Who Wants to Be Here?

Kimberly MacLean never planned to get on Facebook. But when her middle child—William III—chose the platform as the only place to share photos of her only grandchild, Kimberly was left with no other option than to navigate to the infamous website and release loads of personal information into the world. 

As she hesitated to build out a profile, the knowledge of finding wily ways of keeping track of her other two—Sarah the oldest, and Thomas the youngest—was an easy push. 

What she didn’t expect as she waited days for them to accept her friendship invitation was a request to come through from none other than Christina Westcott. At first, it was strange seeing her maiden name; but then she remembered Chris and Doug has split over a decade ago. What a shame, she thought before she hit “accept” and started scrolling through the profile. 

Somewhere between Chris’ vacation to Bali in March and Paris in January, in a zone filled with pictures of Chris in courtrooms, board rooms, and private dining rooms, Kimberly noticed a 1 surrounded by a red circle in the top corner of her screen. She clicked on it, finding a message from Chris:  

Is this Kim from Theta Psi?

Kim absentmindedly picks at the peeling skin around her left pointer finger–her manicurist didn’t properly trim her cuticles–and analyzes the brush strokes of the oil painting in the style of Morisot adorning the wall of the upscale inn’s cocktail bar in downtown Cary, North Carolina. The woman with the obscured face slouches onto a kitchen table with a pen dangling from her hand as she looks off into the distance.

A familiar voice introducing herself to the maître d causes Kim to drop her hands into her lap and turn her head to the sound. Chris and Kim make eye contact and spread wide, toothless smiles across their faces, their eyes minimizing without a series of lines trying to reach their hairlines.

Patent leather pumps carry Chris across the parquet flooring. The metal chair Kim sits in makes a jumping noise as she scoots away from the table. Once she stands, her mind jumps as well. Why did I just stand? What am I going to do?

I should’ve made Will sit in the car with me until I saw her walk into the restaurant. 

She folds her hands together behind her back, squeezes them tight until white, silently rolls her shoulders back, and tilts her head to the side, opening up her smile to showcase recently whitened teeth. 

“Kim,” Chris opens up her smile as well as her arms, propositioning a hug from clenched Kim. Kim’s hands unlatch and jut forward to give Kim a soft hug, fingers tingling against Chris’ back as blood rushes back. “I haven’t seen you in ages.”

Chris gives one pat-turned-press as Kim replies, “I know.”

“Sit, sit.” Chris flaps her hand toward Kim’s vacated chair. “Catch me up on everything.”

Chris drapes her silently labeled bag over her chair, mirroring the side Kim placed her designer-façaded tote.

Kim readjusts the napkin in her lap, noticing a strip of raw flesh on her finger. She scowls down at it, but Chris mistakes her for mulling over a series of thoughts–always jumping in to avoid a conversation from going against her planned direction. “God, it’s been–what? Ten years?”

“Fifteen, probably.”

Kim takes a reassuring breath through her nose, then looks up at the woman she knew better than anyone, “knew” being the operative word.

As luck would have it for Chris, the waiter circles around to take her order. “I’ll have a vodka soda with lime, please.” She gives the young man a charming smile and a shake of her head when he asks if she wants anything else.

“How are the kids?”

Kim was used to Chris never handing over the conversational reins. It was something that had bonded them together in college and for years to follow. Kim used to revel in listening to Chris regale sloshed hordes with prose, belittle entitled men with tongue lashings, and maneuver them out of sticky situations with tactical tales. 

Kim enjoyed observing and penning, while Chris enjoyed acting and lecturing. Or, so was the way thirty years ago, twenty-five years ago, potentially twenty years ago, a likelihood fifteen years ago, and up for debate since then.

At some recent point, Kim’s friends would say she’s had to use her own voice more than once, and Chris’ colleagues would say she’s had to absorb from time to time.

“They’re doing great.” Kim takes a deep gulp of her gin and tonic, glad she didn’t opt for her typical red wine. One, because her teeth would have quickly stained and the recent whitening session she had would’ve been for nothing; and, two, because she is going to need something stronger to get her through the evening.

“This is awkward, isn’t it?” Chris reads Kim’s unspoken thoughts. “Thanks,” she lets outs on an exhale as a different staff member–this time a waitress–stops by to drop off her drink. 

“Mrs. MacLean, would you like another?” The waitress turns to Kim. The young girl has a severe gaze but a mischievous and bright twinkle to her eyes, like she knows something not necessarily about Kim but around her.

She looks down at her crystal tumbler and realized it’s just watered-down ice, a lime, and a sprig of thyme. “Yes, please.” The waitress gives her a friendly smile and walks away.

“Know her?” Chris takes a sip of her drink and looks over her glass with lifted eyebrows. 

Kim is reminded of Diana-inspired outfits (the oversized sweatshirts and bicycle shorts variety, not the couture dress type) and garages in split-level homes, backyards in poorly landscaped colonials, and dimly lit capes. As Todd–the surfer relaxed guy–William–the lax superficial guy–or one of the many boys before would walk away from Kim after shamelessly flirting through a game of beer pong, Kim would always turn to see Chris peering up over a red Solo Cup waiting for Kim to skip over and spill every detail.

“One of Tommy’s friends from high school,” Kim finds herself replying before thinking.

“How is he?”

“Tommy’s doing well at Stanford.” Kim takes a sip of the gin-flavored water, cringing more than she’d like. “Sarah’s living in Seattle. She’s in her first year of med school. She’s thinking of going the cardiology route. And William’s in DC with his wife, Lindsay, and their baby, Willow.”

“Did they all go to Duke?”

“No,” Kim answers curtly. “What about you? How’s your family?” As a veteran editor, Kim had harnessed skills in conversation development. She may not have the right ones to detour the route, but she managed to find the stop signs in the mix.

Chris takes a sip of her cocktail. “Well, ugh, my mom passed away last year.”

“Oh, Jesus, Chris, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Oh, shit.” The waiter from long before comes to drop off Kim’s drink and she takes an aggressive gulp. “God, I’m so sorry.”

“You said that already.”

“Well, I meant it. I loved your mother.” Anne Westcott had been fun. She never cared about what anyone thought. Kim was always wary of saying the wrong thing and embarrassing herself, while Chris was always afraid of not saying the right thing and embarrassing herself. 

“And she loved you too.” Chris picks up her drink. “To Anne. She always gave good advice, so long as it never had consequences.”

“Cheers,” Kim whispers as she clinks her glass. They both take commiserative sips. “Let’s talk about something lighter. When did you move to Cary?”

“Back in 2015.”

“Oh, so not too long ago. Do you miss Charlotte?”

“Not all that much. It’s nice being over here. It’s more my pace. I miss my friends, though. But I’m able to go down on weekends a lot.”

Chris tenses, and it’s almost like it passes through the air. She quickly recovers though, which is a blessing. These days, everyone else is relied upon for covering uninvited lulls. It’s awfully messy; but as her daughter would say in a strange accent inspired by social media, a win is a win: “I have a daughter.”

Kim nearly spits out her drink. “Really?”

Chris swivels and rifles through her purse. She pulls out a sleek iPhone. “I don’t post about her on social media. But she’s my absolute best friend.”

For whatever reason, Kim was expecting to see a picture of a very young girl, maybe around five or six. One that looked nothing like Chris. While the latter of the two theories was confirmed, the girl was living through her teenage years. Or, Chris had given an underaged girl a set of keys to a high-end European car. 

She looked nothing like Chris, but somehow very familiar. Probably because there were plenty of features that were so very Chris. Her smile tilted hire on the left. Her eyebrows expressed one million emotions at once. Her ears were just a tiny bit pointed. 

But, as Kim noted, everything seemed a little strange. Her daughter’s teeth were very toothy–larger than Chris could ever achieve through veneers. Her eyebrows were thick and didn’t match her hair. Chris’ eyebrows were thin and light. And the girl’s hair wasn’t unnatural. Her eyebrows were just naturally three shades darker than her hair. How could Kim tell? Either she had weekly appointments to cover her roots, or she didn’t have any to hide. And, it appears the shade discrepancy had been there since she was young–or so scrolling through the album labeled “Jennifer” showed. Lastly, her ears might have been pointed at the tip, but her lobes were detached. Add on olive skin, dark lips, hazel eyes, and an absence of freckles, and Kim was more worried about where the girl came from than her old friend even having one.

“I went with a surrogate.” Chris holds her hand out, requesting Kim to hand it over. Kim sees Chris is flushed, not sure why. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about–a woman taking her future into her own hands.

“After you and Doug split?”

Kim motions for the waiter to come over while she finds the best response. “Yea, exactly.” Or, close enough. “I’d rather be in that delivery room without a man there than deal with another round of listening to him talk about how he never wants children.” The waitress who’s familiar with Kim stops by their table with Chris’ vodka soda. Before she can walk away, Chris stops her. “Can we get two shots of gin?”

“Chris—no.”

Chris let out a soft laugh at the firmness in Kim’s reprimand. “Come on, Kim. Did you drive here?” She rolls her eyes. Not like you used to, right? We’re not undergrads anymore.

“No—William dropped me off.”

“Perfect.” She turns her attention to the waiter. “Can we get two Diet Cokes with those shots?”

She smiles tentatively but turns to Kim. “I’ll take a ginger ale instead.” Kim doesn’t know why she asked for ginger ale. But she knows if she asked for Sprite, it would’ve been suspicious.

“What have you been up to?” Chris grabs the reins as the waitress walks away.

“Well, the kids—”

“—I don’t care about the kids. Tell me what you’ve been up to lately.”

Chris was digging, looking for something to call Kim out on. She’d always expressed her opinion on Kim’s choice to stay in North Carolina and suburban life. But, it was the same spiel she gave every time: no rights, no land, no dreams, and no authenticity.

Twenty years had spread between them from the last time Chris stood on her soapbox. Since then, Kim changed. She’s had time to mold into the borderline-Stepford territory. Use it to her advantage instead of a crutch.

“I’m writing again.”

“That’s so good to hear. Editorials?”

“No.”

“Interviews?”

“No.”

“Research articles?”

Kim felt the warmness of a liquor jacket enveloping her like armor. It was nice knowing something about herself that Chris didn’t. She left her career in journalism behind years ago. It was hard, but there was a choice in the house over who was going to be the primary caretaker of the kids. And while Kim sometimes regrets not paying her entire salary over to a nanny, she doesn’t doubt that time honing her skill without a manager led her to be more creative. Her poetry is finally in circulation. It only took thirty years.

“No.”

Chris is frustrated. For fifteen years she’s been trying to get Kim’s attention. Something happened. And it’s been eating at her. Every time she steps foot in North Carolina, the ugly-head-of-friendship-past rears its head. 

She’s spent the past thirty years in New England on her own. In cities where her best friend was supposed to be, navigating the world together. Chris was from the Midwest—she didn’t know how the coastal cities worked. But Kim was from Massachusetts. They were supposed to move to New York together, regardless of everything.

“Okay, what gives?”

Kim takes a sip of her drink, places it down, and sinks her chin into her palm, refocusing her attention on the Morisot with wide eyes.

“What happened to us?” Chris seethes.

“It doesn’t even matter.”

“Clearly it matters. You haven’t looked at me in years.”

"God, I don't want to be here."

"You agreed!"

Kim looks around to make sure no one is listening in. She is an upstanding member of this community, after all.

“Chris, it doesn’t matter. We’re older now. I..,” she takes a pause to look around, “have way more important things going on.”

Chris crosses her legs and gets comfortable, waiting for Kim to carry on.

The shots and chasers are set on the table.

"Cheers," Kim says with fake glee. She throws back the gin and coughs as the ginger ale chaser causes her throat to burn more.

Chris' shot glass and chaser are neatly stacked on the table. Her eyebrows make a statement over the rim of the crystal glass.

“For fuck’s sake. Why are you so desperate to see me? It’s like every time I try to enjoy something, you’re there. I go to an event? Oh shit, there you are. Do you want closure or something? You could’ve asked years ago. But here you go: I spent so much time with you as the center of my world and you couldn’t even invite me to your wedding.”

“Wow, tell me how you really feel.” She laughs and slams her glass onto the table. 

Kim knuckles the seat of her chair. “You’re the one who asked.”

“—No one was invited to our wedding.”

“That’s not true. Doug’s best friend and wife were there.”

“Well, they didn’t have kids.” She says with a wave of her hand like she’s swatting a lazy fly away. In an attempt to recover she finishes, “You just had Sarah.”

“You didn’t even bother to ask. I would’ve gone.”

Chris refuses to be filled with shame, rather, throwing the blame onto Kim to keep her pride intact. “At our fifteen years, you refused to talk to me.”

“Oh, God.” Kim slumps into her chair with her tumbler. She takes a long swig. “Can you blame me?”

Kim’s not sure how, but she and Chris have fresh cups placed in front of them.

The two women sit in silence, analyzing each other. Chris looks like her lid is about to blow off, but she’s afraid of what reprimands she’ll deliver or the secrets she might spill. 

“I tried to talk to you the whole night. None of our sisters would tell me where you were.”

“I know.”

Kim made it abundantly clear to their reunion chairs she didn’t want to find herself cornered by Chris. And she had been grateful they’d listened. Kim knew more about Chris’ personal life by staying connected to different movers and shakers from their alma mater. She knew about Chris’ career trajectory. She knew about her rocky marriage. And she knew Chris would stop at nothing before getting answers from Kim. Kim just happened to finally be ready and prepped.

“Would you like another round?” The young waitress came around. Kim looked at their current situation. 

“Did you drive or take a cab?”

“An Uber.”

“Yea, we’ll take another round, Heather.”

Heather walks away before backtracking. “Is T busy tonight?” 

Kim cringes at the nickname her son adopted in high school, being one of no less than five Thomases in his class. Once upon a time, her ex had the same nickname. It never settled with her or William, given how close they’d all been. It didn’t help that Tommy was so much like the man he would never know–from his rogue soul to his sun-kissed skin. Kim looks up.

Chris can’t understand how someone who’s at school in California would be home in April. There wasn’t much to Kim’s Facebook to stalk, but there were plenty of pictures of Thomas posted by William. And they all pointed to him being present at Stanford. Chris looks up.