Roomies (19 page)

But anyway, it’s all too complicated with the secret I’m holding and also, I recognize that it seems… fast. It’s like there’s this grandfather
clock of college chiming whenever we’re together and I don’t want that to influence the timing of things.

Or do I?

Because maybe that’s how life works. Maybe having sex with him is the decision I’m supposed to make and it doesn’t matter that I’m making it in a sort of pressure cooker.

But I’m scared.

That I’ll regret it.

That it’s all too random.

That I really have no idea what I’m doing or feeling at any given moment of the day.

Which is part of why it’s taking me longer than usual to write back to Lauren. I guess I am still waiting for my father to respond, so that I know what kind of limbo I’m actually in. Two-week limbo? Or one-month limbo? If he takes much longer to reply there won’t be any point in changing my ticket and leaving early since it won’t really be early. Nothing is going according to plan.

Another reason I haven’t written yet: I don’t actually know what to say about Keyon’s being black. Because I can’t be like “Oh, that’s funny ’cause I don’t associate San Francisco with black people at all—only gay people LOL” or “Yeah, I sort of guessed that—I mean duh!” I think maybe I won’t say anything about it at all. Because I’m slowly figuring out that you never know who you’re going to connect with in life, or why, and I like to think I’m the kind of person who could be roommates with, or fall head over heels in love with, someone from another heritage or country if that’s what the universe had in store for me.

And though it’s true that I’ve studied that picture of Lauren and
Zoe for way too long and have pulled it up on my phone way too often, it’s only because I’m
fascinated
. One of them is the person I’m going to be living with for an entire year. This is what she
looks like
, the person on the receiving end of all these e-mails I’ve been sending.

I’m starting to dig a hole in which to plant a small ornamental tree, and I look at its roots and think about how this tree will never leave this spot. I will put it in the ground here, and this is where it will stay. And it seems sort of sad to me but also safe—in a good way. I’m about to uproot myself, and because of that, I’m spending the next few weeks in a state where I’m afraid to make any real choices. Because what if everything I know is wrong? What if I get to Berkeley and take one look around and think,
Why did I lose my virginity in
New Jersey?
With Mark?

My phone rings right then and I know it’ll be him. I slide my gloves off, pull the phone out of my back pocket, and answer the call without bothering to confirm it’s him. “Hey.”

“Is that considered an acceptable way to answer the phone these days?”

It’s my mother.

“I thought you were someone else.”

“Who?”

Tim is giving me the evil eye so I cradle my phone at my shoulder and keep digging. I snap, “Mom, I’m at work.”

“Well, I want you home for dinner tonight,” she says.

I have plans with Mark, to go to a dopey swing band concert at a gazebo by the bay. So that we can cross “slow-dance” off our list. My mother won’t get it.

“Okay,” I say. “What time?”

When we hang up I see that I’ve got an e-mail from The Wall. I don’t care about Tim’s dirty looks, I read it.

Dear Elizabeth,

This has to be a quick one. As much as I would love for you to stay here for a few days, I’m actually in Italy at a friend’s villa and won’t be back until late in the month. But if you want, I can help you move into your dorm room when you arrive? Let’s be in touch.

Best,

Neil

His cell phone number is there but that’s the end of it. So all sorts of stuff is wrong with this picture and I feel a little like I’ve caught some sudden flu. I go back to my work, preparing the hole, so that Tim will stop watching me. When I think I might cry, I pull my sunglasses down over my eyes.

First off, I didn’t ask him if I could come for a “few days.” I distinctly remember saying “weeks.”

And I hate the fact that he’s the sort of person who takes these fabulous vacations and my mom is, well, my mom. Not that it’s his fault that she’s the way she is. But maybe it is, at least a little bit? My
mom
deserves a vacation in Italy. For that matter, so do I. This house we’re working on right now is ridiculous—a total dream mansion on the beach—and it makes me angry to think of Neil in a similarly swanky villa in Europe for weeks upon weeks.

And I know he’s not exactly “Dad” and probably doesn’t really think of himself as my father but still.
Neil?

I won’t even get started on “Best” as a sign-off. Best
what
?

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m excited about the offer to help me move in, though—even if I am only bringing two suitcases. The thought of turning up on campus that first day alone is still pretty terrifying to me, even if—or maybe because?—Lauren’ll be waiting. I try to imagine for the first time what that moment’s going to be like. Will we hug each other? Or start giggling? Lauren doesn’t exactly seem the giggling type but you never know. Are her parents and all her siblings going to be standing there weeping? Will Keyon give her this massive kiss good-bye? Should I call her Lauren or Lo?

I can’t go to California early.

I have to tell Mark what’s going on. In more ways than one.

I text him and say:
Mom requiring my presence at home for dinner. Not sure I can make the concert.

He writes back with a frown face and I think,
If you only knew.

Our dinner that night is one of the three meals my mother can make with her eyes closed. Breaded and fried chicken cutlets. Orzo with butter and Parmesan. And asparagus, from a can. It’s hardly a special dinner and I’m sort of annoyed. She made such a big deal out of making sure I would be home to eat that I expected something better. Maybe a steak. Or a “surprise, we’re going out!” Or maybe, I don’t know, an apology.

“I got a very upsetting e-mail from your father,” she says as soon as we’ve finished our meal, and I catch on the phrase
your father
. It’s not like I had any say in the matter. It’s not like he’s
mine
in any real
way. It feels like it would be more right for her to say that she got an upsetting e-mail from her ex-husband. Or from the man she had a child with. Or from Neil.

She is refilling her wineglass. “Trying to plot an early escape, are we?”

“It was just an idea.”

“Well, he told me he offered to help you move in. But then he wanted to check with me to be sure I wasn’t going to be there. Or if I was, if I minded.”

I brace myself.

“So I’m wondering if maybe I should go, you know? Help you get settled.” Her phone buzzes and she looks at it, then smiles and sends a text. She puts it back down on the table, takes a deep, happy breath. She is still seeing him.

Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Awesome Parents to Lauren. This is my mother, the adulteress, and my father, the gay deadbeat.

“It’s sort of a long way to go, just to come back,” I say.

In theory, I would want my mother there, but this is my
actual
mother we’re talking about. Not some perfect idealized mother who’d handle the whole thing with charm and grace and make it awesome.

“Yes, it’s far,” she says, “but it’s San Francisco. There’s plenty of stuff to see and do. We could kick around for a few days.”

“I don’t know, Mom.” Will I regret it if I don’t take her up on this?

“I think you do know.” She puts her plate in the dishwasher with a bang. “You don’t want me to come.”

Two can play at this game. It is our favorite game, in fact.

I put my plate next to hers and say, “Do whatever you want,
Mom,” as she leaves the room. When she’s gone, I mutter, “You always do.”

“You’re one to talk,” she calls out from the stairs.

It’s not too late for the concert so I text Mark and un-cancel our plans. I can walk to the gazebo by the bay from my house so I set out on foot after I leave my mom a note.
Going to concert at gazebo
, it says.
Don’t wait up.

The night is hot and sticky and makes me a little angry, because I’ve got to suffer exactly four more weeks of this brutal summer weather before I can leave. I’ve started checking the San Francisco weather forecasts and they make me want to go out and buy sweaters and dark blue jeans but then all I have to do is step outside and bam—still eighty-plus degrees at eight o’clock at night.

Still my life.

My father doesn’t want me. He’d rather be in Italy.

My mother doesn’t value my opinion. She’d rather go about her deluded existence, if it means she doesn’t have to face being alone.

I hear a car slow on the road beside me and I turn and see Mark’s smile through the open passenger-side window. “I’d offer you a lift,” he says as the car inches forward, “but it seems kind of silly.”

We can see the gazebo. If I keep walking, I’ll be there before he will because he’ll have to go past it, to the parking lot, and then walk back. I hear a trumpet or trombone play a sharp note then, and realize I have no interest in this concert at all.

I say, “Well, it’s not silly if you’re giving me a lift somewhere other than this dopey concert.”

He stops the car and I get in.

“Where to?” he asks.

I dare him with my eyes. “Maybe one of those motels in Seaside?”

“Elizabeth,” he says, all serious. Then he raises his eyebrows. “You mean it?”

I nod. “I think I do.” The trumpets are warming up in earnest now and it sounds sort of jazzy and fun, which is not at all how I am feeling. “But I have to tell you something first and I cannot do it with this music playing.”

He puts the car in gear and drives toward Seaside, where he pulls into one of the parking spaces in the shadow of the water park—now closed for the night and dimly lit. He turns off the engine and sits and waits and I watch a bunch of inner tubes bobbing ever so faintly in one of the pools. I am thinking about how we rode tubes around the park’s lazy river while holding hands when I say, “My mother has been seeing your father.”

His exhale is loud and he just sits there for a minute, shaking his head. I feel like I’m about to start crying but I need to get some more words out, so that he doesn’t hate me forever. I say, “I really wanted to tell you but I thought she would end it because I told her he was married and I’m so sorry that I—”

“Stop talking,” he says, so I do that and wait. But I can’t wait long. I say, “I’m
so sorry
.”

“It’s not your fault.” He has both hands on the steering wheel and I want to reach over and take one of them.

“I should’ve told you sooner.”

“It really doesn’t matter who it is,” he says. “Now or later. It’s not
the first time. They’re getting divorced. I think. I don’t know. I mean, I sort of want them to get divorced.”

I am not sure he is making sense but I let him talk.

He takes a deep breath and says, “The main point is that he can’t keep seeing your mom, for the obvious reason.”

I’m looking straight ahead at one of the slides we went down together, the one where I nearly lost my bikini top. “What’s the obvious reason?”

“Us.” He starts up the car and the AC kicks in again. “
We’re
the obvious reason.”

We sit silently for a minute and then he says, “I should probably just take you home.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t,” I say, so we sit and he reaches over and squeezes my hand and then, after a minute, he lets go and starts driving and I don’t ask where to.

“I haven’t told her,” I say. “I mean, I haven’t told her that he’s your dad.”

He accelerates through a yellow light. “I’m going to tell him that he has to end it. It’s nonnegotiable.”

I watch the water park get smaller in the side mirror of the car. “She’s going to be a mess.”

He says, “But it’s the only way.”

I know he’s right, and I love him for taking the responsibility of destroying this, of breaking my mother’s heart, out of my hands.