Roomies Read online

  And I said to my mom, “I don’t understand why we all have to come. Why can’t you do it, like a regular mom? Or send me? Or Dad? It’s groceries. Why does it have to be this giant ordeal?”

  Ebb, do I have to tell you the look on her face? Like: Ouch. “Ordeal?”

  “Yes,” say I. “It’s an ordeal.”

  “Funny, I’ve been thinking of it as a tradition. One you won’t be a part of soon.”

  And she pushed her cart away from me.

  Well, so this was my state of mind at the party. Then I beat myself up about it, you know, like thinking, What’s wrong with you, Lauren, that you can’t even have fun at a party?

  And that is the moment Keyon appeared in the yard and sat on a stump next to my chair. (It really did feel like he “appeared” more than “arrived.”) “I didn’t know you were coming to this thing.”

  “I didn’t know you were.”

  He shrugged. Keyon looks very cool when he shrugs, by the way. Like he can take or leave the whole world. Not like when I shrug and probably look like an indecisive flake. “I was gonna. Mention it, you know, but then I was like…” He looked at me and shrugged again.

  I finished his thought. “But then you were like, what if Lauren isn’t invited and it’s all awkward?”

  “Right,” he said, putting his finger against the side of his nose, something his dad does all the time. “You want me to get you a drink? Yas is fully equipped. She’s showing Zoe and Mel how to make martinis.”

  “Great. I guess I’m driving us home.”

  He got up off the stump and said, “I’m gonna get something. I can bring you a soda?”

  “Water would be awesome.”

  When he came back with water for me and beer for him, he sat down and asked me if I ever drink.

  And Ebb, I’ll tell you what I told him and I hope you don’t think I’m the boringest person in the world. It’s not like I have anything against drinking. But I promised my parents I wouldn’t until I was twenty-one. In the interest of being a law-abiding citizen.

  Keyon got it. “And setting a good example for… however many you got. Brothers and sisters and whatnot.” He pulled the tab off his beer and threw it into the bushes. Then he stared out at nothing and said, “That’s kinda low class, huh?” and got up and went into the bushes, like into them, until all I could see were his legs. When he came back out he said, “I can’t find it.”

  And he smiled this sheepish smile that reminded me of Jack, when he’s in trouble but not bad trouble, and I’m not sure, but my heart or stomach sort of did something, and I think that was the moment. Which led to the next moment, and the next one, and I’m sorry if I’m being unnecessarily suspenseful but I’m still figuring out what happened and telling it carefully helps.

  He came back to the stump, and stretched his long legs out in front of him and rubbed a smudge off the side of his sneaker. “So I’m serious about selling that collectible stuff online.” (Long story, I add to my imaginary Ebb letter.) “Are you in?”

  “What exactly would my role be?” I was feigning interest, sort of, to keep him there.

  “Same as me. Finding shit. Pricing shit. Selling shit. Mailing shit.”

  “Sounds… unsanitary.” (This is me, making a joke. I know.) “Yeah, I’m in.” Why not? More time to hang out with him, and maybe earn some pocket money.

  “Keyon!” someone yelled from behind us, from the smoker crowd. “Key, come over here and light it up.”

  He lifted his beer. “Nah, I’m good.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, shoving my hands deeper into my jacket pockets. “You don’t have to sit here and keep me company. I fully realize I’m no fun right now.”

  “Yeah, what’s up with that?”

  The way he said it was nice, though. It’s hard to describe. Caring, I guess.

  I shook my head. “Change.” Then before I could stop myself, I was crying. Like the quivering chin and tears spilling over and my nose filling so I had to keep sniffling. “It’s just… hard.”

  “Oh, yeah, well. Change.” I wasn’t looking at him right then, but I sensed him swig his beer, and heard him clear his throat. “Who needs that shit.”

  I wanted to be able to laugh, Ebb. I wanted to shrug it off, cool like him, and then go in and watch Zoe shake up a martini. But the weight of it was on me. The more I cried, the sadder I felt about leaving. I kept picturing Jack and his sly little smile. That made me cry harder, and pretty soon, there I am, holding my jacket sleeves up to my face like the kind of drama-at-party girl I can’t stand, and rocking back and forth and wishing to hell I were home in bed.

  And I know it’s not like I’m going to the other side of the world. I know that. So what’s wrong with me? If I can’t handle this, what’s going to happen if I leave the state for grad school? Or get married or join the circus or whatever?

  “Hey,” Keyon said softly. “It’s okay. I mean, don’t, like, lose it.” He wasn’t saying it in a guy-freaking-out-in-the-face-of-emotions way. “You do this now and all these nosy punks are going to come over and ask what’s wrong, and you don’t want that, do you?”

  No, I didn’t.

  Still, I cried harder.

  “For real, Lo. Keep it together.”

  He was being so nice, the way he was saying it. Truly looking out for me. Truly knowing me and that I would hate that kind of attention. His voice was tender. And he came around and knelt in front of me and put one big hand on each of my knees and kept saying, “Keep it together. There you go. Take a breath now.”

  The way it worked was: My arm sort of reached out to his shoulder and rested there. Then my other arm did the same. On their own they did this. And my hands came together on the back of his neck. So he couldn’t get away if he wanted to. The angle kind of forced us to lean closer so he wouldn’t fall over. Our faces were like half an inch apart.

  What can you do, Ebb, once you’re in that position, but kiss?

  It’s a law of physics or something.

  Here’s the thing, though. It wasn’t what I would call romantic. It was more kind of… lusty. Which is fine, I don’t judge it. Sometimes you want to make out with someone, anyone, the way you crave a salty snack. But your salty-snack category of kissers should definitely not be your friends and/or coworkers….

  The L lurches to a stop at Montgomery Street, interrupting my fantasy e-mail. I come up out of the Muni station and nearly get run over by a bike messenger, then am promptly told by a homeless guy that I have a nice ass and can I spare some change? I give him two quarters and feel dirty doing it, like I rewarded someone for sexual harassment.

  This day is really shaping up.

  And now, I have to face the music that is my injudicious kiss.

  Keyon is pouring mustard into the sandwich station tray when I walk in. “Hey,” he says, barely looking up.

  “Hey.” I pass him, go to the back, put my messenger bag in my cubby, and grab my apron. When I get to the counter I ask how we are on tomatoes.

  “We could probably slice another case before rush.”

  “On it.” I give him a super-dorky thumbs-up and imagine him having the same regretful thoughts I am.

  Except I’m not really that regretful.

  Late that night, with two fresh paper cuts incurred during the hour of filing I did at the insurance company after closing the sandwich shop, I type out a slightly condensed version of the party story to Ebb. I even write a little bit about Keyon being black and how this city is pretty diverse but he was my first nonwhite kiss. Not that I have a zillion kisses to compare it to. Only seven. Maybe eight? And that’s counting all the fifth- and sixth-grade mashed-lip quickies. Zero in recent memory.

  Rankings-wise, Keyon’s was pretty good, I have to say. Pretty damn good. Maybe that’s reflective of my poor control group but… no. Scientifically and objectively, Keyon knows how to kiss a girl. Me.

  Then I read it all over and think I sound like an overdramatic idiot, and possibly racist. What i
f she’s not white and something I say offends her and she opens some kind of discrimination case against me and I become the most hated student in Berkeley?

  So I delete and start over.

  Hey EB,

  Fighting with friends is the worst. I’d rather put up with almost anything than fight. Suffer in silence, that’s my motto!

  Kidding. Sort of. Zoe and I don’t really fight. We bicker and annoy each other and give each other “space.” Then it’s cool.

  I did go to the party. Too many people and I’m not a fan of huge crowds. Nothing really to report except Zoe overdid the martinis and I had to drive us home and I’m not great with a stick shift. Maybe we can get my best friend and your best friend together to drink (or go to rehab).

  So the party. I probably should have stayed home and gotten some sleep. I can always use more sleep. Wow, I sound old. Sorry! I guess I’m feeling kinda… ugh-ish. Sorry again. Downerville! Depression Central! Haha! Okay, sorrrrrry. Sorry for saying sorry over and over.

  Attached with this is a link to a song that sort of cheers me up when I’m feeling this way. The video is stupid. (I mean why does it have to be a video inside a video? Why can’t it just be a video?) But the song is pretty good. Zoe likes this band ever since seeing some documentary about them and she thinks the singer guy is hot. Or he was whenever they recorded this. He’s probably like a hundred now.

  Anyway it’s a good song if you’re in a fight with your friend. But I hope it’s over soon. Your fight, I mean.

  Hope work is going well and all that.

  —Lauren

  TUESDAY, JULY 16

  NEW JERSEY

  Something about Lauren’s e-mail, which I wake up to, makes me wish there were no time difference and that we already knew each other so that I could pick up the phone and call her. Because I click the link and see that it’s a video for “We Used to Be Friends” by the Dandy Warhols—which was the Veronica Mars theme song—and I suddenly want to know if she ever saw the show, which my mom and I once watched like crazy people over the course of a long, rainy weekend. Also, Lauren’s starting to sound sort of, I don’t know, nice? And thoughtful. Not like do-nice-things-for-you thoughtful—I don’t see her baking me cookies or anything—but meaning, she is full of thought. I like people who think. Who examine things from all the angles. That’s probably why she’s so good at science.

  My mother is clearly not a great thinker, as evidenced by the fact that there is a man in the kitchen with her. He is having “a quick one”—and thankfully he’s referring to a cup of coffee—before catching his “flight home… if you know what I mean.”

  I’m overhearing this all from my perch at the top of the stairs, where I have so far been unsuccessful at getting a look at him, this married man who says “I hope to” when my mother flirtily says, “And do you travel for work a lot?”

  I try to picture his wife, his family if he has one, and imagine them thinking that he is on an airplane, or in some dreary Marriott somewhere, when really he is here. In my house. Having spent the night. With my pathetic mother, who is charmed by the fact that he’s running around with her behind another woman’s back. I get to wondering what kind of clueless wife wouldn’t know that her husband was having an affair. Maybe one who had something of her own going on? Would that make what my mother was doing any less morally reprehensible? And am I doomed to be some kind of cheating soul, too, because I was spawned from two cheaters? (Yes, supposedly my dad cheated on my mom. “With a man!” she always says, like that makes it worse, but I don’t really think it does. Betrayal is betrayal.)

  I get the sense that these are questions that someone like Lauren might actually understand, might even ponder along with me.

  I go back to my room to hide until he’s gone. Her, too.

  I spend most of the week hiding, really. From my mother. From Justine, and Alex, and the rest of the six-pack. Even from Tim, who has me doing a bunch of nursery runs and solo check-ins on gardens we did last summer. I like seeing how a garden has started to grow into itself after a full cycle of seasons, seeing the way plants start to find their own way toward the sun and to mingle with each other, or not.

  Friday I have no choice but to go back to Mark’s house, on Tim’s orders, to see how the gardens are faring, and whether the mulch borders got muddied at all by a big rain we had. I’ve been avoiding Mark, too. Which is all tied up in why I’m also avoiding answering Lauren’s e-mail. It’s not like she even asked how the party was; I just feel like I should tell her about it, and I don’t want to lie by omission. But what is she going to think of me if I tell her that I kissed a guy I barely know even though I already have a boyfriend? Did I even tell her I have a boyfriend? What does it mean if I didn’t?

  And I mean, I really kissed him. And it was so lovely and intense that just thinking about it again makes me a little woozy.

  He’s home, of course. And when I’m pulling dead leaves off a few annuals on the border of the garden—mostly pansies, with their weirdly sad sort of smiley faces—he comes right over and says, “Hey.”

  I look up and then stand and my knees feel weak.

  “Where’ve you been?” He has sunglasses on so I can’t really read him. “I texted you. Multiple times this week.”

  “Oh.” I push some hair out of my face and say, “Yeah, I saw those.”

  I haven’t stopped looking at them, in fact. One said, That was nice. Another said, Better than nice. The last two were Can I see you again? and If so, when?

  He laughs. “Oh, you did, did you?”

  I laugh, too, because it’s honestly kind of funny how bad I am at this.

  “So you saw them.” He nods fake-seriously. “That’s good. ’Cause you know it’s not like you’re supposed to, I don’t know, text back or anything. That would be crazy.” He waves his hands in a gesture to mean crazy, palms out and shaking. Then he’s smiling and waiting.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and I’m about to add, “I have a boyfriend.” But then a car pulls into the driveway, the same sort of car that was parked in my driveway earlier that morning, and Mark’s dad gets out and Mark says, “I thought your flight got in later,” and the dad says, “Caught an earlier one but have to drive down to Philly for an overnight,” and it all clicks.

  His voice in my kitchen that morning.

  Money manager. Hedge fund manager. Wall Street type.

  Then his father says, “Hi, are you a friend of Mark’s?” and I nod and he gives me a small wave. I can’t be sure I’m breathing.

  Mark turns back to me when his father goes inside and says, “I had fun the other night and I think you did, too.”

  He’s right. I did. I had more fun with him than maybe I’ve ever had with anyone. And it didn’t have anything to do with the party or even the kissing. After realizing we weren’t mingling or trying to, we went down to the bay and found two Adirondack chairs and talked about who our friends were, maybe trying to find people in common but not coming up with any, then moved on to things like the dumbest movies we’d ever seen or the world’s most overrated songs. For what felt like hours, we played this game where we thought up funny last words, like “These wild berries are absolutely delicious” or “I can totally jump over to that building.” Then after that, we were quiet together, skipping stones on the bay. That was when he turned to me out of nowhere and put his arms around me and kissed me and I felt, for once, like everything was going to be okay. More than okay, even. Maybe actually good. But none of that matters anymore. His dad and my mom made sure of that.

  “I want to see you again.” Mark’s smile is so easy and real that it hurts to look at. “I mean, I know I’m seeing you right now, but I mean, I want to see you, see you.”

  “I have a boyfriend,” I blurt.

  He jolts like I’ve kicked him in the gut and then he tilts his head and says, “I don’t understand.”

  And I just say, “Sorry,” and walk toward my car.

  “Elizabeth,” he calls out afte
r me, and, for a second, I regret not making him call me EB because it all sounds so dramatic and serious now. Then even though I shouldn’t—because what’s the point—I turn.

  He says, “I can wait.”

  “For what?” I’m definitely going to cry.

  “For you.” He starts to back away and he still looks sort of confused and wounded and like he’s trying to shake the feeling off. His voice is softer, more tentative, when he says, “For you to figure it out.”

  I only drive a block before I pull over and have a good cry. I want to call my mother and scream at her. I want to call Justine and apologize about missing her birthday and tell her the whole messy story, but we still haven’t talked and, well, I’m still miffed about the prude comment. I wish, again, that I could call Lauren and let it all out but what would she think of this? Mostly, I want to turn around and drive back to Mark’s house and tell him about the mess—tell him he’s in it, too—but then he wouldn’t ever want to be with me anyway, and how could he? And all of this thinking about who to tell what, makes me wish there were one person I could share everything—all of me, all my shit—with and that I weren’t stuck trying to cobble together some kind of (groan) “support system” out of this bunch of random people in my life. Sometimes, when I feel so adrift, so like that balloon slipping away, I wonder if it’s my father’s fault. If his leaving did this. Did this to me.

  My phone buzzes and I reach for it and hope it’s a text from Mark but it’s an alert from my calendar, something I’ve set up to notify me of how many days I’ve got left: forty. I wonder, if I told Lauren everything that was going on, whether I could go out there early, maybe stay with her and her five sibs. They’d hardly even notice if there was someone else bunking in their house.