Vitamin D and Other Deficiencies

The pool at the Hotel Del Coronado was empty except for Marcus's orange hat, floating like a tragic jellyfish near the deep end. I stood at the railing, my third gin and tonic sweating against my palm, watching the thing drift.

"You going to get that?" Sarah asked from behind me. She'd been my best friend since we were twenty-two, since the days of shared apartments and mutually empty bank accounts. Now she was vice president of something I didn't understand, and I was still staff writer at a magazine that had just folded.

"Let it float," I said.

She joined me at the railing, her perfume expensive and subtle, nothing like the patchouli oil we'd both worn back then. "He's not coming back, you know."

"I know."

"The merger announcement is Monday. Jensen Pharmaceuticals swallowing us whole. Marcus chose his side."

The sun was setting over the Pacific, painting everything in bruised oranges and purples. I thought about the bottle of vitamin D capsules on my nightstand at home, the prescribed dose from a doctor who'd told me I was deficient in everything that mattered — vitamin D, iron, joy. Some things you couldn't supplement.

"Did you know?" I asked, finally turning to look at her. "About the merger? About Marcus?"

Sarah's face was carefully composed. "I'm on the transition committee, Em."

The words landed like stones. My best friend, my oldest connection in a city that chewed through people like gristle, had known for weeks. Months, maybe. Had watched me plan my dream wedding to a man who was already positioning himself on the winning side, a man whose bright orange hat was currently dissolving into the chlorinated water below.

"How long?"

"Since February." She didn't look away. "I wanted to tell you. But Marcus said —"

"Marcus."

"Marcus said you'd take it personally. That it would complicate things."

I laughed, and the sound was sharp enough that a couple on the patio below looked up. "I suppose he was right. I am taking it personally that my fiancé and my best friend both knew my entire department was being liquidated while I was picking out invitation fonts."

"It's not like that," she said, reaching for my hand, but I pulled away.

"Then what's it like?"

"It's survival, Em. We're not kids anymore. We can't pay rent with loyalty."

The orange hat had drifted to the pool's edge, caught against the drain. I finished my drink in one swallow, the ice rattling against my teeth.

"No," I said. "I suppose we can't."

I walked back toward the hotel room where my wedding dress hung like a ghost, where my vitamin bottles sat lined up on the nightstand, promising to fix what was broken inside me. Some deficiencies, I was learning, had nothing to do with nutrition.

Behind me, Sarah called my name. I didn't turn around.