The Sphinx in the Waiting Room

Margaret sat across from her friend—her former friend, she supposed—in the hospital cafeteria, peeling an orange with hands that wouldn't stop trembling. The citrus scent cut through the antiseptic air, sharp and bright, almost violent in its insistence on being noticed.

Sarah had become something else entirely these past six months. Not the woman who'd held Margaret's hair back during her divorce, who'd helped her paint her new apartment that terrible mauve they'd both pretended was sophisticated. No, Sarah had transformed into something ancient and enigmatic, a sphinx in expensive athleisure, posing riddles Margaret couldn't begin to answer.

"So," Sarah said, not meeting her eyes, "how's your mother?"

"She died last week, Sarah. You were at the funeral."

"Right. Right, of course." Sarah's manicured nails clicked against the table. "I've been so... scattered lately."

Margaret wondered if Sarah's scatteredness had anything to do with the way her husband had been looking at Margaret at that funeral. If it had anything to do with the three missed calls at 2 AM the week before, the ones Margaret hadn't returned because she'd known exactly what they meant.

"The sphinx," Sarah said suddenly, apropos of nothing, "you know what makes it tragic? It asks the wrong questions. What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon—my god, what a waste of immortality. The real riddle is why we keep pretending not to know each other's answers."

Margaret separated a segment of orange. The juice ran down her thumb, sticky and golden. "What's your riddle, Sarah?"

"When does friendship become something else? When does staying loyal become the betrayal itself?" Sarah's eyes finally met hers, and Margaret saw everything: the desperation, the long-stifled attraction, the exhaustion of performing the role of 'best friend' for fifteen years while wanting something else entirely.

The orange segment tasted like bitterness and sunlight, like the rotten sweetness of loving the wrong person for the right reasons. Margaret swallowed.

"I think," she said quietly, "that's the wrong question entirely."