The Neallys

Kerry: The Apartment

Kerry: The ApartmentWhile I was confident that I had done well, I wasn’t sure that I had done well. I thought I had picked up all of the issues in the exams but then groaned when a classmate mentioned as we mingled in the hall seeing one that I missed. What was done was done, though, and time to move on and savor the holiday, having survived this next rite-of-passage as an aspiring attorney.

I was a little blitzed when I walked into the house, having had a fair share of the beers we shared with the pizza. My Mom was still at work, and it was a few days before Christmas. I had taken a break the prior Sunday to go with her to pick up a tree and a wreath, and the tree stood decorated in the living room, my Mom having taken care of that and the wreath that was on the front door. I don’t know how she did it.

Of course, Suze was invited to Christmas dinner. She told me at one study session that she’d decided not to go home for the break. She told her mother that she’d decided to take advantage of just being in New York for a while without the pressure of schoolwork and, she told me, her mother got decidedly cold when she, Suze, said she had catching up to do with her Aunt Mary.

They—Suze, Mary, and Betty (Peter and Michael being with their dad)—came to our house for Christmas dinner and presents. My Mom put her face in her hands when I opened something from Suze that turned out to be a COLUMBIA sweatshirt and she said, “You can wear that with the backpack your Mom makes you carry to school.” I threw the shirt at her. But she also gave me a pair of emerald earrings she got from a second-hand shop she visited with Annie in Beacon which I immediately put on my ears, and I gave her a Hermes scarf that I picked up at a consignment shop in town and she delicately wrapped around her neck.

After Christmas, though, Suze stopped answering my calls and responded to my texts with {Suze: Just taking care of some stuff. CU soon}, and when I called Mary about it, she said that Suze was back in the City and was ghosting her too. Neither of us understood why.

Then:

{Kerry: Happy New Year’s. xo}

Followed ten minutes later with:

{Suze: And to you.}

And then no response to my immediate:

{Kerry: See ya soon??}

until January 2:

{Suze: Sorry Kerry, I’m coming down with something.}

Something was majorly wrong. She did not pick up when I called or get back to my voicemails. So on January 3 I just drove down and after twenty minutes was able to find a parking spot a few blocks from Suze’s Apartment. I knew Annie was not around since Suze told me she had gone home for the holiday. Amazingly enough, this would be my first visit to the Apartment. But I thought to back in November: “you ambushed me at my place and I can do the same to you.”

I pushed the buzzer in the building’s tiny foyer and when a very-healthy sounding Suze asked “Yes?” I told her, “It’s me, let me up.” To which she said, “I don’t think it’s you. You would have said ‘it is I.’” and a pause. “Look, Kerry, I really don’t feel well.” Her voice had changed. Now it was husky. In a bad way. I said, “Suze, I drove all the way down here, wandered the streets for ages to find a place to park, to speak to you. Let me up.” I heard the buzzer and pushed the door open. I climbed the flight to her second-floor Apartment. Her door was ajar.

As I said, I’d never been there. It was big. Not “Friends” big, more like Meg-Ryan’s-place-in-”You’ve Got Mail” big. There was a nice living room with a curved window overlooking the street and a small kitchen. And two bedrooms off the hall heading to the back. Suze was sitting in the middle of the sofa, and I sat in one of the chairs across the coffee table.

“I really don’t feel well,” she said. She didn’t look well, paler than I was used to.

“Suze, tell me what’s going on. You look kind of drowned out but I don’t think it’s physical. Talk to me.”

“You’re the last person I can talk to.”

That hurt and I think she saw me wince.

“No, no, no. It’s not you.”

“Then what is it?”

She paused, took a breath, and after a moment’s thought her eyes became steely. Staring at me she said, “I’m gay.”

I’ve always hated myself for this, but all I could say, at least all I DID say was, “You can’t be” and, worse, I shook my head and covered my eyes. “I thought we were friends…You can’t be like that.”

When I looked again her eyes were blank. I wasn’t ready for what she said and I don’t know why I said what I said, but to her was I no better than her father?

She got up. Walked to the door. Opening it she was direct: “Just f*****g leave.”

And I did.