Stella flopped down on the bed and began rummaging through her purse. Her moods had a liquid quality. She was now fixated on something else, muttering to herself. “I’m out,” she said. “Where’s my phone?”
When she found it, she pressed it to her ear as she walked into the bathroom. “Hiii,” she said sweetly. “It’s Stella Bradley. Remember me?”
The conversation was short and cryptic. After, she tossed the phone onto the bed. “That’s what I like about New York,” she said. “People never leave.”
“Who was that?”
“This guy,” she said. “Don’t worry. He just helps me get Adderall.”
I furrowed my brow. “I thought you had a prescription.”
“Well, yeah, but they’re so stingy with it. You know, you should really get a prescription. It’s amazing. And if you don’t like it you can give it to me.” She was now on her knees, emptying her suitcase, piling clothes on the floor. “I really need to do laundry. Do you send it out somewhere?”
“So what’s the story?” I said. “Are you back for good?”
“I don’t know,” she said, sitting back on her heels. “But it’s Christmas next week. I can’t ditch my family at Christmas. Do you think they’re pissed I’ve been gone so long?”
“Let’s do this over breakfast,” I said. “Come on. I’ll cook.”
She had no plan beyond the present moment. Maybe she was back for good. Maybe she’d leave again after the holidays. The only thing she knew was that she needed some rest. A break from the cycle of travel and party-hopping, and the relentless performance of fun. A few weeks of peace and quiet—was that too much to ask?
“But that won’t satisfy Anne,” I said. “She’ll want specifics.”
“Anne is a pain in my ass,” Stella said. “This is good. What is this?”
“Parmesan and thyme.” Simple omelets were a staple. On a budget, eggs were a miracle. “See, I could tell that was just the low blood sugar talking.”
She laughed. “I missed you.”
“So stay,” I said, with a surge of hope. “Remember the plan? The two of us, together in the big city?”
She wrinkled her nose, folded her napkin into a careful rectangle, stood up and started rinsing our plates. Neat behavior was her method of avoidance. Stella once scrubbed our entire dorm bathroom to postpone breaking up with a clingy boyfriend.
“Or not,” I said. “That’s cool, too.”
“I just don’t know what I want,” she said. She stood at the dishwasher, plates in hand. Instead of slotting them at the edge, she put them in the middle of the empty bottom rack. This was the behavior of a sociopath, or someone who grew up with housekeeping staff. “You’re lucky,” she added. “You always knew.”
“Lucky?” I said. “I’m barely making minimum wage.”
“But you love it. I can tell.”
“How?”
“Come here,” she said, and dragged me into the living room, where a mirror hung above the mantelpiece. We stood in front of it, side by side. “Look. Your skin is clear. You lost weight. You’re not biting your nails. You look tired and you need some concealer for those under-eye circles, but that’s easy to fix.”
In the mirror, I saw that she was right. I hadn’t noticed it myself. Stella and I had always existed at distant ends of the continuum. Roughly the same height and the same coloring, but she was a hundred times more beautiful. Exquisite features and perfect blond hair, compared to my plainness and dirty-blond hues. A vast gulf remained, but the past five months had brought us slightly closer together.
“Well?” she said. “You must be happy there, right?”
“I guess so.”
“See?” She cocked an eyebrow. “And therefore I have to hate you.”
In the afternoon, a guy showed up at our door: the person Stella had called that morning. He was tall and preppy, a cable-knit sweater beneath his faded Barbour jacket. Stella explained that they’d gone to Rye Country Day together, and now he worked in finance. “This is Violet,” she said to him. “Don’t worry. She’s cool.”
Stella dipped a key into the bag of white powder, sampling the wares. She sniffed a bump of cocaine, smiled, and widened her eyes. The preppy guy lined up several small plastic bags on the coffee table, along with half a dozen orange pill containers. After counting Stella’s money, he looked satisfied and impressed with his own efficiency.
“Men have it so easy,” Stella said, after he left. “Did you see him? Everyone trusts a guy who looks like that. That’s why it’s so easy for him to get refills.”
“Really,” I said, watching as she cut a line of cocaine. “Is that the story.”
“Plus both of his parents are doctors. I would kill for that. Easy access.”
I laughed. “Your father literally runs a pharmaceutical company, Stell.”
It wasn’t that I was innocent to her habits. She’d done plenty of this in college—at parties, to sober up, to help her endure all-nighters. But it wasn’t even 3 p.m., the living room bright with sunlight. Whatever her reasons, it didn’t seem like she was doing this for fun.
“Stop it,” she said, wiping her nose as she sat up.
“Stop what?”
“Stop giving me that look. You’re so judgmental, Violet. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“You have, plenty of times.”
“Do you know what our problem is?” She went into the kitchen, filled a glass with water and ice, and took a long drink. “Violet, do you know what it is? I just realized it. Take a guess.”
“I have no idea.”
She pointed a long index finger. “You’ve got the dirt on me, but I don’t have any on you.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I’m serious,” she said, her color rising. “You see me doing bad things, but what about you? You’re so perfect. You never do anything bad. You could blackmail me if you wanted. But I could never do that to you. This is fucked up, Violet. The power dynamic is all fucked up.”
This was Stella on the upswing of a buzz. She drew connections between disparate dots and then got excited by her own intelligence. It was like a game to her. My job wasn’t to be offended. My job was to play along. I kept a straight face, because if I smiled she would think I was mocking her. But I was happy. This dynamic felt strangely like home.
“Explain it to me,” I said. “Between the two of us, you’re the one without any power?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, that’s exactly right.”
“Even though your family is worth, like, a billion dollars?”
“That’s not the point.” She tipped the last of the water into her mouth, crunching on an ice cube. Her phone vibrated. She scanned the screen, then glanced out the window. “Actually, this is perfect,” she said. “The weather is perfect, and we have time to walk.”
“To where?”
“Dinner,” she said. “My friend who lives in Brooklyn Heights. He’s having a dinner party and we’re going. We can walk across the bridge. Just in time for sunset.”