Read Online The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Anna North
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said.
The yard was wide and deep and sloped down until it met a stand of oak trees. Close to the lights of the house were clusters of people drinking and laughing, but as we walked farther down the hill, the crowd thinned out until it was just couples half hidden in the shadows. The bottom of the yard smelled like rain and fallen leaves, and it made me think of home, of the green places near the creek where it smelled like rain all year round. Andrea sat down on the grass in a single fluid motion, and I sort of stumbled into a squat beside her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
She gave that laugh again. “I’m getting divorced.”
She held up her left hand, and now I saw two rings sparkling on it, a gold one and a diamond. I’d never thought to look at anybody’s hand before—it had never occurred to me that someone my age could be married. All I could think to ask was, “Why?”
“It’s my fault,” she said. She wrapped her arms around her knees. “In high school we were so in love. We thought no one understood us. And when we were eighteen, we got married as this, like, fuck-you to everyone who said we couldn’t do it, that it wouldn’t last. And now, surprise, it hasn’t. My parents said I’d want to date other people, and I do. I just want to be a regular girl.”
She stretched her feet out in front of her. She was wearing purple sneakers with a heart drawn on the left toe. I had no idea what to say.
“Maybe it’ll be good,” I said. “I mean, now you can do what you want.”
She looked up at the branches above our heads. I saw a bat flick between them. When she looked back at me, she seemed indignant, almost mad.
“Yeah,” she said, “but wouldn’t I be a better person if I didn’t care about that? Shouldn’t I just care about the person I love and thepromise I made and not anything else? Isn’t that how really good, strong people are?”
Right then I got extremely tired. The vodka was turning heavy in my head, and it seemed suddenly very clear that I wasn’t going to do anything more than talk with Andrea that night. I thought about her husband and their teenage wedding and how much they must’ve loved each other to do something nobody I knew would ever think of doing, and I wondered if she was right. Maybe if you loved someone that much, you should do everything you could to defend that love, even against yourself.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but why are you asking me this? I’ve never been in love. I haven’t even kissed a girl.”
I hadn’t planned on admitting that, and once I did, I knew I’d really given up on sleeping with Andrea that night, or whatever quasi-sexual thing I’d been hoping to do with her in somebody’s weird yard. I just wanted to go home.
But she didn’t seem upset or surprised.
“I had a class with your sister last year,” she said. “Once I asked her how she was, and she just stared right through me like I didn’t exist. She was so strange and mean, and nobody liked her. Then you came, and now she’s this celebrity. That made me want to be your friend, that you could do that.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “It was her idea to make the movie. I just talk to people sometimes.”
“Whatever you do,” she said, “you’re helping someone else live in the world, and that’s more than I’ve ever done.”
I remembered the summer when I was seven and Sophie was ten, and one day she refused to eat and hid in her closet, shivering like our cat right before it died.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“My stomach hurts,” she said. “Don’t tell Mom.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not going to the doctor,” she said. “They ask all these questions, and then they send you to another doctor, and they ask more questions. I’m never going to the doctor again.”
This was around the time of the IQ test, which led to an appointment with a psychologist, which led to an appointment with a psychiatrist who prescribed Sophie a drug
The yard was wide and deep and sloped down until it met a stand of oak trees. Close to the lights of the house were clusters of people drinking and laughing, but as we walked farther down the hill, the crowd thinned out until it was just couples half hidden in the shadows. The bottom of the yard smelled like rain and fallen leaves, and it made me think of home, of the green places near the creek where it smelled like rain all year round. Andrea sat down on the grass in a single fluid motion, and I sort of stumbled into a squat beside her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
She gave that laugh again. “I’m getting divorced.”
She held up her left hand, and now I saw two rings sparkling on it, a gold one and a diamond. I’d never thought to look at anybody’s hand before—it had never occurred to me that someone my age could be married. All I could think to ask was, “Why?”
“It’s my fault,” she said. She wrapped her arms around her knees. “In high school we were so in love. We thought no one understood us. And when we were eighteen, we got married as this, like, fuck-you to everyone who said we couldn’t do it, that it wouldn’t last. And now, surprise, it hasn’t. My parents said I’d want to date other people, and I do. I just want to be a regular girl.”
She stretched her feet out in front of her. She was wearing purple sneakers with a heart drawn on the left toe. I had no idea what to say.
“Maybe it’ll be good,” I said. “I mean, now you can do what you want.”
She looked up at the branches above our heads. I saw a bat flick between them. When she looked back at me, she seemed indignant, almost mad.
“Yeah,” she said, “but wouldn’t I be a better person if I didn’t care about that? Shouldn’t I just care about the person I love and thepromise I made and not anything else? Isn’t that how really good, strong people are?”
Right then I got extremely tired. The vodka was turning heavy in my head, and it seemed suddenly very clear that I wasn’t going to do anything more than talk with Andrea that night. I thought about her husband and their teenage wedding and how much they must’ve loved each other to do something nobody I knew would ever think of doing, and I wondered if she was right. Maybe if you loved someone that much, you should do everything you could to defend that love, even against yourself.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but why are you asking me this? I’ve never been in love. I haven’t even kissed a girl.”
I hadn’t planned on admitting that, and once I did, I knew I’d really given up on sleeping with Andrea that night, or whatever quasi-sexual thing I’d been hoping to do with her in somebody’s weird yard. I just wanted to go home.
But she didn’t seem upset or surprised.
“I had a class with your sister last year,” she said. “Once I asked her how she was, and she just stared right through me like I didn’t exist. She was so strange and mean, and nobody liked her. Then you came, and now she’s this celebrity. That made me want to be your friend, that you could do that.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “It was her idea to make the movie. I just talk to people sometimes.”
“Whatever you do,” she said, “you’re helping someone else live in the world, and that’s more than I’ve ever done.”
I remembered the summer when I was seven and Sophie was ten, and one day she refused to eat and hid in her closet, shivering like our cat right before it died.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“My stomach hurts,” she said. “Don’t tell Mom.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not going to the doctor,” she said. “They ask all these questions, and then they send you to another doctor, and they ask more questions. I’m never going to the doctor again.”
This was around the time of the IQ test, which led to an appointment with a psychologist, which led to an appointment with a psychiatrist who prescribed Sophie a drug
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