She Said I Was Her Only Person. Three Friends Heard It Too.

The Griot (0:00)

Priya was already on the stairs when I reached Zoe's building. She had a flattened cardboard box under one arm and packing tape stuck to her sleeve. Don't laugh, she said. She told me I'm the only person she can call. I stopped on the landing and gripped the rail.

She told me the same thing. We looked at each other for a long second, then we both laughed a little too loudly and the stairwell threw the sound back at us.

It was Saturday morning in late October. The air smelled of wet leaves and somebody's burnt toast. Zoe had signed a lease on a new one bedroom across the river three weeks earlier. Today she had to clear her old third floor flat.

She had been texting about it ever since. Her messages had a pattern. Everyone ended with an exclamation point. Everyone said some version of the same sentence. You're the only one who gets me. You're the only one I can ask. I had helped her move once before, two years ago, out of the apartment with the broken radiator.

I carried her mattress down four flights and never complained about the bruise on my shin. So when she messaged me on Tuesday, I said yes before I finished reading. Priya had gotten that same message on Tuesday too.

Zoe opened the door before we knocked. She wore a gray sweatshirt with a hole at the cuff, and her hair was twisted into a clip that kept slipping. Clara, she got grabbed me in a hug that smelled like coffee. You came, you always come. Then she saw Priya behind me, and her smile held still half a second too long. Oh, hi Priya, I didn't know you were coming. You said you needed one person, Priya said. Her voice was flat and polite. I figured I'd better bring tape. I said I needed help. Zoe pressed her palms together. And look, you're both here. That's amazing. The apartment was a maze of boxes. A bed frame lay in pieces against the wall. A couch sat wedged halfway up the stairwell, its legs pointing at the ceiling.

One box said kitchen? Maybe in marker. Zoe was not pretending. Her eyes were tired and her hands kept moving, lifting a lamp, setting it down, lifting it again. I wanted to help her. I also had my own life sitting in boxes in my hallway across town. Could someone be genuinely needed and still be given the wrong story?

Zoe pulled me into the bedroom and shut the door.

Please don't put this in the group chat, she whispered. Jonah will make it a whole thing. Which group chat? The one with everybody.

It gets complicated when too many people show up. People arrive without a task and we get confused. I looked at the bed frame in pieces on the carpet. So you want a small crew. I want you. Her voice cracked on the last word. You're the only one I can really count on.

I told her about my delivery.

My desk was arriving between 3 and 5 and someone had to sign for it. I could stay until a little after 2 Her face tightened. So you're leaving me with the couch. I'm leaving at 2.30. I'll help until then. That's abandoning me, Clara.

Everybody leaves when it gets hard. My chest tightened. I had carried her mattress. I had not promised to carry her entire life. What would Zoe do when she learned how many others had heard the same line?

Priya knocked once and then opened the door. Jonah's downstairs, she said. And Tess just texted me. Tess had typed a message to Priya. It said she told me I was her only person too. Priya showed me the screen. Then she held out her own phone where Jonah's message was nearly identical.

We stood in the hallway, three of us, and nobody was laughing now. Jonah came up the stairs with a power drill and a box of granola bars. He looked at the couch, then at us. Huh, he said, looks like the whole gang's here.

Not exactly, Priya said. Zoe said she only needed one person. Jonah blinked. She told me that Tuesday. Same words. Zoe was in the kitchen, wrapping the same mug and paper for the second time. Nobody shouted. Priya sat on an overturned box and opened her calendar. I can do Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon, she said. I'm not free after four Saturday.

I'm free all day Saturday, Jonah said. I'll take the couch. I checked my own schedule. I had to be gone by 2.30. I said so out loud and both of them nodded as if that were simply a fact. Tess texted back that she could take the bed frame at six if someone else lifted the mattress. Priya typed one line into the thread we had made that minute. Available times, nothing else. No one copied Zoe's messages. No one forwarded the exclamation points. Would Zoe be angry that three friends had spoken to each other at all? Zoe came back down the hall with red eyes and a wad of tissues. She saw the three of us standing by the couch. Tess was still at work reading our messages between tasks. Okay, Zoe said. I know what this looks like. What does it look like? Priya asked. She was not cruel. She sounded tired, like I lied. Zoe swallowed. I didn't lie exactly. I was embarrassed. I didn't know how to ask a whole group for help. It felt like begging. Priya crossed her arms. You could have said, I need three people. We would have said yes.