Now she looked frustrated. “I mean, what are you doing in this place? Here?” she demanded, and I glanced around. “No, not just in your ugly apartment! You’re not originally from this area. Why don’t you go back to where you came from? What’s keeping you from leaving? You should go. Go away.”
“What?” I asked, not understanding.
“What are you doing here?” she asked me, exactly my words to her not too long ago.
“My life is here,” I answered, and she shook her head.
“Not really. Grant’s life is here, but you aren’t a part of it anymore. You never really were.”
“I was very much a part of it! We were together for five years,” I snapped. “Five years of my life that were wasted—”
“Ok! Fuck,” she sighed, and she checked her phone. “You always got so worked up about everything. At least you’re talking now. Last time I saw you, you were totally out of it and I thought you might be the same today.”
“‘Last time?’” I echoed. “What do you mean?”
“I went to the hospital to see you,” Vivi said. “Grant was having a shit fit and saying that you were gong to die, and we all expected it.”
“Sorry I let you down,” I said.
“No, I’m glad you didn’t. It would have been way worse for him because the police were already making problems.”
He’d gotten cited for various traffic infractions and as far as I could tell, he had enough going against him that he’d lost his license. But there hadn’t been any criminal charges related to the accident.
“No one wanted you to die,” she continued. “Of course, we never liked you, either. We didn’t want to hang out with you, and none of us could understand what he was doing with you.” She did look puzzled. “Why were you and Grant together?”
I leaned against the wall and let myself slide to the floor. I tried to do it slowly and carefully, but I ended up bumping hard at the end. “Ouch. We loved each other,” I said. “We were a good couple in a lot of ways. Our differences were complementary.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, while he wanted to spend, I wanted to save—what does this matter to you, Vivienne? I’m not leaving Detroit, if that was what you wanted to know. Why do you care where I live?”
“I don’t.” She checked her phone again. “So, you’re actually still injured?”
“Yes. But I’m improving,” I acknowledged. “I’m not going to die and I’m getting back to being ok.”
She looked at me in silence and I attempted to guess her motivation for tracking down my new address and driving over here. I came up with jack squat, so I asked her again.
“Why did you come?”
“I’m the kind of person who cares deeply,” she informed me. “I even care enough to check in on you.”
“Now that you’ve done that, is there anything else you need?”
There was something, obviously, because the idea that she had only been interested in my welfare was a giant pile of what Coral deposited in her litter box. In my experience, Vivienne was never interested in others unless their issues connected in some way to her. Like, she worried if you were getting a blister on a hike, but only because it would slow down the group and she wanted more cardio (and yes, that had happened). She cared if you were wearing the right dress to the fall formal at the fraternity but that was because you would be in pictures with her, since Grant and Lance had been best friends. She also hadn’t wanted to damage the reputation of the fraternity. In the end, my dress hadn’t done that, but there had been other problems. Their chapter had been sanctioned for hazing and was eventually shuttered.
But she was unwilling to tell me her true motivation for being here today, and an uncomfortable silence stretched out as she stared at me on the floor with her eyes narrowed and her lower lip slightly extended. If I’d had any artistic ability, I could have painted her portrait and called itVivienne, Pensive.
“Well, thanks for coming, even if you’re not being honest about your reasons,” I finally said. I began the struggle to get up, which was a little embarrassing in front of her. She didn’t make any offer of help and she just sat there and silently watched me. I had turned red by the time I walked to the door and I tried not to limp at all. Then I held it open, and when she still didn’t move, I pointed toward the hallway.
“Goodbye, Vivienne. We probably won’t ever see each other again, since I won’t let you in if you come back.”
“There’s no reason to be a bitch,” she told me.
“There is,” I said. “You just admitted that you came to the hospital and saw how I’d been hurt. You didn’t bother to stick around and see if I needed help, though, and I did need it. Months have passed since then but neither you, your husband Lance, or any of Grant’s other friends have shown their faces one time. I haven’t gotten a text or a call asking how I was. And I was bad!” I told her. “I got really hurt and everyone I knew—”
“Just so you’re aware, Emerson, we’re all on Grant’s side. Obviously,” she interrupted, but she did finally stand and take the two steps from my desk to the door. “We were sorry that it happened, but we’ll always support him, not you.”
“And yet, you dropped in now,” I mentioned. “You’re still here and I want you to leave.”
