For years, Tooly’s opinion of Sarah had swung between adulation and contempt. But recently had Tooly recognized her mistake: all these comings and goings, of which she had long believed herself the principal object, concerned her only peripherally. Sarah returned for Venn, sought a pretext to be with him, even though he had rejected her years before. Each time Sarah failed anew, she shifted her attention to Tooly, meddling with the girl to bother Venn, knowing how close they were.
Today, she talked and talked. Tooly shut her eyes, concealing the thoughts behind them.
“What?” Sarah asked. “What’s funny?”
“Nothing’s funny,” she answered, shaking her head. “Just thinking.”
“See, you’re the same — still laughing at life! That’s what’s extraordinary about people. Nobody changes! At heart, everyone’s the same at eight as at eighty.”
Tooly nodded as if this were surely true (though surely it was not). Abruptly, Sarah switched rails, careening into a convoluted account of misfortunes that, by no fault of her own, had led here. “And when I went in — this will stun you — they’d taken everything. Changed the locks even, pricks.”
“So how did you get in at all?”
“I didn’t. I told you — they changed the locks.”
“So how’d you know they took everything?”
“You haven’t met these people,” she responded. “I’m telling you, the woman is psychotic. You don’t realize how things are in that part of the world. People will take you into the forest, machete you, and sell you for bush meat. The police are corrupt. You have no recourse. I was told — you’re not going to believe this — I was told they’d put me in prison (imagine a prison there!) for up to six years. I’d not even done anything. It’s enough to make you … No?” A classic end to a Sarah story: she, unjustly cast out, mistreated, slandered. Amazingly, she believed what she said, which became truer by repetition. But to claim victimhood again and again without seeming a fool obliged her to depict humanity as increasingly malign. Needfully, her worldview darkened year after year.
Sarah’s latest plan was to move to Rome and reconquer a city abandoned a half century earlier by her father, a former Fascist now long dead. There was a leather-goods store that belonged to an Italian friend, Valter, a married accountant whom she’d often mocked because he loved her. Sarah had an eye for fashion, she said, so would run the place. “Best part is you’re coming with me! You’ll be my assistant. Aren’t you excited? You’re almost twenty-one now. Time to move on. You’ll fly back with me, agreed?”
“Sarah, I’m not luggage.”
“What a thing to say! I’m trying to help you. Came all this way for you.”
“I’m fine here.”
“Well, never say I didn’t have your best interests at heart. Okay? Anyway, I’m staying a few days.”
“I need to check with Humph.”
“Check what?”
“Just let him know you want to stay.”
“You’ve got a huge mattress — there’s not space for me for a couple of days? Remember when we used to share your tent? Seriously, I don’t see why you’re making a big deal of this. Are you trying to humiliate me?”
“No, Sarah. Last thing I want.” Tooly reached for her, was pushed away, then placed her hand on Sarah’s upper arm, stroked it, as if soothing an animal.
“You’re so happy to see me!” Sarah said. “How cute!”
Tooly had spent so many years adjusting to the storms of Sarah that the habit of tranquilizing her overpowered the wish not to. To break the pattern, Tooly stepped away and rested her hand on the kitchen counter. Sarah placed hers atop, nails blood red.
“You all right?” Tooly asked.
“I’m fine.” She cleared her throat. “God, I don’t know.” At times like this, verging on the confessional, she evoked an aging actor before the dressing-room mirror, regarding the sagging vacancy. There was vulnerability in Sarah.
“I hope,” she said. “I hope that bitch gets her comeuppance. I really do.”
Tooly had lost track of all the bitches, found no need to seek clarification on this one, another among the legions opposing Sarah. And it was partly true. The world did thwart her, but not because it conspired to that end. Obstacles materialized because they did for all. Her paranoia was a form of egoism, that merciful failure of the imagination. But the truth of her condition was worse: nobody plotted against her because nobody thought of her at all.
“How happy you were when I saved you!” Sarah said.
“How do you mean?”
“In Bangkok, when I saved you.” Sarah perceived the flicker of irritation. “Oh, come on — don’t act like you’re still loyal to Paul.”
“Anyway,” Tooly said.
A bang came from the door downstairs.
“Probably Humph,” Tooly said. “I’ll go check.” She hastened downstairs, frigid air rushing in from the open door.
“Hello, darlink,” Humphrey said. “You come out in pajamas? I would not believe it, if I do not hear it with my own eyes.”
She leaned in to whisper, “The empress is back.”
His expression transformed to disappointment, then annoyance. “I have to talk to you about important things,” he said. “Why empress is coming now? She is staying?”
“Seems so.”
He stared miserably.
Sarah opened the apartment door. “Talking about me?”
“No, no,” Tooly said.
“Liar.”
In the following days, Sarah rarely left, reading fashion magazines purloined from nearby stores. She was short on money, until a wire transfer came from Valter in Italy. After this, she vanished into a bar on Hoyt Street, finding overnight lodgings with the younger men carousing there, followed by awkward scenes in the morning when they said versions of “Gotta run to work; mind leaving?” Sarah returned to the apartment, where Humphrey hid behind his books, and she chain-smoked at the window overlooking the expressway, waiting for Venn to call.
2011
THE BOOKSHOP WAS CLOSED on Sundays, so when Tooly phoned from Connecticut, intending only to test her borrowed cellphone on a familiar number, she expected no answer.
“World’s End,” Fogg said.
“Oh,” she responded, “you’re not supposed to pick up.”
“Isn’t that the custom when these things make noise?”
“Why are you at work today?”
“Not really working, to be fair. Just popped my head in to see everything’s in order.”
“Very conscientious of you. But, sorry, I should go. This isn’t my cellphone and I was only—”
“You’ll be chuffed to hear I did the Honesty Barrel this morning even though it’s Sunday,” he said. “I’m admiring it through the window as we speak — a thing of beauty. No rain this morning. There are miracles, yes, even in Wales. What’s the time by you? Middle of the afternoon in America, is it?”
“It’s six here.”
“Is that tomorrow morning? Or yesterday evening?”
“It’s six in the morning. And it’s today.”
“It may feel like today to you. But you’re still in yesterday.”
“Fogg — we’re on the same day, you nut. It’s Sunday in both places.”
“Can’t take a joke now you’re in America. And what on earth are you doing awake at six o’clock on a Sunday morning, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“That’s when I get up.”
“Don’t believe a word of it. It’ll be the jet lag. I’d like to try that one time — nice bit of jet lag on a holiday to America.”