnant. This time, without hesitation, she chose the baby.

Sylvia watched the oncoming cars as the bus barreled along. She leaned back in her seat and listened to her seatmate’s next selection, Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” Despite the brush-off, Sylvia knew they had been friends for too long for Victoria to refuse her. They were bound, like sisters.