Roomies (17 page)

“Oh!” She startles. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”

I’m sure she’s faking her surprise—the stairs of our house are pretty squeaky—but I don’t call her out on it.

She says, “It’s hard to keep track of your comings and goings these days.”

I want to say “Right back at you,” but I don’t.

“Sorry about that,” I say.

“It’s what you’re supposed to be doing,” she says. “I know that.” She puts down the butter knife she’s using to spread peanut butter and jelly onto bread and presses her hands on the countertop. When I hear her exhale hard, it all has the combined effect of signaling to me that she’s about to cry. “I guess I’m not sure what to do with myself.”

“Oh, Mom.” I slide into a kitchen chair. “You’re plenty busy. You’ll be fine. You really will.”

She turns and presents the sandwich to me and she doesn’t look like she’s going to cry anymore. “I don’t know why I even made this,” she says. “I’ve got a date.”

I study the sandwich and I’m suddenly not hungry. “Please tell me it’s not with the married guy.” I actually close my eyes.

“Elizabeth,” she says. “I’m a grown-up.”

“Well, then, act like one!” My voice goes up as my eyes open. It had, honestly, never occurred to me that she might continue to see him.

“He’s
leaving
her,” she says. “They’re going to
get a divorce
.”

“Mom! Are you really that gullible?” But I wonder, is this what Mark was talking about, when he said his mom was feeling down? I sincerely hope not. Because if his dad leaves his mom and then introduces his new girlfriend to Mark and it’s my mom, I am in some serious trouble.

“How do you know it’s not true?” My mother’s voice is shaky. “It could happen! Someone could love me.”

“
I
love you, Mom. Me.
I
do. And I’m telling you, this is a bad situation and you need to walk away.”

“Well, we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one,” she says. Then she drifts out of the room, saying simply, “I’ve got to go get ready.”

Upstairs, after forcing down half the sandwich, I attach a picture to an e-mail file; it’s one that Tim took of me the week we were working in Mark’s parents’ garden, with the weeping false cypress behind me—and enter Lauren’s address. Then I delete her address and put in the [email protected] e-mail of the gallery and the subject heading I come up with is this:
FOR NEIL—PERSONAL
.

As much as I hate to cut things off with Mark, as much as I hate to not get to half the stuff on that list, I need to get out of this town.

Hi there,

It’s me, Elizabeth, and I’ve got exciting news. I’m going to college at UC Berkeley, starting at the end of August. So I was thinking of maybe changing my ticket and coming out a few weeks early, to get the lay of the land, and I was wondering if I could crash at your place or something. You said ages ago that I should visit and this way I don’t have to buy extra plane tickets or anything because I’m already coming and the fee to change is no biggie. Let me know what you think. Would be great to catch up before things get hectic with classes. Recent pic attached, since, you know, it’s been a while.

—Elizabeth

When I hit Send, I feel like something’s wrong with my head, like I’m having some kind of aneurysm. I can’t believe I did it. I have to tell Lauren. So I click on her e-mail and hit Reply and attach my photo before I forget.

How are you feeling? I am not good with puke. You should know that.

I am attaching a photo of myself with my favorite tree—yes, I have a favorite tree. BOTANY NERD ALERT!

So, call me young and restless, but I did it. Just now. I e-mailed my dad and asked him if I could come out early. Keep your fingers crossed for me because things here seem to be deteriorating rapidly. No need to get into details.

Meanwhile, as the world turns, Mark and I made a list of things to do together before we leave so I’m bummed that I may leave early and not get to do it all but I think it’s for the best. We decided we wouldn’t officially end things before we left—at least we said those words—but now that I’m sitting here and writing that it sounds ridiculous. Because if one of us DOES meet someone else at school, then we’re left with some horrible phone—or worse, e-mail! Text!—breakup and will probably hate each other forever. And anyway, I’ll have to end it when I tell him I’m leaving early, won’t I? Maybe come clean about the whole sordid affair on my way out of town? He’s going to Northwestern, which is pretty far. Where’s Keyon going? Will you guys try to still be together?

Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives.

(And yes, I am done with my soap opera references. Or almost done:)

Bold and beautiful,

EB

Yes: A bath mat. (Long story.)

No: My mother.

Maybe so: A broken heart.

I know it’s not the best e-mail, but I send it anyway because she hasn’t even properly responded to my last e-mail. Then I go back
and reread the e-mail I sent my dad, which I decide is pretty much the dumbest thing I’ve ever written. That doesn’t make me want him to say yes any less, though. And while I’m hanging out in my sent box, I realize I’ve sent the e-mail I meant for Lauren to Zoe’s address.

Could I be more stupid? I dash off another quick e-mail.

Hi Zoe,

You don’t know me. Please disregard the e-mail I sent you in error.

Thanks.

No more need to explain, right? I feel ill. I forward the e-mail to Lauren’s actual address.

Dear Lauren,

I just sent the e-mail below to Zoe by accident. So sorry but I don’t think I said anything that will jam you up!

EB

Really, really ill.

Mark sends me a text that says
Thinking about you. Missing you.
I write back
Me too
and now all I want to do is cry.

SUNDAY, JULY 28

SAN FRANCISCO

On Sunday Zoe and I go to Target and do some shopping for her dorm room. All summer she’s seemed about a hundred times less nervous about going off to college than I am, and
she’s
actually leaving the state, like a real grown-up.

She’s puzzling over which of two sheet sets to get. “If I stick with a neutral color, it won’t clash with whatever my suitemates bring. On the other hand, neutral is boring so maybe I should go ahead and get the crazy pattern….”

Her setup is going to be totally different from mine and Ebb’s, with four or six—I don’t remember—sharing an apartmentlike space. She hasn’t expressed any worry about it or said if they’ve communicated, and I consider asking if she
is
worried and if they
have
communicated. But then I’d have to tell her about Ebb and I don’t want to get into it right now. I like keeping Ebb inside my computer and Zoe out here in the 3-D world.

“Get the crazy pattern,” I say. “Live your dream!”

“You’re such a dork.” But it makes her laugh and she puts the patterned set into her cart.

We stay up late, drowsily watching old
Buffy
episodes on Zoe’s iPad, both of us under piles of blankets on her queen bed, and as I drift off I think of the sleepovers we’ve had over the years, the hundreds of accumulated hours I’ve spent in this house. Sliding down her carpeted staircase in slick nylon sleeping bags, setting up stacks of pillows in the long hallway and hurdling them like Olympians, daring each other to go outside after dark in our pajamas.

I snuggle against Zoe and start to say, “Remember when…” but an e-mail notification pops up on the display and she does some fancy hand gesture to switch screens. I close my eyes, used to this. Zoe hasn’t had an uninterruptable moment since she got the iPad for graduation.

After a few seconds of quiet, she mutters, “Are you and Keyon Smith, like, a thing?”

Suddenly, I’m very awake. “What?” I sit up and pull the blanket to my chin. The only light in the room is the glow of the iPad, which I try to see, but she’s holding it almost against her chest now.

“I mean, some people said they thought they saw you guys kissing at Yasmin’s party but I know if that were true you would have told me.”

“Let me see that.”

“Right?”

I flop back down. “I was going to.”

She then proceeds to read me Ebb’s latest e-mail, which Ebb accidentally sent to Zoe’s account, of course, because I’m so technologically impaired that I didn’t bother to bring my laptop to Zoe’s, and so impatient that I couldn’t even wait to use hers to e-mail.

“Who is this chick?” Zoe asks when she’s done reading. I’m simultaneously processing the information in Ebb’s letter—that she probably
will
be coming out early because of course her dad will say yes—and trying to think how to explain all this to Zoe.

“My Berkeley roommate. We’ve been e-mailing a little.”

“A little? You sound like soul mates.” She waits for more but I don’t know what to say or where to begin. “So wait, though, first of all, Keyon. He’s so…”

Hot. Awesome. Popular. Nice. Smart. “I know.”

“And
you
! I’m trying to remember if he ever went out with a white girl before.”

She stares past my head, recalling Keyon’s social life at Galileo. “Asian, I think, and black, and then I guess for like five minutes there was that exchange student from Colombia….”

“You can stop,” I say, and think,
He’s mine now, bitches! Did Joe invite you for dinner? Oh, no? Then shut up.
The imaginary girls in my head look back at me like I’m crazy.

Zoe is still in shock. “I never would have imagined Keyon Smith and Lauren Cole. Ever. Are you guys trying to keep it a secret or something?”

“No, but—”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” She’s hurt. I hurt her.

“Zoe,” I say, rolling toward her on the bed. “I really like him. I guess I didn’t want to, like, put it out there.” I wave my fingers in the dark—
out there
is meant to indicate Twitter, Facebook, the universe. I didn’t want to make it real in that way. Because once it’s real it can become unreal. “Ebb’s just some girl in New Jersey. She doesn’t know him or anyone we know. It seemed easier.”

Zoe studies the screen again. “She looks pretty normal.”

“There’s a picture?” I sit back up.

“Well, yeah, you asked for one.” She finally hands the iPad over to me and I get to see the face that belongs to the name I’ve been telling all my secrets to, the person who’s been telling me hers.

It’s weird. I wish I were alone while looking at this, so I could study it and match it up to the idea I’ve had of Ebb, but I’m self-conscious about looking too long with Zoe watching me. Ebb’s got her dad’s eyes, is all I can notice before I give Zoe her iPad back.

“Do you want me to delete this from my e-mail?” she asks.

“Can you forward it to me first?”

“Obvs. We could look her up on… you know, everything. I’m fast at this.”

“No,” I say, but can’t explain why. To Zoe or to myself.

Zoe, awesome Zoe, doesn’t question. She taps the screen a few times and then sets the thing down on the floor and the room goes totally dark. “Okay,” she whispers. “Tell me all about you and Keyon.”