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Hotel sheets, she guesses, trying to get her bearings.
The shower is running. Tom? John? Samantha thinks for a minute. She checks her cell phone for messages.
"Hey, it's me. Just calling to check we're still on for coffee. I'm putting Brady down for his nap about eleven, so then's good. See ya."
Shit.
Another Saturday. She thinks about leaving Tom/John a note but decides against it. Instead she just finds her dress and leaves.
*
It takes her longer than usual to get a taxi, but she lets herself blame it on the weekend. It used to be a joke, Charlotte would look an outfit up and down and say: "Well, you'll have no trouble getting a cab." It used to make her laugh, because when had she ever had trouble getting anything? Now she has to ask nicely, she even smiles at the driver when he stops to let her in.
Samantha thinks that this is the worst part of getting older, you have to smile more.
*
Carrie was the first to leave, though they were used to it by then. Not that they said anything, but it wasn't the same after she came back from Paris. Where will the next one take you? California, it turned out. She calls a few times a month to say how she doesn't miss New York. How in love she is with Big.
Samantha knows Carrie thinks she can't come running back. Not again.
"We're always here," she makes a point of saying anyway. The line crackles and her mouth is suddenly dry.
"I know, sweetie. I know."
*
Miranda calls her again while she's in the cab. Samantha doesn't answer, she can't afford to waste the words. They never have enough to say to each other as it is, their lives no longer touch. They tell the same old stories, stretch them over a cup and a half of coffee, and Samantha has learned to check her watch at the precise moment Miranda lowers her head to pour a refill.
And it's not that she doesn't like Miranda, though there have been times when that was true. Times when Miranda used to join them late from the office, all sharp angles and short spiked hair, and Samantha had thought: What are you trying to prove? No, Miranda was vital back then. Clear-headed with a dirty laugh. Someone to roll her eyes at when Charlotte or Carrie were wrapped in some fairytale romance.
It's just, without the other two, they don't really work.
*
It wasn't marriage they lost Charlotte to, that was a battle they had won before and were ready to win again. Motherhood was a different thing though, and it took her from them like a tidal wave.
"I just can't raise my baby in the city," Charlotte had said, and there was no way to argue. Besides, it was just her and Miranda then, and Miranda was in Brooklyn, and it wasn't nearly enough to make her stay. Off she had gone. Occasionally Samantha gets an elaborate invitation in the mail, a dinner party here, a luncheon there, but she can never quite make it.
Charlotte calls her more than Carrie does. Listens more when she calls. But something in her voice has changed.
*
The cab is stuck in traffic, just like every Saturday. Samantha considers telling the driver to turn back around.
The thing is, when Smith left she called Carrie. But it was Miranda who showed up with vodka, on a work night, without the kid. And when Charlotte told her that Steve's mother had died, Samantha had gone to the hospital and taken Brady for the day. The thing is, there's just the two of them now, and they have a history if nothing else.
So once a week she goes to Brooklyn to drink coffee that she doesn't want. She tries to thank Miranda for being the one who stayed.
*
Except Miranda didn't stay, not really.
She stopped caring about being made partner at her firm. "There are more important things now, " she had said, refilling her cup and bringing the baby monitor across to the table. Samantha was sure she was telling the truth, but she had stopped pretending it was still Miranda after that. Stopped thinking she could make things fall back into place.
And Miranda even looks different, rounder, softer. She's turning into the kind of woman people behind counters call 'sweetheart.'
No one calls Samantha 'sweetheart.' Even when she smiles.
*
Samantha's body is changing too, but from the inside, where she can't keep track. She used to check for cellulite, tan lines. Now it's for lumps and bumps, fingers lightly running across her breasts in the shower as she holds her breath and prays. The doctor will say: "Is there anyone you can call?" She thinks, 'who will I call?'
Not her assistant, late twenties with a smile that could punch through walls. Samantha had hired her because she liked to think the girl reminded her of herself. Which was stupid, because now she had to watch her back. Not a current fuck, talk about killing the mood. There's less choice than there used to be. She can't make her body work right these days, like she's forgotten the secret to a trick she was never shown to begin with.
No, she needs to hold tight to Miranda.
*
Outside the cab, and the sunlight plays across the brick walls and invites her inside. Samantha checks her watch and smoothes her dress.
She rings the doorbell and remembers to smile.