Roomies (3 page)

I’d like to be in a lab. Sterile, quiet, isolated. Me in a white coat, hair in a bun, sporting some cool retro glasses and holding up a test tube…

A roach falls to the ground from somewhere within the thick banana box I’m attempting to crush. I jump back the same moment Keyon comes out of the service door with a bag of trash in each hand.

“Am I that scary?” he asks, tossing the bags into the Dumpster.

“No. Visitor from the Roach Motel.”

This lab in which I’ll conduct my future work? Roach free.

Keyon takes a pack of gum from his pocket and offers me a piece.

“Thanks.”

“Maybe that roach traveled here all the way from Brazil. On a banana boat. Honor the journey, baby.” Another roach crawls out from under the box. Keyon steps on it calmly. “And here the journey ends.”

We chew. The late-afternoon sun is warm, which feels great. But then, closing time always feels great. The deli is only open eleven to three to serve lunch to the office workers downtown. During that time it’s basically nonstop. At closing it always feels like we’ve survived some kind of stampede. Instead of wild animals it’s anxious humans decked out in business casual.

“Hey,” I say, “will you finish closing for me if I leave a little bit early?”

“Depends.” Keyon stretches his arms overhead. His T-shirt comes up a little. I look away, because we’re sort of friends and it seems unfriendly to ogle his abs, regardless of their excellent condition.

“I want to hit the Goodwill on my way home.”

“You can look, Lo,” he says, patting his stomach and grinning.

I play dumb. “Look at what?”

Keyon shakes his head and laughs. “Okay. So what are you out for? At Goodwill?”

“Microwave.”

He thinks for a second. “Which store you going to?”

“Irving is closest to my house,” I say, taking an X-ACTO knife to the last of the banana boxes. “But I usually go to Clement.”

“No, no. Don’t bother with that mess. You need to hit Fillmore.”

“It’s kind of out of the way. I’m on the bus.”

He looks at his watch. “If you close up with me, I’ll drive you. I got a cousin that works there. Maybe he can hook you up.”

I calculate the time involved, the crowded rush-hour buses from the Fillmore to the Outer Sunset, me carrying a microwave. A ride would be sweet. Still, I hesitate. The reason I say Keyon and I are “sort of” friends is that I don’t really know him that well.

I didn’t know him at all, basically, through all four years of school. Science nerds (me) and athletes (him) didn’t cross paths often, despite the fact that at Galileo even science nerds have some social power. And the subgroup of athletes who were also at the top of the class academically (him) seemed to have their own thing going on most of the time. It’s hard for people with five younger siblings (me) to keep up.

Then, on the last day of school—just a few weeks ago now, though it seems like ages—we found ourselves in the same cluster of people signing each other’s yearbooks, and I was feeling all sentimental about leaving high school and asked him to sign mine.

He stood there with the pen poised over the class page, then looked at me. “Um, what’s your name again?”

“Lauren.”

He nodded, then wrote something and handed it back to me. We were both waiting for other people, so we made small talk and he asked me what I was doing this summer.

“Working, mostly.” I told him I was looking for a second job, because the insurance company wouldn’t give me more hours for the summer and warned me they’d be cutting back my existing hours after they computerized the filing system.

“My dad needs someone. He’s got a sandwich shop downtown. On Montgomery?”

That would be easy to get to on the streetcar
, I thought. “I don’t have much of that kind of experience. I mean, I cook for my little brothers and sisters, but…”

Keyon laughed. “It’s sandwiches, not biotech. Show up tomorrow at ten and you get the job. It’ll save my dad the hassle of interviewing.”

I showed up.

And for some reason it hadn’t occurred to me that Keyon would be working there, too. Me, him, and his dad were basically the lunch crew, with a little extra help eleven-thirty to one. But Keyon and I are work friends, who talk about work, and do work, and then leave work and don’t have any connection in between. If he drives me to Goodwill, then we’re either going to officially be friends outside of work, or I’m mooching rides.

“Are you sure you have time?” I ask Keyon now.

“Where else do I gotta be? City Hall?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re, like, the special assistant to the DA in your off hours.”

He laughs. “You watch too much TV.”

It does feel urgent to get the microwave. Like I need to prove to Ebb or Elizabeth or whatever her name is that I’m into this, I’m on board, as sort of an apology. She was obviously annoyed, or hurt, in her last e-mail. The flat
I’ll see you in August
without closing punctuation left no doubt in my mind that she’s already starting to hate my guts. I want to get this stupid microwave, even though I don’t need it for another two months, just so I can e-mail her to tell her I found it. A peace offering.

“Okay,” I say to Keyon. “Thanks.”

He maneuvers his dad’s boat of a Chrysler through the city streets. It’s awkwardly quiet. After several blocks, Keyon asks, “Do you have your seat belt on?”

“Yep.”

More awkward quietness. Then we both start talking at once.

Him: “My dad is obsessed with seat belts—”

Me: “One time we got pulled over—”

Then we both say, “Sorry, go ahead,” at the same time, which makes us laugh. He tells his seat belt story, and I tell mine; then we’re there and he somehow manages to find a big enough parking spot within three blocks of the store.

The store smells like Goodwill always does, musty and mildewed, a little like my grandma’s garage. And it’s crowded, even at this time of day, the merchandise looking extra-unappealing under the fluorescent lights. Keyon lifts his arm in greeting to a guy at the register. “Hey, Mikey.”

Mikey, who is even taller than Keyon and a lot lankier, only nods, counting out change.

“Here,” Keyon says, placing a hand on my shoulder to steer me to the electronics department, such as it is. There are a lot of old TVs, outdated computer monitors, ancient stereo systems. And one microwave.

“It’s way too big,” I say, tentatively touching the grimy handle with one finger and then quickly withdrawing it. “This is like a microwave from the dawn of microwave invention.”

“Yeah, you don’t want that. Hang tight a sec…” He goes off toward the front. I look over the toys shelf nearby, seeing if there’s anything Gertie or P.J. might like, and do not believe my eyes when I see a Mrs. Potato Head. There’s no box, and she doesn’t have all her parts, but she’s woman enough to make a good companion for Mr. P.

After what seems like a long time, Keyon returns with Mikey. He glances at the Mrs. Potato Head in my hands and raises his eyebrows, apparently bemused. “Follow us. We’re going to the room where they sort new donations.”

“Oh, awesome.” I ask Mikey, “That won’t get you in trouble?”

“My boss is cool with it once in a while. Friends and family. I mean, you’re still gonna
pay
.”

We walk into this massive room in the back and are greeted with a bunch of suspicious glances from the employees who are sorting piles of stuff. “My cousin,” Mikey announces.

Keyon pats his chest. “Me.”

“Yeah, I think they got that,” Mikey says. “Take a look around. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

I don’t know where to start. Keyon goes straight toward the corner of the room where there’s furniture and other bigger stuff. A love seat. An entertainment center. A few dining room chairs. I go to the opposite corner. More TVs and old computers.

How do I tell Ebb that I can’t just go out and buy a brand-new microwave, even at Target or Costco or something? There is no “my mom is giving me money for…” in my life. But I can’t show up with a gross microwave from the Reagan era. And I don’t want to dip into my savings; I don’t care enough about food being hot to do that. My priorities are probably totally different from hers in every way, and instead of respecting my frugality she’s going to think I’m cheap and tacky. But I
have
to be cheap and tacky because I’ll need a new laptop soon; my current model is a hand-me-down from when my dad got a new one for work.

“Lauren,” Keyon shouts out. “Check it.”

I look across the room and he’s holding up a compact white microwave. Score.

One hurdle cleared, for now.

Dear EB,

Good news. I have secured a microwave for our dorm room. Technically, my friend Keyon secured it, and transported it, but it’s safe in my garage until moving day. We are now ready to pop many a bag of popcorn.

So that’s something to look forward to.

How’s the weather in Florida? It’s been pretty nice here lately, considering there’s barely such a thing as summer in SF.

I should mention I have five younger brothers and sisters. The oldest is six and the youngest is nine months and in between there are twins. Wait, I’m forgetting P.J., who’s almost three. Like that’s not enough to deal with, I have two jobs so it’s always kind of chaotic, hence abrupt e-mail and I hope—

I delete the last paragraph. I hate sounding like a martyr.

But also, it’s the truth. I put it back in.

—hope all’s well over there.

Till later,

Lauren Cole

FRIDAY, JUNE 28

NEW JERSEY

“What’s up with you today?” Alex says. We spent the morning at the beach with the rest of the six-pack and now we’re sitting on the patio of a boardwalk burger place, just the two of us, having an early lunch. He is leaning in toward the table and drinking his Coke through a straw, without picking up the glass, and for some reason it really annoys me. I mean,
Pick the damn thing up!
Vivian Schroeder has more advanced drinking skills.

“Nothing’s up.” Our burgers arrive and I’m suddenly not sure whether I’ll be able to eat mine. “It’s dumb.”

Alex shrugs, takes a bite of his own burger. He’s apparently okay with letting it go that easily. I, on the other hand, am apparently not; the quick loss of my appetite proves it. “I e-mailed the girl who’s going to be my roommate. She doesn’t seem all that interested.”

His mouth is full. “You’re probably reading too much into it. You do that sometimes, you know.”

This is supposed to be funny. Because of the fight we had a few weeks ago at prom, when he made a joke about sex that pissed me
off. We haven’t had it and I’m happy to keep it that way. He is not. He also thinks it’s okay to joke about it—like to say “EB doesn’t put out that easily” when Danny asked me to dance—and then to pretend he wasn’t actually talking about sex at all. He claimed I was “reading into” things, that he only meant I don’t really like to dance. I want him to understand that I am not reading into things now.

“She just asked me how the weather is in
Florida
. I already told her I live in New Jersey.” I’ve been letting the e-mail sit, letting it stew. There’s no point in writing back right away. Or maybe ever.

“So make a joke of it.” Burger juice cuts a creek down his hand. “Send her the link to weather-dot-com. Or a map of the US with New Jersey and Florida highlighted so she learns the difference.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” I say, super-sarcastically, though I’m tired of making a joke of everything.

“She’s a roommate,” Alex says. “It’s not like you have to be best friends.”

“I know,” I say, but my eyes burn behind my sunglasses. Who
is
going to be my best friend in college? Why did I think it was such a great idea to pick a college as far away from Jersey as you can get without leaving the continent?

“You already have a best friend.” Alex swallows and smiles. “Me.”

I hate when Alex says stuff like that, stuff that makes me wish I were leaving tomorrow, stuff that makes it hard for me to ignore the fact that my feelings for him don’t match his for me. I eye my burger and hope that if I take a bite, the sick feeling will go away. Also, I start work this afternoon and I’ll most likely be on rock-removal duty, a task that requires a lot of energy and focus, so I really need a decent meal. It still shocks me sometimes how heavy rocks can be, even the ones that don’t look like much at all. And I feel like there’s
some kind of wisdom to be gleaned from that fact—something more than
Looks can be deceiving!
—but I am not sure what it is.