Katrina’s expression doesn’t change. I fight gamely to figure out what’s going on behind her sunglasses. I’ve seen her non-expression on plenty of occasions in the past—I used to watch her read, in sunlight or lamplight in the rooms of houses we’d rent, and I would try to guess what she was thinking. When she’d close the cover, I could never predict whether she was going to look up, eyes luminous, and want to spend the next hour discussing everything she’d loved, or shake her head, frustrated by everything she felt the writer should’ve improved. I never knew how she did it. How she contained so much and revealed so little.
“I read Refraction,” she says.
Instantly, every part of me leans in, wanting to hear whatever she’ll say next. It’s the moment every author hates—the I read your book, followed either by praise or by damning nothing. In general, it’s a conversation I prefer not to have. With Katrina, I have to know.
“I . . . loved it,” she concludes.
The relief would weaken me in the knees if I were standing. I do my impression of Katrina’s reserve. “I’m surprised you read it at all,” I say genuinely.
“I’ll always read everything you write,” Katrina replies. Again, honesty. I can hear it in the way her voice goes soft, how easily her words come.
We return to our food, the silence less stilted. I find I’m finally . . . comfortable, or close. I’m ready to take the plunge, fully acclimated to the water. “I should have congratulated you when you got engaged,” I say.
I remember when I found out. It wasn’t like Katrina emailed me the news, obviously. It was fucking Facebook, the carousel of baby photos and new houses I wish I could get off, connecting me to people with whom I no longer needed connection. People like Chris Calloway, who of course was the one to post, not his new fiancée, smiling with her eyes shut, his hands clasped in hers with her ring finger small in view while he kissed her cheek. I’m sure she approved of the photo. It was so Katrina, so understated and human, nothing showy. Every day I’ve had the size of the princess-cut diamond on her finger under my nose as we write, and while I cannot be said to respect Chris’s taste, in this I understand how Chris wanted to post it for the world to see.
They were on some balcony somewhere. The photo was from New Year’s Eve. I found the post the following morning, so hungover even the white fabric of the couch in my living room hurt my eyes. I studied their expressions—Katrina’s smile—with the resentful half disbelief reserved for cruelties you knew fate might deal you but hoped it wouldn’t, then I locked my phone. My pounding headache wouldn’t be the only reason I would be unproductive that New Year’s Day.
Closing Facebook wasn’t enough, though. My phone wouldn’t stop buzzing afterward. Everyone who knew us both had to text me. Had to read in to my pauses and my punctuation, determining for themselves how I felt. I decided the cure for my hangover was another drink, alone this time.
Over the past four years, the moments Katrina’s existence has intruded on mine have felt like interludes. They’re lost days. I write, of course, but the content is functional, unenthusiastic, the prose equivalent of ground beef. Because every word wasn’t written out of passion or intent but out of resistance. Resistance to the terrible gravity of the question I don’t want to contemplate—whether Katrina was my real life, and everything else the interlude.
Katrina flushes pink. “It wasn’t necessary. It’s not like we were speaking,” she says, recovering her composure.
We’re perilously close to the subjects we’ve danced around in every spiteful comment and pained look. The thing is, if Katrina’s honestly happy engaged to Christopher Calloway, I’m happy for her. If noticing the ring on her finger fills her heart with light, I want nothing else. I just know what I know about Chris, and I know what I know about Katrina.
She takes off her sunglasses, folding them carefully in her hands. “I was . . . sorry to hear about you and Melissa,” she goes on. I can see in her eyes she’s doing exactly what I am. Testing herself. Finding out if we can really fake this. I imagine her receiving the same texts I did, telling her the news of my divorce. I wonder how she replied.
“Thank you. I have . . . more regrets than I care to admit,” I say haltingly. This confession is doubly difficult to make. Not only to Katrina, but to myself. There’s no easy way to break off your marriage, like there’s no easy way to break your leg, but if I could change the past, I’d still be divorced from Melissa, though there’s plenty I’d do differently. Our divorce was comedically painful, like some ugly joke the universe was playing. There were times when I almost wished one of us had cheated, just so we could push our marriage to the safe distance of hatred. I know with certainty it would’ve been preferable to watching my ex-wife sign her divorce papers, then burst into big, broken tears.
Katrina nods. She stares into the distance. “Chris doesn’t want me unless I’m a writer,” she says after a moment.
The admission pulls me forcefully from memories of Melissa. It’s unexpectedly heartbreaking. I feel an instinct I thought I no longer had to comfort her, reassure her. “Katrina . . .” I start.
She looks at me. “It’s fine. I mean, it’s not, but you don’t have to say anything.” Putting on her glasses, she flags down the waiter. “Can we get the bill?” she asks with a smile. It’s fake, but what she said was real. Everything we’ve said was real.
It’s ironic, I realize. In our pretense, we’ve somehow stumbled into honesty. We’ve let ourselves share things we wouldn’t when we were our combative selves, entrenched in our present life.
I wonder where it leaves us, because this fake friendship is starting to feel unnervingly real.
18
Katrina
We’re on the couch, where we’ve wordlessly agreed we’re working today instead of the dining room. Brunch left me feeling off. I don’t know why I confessed to Nathan things I hardly concede to myself, truths whose faces I only glimpse when I’m turning over in bed every night. Hearing them out loud, they sounded ridiculous. But the way Nathan listened told me they weren’t.
I might’ve preferred feeling ridiculous.
When we got home, I pushed those insecurities to the side, knowing what scene lay ahead of us. If discussing our lives over pancakes was the warm-up, writing romance together feels like stepping into a boxing arena. We’ve avoided it long enough, though.
We drifted into the living room, Nathan carrying his computer, and eased onto the couch in front of the porch windows. It’s warm, not hot. The cushions sink welcomingly beneath me. The room is cozy, and completely incongruent with what we have to do. Nathan, next to me, is sitting legs crossed with his ankle propped on his knee.