“Last week?Does your phone not work? Does my phone not work?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No, it isn’t,” Natalie said. “You married a man who turned out to be a disappointment. Also”—she dropped her voice—“you want to show Zeke Rodriguez your boobs.”
“Idon’twant to show Zeke Rodriguez my boobs,” Sybil said. “That’s the problem! Do you have any idea what sort of boobs he’s seen?”
“Yours are spectacular,” Natalie said, with the bravado of a best friend and not that of an objective observer.
“Well, now I know you’re lying.”
The bed was stripped bare now, and Sybil sat on its edge, dipped her chin to her chest. Natalie sat next to her and placed a hand on the middle of her back, which ached all the time now.
“Okay, but for real, are you going to explain why Zeke Rodriguez is in your kitchen?”
“I never sleep,” Sybil said. “We met online.”
Sybil felt Natalie’s gaze on her, so she raised her head to meet her delighted grin.
“So thisisabout your sex life. Are the other two people downstairs—” Her eyebrows pointed downward as if to say,I didn’t know you had it in you, but I’m not disappointed.
“Oh my god,” Sybil laughed. “We’re all just friends. We’re friends who don’t sleep. And we’re trying to help each other fix our problems. Zeke is injured; he has surgery next week…I’m not even sure hecouldsleep with me if he wanted to.”
“Girl, hecould,even with you in…this.” She gestured at her foot. “Totally naked but for a medical boot. Hot. All sorts of weird shit turns people on, you know.”
Sybil had texted Natalie that she’d injured her toe but hadn’t told her how. There were too many details to explain in a text, honestly. A thought occurred to her.
“Actually let’s just…can we focus on Betty, the actress? Can you help get her some work?”
“I can probably help anyone,” Natalie said, because she had the exact type of confidence you needed from a sidekick in moments like this.
“Come on, let me make introductions. I worry about her. She doesn’t have any family.”
“You worry about everyone but yourself,” Natalie said but trailed her downstairs.
Betty was in the backyard, despite the nippy temperature. Sybil had hung fairy lights last spring for the twins’ pre-prom party, which she had naturally agreed to host (she hated hosting), and she was surprised they hadn’t yet fallen. Still sparkling like nothing had changed. She and Eloise had a huge fight before the party about Eloise wanting to turn down Georgetown for a gap year, but if you looked at the pictures from that night, you’d never know. Mark had worn a tuxedo and served the kids mocktails, though a few surely sneaked the cocktails designated for the parents. Charlie certainly had. He was already tipsy by the time the bus pulled up to take them to the dance. When the house was at last empty, she and Mark got into it because she needed to be mad at someone after the fight with Eloise and witnessing Charlie’s delinquency. And she had plenty of reasons to be mad at Mark. He ended up claiming there was an emergency and had to go into the hospital. So she sat in her backyard under the fairy lights and got drunk enough to fall asleep in a chaise lounge by the pool.
At least, she thought ruefully now, she’d managed to sleep.
“Betty,” she said, hobbling closer. “This is my friend Natalie, and I’m pretty sure she can change your life.”
Looking back, it never once dawned on Sybil that Betty hadn’t asked for such a thing, that changing Betty’s life might be the very thing that ruined it.
18
Night Six
Betty
Betty didn’t knowhow to tell Sybil’s friend that she really wasn’t super interested in being cast in the laundry detergent commercial Natalie was working on. No, not just super uninterested. Like, not at all interested. She couldn’t be. She didn’t have that luxury.
“So what sort of experience do you have?” Natalie asked while Sybil lit the fire pit on her back patio and offered Julian and Zeke some spiced cider. It was so exactly like Sybil to have spiced cider on hand.
“Oh, just some high school stuff,” Betty said. “It’s okay, you don’t have to feel obligated.”
“No,” Natalie said, like that was the end of the argument. “I like your look. You can play young, which is always a huge advantage, and you don’t look like all the other girls I see.”
Betty didn’t know what that meant, if it was a compliment really.
