near future, but it was okay, she was used to being alone and besides she felt she had time, even though she was already thirty-two. Her mother, despite being disappointed and bereaved after the early death of her father, always told her not to rush. There was plenty of time. She didn’t have Ellie until she was forty. In the meantime, she needed to figure out how to get close with someone, what it took exactly. And how would she know? She had three sisters and two brothers, but only spoke to two of them on any kind of regular basis. Her father’s death had felt more like a removal of some sort rather than a loss, as if he was on an extended vacation. Elie couldn’t quite name what it was that had shimmied through her gut at his funeral. Maybe it was angst or uneasiness. She did miss him from time to time
Friday night Lisa called. She wanted to come over and watch a movie; her boyfriend was working late and she wanted some company. Elie collected friends the way some people collected matchbooks or souvenirs from airports, and was always up for company. But first, of course, Elie wanted to get stoned. Lisa sat next to her on the stained futon, found a place to plant her feet somehow amidst the piles of magazines and dirty clothes and had a cigarette. Nicotine was her drug of choice since at the age of twenty-two she had sworn off all illegal drugs following a teenage induced bout of over usage.
‘So what should we watch?’ Elie asked.
‘Something with Cary Grant.’
‘Cary’s always cool.’
Lisa got up to turn off the overhead light while Elie popped in the movie, and then they heard it. The doorbell. But it wasn’t from outside; there was a distinct difference in tonality between the outside bell and