Roomies (18 page)

Monday morning I do something I never do: I call the insurance company and leave a voice mail saying I can’t come in. I hate that place, to be honest. After turning off my phone, I get back in bed and we sleep for what seems to me like hours compared to my usual 6
AM
Gertie-breath wake-up call. Then Zoe sets me up on her laptop. “I can’t believe you left yours at home, especially when you’re away for an indeterminate amount of time.”

“I didn’t think about it.”

“Well, you’re a freak.”

I check my own e-mail to make sure I have Ebb’s message and picture. Yes, now I have them twice. And a message from Keyon dated yesterday, saying he knows it’s late notice, but can I make dinner on Monday? Tonight. I call my mom to find out what’s going on in the TB ward. Three out of five people still have a fever, she tells me, and says not to come home yet, not even to pick up more clothes.

So I’m borrowing some of Zoe’s, which sort of sag at the boobal area, where Zoe is abundantly blessed, and are tight in the butt, where most of my “development” happened at fourteen.

She’s lying on her bed and aiming her little digital video camera at me while I walk around the room getting ready to head to the sandwich shop. “How are you feeling in this transitional moment?” she asks.

“Between being here and going to work?”

“No, smart-ass. Between high school and college.”

“Who wants to know?” I experiment with one of her cool, crafty hairpins, but my fine hair slips right out.

“I’m doing a vlog series asking all my friends what it feels like to be finally growing up. Answer,” she commands.

I look into the mirror so that she’s filming me talking more or less to myself. “I’m moving across the Bay. Is that growing up? Or is it just leaving?”

“Ooh, deep. That’s good,” she says, before putting the camera down and wriggling back under the covers. She has no summer job or responsibilities and sort of lounges around like a princess until she decides what she wants to do with her day. It’s charming, in its way.

Other than her video camera in my face and the constant chirps and beeps and dings and whooshes coming from her various devices, it’s been so quiet here. Zoe’s parents are cool but busy and have more or less left us to ourselves. I actually wouldn’t mind a screaming toddler running through now and again.

“I’m going to be late tonight,” I say, pulling on Zoe’s 49ers sweatshirt. “Keyon’s dad invited me for dinner.” No big deal. Easy breezy.

It’s hard to interpret her silent stare. If she’s still hurt that I didn’t tell her about him, I don’t blame her. I come sit on the bed. “I’m sorry.”

“You
are
sorry. If you think you’re wearing that sweatshirt to dinner at Keyon Smith’s house, you are sad
and
sorry.” She throws back the covers and walks to the closet, studying its contents. “Here,” she says, shoving a midnight-blue flowy tee with elbow-length sleeves at me. “Change into this after work. This is your color.”

“Thank you, Z.”

She waves her hand like it’s no big deal. “Promise you’ll tell me everything when you get home.”

“If
you
promise me you’re not going to tell the Internet about this before I even figure out if it’s anything.”

She returns to her bed and leans back on her elbows. “The fact that you’re all protective of this alleged nonrelationship means it’s something already.”

Good point.

Keyon and I hang out late after work while Joe does the money stuff, then we drive together to Glen Park, where they live. Keyon sits in the backseat with me, and Joe jokes around about having left his chauffer’s cap at home. We all smell like mustard and pickles and I realize I didn’t change into the nicer shirt Zoe lent me. It’s quiet in the car; we’ve been talking all day at work so it’s not like it’s awkward. Lunch rush at the sandwich shop can tire you out.

When we get to their house, Joe excuses himself to change and Keyon’s mom—“Call me Sue”—gives me the tour while Keyon takes a shower. I’ve met her before, in the shop, but this is the first time we’ve really talked. “We try to keep Joe Junior’s room nice in case out-of-town family comes in,” she’s saying, swinging open a door off the hallway. “Of course normally he’s here with us on summer break but this year he had to go off to Europe to prove something so I’m borrowing one corner of his room for my craft table….”

I want to ask what Joe Junior had to prove and why he had to go to Europe to do it, but there aren’t what you’d call a lot of gaps in Sue’s commentary as we continue down the hall.

“… five years ago we went ahead and took a second mortgage so that we could redo and I finally got the master suite I always wanted when he took out the wood paneling, what an eyesore that was…”

A small, paranoid part of me wonders if she’s keeping up the constant chatter to avoid any awkward
you’re just so white
moments. Or that maybe she’s barreling through it so fast because she does it all the time—it’s her spiel, the one all of Keyon’s ladies get, and she’s had lots of practice. I don’t know where I get this idea he’s such a player. A guy having a bunch of girlfriends doesn’t mean he’s
playing
them, necessarily.

Another door in the hallway opens up and we both turn to see Keyon, from the back, walking away from us wearing nothing but a dark-blue towel around his waist. “Keyon James Smith,” Sue yells after him, “I didn’t buy you a robe so that you could go walking around the house half-naked in front of your guest!”

I stare at a frame full of family pictures before Keyon can turn around and see me taking in his muscular back and calves.

“Sorry, guest!” he shouts. It makes me smile.

“I’m good,” I say, now looking at the pictures for real. Keyon and Joe Junior were adorable kids. I’ve always thought black babies are the cutest, and I almost say that to Sue before realizing there’s no way to say it without being totally offensive or making Sue think I’m an idiot. Race. It’s so tricky, even though we’re all supposedly enlightened and color-blind. I don’t want it to be a Thing. But it kind of is a Thing, isn’t it?

When the tour is over, I go to the bathroom to change my shirt and wash as much of the deli smell off my hands as I can. It’s steamy and soapy and Keyon-y in there and I wish I could take a quick shower, too. There’s a bottle of lotion on the sink. I pump some out and sniff; flowery and not my style. But it’s better than eau de Grey Poupon so I rub a blob into my neck and arms hoping it will help.

Dinner is nice. Sue talks nonstop so there’s no chance to get uncomfortable, and she makes an awesome pot roast.

“It’s the easiest thing in the world,” she says. “You just spend five minutes in the morning putting it in your slow cooker and it always comes out perfect. Do you cook? Keyon can’t cook to save his life and I don’t know what he expects to happen when he gets out into the real world.”

“I can cook!” Keyon protests.

“I don’t count sandwiches.”

“I do,” Joe Senior says.

After dinner, Joe needs his car for something but makes Keyon ride the Muni with me all the way out to West Portal, which is walking distance from Zoe’s house. He walks me there, too, in the dark, in the fog, and at some point he takes my hand and at some point after that his hand pulls me to him as he stops and leans me up against a random car.

He gets close. Very, very close. Then pulls his head back a second. “Sorry. You smell a little bit like my mom.”

The lotion. Oops. “I’m not, though,” I reassure him, laughing, and he kisses me like I’ve never been kissed before. I mean, really, he puts a lot into it. He applies himself to the task. It’s like he’s been saving it up for me since the party, maybe seeing a personal kissing trainer in preparation for the big event.

It’s that good.

Dear EB,

Writing from Zoe’s laptop, but my own account this time, obviously!

So, yeah. No big deal about the e-mail thing. I hadn’t aaaactually told her about Keyon yet so that sort of came up but I’m glad she knows now.

My tone in this e-mail is different than it has been. I can tell, and Ebb will be able to feel it, too. But I don’t feel so close to her right now. She’s not my best friend.
Zoe
is my best friend. She took me in after I ignored a bunch of her e-mails, she forgave me super-fast for not telling her about Keyon, and when I got home tonight and told her how it went she gave me some kissing tips for next time. Like breathing in Keyon’s ear. “Don’t, like,
blow
into it,” she said. “You don’t want to give him an ear infection. Just sort of… exhale. Warmly. It will be good, trust me.” She leaned over and showed me, and I jumped back and squealed, laughing. “Eww.”

I don’t want to worry about what to say that will make Ebb feel better, or write about whether or not I have hopes that Keyon and I will stay together. I only want to think about the next time I’m going to kiss him. But I feel kind of sorry for Ebb. I thought my life was complicated, but hers is no picnic. At least the people in my life behave like the adults they mostly are. At the same time, being sorry for a person isn’t the best basis for a friendship. It’s gone all out of balance somehow.

“Hurry up with Jersey Girl over there,” Zoe says from the bed. “I want to edit my vlog.”

Come on, Lauren
, I think.
Step up here and make an effort
. I would hate it if my desire to escape the chaos of my life turned me into one of those… I don’t know… people who runs away, I guess, from stuff that’s complicated. Like trying to be a friend to this girl who’s going to live in the same small space as me for the next year. And might be coming out here sooner than later.

I reread her last couple of e-mails and look at her picture some more. She may be 99 percent words on a screen to me, but she’s a real person. There is no “inside my computer” vs 3-D. It’s
all
real life, and I can’t pretend like it isn’t. I inhale and type fast.

I had dinner with Keyon’s parents tonight. You probably already guessed this, since there aren’t any white Keyons that I know of, but he’s black. And I felt slightly awkward about it and hope to God it didn’t show. In San Francisco you aren’t supposed to notice these things.

More importantly, Keyon is an amazing kisser. He rode the train home with me (Joe made him!) and walked me to Zoe’s and it happened. So the situation is no longer ambiguous. Not that I know what it is, but it is not like gee I don’t know if he likes me. He likes me. That kiss couldn’t lie.

Sounds like you and Mark have done some good talking. You just, like, TALK about all this stuff? Is it awkward? I don’t know how to do that with Keyon. He’s going to Chico State, which is well within visiting distance but not close close. Like three hours. But we’re not even near that discussion yet, I don’t think. Maybe it’s a summer
fling.

So that’s cool you might be coming out early to hang with your dad. Let me know when you get here and I’ll show you around.

I know I owe you lots more replies. Like I wanted to say about that thing with your mom: yes, you were helping her.

Thanks for sending the picture. I like your hair. I’ve tried to get mine to do that beachy wavy thing. Not happening. Here’s one of me from Zoe’s computer. I’m the one on the left, with the darker hair and smaller boobs.

Lo (that’s what Keyon’s been calling me and I sort of like it as my new college name—Zoe sometimes calls me LoCo, partly because of my last name but also partly to imply I’m crazy)

Yes: A new phone. Something that can e-mail and all that. Zoe keeps telling me I’m living like it’s 2006, in the pre-iPhone epoch. (She didn’t actually say “epoch.” That’s more a Lauren word.) I don’t want to be married to my phone but I guess I should join the future.

No: The six pounds I’ve gained, all in my ass, since starting at the deli. Chicken salad is not our friend.

Maybe so: The microscope my dad gave me for my tenth birthday. I mean it’s a cheap kid’s thing with no real power but it’s symbolic of… something. Do we have room in our room for symbolic knickknacks?

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31

NEW JERSEY

Tim has a new job and I’m back at it, though work definitely feels less exciting now that there’s not a chance to see Mark. As I prune some existing plants Tim wants to work around, I slip into a daydream and imagine Mark driving by randomly, like on his way to a friend’s or to the beach, and seeing me. I picture him beeping his horn, me turning, then getting up and walking over while he watches me, waiting and wanting. But then Tim shouts something over at me and I snap back to reality and, really, when I’m like this, with dirt under my fingernails even though they’re inside my gloves, I have a hard time thinking of myself as sexy. As someone that anyone—but more specifically Mark—would want to have sex with. I sense that he does, though—at least in theory. But there’s a big difference between wanting and doing. Either way, I think I want to with him, too. Which feels so strange considering how long I spent trying to keep Alex at bay.