Sweet Sorrow Chapter 19

“Is something wrong?” Elliot asked. He was being unusually perceptive.

“Well…” She replied uncertainly. With a heavy sigh, Samantha sat on the edge of her bed. Then she lay down, first on her back, then her stomach, and then her side. She sat back up, tucked in her legs, stretched them out, jumped off the bed and finally fell back, stiff as a board. She didn’t have the slightest idea how to compose herself. Holly and Elliot watched her with bemused eyes.

“Well what?” Holly demanded finally. She closed her notebook with a crinkly snap and sat up against the wall. Elliot followed suit, dusting his lanky brown hair out of his eyes.

“Well,” Samantha tried again. The words wouldn’t form themselves in her mouth. This was an unfamiliar and unpleasant sensation. She had always been so certain with words before. But now, her mind was working a million miles a minutes, flushed with the exertion of questions and uncertainties and dread. Obviously, this wasn’t something Isabelle, the ultimate modest mouse, would want to get around, but Samantha had never been much of a secret keeper. As soon as she knew some forbidden detail, it made her cheeks ache to tell someone else, to be able to share in the back alley delight of an unknown fact. Besides, what harm could come of telling Holly and Elliot? They were hardly gossips, and they lived in a completely different state than Isabelle or Nick or Natalie or anyone. She could trust them, and she simply couldn’t keep this inside. “Nick got Isabelle pregnant,” she blurted, before regret or common sense could get the better of her. Her friends, however, didn’t react as she’d expected them to.

“I never like that sentence,” Holly said thoughtfully, whirling a dusky red curl around her manicured index finger. “It makes the woman seem so powerless. What did Nick do, shoot her with a slingshot full of sperm? She was there too, and it’s just a cruel twist of fate and human design that she’s the one who’s pregnant.” Samantha stared at her. She really didn’t need a lecture on the degree of feminism in her phrasing right now. Elliot was just looking at his feet with a poorly disguised grin across his face. Where were the looks of surprise and shock? The gasps, screams? Something?

“Um, okay then,” Samantha said uncertainly. “That’s all you have to say, Holly? I didn’t just tell you that Jack got Kate pregnant on Lost or something. These are people I know, people we know. Isabelle is one of my best friends and she’s pregnant with a fucking rock star’s child, and all you can tell me is you don’t like the sentence I used to break the news? And what the fuck are you smiling about, Elliot?” Elliot glanced up like he was surprised she had noticed him, and tried, without success, to wipe the guilty smirk of his face.

“I’m not smiling!” He protested, which was a blatant lie. “Look, Sam, calm down. I was just thinking that if their kid is a girl, I would totally want her when she grows up. Your friend Isabelle is hot. And that Nick Jonas kid is pretty good looking, no homo and everything.” Samantha glared at him with more fury than she’d felt in a long time. Holly glanced between the two of them and quickly slid across the bed so that she was between them, to intervene emotionally and, if necessary, physically.

“Okay, Elliot, that’s a bit much. This is a really, really bad time to be a sickening pig. But still, Sam, come on. It’s 2008; people get pregnant all the time. She can take care of it, and it won’t be that big a deal. Everything is going to be fine. You don’t need to stress.” This really hadn’t been what Samantha was expecting, and it definitely wasn’t what she needed. She leapt hurriedly off the bed and snatched her jacket from the back of the chair in front of the desk she and Holly shared.

“I’m going for a walk,” she snapped as she shoved her arms into the sleeves, feeling harried and hot with annoyance. “You two can just stay in here and…and… God, why don’t you just fuck each other since you’re both so fucking relaxed all the time!” She had always hated that word used that way. I fucked her, he fucked me, let’s fuck. It sounded so crass and animalistic, and it took all the beauty and passion out of something that, done right, could be magical. But she had never felt so out of her mind as she did now. She might as well have been speaking in tongues. Samantha snatched her phone off the end of the bed and crossed the small dorm room in three rapid strides.

“Sam, come on. Calm down.” Holly’s voice was pleading and small as Sam slammed the door shut behind her. Out in the corridor, a pleasantly cool spring night breeze played with the ends of her hair and tickled the bare skin of her neck. She began walking, with aimless, powerful footsteps, away from Holly and Elliot and her door room and everything. Her head was full of anger, with no room for defined thoughts, but once she got away from Fayerweather and moved out into the open expanse of the campus green, her fury cooled instantly. It left her feeling weak and empty and tired. She sat back one the damp grass and closed her eyes. Again, she came back to a night under the stars, with Jason beneath her and every worry and care in the world a million miles away, far across the expanse of the midnight black sea. More than anything, now, she felt alone. It was one of the worst feelings she had ever encountered, and not one she was used to. Samantha had spent her entire life thus far trying to surround herself with people she loved, people who could make her laugh. Now, the silence was deafening and the loneliness was a devastating ache in her chest. Now, she missed Jason. She tried to imagine how Isabelle must have been feeling, and the idea shook her to her very core. After about five minutes of lying there like stone, Samantha realized how weird she must have looked to the romantic couples strolling past with clasped hands, or the pizza delivery kids on their bikes. She stood up and tried to wipe away the cold wetness of the green before walking over to the nearest bench. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and stared at the screen, a picture of her, Jason, Natalie and Zack at the airport before all the flights left. She and Natalie were in the center, framed by the guys, and all four of them were biting into pretzels with looks of ferocity on their faces. Natalie’s face was the best; Sam and Zack had both gotten caught up in the moment and were laughing through their pretzels, and Jason was a little behind, still lifting the snack up to his mouth. But Natalie’s brows were furrowed and her teeth were bared around the salted stick. It made Samantha laugh out loud to herself, as only Natalie could. How could she not call? Samantha groaned to herself as she flicked through the phone to her speed dial contacts and rang Natalie, number three. Her knee jiggled as she held the phone to her ear.

“Hello beautiful!” Natalie answered on the third ring. “I feel like I haven’t talked to you in decades. What’s up?” Sam smiled into the receiver. She had almost never heard Natalie with anything less than joy in her energetic voice. Natalie was the only person who came close to being able to exhaust Samantha.

“Shit’s about to hit the fan, Nat,” Samantha replied honestly. She rushed her fingers through her hair as through trying to shake the awfulness out of her body.

“What’s wrong? Is it something with Jason? If you tell me it’s something with Jason I might have to kill myself. You two are so cute together. It’s a problem with Holly, right? She stole your stuff or used your soap or something? Or Zack? You don’t want him to use that super sexy picture of you and Jason in your exhibit?”

“No, no,” Samantha laughed. “Actually, yes to the last one. Where does the little perv get off thinking this sort of shit is appropriate? I’m naked, for God’s sake, this isn’t an Esquire shoot or something.”

“But you both look so fantastic! If I were you, I would have that picture anywhere anyone I’d ever known could see it. They would all die of jealousy. I’d have at least 400 copies sent to James.” Samantha laughed again, thinking of Natalie’s most recent ex-boyfriend, who she’d broken up with only two weeks before she had met Joe.

“Why? It’s not like you need revenge or anything. You practically destroyed the poor boy.”

“Yeah, well, it wouldn’t do for him to getting ideas that he could do better than me,” Natalie joked. “I want him to pine after me for the rest of his natural born life.”

“Psycho bitch!” Samantha exclaimed teasingly. “If I could record these conversations we have, you’d never get a date again.”

“Oh yeah, I’m a real maneater. Sorry we can’t all mate for life, my little penguin love. But wait. Am I hallucinating, or was there something of a serious nature that you wanted to tell me? Something about some shit hitting a fan or something?” Samantha was momentarily halted by Isabelle’s concerns at weighing on Natalie’s already busy schedule.

“Do you have time to talk? I know your show is this weekend, I’m sure you have a million other things to worry about.”

“If it was important enough for you to call, then it’s important enough for me to listen. Though remind me, I do have a really excellent story to tell you about Maleke trying to hail a cab to get back to the studio and attracting like, fifteen prostitutes. I told you he was beautiful. Oh, sorry. I interrupted again.” Samantha had almost forgotten what had been making her so heavy, what had been hurting her stomach. It was so much easier to just listen to Natalie, who always had the most hilarious tales to tell about life in New York. Life that was simple and straightforward and came down to tasks like getting fabric or taking a test.

“Yeah, right. Okay, Natalie, you obviously can’t tell anyone about this, and I mean anyone, even though I already made a dumb choice and told Holly and Elliot.”

“Are you getting married?!” Samantha rolled her eyes and smiled ruefully at the phone. She wished that a marriage at eighteen was her biggest concern.

“Nat, Isabelle is pregnant. Nick got Isabelle pregnant.” Fuck Holly and her womanly sentence construction. There was a loud slamming noise, and then a clatter and the sound of soft swearing. “Natalie?” Samantha said uncertainly. There were a few more moments of scuffling, and then Natalie was back on the phone, sounding breathless.

“Sorry, Sam, I dropped my phone.” Samantha giggled to herself, remembering again just how much she had in common with her friends.

“I did the same thing,” she breathed. “I mean, what on earth are we supposed to do?”

“Well, you’re kidding, right? Isabelle’s not pregnant. She could never be. I mean, really, I’m more likely to… I don’t know, do something really unlikely than Isabelle is to get pregnant.”

“Believe it, baby,” Sam replied. “She told me herself. I don’t know how long she’s known, but she just told me about fifteen minutes ago. I’m freaking out, Natalie!”

“Well, naturally!” Natalie practically screamed. “So you’re serious? Isabelle is pregnant with Nick Jonas’s child? Holy hell.” Sam bit her bottom lip and nodded to herself as she replied.

“She sounds like shit,” she said bluntly. “She sounds like she’s about to absolutely fall apart at the seams. I don’t really blame her, but it feels terrible. It’s sickening to hear the way she sounds on the phone. And she doesn’t want to tell Nick or anything. I told her she should tell him, what do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Natalie replied slowly. She was, at that very moment, sitting on the window seat in her New York apartment, looking out at the street below with dark, contemplative eyes. Usually, the small space felt crowded and loud, but both of her roommates were out for the day. The first, Connor, had gone to high school with Natalie, Samantha, Isabelle and Zack, and she’d had quite a crush on him back in the day. When they’d both gotten into Columbia and decided to share an apartment, they’d kept right on flirting and doing nothing about it. It hadn’t bothered Natalie the way it had in high school. She’d come to New York to have fun and had been enormously successful. She was thin, pretty, artistic, wild, daring and funny, and there were millions of people dying to be her friend, even more dying to do whatever she wanted with her. When she could come home from a fantastic night with Maleke, the six-foot tall Nigerian assistant who worked with her at Oscar de la Renta, who had the most beautiful black eyes and muscular chest and loved to fool around, opening the door to Connor wasn’t as intolerably sexy. Even when he was in his boxers, eating Lucky Charms and smiling at her adorably from under his jet black hair. Now, however, with Joe and his perfection and his frequent calls and texts (he hated e-mail), it was even easier to be normal around Connor. She hadn’t yet been able to give up her play dates with Maleke. Their other roommate, Isaiah, was from Texas and was an excellent cook. He was in a band, and was only in the apartment between five and eight in the afternoon, and not at all on Saturdays. Natalie wished he was around more. He was one of the funniest people she had ever met, especially when he made jokes with his Texas twang.

“You don’t know?” Samantha’s far-more-agitated-than-usual voice pulled Natalie’s mind back to the present. “Why not? He has a right to know, doesn’t he?”

“I mean, yes, of course,” Natalie replied, “but what is telling him really going to do about it? She’s just going to have an abortion, right? It’s not like he’s going to have to pay child support or anything. She can’t possibly have a kid.” Samantha swallowed and pulled on her hair. She had never considered herself anything but pro-choice, but faced with it so obviously, abortion sounded like such an angry, punishing word. Her conversation with Isabelle had been decidedly short, but the assumption had been lurking just under her comforting words and promises. Really, what other choice did Isabelle have?

“I guess,” Samantha said weakly. It was now almost pitch black on the green, and the pleasant breeze had turned into a far more biting wind. She pulled on the cuffs of her jacket and watched as the air grabbed a discarded wrapper and threw it into the air, toying with it. It flounced haphazardly above the green for a few moments before it was unceremoniously dropped under a large oak. Delusions of grandeur.

“You guess?” Natalie could hardly imagine that there was any other option. Since high school, Isabelle had been singularly focused on doing well in school, whatever that meant. She wanted intelligence and knowledge to leak out of her pores, and she would stop at almost nothing to achieve it. How the hell was a baby supposed to fit into that? Natalie herself had never had much patience for anyone under the age of three. Once children could express themselves and deal with all of their own foul business, she could tolerate them, if they weren’t too loud and didn’t get butter on her clothes, like her small cousin Phillip. Without warning, the door banged open, and Connor burst into the apartment. His hair was plastered down over his eyes and water spilled over his cheeks. His worn white cotton “Kiss the Cook” shirt was practically see-through. Natalie glanced out the window and realized that a near torrential downpour had spring up while she was focused on a completely different type of storm on the horizon. “Hey, Sam, on a lighter note, Connor just got home.” Connor looked up from shaking his hair out by the front door, and his smile spread wide at the sound of Samantha’s name. He waved, and started stepping out of his drenched jeans before Natalie’s very eyes. “He’s stripping in the foyer,” Natalie reported dispassionately.

“Luck girl,” Sam replied. “Don’t tell him, okay?”

“Obviously,” Natalie groaned. She ran her eyes quickly up and down Connor’s lankily muscular frame while she had the chance. As soon as his head came up, her gaze flickered back down to the hem of her shorts, the picture of absorption in conversation. It was an art she had mastered back in high school.

“Tell him I said hello,” Samantha requested. “I should probably go. It’s really dark around here, and who knows what sort of wolves and serial killers stalk the Dartmouth campus.”

“I didn’t know life in rural New Hampshire was so fraught with peril,” Natalie laughed. Samantha smiled back and shrugged. She didn’t have the energy to be angry with Holly and Elliot, or to think about arrangements for Isabelle. She barely had the energy to talk to Natalie. Right now, she really wanted to curl up in her bed for a long night’s sleep, with nothing on her mind. Especially not Russian History.

“So you’re going to see Is tomorrow?” Natalie asked. Connor had pulled of his t-shirt and was now turning in slow, precise circles in front of the desk fan to dry himself. Natalie rolled her eyes and hid a smile at his damp, boxer-clad form.

“Yeah. I told her I’d take the train after my-God- Russian history test, and then just meet her. Don’t let her know that I told you yet, I’m sure she’ll call you soon.” Samantha had never been more appreciative of the fact that Natalie wasn’t the kind of girl to get jealous or angry about who had said what first, and to whom. “I’ll call you as soon as I have more details. Goddamn, Nat, is it selfish of me to say that I really don’t want to have to deal with this right now?”

“Not in the slightest,” Natalie replied sagely. “But if you don’t want to deal with it, just imagine how shitty it is for Isabelle. And hey, at least it’s Nick fucking Jonas, not some Knocked Up Set Rogan look-a-like. She could have done at lot worse.”

“She could have used a condom.”

“Could have, should have, would have. Depression is built on a tower of regret and wishful thinking.”

“Heavy,” Samantha replied with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, Isaiah has a desk calendar of positive phrases. This one seems kind of dark to me, personally.” Connor made a waving gesture with his hand like he wanted to say something to her. He was still fairly unclothed. Natalie herself was in mint green wool shorts with a tight white long-sleeved t-shirt and her black house slippers. All, she figured in her mind, fairly easy to remove. “Aw, I think poor Connor is hungry. Call me with anything new or simply pressing to say?”

“As always,” Sam assured her.

“If you need me, you can always send out an S.O.S.,” Natalie promised solemnly. Connor was looking at her as though she had suddenly sprouted a second nose.

“Self-opening square? Or sex on stage?” Samantha teased back.

“Take your pick, love,” Natalie replied, still serious, though it was difficult. “I’ll talk to you very, very soon.” Samantha ended the call and sighed, while Natalie, some many miles away, closed her phone and filled her face with Connor’s.