The Affinities Read Free Page B

if I ever need to call on people I can really trust. But let’s get on with business, okay?”
    *   *   *
    The next day I got a call from Jenny Symanski.
    Some people thought of Jenny as my girlfriend. I wasn’t sure I was one of those people. That wasn’t a dig at Jenny. It was just that our relationship had a perpetually unsettled quality, and neither of us liked to name it.
    â€œHey,” she said. “Is this a good time?”
    She was calling from Schuyler, my home town. Schuyler is in upstate New York, and all my family were there. I had left Schuyler two years ago for a diploma program in graphic design at Sheridan College, and since then I had seen Jenny only on occasional visits home. “Good a time as any,” I said.
    â€œYou sure? You sound kind of distracted.”
    â€œI kind of am. I think I told you I’m up for an internship at a local ad agency, but I haven’t heard back. Classes this morning, but I’m home now, so…”
    â€œI don’t want to be a nuisance when there’s so much else on your mind.”
    She was being weirdly solicitous. “Don’t worry about it.”
    â€œYou seem to be dealing with the situation pretty well.”
    â€œWhat situation? The internship? The job market sucks—what else is new?”
    Long pause.
    â€œJenny?”
    â€œOh,” she said. “ Shit . Aaron didn’t call you, did he?”
    â€œNo, why would Aaron call me?” Another silence. “Jen, what’s up?”
    â€œYour grandmother’s in the hospital.”
    I sank onto the sofa. Dex and I had snagged the sofa when a neighbor put it out for the trash. The cushions were compacted and threadbare, and no matter how you shifted around you could never get comfortable. But right then I felt anesthetized. You could have pierced me with a sword. “What happened?”
    â€œOkay, no, she’s basically all right. Okay? Not dead. Not dying. Apparently she woke up in the night with pain in her chest, sweating, puking. Your dad called 911.”
    â€œJesus, Jen—a heart attack?”
    I pictured Grammy Fisk in her raggedy old flannel nightgown, white with a pink flower pattern. She loved that nightgown, but she wouldn’t let any of us see her in it before nine at night or after six in the morning—and strangers never saw her in it. The prospect of paramedics invading her bedroom would have horrified her.
    â€œThat’s what everybody thought. But I was over at your dad’s house this morning and he said now the doctors are telling him it was her gallbladder.”
    I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded slightly less terrifying than a cardiac condition. “So what do they do, operate on her?”
    â€œThat’s not clear. She’s still in the hospital for tests, but they think she can come home tomorrow. There’s something about diet and medication, I don’t really remember…”
    â€œI guess that’s good…”
    â€œUnder the circumstances.”
    â€œYeah, under the circumstances.”
    â€œI’m really sorry to be the one to tell you.”
    â€œNo,” I said. “No, I appreciate it.”
    And that was true. In some ways, it was better getting the bad news from Jenny than from Aaron. My brother didn’t entirely approve of me or Grammy Fisk. My father had underwritten Aaron’s MBA, and Aaron currently co-managed the family business. But the only one willing to pay for my graphic design courses had been Grammy Fisk, and she had done it over my father’s objections.
    A question occurred to me. “How did you find out about it?”
    â€œWell—Aaron told me.”
    The Fisks and the Symanskis had been close for decades. Jenny and I had grown up together; she was always at the house. Still: “Aaron told you but not me?”
    â€œI swear, he said he was going to call. Have you checked your phone for