True (3 page)

“Then we’re going to Zumba class.”

The Gross National Product direct-deposited into my bank account couldn’t get me to a Latin dance class. I grunted, wondering why they were so clearly not hungover. Then I remembered that they had spent the bulk of their night getting laid, not getting plastered.

Feeling bitter, I drifted back into a sweaty sleep.

When I woke up, the room was dark and I was disoriented, but the pounding in my skull had abated slightly. The TV was flickering in the corner of our cramped room, and I sensed that Jess or Kylie was still sitting at the foot of my bed, back against the cinder block wall.

“What time is it?” I croaked, my voice hoarse.

“Seven. How are you feeling?”

Holy shit. That was a guy’s voice, not one of my roommates’. I half sat up, heart suddenly racing. It was hard to see in the dark, and the sudden motion made my stomach roil, my hair in damp clumps on my forehead.

Oh my God. It was Tyler, just propped up casually, legs sprawled out, his feet dangling over the side in nothing but socks.

My tongue felt thick, and I was suddenly aware that I wasn’t wearing pants. I had collapsed into bed in all my clothes except for the rain boots, and when I had gotten up to be sick, I had peeled off my jacket, abandoning it in the bathroom. Then in bed, I had clawed my way out of my jeans with shaky hands, so that now I was in a tight, wrinkled, wet T-shirt and panties.

With Tyler sitting on my bed watching
Family Guy
like nothing about this was abnormal. A quick glance around showed we were alone.

“Drink this,” he said, reaching over and pulling a bottle off my desk. The flashing colors from the TV played across his frame, showing the pull and strain of his bicep muscles as he reached. The black of his tattoo caught my attention, but it was too dark to see what it was.

Propped on my elbow, I was totally embarrassed at how shitty I knew I had to look, but I didn’t have the physical strength to jump out of bed and fix it. I didn’t have a functioning brain, either, it seemed. When he held some kind of power drink up to my lips, I swallowed a sip. The cool, sweet liquid felt fantastic and cut through the thick phlegm that seemed to have been spray-coated over every inch of my tongue and mouth. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” He set the bottle back down. “You’re dehydrated. You’ll feel better once you can keep some liquid down.”

This was so weird. Like off-the-charts weird. Why the hell was he hanging out in my room while I slept the restless, sweaty sleep of the hungover? The beer seemed to be leaching out of my pores, and I smelled like leftover Chinese food.

“Where are Jess and Kylie?” I asked.

“At dinner.” He shifted and the bed creaked. “I’m going to turn the light on so cover your eyes for a second.”

I fought the urge to hiss when he flicked on my desk lamp, and my dry eyes dilated. I couldn’t prevent a little moan, though. “I’m never drinking again,” I said as I fell back onto my pillow.

“Everyone says that. Few live up to the vow.” There was more rustling, and then suddenly he produced a saltine-cracker pack. “You should eat a cracker.”

I wasn’t used to having someone take care of me, and the fact that it was a hot guy who was having sex with my roommate was just creepy. I did take the pack, though, and tore open the plastic so I could nibble on a corner of the cracker. It tasted like shredded cardboard, and I gagged a little. Tyler was right there with the drink again, and having a bad boy as a nursemaid made me start to wonder if I was actually hallucinating. Maybe this was some sort of elaborate roofie-inspired fantasy.

I dribbled the red liquid all down the front of me.

Nope. Not a fantasy.

Just me, rocking the awk.

I wiped my chin.

He stood up, and I was torn between not wanting him to leave because I wanted to know why he was there, and being so relieved that he might leave me in pathetic peace, that I said breathlessly, “Are you leaving?”

“No. Unless you want me to. Do you?” That question came directly at me over his shoulder, dark eyes unreadable.

I shook my head, because I couldn’t tell him to leave. That was too rude. And at the same time, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to leave.

I took math and science courses because they were easy for me, they made sense. There was logic to them, with a right and wrong answer. Literature could never provide me those absolutes, because you could never really predict what someone was thinking, or what they would say. At least I couldn’t.

Yet the mystery of words, of people, was fascinating to me. I wanted to understand, yet I never seemed to be able to assemble the puzzle pieces of behavior in the correct order.

“Is this your dresser?” he asked, tapping his knuckles on the chest of drawers.

See? Never in a thousand years could I have predicted he was going to say that.

“Yes.” I watched him yank the first drawer open and root around among my socks. “Um . . .” Thank God he hadn’t picked my bra-and-panty drawer.

“Where are your T-shirts? I’ll get you a clean one.”

For real? This was the guy Jessica had described as so hard-core? Who worked out with weights and came from a bad part of town and had his penis pierced? He wanted to get me a clean shirt.

“Second drawer.”

He dug around for a minute, then emerged with one of a kitty daydreaming about math equations. “Cute.”

Whether or not that was sarcasm, I wasn’t sure. If I had had to guess, he would have made a comment about liking pussy, which I imagined eight out of ten males would have done under these circumstances.

But instead, as he brought it to me, he tapped it and said, “Though this one is wrong. The answer is 27.”

Sitting up, I took the shirt, blinking. I studied the equation his finger was pointing to and did the quick calculation in my head. “You’re right,” I said, not fully able to keep the surprise from my voice.

“I’m smarter than I look,” he said.

Apparently he was. I was mumbling an embarrassed protest when the door to my room flew open and Jessica and Kylie came in, giant mugs of coffee in their hands.

“Look who’s up!” Jessica called out. “Yay! Glad you’re feeling better.”

I wasn’t sure that was an entirely accurate assessment of the situation, but I knew from experience she didn’t really expect a response anyway.

“Alright, I’m taking off,” Tyler said, already heading toward the door. “Talk to you guys later.”

“Bye, bitch,” Jessica told him.

Kylie gave him a wave.

Then he was gone and I was just sitting there, clutching my kitty T-shirt. “Why was he here?” I asked.

“Because he likes you,” Kylie said in a singsong voice, stripping off her shirt and rooting around in the closet in her bra and sweats. “Are you going to the club with us tonight?”

As if. I totally ignored her question and pushed my hair back off my head, my fingers shaking a little. I reached for the drink Tyler had left sitting on the desk and took a sip, formulating my protest so I didn’t sound too reactionary. “Whatever. Seriously, why was he here?”

“He didn’t want to go to dinner with us. And I am being serious. I totally think he likes you. He has been asking a ton of questions about you to me and Jess. We were wishing we had like a bio on you so we could just hand it to him so he’d quit bugging us.” There was a thump as she fell into the back of the closet. “Ow. Shit. I can’t find my cowboy boots.”

Yanking off my dirty shirt, I pulled the clean kitty one on over my head, hoping it would cover the burn I felt in my cheeks. There was no way Tyler Mann was interested in me. He wasn’t. He wouldn’t be. He might be curious about who the mute brunette was, but in the same way that you’re curious as to why Donald Trump has a chinchilla on his head.

“He doesn’t like me,” I insisted when my head reemerged. “He’s with Jessica.” Who I was afraid to look at. I didn’t want to turn and see her shooting me murderous glares.

But Jessica laughed. “He’s not
with
me. He’s just been with me. Huge difference. Huge. I so don’t like him that way.”

I watched her moving around her desk, swallowed by a giant UC sweatshirt, bear paws stamped on the butt of her yoga pants. She was peering in a hand mirror, inspecting her teeth and looking very unconcerned that Tyler had been hanging out in our room while I slept. I seemed to be the only one who thought it was ludicrous.

“But you’ve . . .” I started to say, then wasn’t sure how to finish my sentence.

“Fucked him?” she asked cheerfully, shooting me a grin. “Yep. He’s a good time, and he knows how to use that piercing to my advantage, if you know what I mean.”

Actually, I had no idea what she meant. In theory, sure, I could imagine the clitoral stimulation that might occur from a tiny metal ring, but I couldn’t actually envision what that felt like. Too far out of my reality. “No, I don’t know.”

“Oh, shit, I guess not.”

The look of sympathy she gave me was so heartfelt, I almost laughed. At the same time, it made me feel a deep sense of longing for all the experiences I had missed out on.

Kylie emerged from the closet, triumphantly holding her coveted boots. “Found them,” she said breathlessly, flipping her hair back. “You should totally go for it with Tyler.”

“No!” The thought was horrifying. First of all, because I couldn’t imagine spending time with a guy who my roommate had had sex with. Second, because I was convinced there was no way in hell Tyler was actually interested in me. Third, because I wasn’t sure I was interested in
him
. He didn’t seem like my type. While I may not have dated, I certainly had crushed on plenty of guys, both fictional and living, and they tended to be the underdogs, with soulful eyes and a moodiness driven by insecurity. Hello, Grant.

Tyler was too confident to fit into that box of Broken Boy.

Then again, pining for passionate musician types hadn’t really played out well for me.

“Why not?” Jessica asked. “If it’s me, God, don’t worry about that.”

“It’s just . . . no. The answer is just no.”

Kylie had dropped her sweatpants as well, and she stood in her pink bra and thong, hands on her hips. “This could be good for you. Now get dressed, we’re going out.”

“And the answer to that is no, too.” I pulled the covers more firmly up to my chest. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was going to lie in bed until Sunday morning.

She gave a cluck of disapproval. “Lame.”

“Yep.” I ate my crackers and watched them move around the room getting ready, transforming from Zumba enthusiasts to sexy partyers, cleavage out, miniskirts on. When Jessica pulled out the false eyelashes, I knew they weren’t playing. This was a commitment. They were in the mood for an all-nighter—strobe-lights-flashing, vodka-flowing, booty-grinding kind of adventure, and I wasn’t going to see them until after a post-partying Denny’s chow down on ham and eggs at five a.m. Guys would be flirted with but not allowed to touch, and it would be a girl-power night out on the town.

Then I said something stupid. “Is Tyler going with you?”

“See!” Kylie said in total rapture. “You
do
like him!” She spritzed a cloud of perfume in my direction.

Coughing, I sputtered, not even sure why I had asked. “I’m just worried that he might come back here and camp out at my feet again.”

“Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes.

Then they air-kissed me, waved, and were off, the door slamming behind them, leaving me alone in a dorm room littered with discarded boobie tops and hair products. The feathered mirror above Jessica’s bed fluttered from the draft, and I was left alone with my thoughts and the pretentiousness of Hemingway and Tennessee Williams awaiting me.

Plus a strange yearning for something I didn’t understand and wanted to ignore.

Resolutely, I got up to shower and tried not to listen for a knock at the door.

Chapter Three

My dad pushed up his glasses and smiled at me through the computer screen. He was sitting in the family room of our house, and he was wearing a Cincinnati Bengals jersey, which looked incongruous (and too big) on him. He had never been a sports lover and was definitely the science nerd, preferring to stargaze than head down to Cincinnati for a baseball or football game. So he looked a bit like a middle-aged man wearing a costume, but I knew that his girlfriend Susan was big into football and he was trying to be open to new things.

He was my dad, but different. Altered.

Even the family room behind him looked different from when I had left home at the end of the summer and Susan had moved in. The house hadn’t changed for twelve years after my mother died, the same plaid furniture and oak kitchen table in the exact same spots where she had placed them, a border with faded red apples circled the breakfast nook. The pictures were frozen in the early two thousands, me with gap-toothed grins and as a chubby baby splashing in a bathtub. There was the requisite engagement portrait of my parents with big hair, her hand lay carefully over his in a phenomenally cheesy pose, and their wedding photo, all framed in the same honey oak color as the dinette set. My father had never added another picture to the gallery, and I seemed to have stopped growing at the age of eight.

There was only the past and never the present.

But Susan had replaced the plaid sofa with a nice neutral, modern one that Dad was perched on, and she had painted the existing coffee table and all the picture frames a crisp black. So there were the same photos, with large sweaters and overalls below faces that no longer existed, and while they were same, the framing was different.

Altered.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. There was no question that the old furniture was dated and ugly, but the more there was of Susan, the less there was of my mom.

Susan herself popped up behind Dad, leaning over the back of the new couch. “Hey, Rory, how are you?” she said, her voice pleasant and neutral.

“I’m fine. I’m just freaking out over this inorganic chemistry exam I have,” I told her. I did like Susan, though I didn’t necessarily feel close to her. But she had been dating my dad for three years and she had never tried too hard. She hadn’t forced herself on me or cheerfully suggested shopping trips or bonding spa appointments. She had stood back and let me adjust to her presence, and she wasn’t fake.

It was clear that she cared about my dad and that was cool. I appreciated it and appreciated even more that her being in his life didn’t really affect mine. She had moved in right after I had left for school this year, and I hadn’t been home for a weekend yet. I knew my dad was stressing about the whole thing, sure I was going to collapse into juvenile angst over his girlfriend, but while I kept waiting to resent it, so far I didn’t seem to really care. If she turned my bedroom into a sports museum, though, we were going to have to throw down.

“Oh, God, I can’t help you with that. That’s your dad’s area.” Susan was a high school English teacher and cheerleading coach.

For real. My dad, the chemical engineer who got excited about breakthroughs in biodegradable plastics, with a cheerleading coach.

“But I’m sure you’ll ace it. You always do.”

Usually there was truth to that statement, but I had just wasted an entire Saturday sleeping off the worst hangover of my life. “I’m going to try,” I said. “But I think Hemingway is going to have to take a backseat. I can’t read and study at the same time and my classes for my major are more important. What are you guys up to?”

“We’re having some people over for the game later,” my dad said, and he sounded proud.

“That’s cool,” I told him, and I meant it. He was even more socially awkward than I was, tending to bore the snot out of people with his theories on making plastics from plant materials and the solution to the economic crisis. Without my mom to guide him through the maze of small talk, he had gotten very limited in what he did outside of work and driving me to school and science camps.

After Mom had died, my dad hadn’t been able to handle the Girl Scout meetings, sleepovers, playdates, and sending birthday treats to school. Between the grief and his naturally introverted personality, it had been beyond his scope of ability, and he didn’t return phone calls from the other moms and forgot to fill out field-trip forms. Eventually I stopped getting invited to parties, and I was dropped off the rosters of all my grade school clubs, so that by the time middle school rolled around, it was just dad and me in a house that never changed.

In high school I had taken control and tried to create a life for myself, with marginal success.

Now Dad was attempting to do the same thing.

Sometimes I wondered what Susan saw in him. But I realized that he was a supersweet, generous guy, even if he was a total dork. He was a lovable dork. And once in an unexpected moment of sharing, he told me that Susan had been married to an abusive guy who spent all their money on his failed fitness club. So in comparison to that, Dad was downright sexy I would imagine. Or at least not threatening.

“But if you need help studying, let me know. We can go through it now together.” He put his thumbs up in the air. “Team Macintosh!”

Oh, God. See? Totally adorable dork.

I laughed. “Thanks, Dad. I think I’m okay, though. I’m going to the library because Jess and Kylie are still sleeping. I’m in the dorm lounge right now.” No one used the lounge on our floor. It was a forgotten room that smelled like burned microwave popcorn and had threadbare carpet and one square wood couch. There was a whiteboard hanging crookedly on the wall, but nothing was written on it.

“Still sleeping? It’s past two. What are they anemic or something?”

Susan laughed and rolled her eyes at me, a knowing look on her face. “Oh, John, it’s a good thing you’re pretty,” she teased him. She gave him a quick kiss on the temple. “I’m guessing they were out partying.”

He made a face, pulling away from her kiss. I knew he was embarrassed by the affection. “Didn’t you go with them, Ror?”

“No. I was studying and watching a horror-movie marathon.” And thinking about Tyler’s bizarre little visit.

I could see my answer had my dad torn. He wanted me to study, but he wanted me to have a social life. Even though he would never say it, because we didn’t talk about emotions, I knew he felt guilty for not making things easier for me as a kid.

“Make sure you’re still having fun,” he settled on, a nice generic suggestion.

“Yep.”

“So . . .” There was a pause so painful I frowned. I had no idea what he was going to say, and he looked like he had sat on a pin he was shifting around so much, wiping his hands on his knees. “Any cute guys there that you like?”

Yikes. For some reason I had a feeling that Susan had suggested he open up this ridiculous dialogue with me. “Nope. This was voted the Homeliest Campus in America, you know.”

It took him a second, but then he made a face. “Ha ha. You know what I mean.”

“I do. And no, I haven’t met Mr. Wonderful. I haven’t even met Mr. Sort of Okay.” Then I gave him a smile. “Don’t worry about me, Dad. I have plenty of time still to explore unhealthy relationships with self-absorbed jerks. I’m taking philosophy next semester so I have high hopes for that class.”

“Perfect,” he said, pulling a smile.

I knew he worried about me. He had already been dating my mom by the time they were twenty, and he seemed to think my lack of a boyfriend up to this point was an indicator of impending crazy-cat-lady, old-maid status. Maybe he was right. But I worried enough about it myself. He didn’t need to carry that burden too.

“Have fun with your friends,” I told him, wanting to encourage his social interaction. In that way, I guess I was really no different from him. We worried about each other. When you spent a decade with no one else, it just worked that way.

“Thanks, honey, you too. We’ll talk to you soon. Over and out, Captain.”

I saluted him. “Yes, sir.”

Yep. An adorable dork.

***

On Monday, I wandered around the bookstore straightening UC T-shirts and sweatpants, wishing I was anywhere but my work-study job. I had done okay on my chem exam, but I wasn’t prepared for lit class, and I had sat through the lecture wondering if the book I had attempted to read was even the same one the professor was talking about.

Tired and pissed off at myself, I moved from rack to rack, pounding hangers down to make the sweatshirts stop exploding in all directions, and contemplated going for tutoring in lit, though I wasn’t even sure they offered it. Tutoring was for math and science and foreign languages, not for reading a book. Presumably once you got to college you knew how to do that.

“Is this me?” a voice said from behind.

I turned and there was Tyler holding up in front of him a woman’s tank top that read Sexiest Bearcat, a lazy smile on his face as he watched for my reaction. Oh, God. He was the last person on the planet I wanted to see when I was stressed and still wondering why he had been in my room on Saturday.

“It’s not your color,” I told him, feeling hugely self-conscious that I had barely managed to brush my hair before work, and I’d bitten off my lipstick from irritation hours ago.

“Yeah, you’re right. This one would look good on you, though.”

I snorted. I couldn’t help it. No one had ever accused me of being sexy before, and if I were going to pick spirit wear, it wouldn’t be a tank top designed to show off breasts. So not my style.

“Not your color either?” he asked.

“No.” I went back to the rack, straightening what I had already straightened, wondering what he was doing there. Mid-semester, the bookstore wasn’t all that busy. Usually it was parents and high school students on tour who came in and bought golf shirts and
UC Mom
tees. Somehow I didn’t think Tyler was there to buy either of those.

He was just standing there, eyeballing the rack next to me without any sense of purpose. Wearing a plain black T-shirt and jeans that hung exactly the way they should on a guy, he had a bicep tattoo that read
TRUE Family
in a tribal script. For some reason, that softened my irritation with him. It wasn’t his fault he made me uncomfortable. He was just trying to be nice. Maybe he felt sorry for me because of what had happened with Grant, and he had come to the bookstore to buy pens and just wanted to say hi and I was being weird about it. When you knew someone, you went over and acknowledged them. It was the way human beings interacted and I needed to stop looking for more meaning in everything than there was.

“Can I help you find something?” I asked him, striving for casual. But instead I sounded like a fifty-year-old saleswoman, and he called me out on it.

“Yes, can you show me this in a bigger size? And can you help me find gifts for my grandkids?” That was him mocking me, no question about it.

My cheeks heated.

Tyler scrutinized me. “Seriously, Rory, I know you’re at work but you don’t have to act like we’ve never met before. I don’t think they’ll fire you if you talk to me for five minutes. It’s work study. You’d have to light the stadium blanket display on fire for them to can you.”

“I did that last week and they didn’t actually fire me. That’s why I need to toe the line this week,” I told him dryly.

My sarcasm, which I usually delivered in a complete monotone, had the same effect on him now as it had in the car. He looked stunned for a second, then he grinned. “Well, then I can’t risk getting you in trouble. Tell me where the books are. I want to browse the lit section.”

“Sure. They’re this way.” I led him to the other side of the store, where there were racks and racks of books. “Is there a title you need for a class or something?”

“No, I just like to read.”

I glanced back to try to gauge his expression. He looked serious. I wouldn’t have pegged him as a big reader, but then again, what did I know about him really? I had just seen him slamming back beers and making out with Jessica. I didn’t even know what he was studying in school. The only thing I knew about him was that Jess had said he came from a messed-up family, and that he still lived at home not far from campus.

“What do you like to read?”

“Anything. Fiction, nonfiction, genre fiction, literature. Everything.” Immediately he picked up
The Alchemist
off the shelf. “Have you read this? It’s really good. You have to get used to the narrative, but then it’s a cool story. The kid is kind of a pussy, but then he gets it in the end.”

I shook my head. “I haven’t read it.” The fiction section of bookstores always seemed to me like a mysterious world where I wasn’t allowed entrance, the intriguing and colorful covers a patchwork of complex stories, glimpses into other people’s lives, and where I should have felt at home, because I was generally an observer, not a doer. Yet when I read fiction, I was always knocked off-kilter by the scene changes, the styles of the various writers, the hints that seemed designed to tease and confuse, the themes that I could never ferret out. I read almost nothing other than nonfiction, facts and vocabulary. That was my comfort zone.

“Who is your favorite author?” He had moved on to a book I didn’t recognize, with a black-and-white photo of small children on the cover.

“I don’t have one. I read mostly nonfiction.” I spotted Tennessee Williams on the shelf, the bastard.

“Really?” Tyler looked surprised. “I would have thought you were a huge fiction reader, being so smart and everything. You’re premed, right?”

I had no idea where he’d heard what my major was, but I felt compelled to share my limitations with him. “I’m good at math and science. I like facts and figures. Literature is the hardest subject for me because I feel like I never understand what the authors are trying to tell me. It’s like they’re trying to trick me.”

“So you’re a logical kind of chick, huh? I should have figured that out. Me, I’d rather read a book than do math problems any day.” He dropped his beat-up bag to the floor. “I’m guessing I’ve read thousands of books at this point.”