Roomies Read online

  Or, I don’t know, would it be crazy to ask my dad? Doesn’t he owe me that much? A place to crash for a few weeks before college? Because I can’t possibly be around my mother or Mark now that I know what’s going on.

  Alex calls right then and I pick up. I can’t avoid everybody forever.

  “We need to talk,” he says, and I say, “You’re right. We do.”

  I shoot off an e-mail before heading to meet him on the beach.

  Dear Lauren,

  Things are crazy here. So crazy I don’t even think you’d believe me if I told you. I will suffer in silence like you, at least until we meet, and then I will inevitably bore you with all the gory details. Right now I’m going to meet my boyfriend to “talk.” Did I even mention I had a boyfriend? I do. Sort of. For about six months. Or did. I have a feeling he’s breaking up with me. He’s the one who wants to “talk.” I’m not sure I care. Ugh. Do you have a boyfriend? Wish me luck.

  —EB

  PS Almost forgot! Love that video. LOVED Veronica Mars. Do you know it?

  PPS Also good job on the scholarship! Been meaning to say that!

  I think about e-mailing my father then, too. But here’s the kicker. I don’t even have his e-mail address. I Google the gallery and there’s an info@ address that might go to him but what if it goes to someone else? And am I really going to ask him if I can… how to even say it…“crash” at his “pad”? After all this time?

  Just imagining his face when he reads that e-mail is reason enough not to send it. But what else am I supposed to do? Forty days.

  Forty.

  I start to count forty seconds, real slow, with the Mississippis and all, out loud in my car. And though it seems nutty—like something only a crazy person would do—I force myself, even when I want to quit at nineteen and again at thirty-one, to count the whole way up to forty. Like that will somehow help. Like that will make the rest of this day—and the rest of summer—more bearable.

  Then I head to the beach. Alex is waiting. He’s waiting to end it, waiting for it to end. In that way, at least, he’s an awful lot like me.

  FRIDAY, JULY 19

  SAN FRANCISCO

  Mom and Dad decide, kind of at the last minute, to go on a Friday-night date. Leaving me with all five of the kids.

  “Seriously?” I’m leaning in the bathroom doorway, watching Dad smooth his hair down while he checks himself out in the mirror. Marcus stands on the toilet, patting his own hair the same way. It’s somewhat adorable. Still. “I couldn’t get a little more warning?”

  “You’ve got plans?” Dad asks the mirror.

  No. But I could maybe make some. Get out of the house, get together with Zoe and tell her what happened with Keyon.

  “Honey.” He turns and gives me his full attention. “If you’ve got plans, you need to write them on the family calendar. We checked and didn’t see anything.”

  “Because I don’t have any.” Hugely surprising, I know.

  “Well, Mom found this coupon for Villa d’Este at the bottom of a pile of mail and it expires tomorrow so we thought we’d better jump on it.”

  I picture them laughing, having a glass of wine, speaking entire sentences without interruption. Zoe probably wouldn’t be free, anyway. “Bring me home some garlic bread. Mom can sneak it into her purse.”

  “Daddy, shave my face,” Marcus says. My dad does this thing where he puts shaving cream on Marcus’s face and then pretends to shave it off with the edge of his finger.

  “No time, kiddo. You’ll have to live with your five o’clock shadow.” Dad says to me, “Francis and P.J. are already asleep. All you need to do is get some food into the rest of them and get them off to bed.”

  “No baths?”

  He makes a fake-serious face, then suddenly picks up Marcus and turns him upside down, holding him by the ankles. Marcus screams with delight. “Lemme take a sniff,” Dad says, burying his nose in Marcus’s bare feet. “Stinky toes! This one definitely needs a bath.”

  “Gross, Dad.”

  After I turn to go back down the hall, I smile, Marcus’s giggles floating after me.

  Keyon calls during dinner, while Gertie and Marcus and Jack are eating their franks and beans in a relatively civilized fashion. When I see it’s his number, I consider dodging. We’ve gotten through the week all right so far, but neither of us has said more than two unnecessary words and I still feel awkward.

  On the other hand, it could be nice to talk to someone who presumably doesn’t have beans mashed onto his chin like my siblings. “Hey,” I answer, standing to take the call.

  “Lauren. Yeah, so, um.”

  Uh-oh.

  “What’s up?” Chipper!

  “Huh? Oh, right. My dad said I should call you.”

  His dad? Am I about to get fired or something?

  Of course the second I can’t give Jack my full attention, he starts singing the “beans, beans, good for your heart” song, causing me to rue the day I taught it to him. “Jack,” I say sharply. To Keyon, “Does he need me to… change my schedule?”

  Keyon pauses. “No. I mean he said I should call you. To talk.”

  Jack’s about to sing another stanza. I get to him in one lunge and put my hand over his mouth as what Key says sinks in. “You told your dad? About what happened at the party?” So fired. The last thing Joe probably wants in his place of business is me groping his son.

  “Yeah, I needed advice.”

  I’ll never be able to look Joe in the eye again. “And he said to call me.”

  Then Jack sticks his bean-goo-covered tongue through my fingers. I yank it away. “Eww!” I walk to the sink to rinse my hand. “Sorry. It’s my stupid little brother.”

  “Mama says you can’t say stupid,” Gertie says.

  “Um, is this a bad time?”

  When is there a good time? “No, go ahead.” I motion for the kids to settle down and eat, making what I hope is an extremely threatening expression.

  “Anyway, he said, my dad said, like, you should never make a…” He clears his throat. “A woman… think that when something like that happens it doesn’t matter. It’s disrespectful.”

  “Your dad called me a woman?” I laugh nervously.

  “Basically.”

  Had he told Keyon that he had to date me now or something? “It’s okay, I don’t feel disrespected.”

  “Oh. Yeah, good.”

  “I mean I kind of came at you.” I’m the one who got myself into the kissing position that the law of physics demanded lead to his lips.

  Keyon laughs.

  “What?”

  “Lo, I planned that whole thing from the minute I saw you sittin’ there alone in the yard, so don’t even.”

  My stomach does a little stutter. “You did not.”

  “What can I say? I love me a sad white girl.”

  I chuckle, because his delivery is funny, then wonder: What if he actually sees me that way? Pasty and pathetic? “I’m not always sad,” I say, trying to sound not-sad.

  “Oh yeah no I know, sorry, I don’t mean…” He does a little throat-clearing thing.

  Great. Now I’ve made him feel all weird. My flirting skills are so undeveloped. I take a breath to say something to smooth it over or show I have a sense of humor. Maybe: But I am always white! Hahaha!

  Thankfully, he speaks before I have the chance to. “You feeling better about that stuff we were talking about?”

  Now that is sweet. “I think so. I—”

  Then I catch Jack mashing a bean onto Gertie’s arm, which in itself is fairly tame given other violations I’ve seen go down at this table, but Gertie’s reaction is to flick it back at him; then he picks up an entire handful of beans and—“Key, I gotta go, my brother is being so bad and he’s going to be in so much trouble when I tell my dad.” Jack freezes.

  “E-mail me later. Or call. Or something.”

  “I will.”

  Later, when everyone is in bed and I’m hanging out in the living room, I
want to call him, but for some reason that seems daunting and impossible. I run through it in my head: He answers and says hi. I say hi back. Then he says… what? That the Rule of Joe now demands nightly phone calls? During which we’ll talk about… what? Why is the idea of two humans talking voice to voice sometimes so troublesome? I kissed the dude. We work together every day. I should be able to maintain a five-minute conversation.

  I chicken out and retrieve my laptop from the bedroom—quietly, so I don’t wake P.J. and Gertie. E-mail: the coward’s solution to everything. You control the conversation and can turn it off and on at will. You can edit and revise and shape your words and use a thesaurus if you want, to avoid sounding dumb.

  Key,

  Sorry about before. Jack was being a total criminal.

  It’s really sweet what your dad said. Really. And what you said. But please don’t worry about it, okay? I was glad you were there to talk to me and everything. It was really nice. I don’t expect whatever your dad might think I do. See you on Monday!!!

  Lo

  There. He’s off the hook. So am I, I guess, though it’s not exactly a relief.

  I’ve got an e-mail from Ebb. The timing of this girl is sometimes spooky. Do I have a boyfriend? Good question. I check the time and know that whatever “talk” she had with hers must be long over and she’s either crying herself to sleep over a breakup, or maybe getting it on with him in her room, or his room, or I don’t really know where people my age actually go to have sex. I mean, I have an idea. Zoe tells me things, but I sort of block it out of my mental landscape. It all just seems like a logistical nightmare, among other things. Who has the time or energy to figure all that out? I’m sure I’ll eventually understand the big deal and it will be lovely and fireworks and deep soul connection or whatever. Until then, I can keep taking care of my own needs the few times I have the interest and some privacy.

  Like now, for example, the memory of Keyon’s voice in my ear…

  Having those thoughts while Ebb’s e-mail is open feels a little bit like she’s watching me or something. There’s also the possibility of one of my parents getting up for a glass of water. Not that they’ve ever before gotten up for a glass of water after they’ve gone to bed, but that would be my luck. Then I start wondering how your sex life works with a roommate. It’s got to be as bad as, or worse than, living at home. What if Ebb is hooking up like crazy while I’m writing research papers three feet away?

  Now my thoughts are so fixated on her, I have to write back.

  EB,

  I’m sitting here wondering if you’ve “talked” with your boyfriend yet. I’m figuring it’s all done by now. Hopefully it was nothing bad, although usually when you put “talk” in quotes it’s nothing good.

  This is going to be a long one.

  Also it’s going to be of the gory details variety if that’s okay. (Hey, it’s a whole new Lauren!)

  Remember how I said nothing really happened at the party I went to? The truth is I sort of wound up making out with Keyon. Not sort of. Definitely. And I feel all weird about it because we’re friends but not really tight friends, and we work together, and we were never in the same social world at school. Maybe I think he’s a tiny bit “out of my league,” to use everyone’s favorite terrible sports analogy. Also I haven’t had a lot of crush-like feelings for him before this. I always thought he was really cute/hot but I didn’t think of him as someone something could potentially happen with. With whom something could potentially happen. Whatever.

  Now I don’t know!

  He didn’t say anything about it at work all week, then he calls me tonight to say… well he didn’t get a chance to say anything because I was on child care duty. He called because HIS DAD, Joe (who is also my boss), told him he should call so I didn’t feel disrespected. As in he told HIS DAD. Which is in itself a sign of something? And kind of sweet?

  The thing is I thought it was one of those accidental kisses, where you’re like, “I don’t know what happened, Officer, one minute I was sitting there thinking about how I’m not going to be part of my family anymore and the next minute I had my tongue in his mouth.”

  Keyon claims all this was no surprise, that he actually planned it. Or wanted to or something, implying: Maybe he’s been thinking about this for a while? I’m making too big a deal, I know, because it was a party and he’s cute and I’m not a troll or anything and I don’t have a boyfriend and I doubt he has a girlfriend so why shouldn’t we? Only now I’m confused and I sent him this ENTIRELY LAME e-mail making it sound like I don’t really care either way. Because I don’t know how I feel. I hope it doesn’t hurt his feelings or anything.

  I hate it when you click Send before you’ve really thought it through.

  (But I was too wimpy to call. I get phone-phobic.)

  I don’t want to get all tangled up in something right now. I’ve never really had a boyfriend… not the kind you have. There’ve been guys I’ve hung out with in a semi-not-platonic way for a few weeks at a time but I can’t imagine dating someone for 6 months. On the other hand I like Keyon. I just don’t know if I like him like him.

  Sorry to dump this on you! Zoe isn’t the ideal person to tell because she’ll probably put something on Twitter that she thinks is cleverly cryptic and everyone will figure it out in 3 seconds. Not that I would care that much if people knew but I need time to THINK about what happened and SORT through it. Something about the way Zoe is makes it hard for me to THINK and SORT. Writing it to you feels helpful. Maybe that’s a little use-y, though, if you’re not in the mood. But feel free to use me back if you are. I mean I guess what I’m saying is that if you WANT to bore me with all the gory details anytime, instead of waiting for August, be my guest. Or not. I’m easy breezy, like Covergirl.

  Lauren

  It’s too much. I know. But what the hell. I hit Send and go to my room, where I collapse into bed, too tired to conjure up pleasant need-meeting thoughts of Keyon or anything else.

  SATURDAY, JULY 20

  NEW JERSEY

  I bolt up in bed at the sound of my mother’s voice. There is a man’s voice mingling with hers and for a second I think I’ve woken up mid–home invasion but then there’s some laughing and the sound of ice cubes, low music, my mother shushing her companion with a shush that is louder than anything she’s supposedly shushing. I reach for my phone and check the time—2 AM—and then open my bedroom door, listen more closely, and recognize the man’s voice.

  Mark’s dad is spending the night here in Philadelphia.

  With my phone in my hand, I see I’ve got an e-mail from Lauren—sent last night after I was already asleep; the time difference is sometimes a plus, sometimes not—but there’s no text, no nothing, from Mark. Not that I was expecting one. Not exactly. He’d be crazy to bother any more with a nutcase like me, but still…

  It turns out that Lauren’s e-mail is really long—I scroll down to see how long before actually reading—so I decide to read it on my laptop because I messed up my phone last night. The screen has a weird dark digital slash across it from when I dropped it when Alex and I were breaking up, and I’m pissed because I really don’t want to have to spend money on a new one. Even though I did the dropping I can’t help but feel like it was all Alex’s fault.

  I grab my laptop, crawl back into bed, and try to block out the ice cubes and talking and fake-naughty laughter. If this is what my mother’s life is like now, I can’t even imagine what it will be like when I don’t live here anymore. I get up again to find some headphones, then plug them into my laptop, put on my “Most Frequently Played” songs, and turn up the volume.

  Finally, I read Lauren’s e-mail and wonder what it means that she and Keyon were never in the same worlds at school. If her school is anything like mine, my guess is that it means she’s white and he’s black. I confess that I’m a little disappointed by this theory. I’ve never had a friend of a different race and I guess I think it’d be cool. And I sort of feel like unless I’m pu
shed together with someone really different from me, it’ll never happen. But maybe that’s just small-town Jersey thinking?

  Black or white, I think maybe Lauren and I will get along okay after all. I also can’t help but think that Keyon’s dad sounds like a good dad. A really good dad. Because isn’t that what parents are supposed to do? Teach you the hard bits? The rules? The morals? The way to be?

  Keyon’s dad would never be having drinks at this hour with a woman who wasn’t his wife.

  Keyon’s dad wouldn’t bring a stranger into his home when his son was sleeping.

  Keyon’s dad wouldn’t stand for any of it.

  And I shouldn’t have to, either.

  I close the computer and walk downstairs and stand at the entrance to the living room, rubbing my eyes—to make it clear that they have woken me up. “Hi,” I say, but not to my mom, to Mark’s dad.

  My mother was laughing a second ago but now she’s not. She comes over to me and pulls me into a hug and says, “Oh, did we wake you? I’m sorry, sweetie.” She presents me to him, holding me awkwardly by the shoulders. “This is Elizabeth.”

  I look right into his eyes and try to decipher if he recognizes me or not. But I don’t even care. I only have one goal and it is to make it clear that I know who he is and where he lives and that he is not welcome here. That he is not, and never will be, the sort of man that Keyon’s dad is. I don’t care that I don’t even know Keyon’s dad—or Keyon. Or Lauren. They suddenly seem like better people than everyone in this room—I make no exception for myself—and so I say, “I did some work on your garden.”

  He looks a little bit shocked, and maybe he has a vague memory of seeing me that day, judging by the expression on his face. He looks at my mom, then back at me, and says, “You must be thinking of someone else.”

  And for a second I think maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Like maybe Mark’s dad has a twin brother or something, and this is just going to be a crazy misunderstanding that Mark and I will laugh and laugh and laugh about—but no. I am sure. So I say, “The house on Honeysuckle Drive. Your son is my age.”