Roomies (28 page)

Please respond at your earliest convenience,

Elizabeth Owens

After I hit Send, I open up Lauren’s last e-mail and it gets me mad at her all over again. Because the snark is undeniable:

Maybe it is a mistake. Maybe this guy isn’t your dad.

Maybe this isn’t his gallery.

Maybe you don’t have to be such a bitch about it!

I type
Maybe you should mind your own business. Maybe we shouldn’t be roommates.

And off it goes.

When I lie back on my bed, I stay very still and wait to see if anyone will respond right away, and to see if Mark will text me to say sorry or good night. Then I call my father’s number, which I stupidly
programmed when I got his e-mail—what a joke!—but he doesn’t pick up and I don’t leave a message.

When no new e-mails or texts arrive, I feel tired, as in exhausted, and also tired in general of people telling me what to think and how to feel. I’ve definitely had enough of that for one day. I turn my phone off and try to get some sleep.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 17

SAN FRANCISCO

I’m awakened by a hand on my shoulder and a whisper. “Lauren.” It’s my dad. He’s got one finger on his lips and the other crooked and beckoning me up. I follow him, glancing out the window as I go. It’s still dark out. Briefly, I wonder if I’m being called into a discussion about how he would prefer I not date Keyon, and in fact not date at all.

When we get to the kitchen, Dad clicks on the light. After my eyes adjust, they fill with tears.

“Dad.”

There’s a fresh pan of cinnamon rolls on the table, and a glass of orange juice with the heart-shaped straw he got me for my seventh birthday. The rolls aren’t homemade or anything—just those ones you get from the frozen foods section of the grocery store. The same kind Dad used to make
every
Saturday back when it was the three of us, him, Mom, and me, before he started feeling like he needed to cook epic three-course breakfasts, before Mom started worrying about us eating too much sugar, before Saturday mornings were overtaken by trips to Trader Joe’s.

I look at him and he can see I’m about to lose it.

“My intention wasn’t to make you cry, honey,” he says with a little laugh, putting his arms around me. That makes me cry harder and pretty soon I’m soaking the shoulder of his pajama top and afraid the tears will never stop. “Lauren, Lauren,” he says, quiet. “My first baby girl. It’s hard to let go.”

And I know that’s his apology for being distant from me since he found out I might have a boyfriend.

“I don’t want to leave.”

Even as I say it, I know it’s not true. There aren’t words to say what I’m feeling, this mix of being so ready to strike out on my own and at the same time wanting to be ten again, eight, six.

Ready, not ready, it’s happening in a week and a half. I can’t stop it or hit the Pause button to figure out the mess that’s been piling up. I clutch Dad’s pajama top and a couple more sobs escape.

“Shh. The goal here is time with only you, so let’s not wake the rest of them.”

He smells like cinnamon rolls.

“I remember the day we brought you home,” he says. “I looked at your mom and said, ‘I don’t want to mess this up.’ We were like deer in the headlights. You were an alien. We were so… young.”

“You didn’t mess it up.” My breath is settling down now. Dad tries to pull away but I hang on.

“Everything was new with you, for better or worse.” He forces me to lean back a little so he can look into my eyes. His face is so sweet, even with the saggy smile lines and receding hairline. “We love all you kids—”

“I know.” My parents are good at telling us they love us. That’s never in doubt.

“Let me finish. We love all you kids. But you’ve given us a lifetime of firsts, Lauren. I don’t think you’ll ever have any idea how special you are to me and your mom.”

I nod, to show I’m listening, to show I hear him. But I don’t want to cry anymore, so I step back and wipe my face, and tease, “You’ll probably say the exact same thing to Gertie when she goes to college.”

He laughs, and tears a paper towel off the roll over the sink. I take it and wipe my face, blow my nose. Mom comes into the kitchen, squinting. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But I couldn’t get out of bed fifteen minutes ago when I was supposed to.”

“It’s okay,” I say, managing a smile. “Let’s eat.”

Later in the morning, I’m in bed sleeping off my juice- and-sweet-roll hangover while Gertie and P.J. play in the living room. I relisten to the voice mail Berkeley left me a couple of days ago:

“Lauren. This is the housing office at Berkeley. We wanted to let you know that your assigned roommate, Elizabeth Owens, has requested a change. Unfortunately, the only way to accommodate her request is to put you in a triple or a single. Please give us a call to let us know which solution is going to work for you.”

I haven’t called back yet. Now that it’s the weekend, there are just two more days to figure this out. Come Monday I have to make a decision. I also haven’t responded to EB’s e-mail. Everything is out of control, and I’m in full avoidance mode. I’m avoiding saying good-bye to Zoe, who’s leaving for Seattle in four days. I’m avoiding talking about the future with Keyon. We’re still hanging out, acting like boyfriend and girlfriend, and also acting like everything isn’t about to change.

This coming week is our last at the sandwich shop, and I don’t want to think about that, either, because it’s become a crowded, mustard-smelling second home to me. Joe has already hired our replacements and they’ll be training on Friday.

A major contributing factor to my avoidance can be summed up by one word:

Shame.

That I acted in anger. That I wanted to hurt EB. That I succeeded. That I haven’t apologized.

Not
for telling her about her dad, because I still think I did the right thing, but for how my motivation became proving myself right. It didn’t surprise me when she dropped the maybe-no-roomies bomb. How else could she respond?

And shame to realize it’s very possible I’ve taken the excellence of my own parents for granted. My dad made me freakin’ cinnamon rolls. Hers acted like a weasel to get out of seeing her.

Shame is why I haven’t told Keyon or Zoe about the latest episode in this drama.

“Shit,” I groan, and roll onto my side, pulling the covers up over my head.

Two seconds later, a small body lands on me and I stand—or lie—accused of “saying a swear.” It’s Jack. How did he hear me? Where did he come from? These kids are like ninjas sometimes. He pulls the blanket off my face and proceeds to burp in it.

“I love you, too, Jack.” His bedhead is adorable, even if his burp smells like cat food.

“You said ‘shit.’ ”

“So did you. Now we’re even.”

He knits his little brows together but cannot deny my logic. “We won’t tell,” he concludes.

“No, we won’t.”

My phone, on the floor by my bed, rings. Jack looks at it, picks it up, and says, “It’s your boyyyyyfriennndddddd.”

“Give it.”

Jack giggles. I lunge out of bed and grab the phone out of his hand before the call can go to voice mail. “Go away,” I say to Jack, clicking the Answer key.

“Hi?” Keyon says, confused.

“Not you.” I shoo Jack out and close my bedroom door behind him, then crawl back into bed. “Hi.”

“How’s my girl?”

Melt
.

“Okay. Not awesome. But okay.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“Not right now.”

“Are you sure?” Keyon asks.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you’ll feel better after you hear this. Remember that radio you found at the Goodwill?” There’s a touch of excitement in his voice.

“The Bakelite?”

“Yep. Guess who just sold it for nine hundred dollars.”

My jaw drops. “No shit?” Then I cover my mouth and glance toward the door, hoping no minors heard that.

“Dude at the antique store offered me seven-fifty at first, but I told him I knew it’s worth over a thousand. We compromised.”

“Do I get a finder’s fee or what?” He pauses and I think,
Oh, way to ruin a nice moment by talking about money
. “Kidding,” I say. “Good job on the sale.”

“No, no, here’s the thing. I have this crazy idea….”

“Yeah?”

“You might not be into it, which is cool.” That edge of excitement in his voice has turned to something else. Something softer, more tentative. “I’m kinda nervous even saying it but I gotta put it out there or I’ll feel like a punk later.”

“Go ahead,” I say.

“The money… it could be, like, a special fund.”

“Yeah, to put back into the business.” I don’t know why he’s so nervous, seeing as we’ve already discussed this.

“No. Like. A visitation fund. A Key and Lo visitation fund.”

I sit up in my bed and stare down at the blue- and-white polka-dot blanket. “Really?”

“Unless you don’t want to,” he says quickly. “I mean, I got all kinds of other things I could do with four hundred fifty bucks. But I thought if we set it aside then at least money’s not an excuse.”

Not an excuse. To not see each other. Which means we
will
be seeing each other. Maybe. “We might have other excuses.” I say it like a flirt, like a tease, not like someone who actually expects to have any excuses at all.

“We miiiight.”

“But we might not.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” he agrees.

I imagine him sleeping on the floor of my dorm room, next to my bed. Or in my bed. The two of us, in my potential single. How would that work in a triple? What if I get
two
roommates and they hate me? All these weeks I’ve been picturing Ebb as the one I’ll get to like or not like or love or hate. Now…

“That money is probably worth eight visits,” I say to Keyon, to bring myself back to the present.

“I figured seven. Allowing for gas prices going up like they do.”

“They do.”

We smile at each other over the phone.

In the afternoon, I walk down to Ocean Beach and sit on the wall. The green-gray waves roll in, one after the other. It’s a little cold today, not unusual for Ocean Beach in summer, but there are a few people with dogs, some walkers, a couple of surfers decked out in neck-to-ankle wet suits.

I pull my phone out of my pocket, along with the scrap of paper on which I scribbled EB’s phone number. It was in that very first e-mail from Berkeley, letting me know my roommate’s name and contact info. It’s funny—not funny ha-ha, but funny-really?—to think about how upset I was that I didn’t get a single, and now that I’ve been offered one I don’t know if I want it.

What a shitty way to start college, in a fight with your roommate before you ever meet her! College is supposed to be a clean slate, a fresh start. How sad to go there with an already gossip-worthy past. EB can tell the whole story to her new roommate on their first night, and I’ll be the surly, self-righteous bitch in a single who apparently doesn’t want friends.

On the other hand, what if you could have a fight
and
make up before even meeting? In a way, wouldn’t that make a nice, open path for the kind of friendship where you know you can get through anything?
Not
having to be brand-new. Letting something be on the slate. Something messy and slightly embarrassing but belonging to the two of you.