Page 84 of The Friendship Study

And disappointment, of course. If I’m not disappointed in myself can I really call myself an academic? The perfectionist academic overachiever in me feels like a failure that I was passed over for a job that I didn’t even want. But also I’m proud; maybe I don’t need that shrine to Clio after all. I’m choosing where I belong. And it’s here.

“Lulu.” Audrey catches up to me after the meeting. I stop, waiting for her just outside the door as the rest of the faculty file out. Her black turtleneck and the black cigarette pants are too hot for the middle of the summer. Every time I try to wear a turtleneck, I start gagging, the feeling of the fabric constricting. Meanwhile, Audrey is poised and elegant, like her Hepburn namesake. But she stares down at her feet, shifting her weight nervously. “Listen, I know things between us are weird. Or whatever. But... I just wanted you to know that I’m really disappointed we won’t have the opportunity to teach that class together.”

“That’s OK.” I shrug. And it is. It really is. “Maybe we’ll get another chance in the future.”

Without warning, Audrey leaps forward and hugs me, quick and hard. “I’d like that,” she says. “You’re a good friend, Lulu.”

I smile. “Thanks,” I say. “You are, too.”

She leans back. “You should come present at the Lancaster Conference. Cecelia said she was going to mention it to you.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“We could co-present.” She arches a perfect eyebrow. “Test the waters for our future course.”

And OK. That lights the fire inside me, a little bit. “I’ll think about it.”

Jay is gone when I get back to the office. I close the door behind me, sit in my old rolling chair, and inexplicably cry. Something feels like it’s ending even though this is all just the beginning. This is the beginning of my research on witchcraft and gender in early modern New England, and carving out a space for myself in the department separate from my dad. It’s the beginning even, maybe, of a friendship with Audrey. “So why are you so sad, you dummy,” I say to myself. Outside, my tree sways gently in the breeze, the green leaves waving a warm hello. I’m surrounded by books, tomes that have been my oldest friends, my only friends, but right now my hands ache to tear into them. Screw the sanctity of books. I want to throw the shreds of them and my dignity on the floor, rip them apart with my teeth. My throat is tight, but when my sobs escape all my tears are gone and all that’s left is an angry, painful sound. I look up at the quiet knock on my door—expecting my dad, hoping ridiculously for Jesse of all people even though he doesn’t know where I work on campus, let alone that I’m upset, and probably thinks I still want nothing to do with him—but getting Miranda.

“Lulu,” she says, quietly.

It’s entirely too embarrassing for my professional hero to find me crying in my office. Her heels cross the threshold, the door shutting quietly. She leans her hip against my desk.

“I’m sorry.” My voice is scratchy.

“Normally, I’d say there’s no crying in academia,” she says.

Of course, that’s not true. There is a ton of crying in academia. What she means is academics—especially women—do not cry in the presence of others, lest we give the old men who run the department the impression we can’t handle theirvery valuable opinions.

“But let’s just pretend this isn’t academia.”

I sniffle. “Then what is it?”

She drums her lime green nails on my desk, sighing. “Well, at the very least, it’s not the history department. It’s the psych department. That’s a junk science anyway.”

I laugh and she looks pleased. “Are you sad you didn’t get the Lancaster position?”

“How did you know about that?” I ask.

“Audrey told me.”

“That’s the thing,” I say. “I’m not. I’m really, really happy for her. I want to stay here. Maybe I’m just scared? I don’t know.”

“It’s OK to be scared.” Miranda pats my hand where it’s clenched around a tissue. “You have me, your dad, you have a whole community of people who are here to help you.”

A few months ago, I wouldn’t have believed that was true. My community consisted of my mom and my dad and a tree. But she’s right. That’s not what I’ve got now. I’ve got so much more. Except for one thing, one friend. And maybe that’s where these tears are coming from.

I miss my best friend. I miss my person.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Lulu

I scrape my palm along the trunk of my tree. The leaves are full and green and turned toward the sun. I’m stalling. Our last group session is today and I’ll most definitely see Jesse. My palms sweat as I walk across campus, strolling along the quad’s tree-lined pathways. I try to remember my list of things I can and can’t talk about in group: I can talk about cultivating belonging at work, my tentative détente with Audrey that’s turned into the potential for friendship. I can’t talk about Jesse, how he makes me feel, how much I miss him. I can’t talk about how now I see blue Broncos all over town, when before I saw none. Or, how much I appreciate silence since spending so much time within it when I was with him. I can’t talk about how obtuse I was with Audrey because if I do, I’ll start thinking about the ways I have been obtuse with him, too.

I loiter outside the building until the very last minute, finally making my way up when I get a text from George with just a series of clock face emojis. “You’re late,” he singsongs as I step off the elevator.

I cringe. “I might be avoidant.”

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