The Boy Next Door

by Costa, Annabelle

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” Larry says. He puts his arm around my shoulders and I cringe. I don’t want Larry near me right now. I don’t even want him in the same room. His presence feels stifling. “Can I do anything?”

  I shake my head. “Can . . . can I just be alone?”

  Larry seems a little taken aback, but he nods. “Um, okay. Do . . . do you want me to shut the TV off?”

  What kind of stupid question is that? I nod.

  Larry turns the television off and crawls out of bed. He leaves the room and gently shuts the door behind him. I feel a little guilty, but not that guilty. More than that, I feel perplexed by how much my fiancé’s presence annoyed me. If Larry’s the guy I’m spending the rest of my life with, shouldn’t I want him to comfort me when I’m upset? But I know that anything Larry says will just make me feel worse.

  The thing is, when I close my eyes and think about who in the world would make me feel better right now, there’s only one person who comes to mind. My best friend.

  I reach for my phone and call Jason on speed dial. He answers right away, “Tasha, what’s up? Did Larry let you shut off Leno?”

  I answer him with a sob.

  His voice sobers up immediately. “Tash, what’s wrong?”

  “Nana died,” I say, and then the tears turn into full wracking sobs. I’m crying my guts out and it lasts long enough that I start to feel self-conscious that I’ve been on the phone just crying for so long. Jason doesn’t say much, but the thing is, just knowing he’s there on the other line makes me feel comforted somewhat. Especially since during one of my last conversations with Nana, she talked about what a great guy Jason was and how she wished I’d end up with him. Nana really liked Jason.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally say, when I’ve recovered enough to speak again.

  “Can I come over?” he asks me.

  “No,” I say. “Larry’s here.”

  “He is? Where?”

  “I banished him to the living room,” I say, feeling slightly embarrassed.

  “Let me drive you to Pittsburgh,” he says.

  I hesitate. Actually, it would be great if Jason drove me, especially since I’m not quite sure how I’m going to scrape together enough money to fly to Pittsburgh, and the train is always agony. Plus, there’s no one I’d rather take a road trip with than Jason, even under this kind of circumstance.

  But I’m worried that if I let Jason drive me to Pittsburgh, it’s a slippery slope. I don’t want him to take that to mean I’m dumping Larry.

  “I know it doesn’t mean you’re dumping Larry,” Jason says, as if reading my mind. “I just want to help you out. And I got that car that I never drive, just racking up three-hundred dollars a month in garage fees. Let me do this for you, okay?”

  “Okay,” I hear myself saying, although before the word even leaves my mouth, I know this is going to be trouble.

  Larry seems a little miffed when I tell him that I don’t want him to come with me to the funeral, although Larry never seems to get all that terribly miffed. “Don’t you want me to meet your family?” he asks in a hurt voice.

  “Of course I do,” I insist, although the truth is that I’m dreading my family’s reaction to Larry. He’s so different from the guys I’ve dated in the past and I know they’ll all think I’m settling. I need to give Larry a makeover or something before anyone meets him. Or better yet, a personality transplant. “Just not under these circumstances. I don’t want them to always associate you with Nana’s death.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” Larry bites his lip. “Don’t you want me to be there for you? Like, for comfort?”

  I don’t have the heart to tell Larry that his comfort is more annoying than anything. “I’ll be okay,” I assure him. “Besides, I thought you said this was the busy time at work.”

  “That’s true,” Larry agrees reluctantly.

  In the end, Larry stays home. I tell him that Jason is giving me a ride and he finds that comforting, and says he knows I’ll be in good hands. Of course, that makes me feel guilty, because I know Jason’s intentions. But then again, I don’t have any intention of letting anything happen between me and Jason.

  The next morning, bright and early, Jason picks me up in his car for our trip to Pittsburgh. It’s roughly a six-hour drive, so we have plans to stop for lunch at the halfway point. I’m still sleepy when I get out to the car, and I feel resentful of how bright-eyed Jason looks for some reason. He actually looks very cute in a green T-shirt that highlights the color of his eyes.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks me after I toss my bag in the trunk and climb into the front seat.

  “Been better,” I say, although I feel guilty that my exhaustion is upsetting me more than the death of my grandmother. Although I miss Nana, I realize that she was very old and lived a full life.

  “I was trying to think of what would cheer you up,” Jason says.

  “Yeah?” I ask, my interest piqued.

  “I wasn’t sure,” he says, “but I found this mix CD you made me in high school and I figured it might be fun to listen to.”

  “Oh God,” I say. “This is probably going to embarrass me, isn’t it?”

  “Well, let’s see,” he says and presses the play button of the CD player. We both wait, holding our breath, for the first song to start.

  I hear a familiar voice warbling: “I want you to know that I’m happy for you . . .”

  “Oh God,” I say. “It’s Alanis Morissette! You’re punking me. There’s no way I made you this CD.”

  “You totally did,” Jason insists. “You were really into Alanis when she first came out. You thought she was really angsty and punk.”

  “I did not!” I say. Although now that I think about it, I did recently discover the jewel case for Jagged Little Pill in my old bedroom at my parents’ house. “This is really embarrassing. I’m skipping it.”

  “Okay,” Jason says agreeably.

  I go to the next song and it’s Flaming Lips’ “She Don’t Use Jelly.” This isn’t quite as embarrassing as having the most overplayed song of 1996 on a mix CD that I made, so I let it play.

  “I can’t believe you were willing to hang out with me,” I say. “Considering the kind of crap music I made you listen to.”

  “Well, you were hot,” Jason says with a grin.

  “Were?”

  He laughs and doesn’t say anything else.

  As the CD goes on, I start to vaguely remember making this mix for him. I remember putting on some Sublime songs, thinking they would be fun to listen to while we got high together. It sort of brings me back to the days of high school, when my Nana was alive and life was . . . well, pretty damn good. High school was good for me, maybe the best time of my life, in retrospect. Studying sucked, of course, but I had a great time and my choice of the hottest guys in the school. I imagined myself being a famous musician by now, or at least something famous or at least something really cool. I definitely never saw myself at age 32 teaching grade school and engaged to some loser that I don’t even like, much less love.

  No, I don’t mean that.

  I like Larry. I sort of love him. I mean, who’s really in love when they get married? That’s something that grows over time.

  Anyway, I’m just . . . upset. Not at Larry.

  I’m staring out the window, thinking about all this when I feel tears coming to my eyes. Jason glances over at me and he can tell I’m upset. He reaches over and takes my hand for a second, but then quickly takes it back because he needs his right hand to work the accelerator.

  Eventually, we pull over at a McDonald’s. After we pull into the lot, Jason says to me, “You okay, Tasha?”

  I nod. “Sorry.”

  “Why are you apologizing?” he says. “Your grandmother died. I think you have a right to be upset.”

  I nod again, although that’s only a small part of why I’m crying. I remember how Nana was always telling me that Jason was in love with me, and how I never believed he
r. She was the only one who guessed. Well, except for all of Jason’s girlfriends.

  We order food, both of us opting for burgers and Cokes. When we’re sitting at the table, devouring our high-calorie meals, Jason looks pointedly at my meal. “You used to always order chicken nuggets when we were kids,” he notes. He’s smiling gently and I can tell he’s trying to take my mind off whatever upset me in the car.

  Jason will never let me forget that we knew each other back when we were two stupid kids. “I know,” I say. “But then they ruined the nuggets.”

  “Did they?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “They used to be juicier and greasier and even have dark-meat nuggets. Without the possibility of dark-meat nuggets, I don’t see the point.”

  “You realize,” Jason says, “that the reason they changed the chicken nuggets was that there was a lawsuit that said that whatever was in the nuggets before didn’t even qualify them to be called ‘chicken,’ right?”

  “So?”

  “So that doesn’t bother you? That you were basically eating mystery meat?”

  “Hey, I don’t come to this place to eat healthy,” I say. “Whatever was in those nuggets, it tasted good.”

  Jason laughs, and I realize that this isn’t the kind of easy conversation I could ever have with Larry. He’s too . . . serious. He could never joke around about chicken nuggets. Or anything, really.

  “So,” Jason says, chewing on a French fry. “I’ve got to ask you, what’s sex like with Larry?”

  I spit Coke all over my tray. Literally. I have to grab a napkin to clean it up, while Jason smirks at me and says, “That good, huh?”

  “It’s fine,” I say, trying to hide my pink cheeks.

  “Why are you so red?” he says. “We’ve talked about sex before.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” I don’t want to point out that we talked about sex before Jason admitted that I was the object of his desires. “You just never asked me about Larry before.”

  “Well, I didn’t think you’d be marrying the guy.”

  “Well, it’s fine,” I say again, sticking my chin out defiantly.

  “Fine? Wow.”

  “What do you expect me to say?” I retort. “That it’s mind blowing?”

  “No,” he says. “I definitely didn’t expect you to say that.”

  I take a breath. If Jason’s goal was trying to keep me from feeling sad, he’s succeeded. Now I just feel irritated. “So what are you saying?” I ask, my voice growing angry and a bit sarcastic. “You think if you and I had sex, it would be so mind blowing or something?”

  For a second, Jason looks stunned that I said that, enough that I feel a twinge of guilt. Finally, he recovers and says in a quiet voice, “At least I’d do my best to try.”

  Jason and I just stare at each other for a minute. While we’ve talked about sex before, this is the first time we’ve ever hinted at the idea of having sex together. I would have thought the idea would be weird, but it’s weirdly not weird. And my heart speeds up a bit when Jason leans forward and says in an even lower voice: “I have a mouth, after all.”

  I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath for a minute. I feel an almost forgotten tingling in my panties, the way I feel right before I know something is going to happen with a guy I’m really into. I don’t know why I’m feeling this way, because it’s just Jason. All I know is that I haven’t had this feeling once in the entire time I’ve been with Larry. And I’ve missed it.

  I think that’s all this is. There’s nothing between me and Jason, it’s just that Larry and I don’t have enough romance in our relationship. Well, maybe not romance, but heat. Once I get back, that’s just something we’ll need to work on once we get married.

  I clear my throat. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I’m fine, thank you very much.”

  “So you say,” Jason says, not looking like he believes a word of it.

  TwelveWe make it to Pittsburgh in a record six hours, including our trip to McDonald’s. Jason drives fast. It’s the one way in which he’s a little reckless, since he seems so careful and conservative in most aspects of his life. Our conversation about sex gets quickly forgotten as we listen to the radio, and he lets me reminisce a little about Nana. I don’t feel so sad anymore, because I know she had a long life, but I do miss her.

  Jason parks in his own driveway, next door to ours, then transfers himself out of the car. There are a few layers of bricks that divide his family’s property from my family’s, which I can step over easily, but I know from experience is too high for Jason to jump over in his wheelchair. He’ll have to go around them to get to my house, but I see him hesitating.

  “I should probably let you go home yourself,” he says. “I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Intrude?” I blink at him. “Jason, you just drove me hundreds of miles, and you’re practically family. You should come inside.”

  He frowns at my comment. I don’t know why he’s so reluctant all of a sudden, but I finally convince him to come in. But of course, right after he agrees, I remember what the problem is and why we always used to hang out at Jason’s house and not mine. We’ve got two steps to get up our front porch.

  Not that Jason can’t handle two steps or anything. He can. But just barely. I watch him do a wheelie in front of the steps and his front wheels just barely catch the top step and slide off. He tries again and has the same problem. “Fuck,” I hear him mutter under his breath.

  On his third try, he makes it, and I’m certain for a second he’s going to slip and fall backwards or something. I’ve seen him wipe out before, but he doesn’t this time. As his back wheels land safely on my parents’ porch, I hear him breathe a sigh of relief.

  I ring the doorbell because I don’t have the keys anymore, and my mother answers within ten seconds, as if she’s been waiting by the door for us. Her eyes light up at the sight of me and she gives me a big hug. “Tasha!” she cries. “It’s so good to see you!”

  She doesn’t seem particularly sad about Nana. Of course, Nana wasn’t her mother, and I think she’s a little relieved to finally have her out of the house, one way or another. I don’t think Mom had counted on Nana living so long when she agreed to let Dad move her in with us.

  “Jason!” she says. “Oh my God, it’s good to see you too! It’s been over a year, hasn’t it?”

  He nods and gives her his half smile. “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Moran.”

  “You should call me Jill,” she says to him, even though she’s now told him that at least a dozen times. “After all, you’re all grown up now.”

  I know there’s no way Jason will ever call my mother Jill after twenty years of Mrs. Moran.

  I walk into the house and see that my mother has re-carpeted the house. It’s this fluffy white carpeting that you can only buy after your kids are already grown up and no longer in the phase where they spill every drink you pour them. I notice my mother is in her socks and I quickly take my shoes off at the door. I look behind me and see Jason hesitating in the entrance.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask him.

  “My wheels are pretty dirty,” he says in a low voice. “I don’t want to mess up your mom’s carpet.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  He’s running his wheels back and forth over the welcome mat and looking nervous. “Maybe I should just go,” he says.

  Mom comes out and sees what the problem is and she insists that he stay, bringing a towel out from the bathroom to give him a longer space to go back and forth over to clean his wheels off. She looks kind of embarrassed and says that nobody was very happy when she got that white carpet, and that it’s been impossible to keep clean. “Also, what about when Lydia has a baby? It’s going to be a mess.”

  My face burns. When Lydia has a baby? What about me? I’m going to get married too!

  “So where’s Larry?” Mom asks me, as if reading my mind. “I thought we were going to get to meet him.”

  “Um, no, not right now,”
I mumble. “He . . . he really wanted to come, but things were extremely busy at work.” I’m not about to tell her that I asked Larry not to come because I felt like I couldn’t deal with both him and my family.

  “Oh,” Mom says. She looks at Jason. “But don’t you and Larry work at the same company?”

  Damn, when did my mother get so smart?

  To my surprise, Jason replies, “No, not anymore.”

  What?

  “Oh, really?” Mom asks. “Did you move to a different company?”

  Jason shakes his head. “No, I quit investment banking. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Are you kidding?” I practically yell. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  He blinks. “I don’t know. It never came up.”

  “Well, when did this happen?” I sputter.

  “Last week,” he says. “I got accepted to NYU for a PhD program in computer science and I decided I was sick of being miserable at work. Plus, I don’t really want to be a forty-year-old student. So . . . you know, now or never.” He adds, “It’s not like I’m going to have a wedding I have to pay for in the near future.”

  My mother catches that last statement and says in a gentle voice, “Jason, honey, I’m sure you’ll meet a wonderful woman someday.”

  He ignores her patronizing tone. “Anyway, I’m going to start in a few weeks, so I figure I should take a break so I’m not burnt out on my first day.”

  I’m blown away. Jason has been talking about doing this for years, but I was beginning to feel pretty sure he’d never actually do it, especially when he said that Melissa wanted him to hold out at the company till he was forty. I figured at this rate, he’d be totally gray by age forty, and way too worn out to consider going back to school. I guess breaking up with Melissa did him some good. I’d noticed he seemed in a good mood during our trip, but I egotistically thought it was because we were spending time together.

  “So what do you think?” he asks me. He sounds a little nervous. He always wanted my approval.

  “Are you kidding?” I say. “I’ve been telling you to do this for years. I think it’s great.”