The Roommate Situation (36 page)

I let that sit in silence for a bit until I ask, “What’d you see when the scales fell off your eyes?”

Another silence falls between us. She breaks it finally with, “That I’d trusted too much. Do you think he’ll be true to you?” she asks. “Men aren’t like that. Just do a search on that. Google
gay men
and
promiscuity
. See how likely he is to stay true to you.”

“Mom,” I say.

“What?”

“We’ve made no promises.”

This time I don’t need to ask if she’s crying. I close my eyes and lean against the wall, moving the phone away from my ear until she’s back to sniffles, pulling herself together.

“It’s so hard,” she says finally, “to watch people ruin their lives. You, your father. I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know how to put things back in place. You were such a sweet little boy. Your father was so devoted. Now I don’t recognize either of you. I don’t recognize you a bit. You’ve become strangers and left me here heartbroken and confused.”

“Mom?”

“Yes, honey.” She sniffles again. “What is it?”

“Can you pay my tuition? It’s overdue, and if it’s not paid by the seventeenth, they’re going to kick me out.”

She hangs up.

I have to look at my phone screen to be sure. She’s hung up.

Sitting in the stairwell, the cold of the concrete seeping through my jeans, I say, “Fuck,” and thump my head against the wall.

Chapter Thirty-Two

It’s hard to focus in class. It’s hard to focus out of class. My assigned reading is column after column of words that don’t make sense, and I hardly have time to focus on it in the first place. The past three days, I’ve been up and out of the dorms well before my classes start, hitting up every business I can walk to, asking if they’re hiring, leaving a copy of the painfully brief résumé Derek helped me put together.

“Should I include the band I had back home?” I’d asked.

“I’m thinking not really,” he’d said.

Most of the places I walk into aren’t hiring, but they take my résumé anyway to keep it “on file.” It’s probably being filed in the trash can, but even if they’re putting it in a folder of “guys to call when we have a position open,” a lot of good it does me today.

Craig’s found us a drummer, a girl named Lena. For someone who looks like five feet, five inches of sticks stuck together, she’s a beast on the drums. I’ve been spending evenings with them, over at Craig’s. Derek uses that time to study and work on his inventory, which is selling, but not selling to the tune of what I need to make my tuition payment.

The band needs a space to rehearse, but in the meantime, we’re writing songs. I hardly feel like I’m contributing to that. Lyrics—all the phrases I can think of involve wrapping my hands around my mother’s neck and shaking her till her eyeballs rattle. Or committing suicide the day of the tuition deadline so she can feel sorry she didn’t Just. Pay. The Fucking. Bill. Craig elbows me once or twice an evening and says, “It’s not healthy to wallow in it, dude.”

Three days have passed like sludge, my stomach in a constant state of torque.

I offer that suggestion for the band name this evening—Torque—and Craig jumps from there to Sporque, which, like Torque, already is a band, it turns out. Lena’s manning Google, running our suggestions through it.

“What about Forque?” she says. “I’m not pulling anyone up with that name.”

“I like that,” Craig said, shifting over to where she’s sitting. “Think of the album possibilities.
Forque in the Road. With Forqued Tongue
.”

“
Stick a Forque in It
.” She flips one of her sticks, catching it neatly without even looking at it.

“
Pitch Forque
,” Craig says.

“
Forque It Over
.”

“
Forque You
!”

“
Forque Ewe
,” I say, and then I have to spell it when they both look at me with their brows drawn down.

“Oh, hey, yeah,” Craig says, “with a big sheep face on the cover.”

“
Left at the Forque
,” Lena says.

“
Forque Lift
!” Craig again.

The weather’s turned unseasonably warm, nearly hitting the fifties earlier today. It feels all wrong, as dark as it already is when I head back to Quaid from Craig’s. I kick a stone off the sidewalk.

One week. One week till they kick me out of classes, the residence hall—everything. Craig’s offered to let me bunk on his couch for a while, so there’s that. At least I wouldn’t have to go back home. I need to get a job, though, because I can only freeload at Craig’s for so long, and I’m bound to get hungry sooner or later. Once all my hours are free—no classes, no papers—getting a job should be easier. I won’t have to find someone willing to work around my class schedule. Maybe.

Craigslist is on my agenda tonight. Craigslist and my reading for English lit. The problem with craigslist is it’s so full of scam bullshit. But I need a fucking job.

Maybe not getting a degree wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. Maybe I could go farther faster if I start living my life sooner.

Maybe.

I come around the corner of the building and start heading up the walk, making a quick glance up from the concrete before going back to my th—

I look up again.

Standing at the foot of the stairs, a little off to the side, his hands pushed into the pockets of his wool overcoat, is my father. Or at least a figure that looks very much like my father, right down to the eyeglasses that catch the bluish-white light of the security lamp.

As I get closer, I see that is, in fact and for sure, my dad. Whom I haven’t even bothered to call back since the conversation with my mom because…I just really don’t know what to say. To confront it means to think about my dad having sex with some woman who isn’t my mom, who’s close to my age, who’s probably doing things to him that I…really don’t want to think about.

“Hey,” I say as I get close enough to speak. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you might need some help.”

“With?”

“Getting to wherever it is you’re going from here.”

So they’re not paying. They’re really not paying.

My breath puffs white from my mouth as I look around campus. The temperatures are dropping to normal, the cold setting its teeth in again.

I look back at my dad, “Where am I going from here?”

“Where do you want to be?”

“Here. I want to be here. I’m staying here even if you won’t pay for school. I’ve applied for jobs. I have a place I can stay until I get on my feet.”

“Well,” he says. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t borrow your mother’s LX, then.” He sits down on the stairs, a few steps up from the bottom, his hands still in his coat pockets. “What are you planning to do here? Is economics still out?”

I sit next to him, a little off-kilter. I’m not sure where I stand. I’m not sure where I stand at all. “I dropped calculus and picked up an English course. I was thinking of switching to a BA in English with a professional writing concentration. You know, technical writing, that sort of thing. I figure…it’s creative, but you can still get a job with it.”

“I suppose you can.”

“And, you know, just about any job beyond flipping burgers has some level of writing and communication. Even just getting a job—if I can write a better cover letter than the next guy, I’ve got a better chance of landing an interview.” I’m warming up to it, thankful to have Dan’s points to back me up. I leave out the part about how I could equally as well branch off into something more interesting than instruction manuals and reports—music criticism, for instance. And I definitely leave out the part about how I’m hoping to get better at reading music so I can try out for the music school.

“Those are good points,” my dad says.

“But.”

“No buts. Those are fine points.”

“Did you really move out of the house?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“So that you could keep seeing another woman?”

“I don’t know yet. So that I could decide what I am doing, I suppose.”

“So there’s a chance you’ll get back with Mom.”

“I don’t know.”

“So, how long… I mean, when did it start?”

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” He looks at me, then looks ahead again. “After you left for school. I guess with you out of the house… I don’t know, maybe I was a little envious, you starting your life, mine all settled. You were at the bottom corner of your chart and rising, and I had long since plateaued. So when Lynn started taking an interest in me… It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I did something I shouldn’t have, and now we’re all dealing with the consequences.”

“Mom hung up on me,” I say.

“She’s having a tough time.”

“I know.”

“She was glad you called, though.”

The cold seeps through the concrete. I shrink deeper into my jacket.

“So this thing with you and your roommate,” my dad says.

“What about it?”

He shakes his head, gets to his feet. “College is a time for experimenting,” he says finally, light flashing off the lenses of his glasses.

“Did you?” I ask.

He shrugs just a little before saying, “I smoked a joint.”

“Just the one?”

With a bit of a sigh, he says, “Just the one. I didn’t see the appeal.”

“Maybe you had the wrong stuff.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re a pothead on top of everything else now.”

I smile. “Nah. But if you want to see a pothead, you should check out Jamie Douglas sometime.”

“Your mother would say,
‘At least he’s not sleeping with boys.’
Unless…is he?”

I laugh. “Not that I know of.”

“Anyway,” Dad says. “Oh, let me give you the hotel I’m staying at.” He pats his pockets, looking for something to write with.

“Just text it.”

“Sure. Well.”

Taking this as an imminent good-bye, I get to my feet. “Thanks for coming by. I mean, you could have just called. But it was nice to see you.”

“It’s nice to see you too.”

“Um, I already ate at Craig’s, but do you want to grab something—”

“No, no, I’m fine. I have a long drive back. Well.”

“Well.”

He opens his arms and steps forward and wraps his arms around me, pulling me close. Squeezing, if only for a second or two. I hug him back, and then he pats my shoulder and pulls away. “Take care of yourself,” he says.

“You too.”

“And keep in touch. I won’t have your mother giving me the rundown of your phone calls anymore. At least…not for now.”

“I will.”

“Okay, then.”

“Drive safe.”

For a moment, I think he’s going to pull me into another hug, but he sticks out his hand instead, bringing closure to the meeting with his usual gesture. I give my father’s hand a firm grip, and then he walks off, the tail of his coat swinging with his gait.

I wait to see if he’s going to look back, and I’m not disappointed. I lift my hand, and he lifts his in return.

* * * *

“My dad was here,” I say as I come through our door.

“I know,” Derek says. “He left you something.” He points toward my bed, where a plain envelope sits on the blanket.

“Was he up here?”

“I ran into him on the way in the building. I offered to let him wait up here, but I think he wanted to see you alone. He said just in case he didn’t see you, though, to make sure you got that.”

I rip it open.

Inside is a check made out to the school, five twenty-dollar bills, and a note that says,
Don’t give up on your mother.

“Everything okay?” Derek asks.

“Yeah.” I stuff everything back in the envelope. “Yeah, I get to stay in school.”

“Your dad’s not so bad,” he says, coming to lie on the bed, where the envelope had been.

“What’d he say to you?” I ask.

“‘Look out for him. He’s a good kid.’ I said, ‘I know.’”

“You know, you know. You know everything, huh?” I drop on top of him, making him
oof
and grab my waist, but he’s smiling instead of smirking.

I kiss him. And then pull back to say, “I’m staying in school. In our room. And I’m in a band. You’d better get off your ass and start designing some merch for Forque.”

“Fork?”

“On second thought,” I say, “you can do that later. Right now, let’s forque.”

“Oh. I told your dad we wouldn’t do that anymore.”

I sit up, fast. “What?”

The serious face he’s pulling breaks into a grin. “Kidding.”

I pinch him, making him jump and grab for my wrists.

“Asshole. I should punish you for that.”

“Oh no!” He’s laughing. “Don’t do that!”

“I’ll punish you with sex. See how you like that.”

“You’ll just be punishing yourself too.”

“Good point. I’ll make you give me a blowjob instead.” My belt jingles as I pull it open, but instead of whipping my dick out, I spread myself on top of him, stomach to stomach, my lips just above his mouth.

“I love you,” I say.

“You’ll remember that when all those groupies are throwing themselves at you, right?”

I smile—“Maybe.”—and kiss my boyfriend on the mouth.

If everything could be just like this, forever, I’d have no complaints about life.

Well, except with a record deal thrown in, maybe, and a bathroom I don’t have to share with forty guys. And some effects pedals. The cash in the envelope will take me a little closer to that last dream, at least.

I rest my forehead against Derek’s and just enjoy this, all of this—his hands pushing up the back of my shirt, the hard rod in his crotch digging into me, the room’s heat kicking on, making it cozy, the way winter should be.

“I’m pretty much in love with you too,” he says. The breaths that carry those words skate over my lips.

Smiling, my eyes still closed, I whisper, “Good.”