Look Both Ways

by Alison Cherry

  Carlos doesn’t seem bothered at all. “That’s so awesome. Zo’s spent the entire last year talking about Lana. When she found out she was moving to New York, it was one of the first things she mentioned.” All I hear is, I was there when Zoe got into Juilliard, and you weren’t. I picture Carlos and me as two rams, butting each other with our big curved horns.

  When the waiter comes, I order a burger, medium rare. I need to fortify myself with red meat if I’m going to wage a subtextual war all weekend.

  Zoe orders, then gets up and heads toward the bathroom. “I’ll be right back,” she says. “You kids play nice, okay?”

  Carlos smiles at her and says, “Why wouldn’t we?” He’s not acting like I’m a threat to him at all, which means one of us is misreading this situation. I desperately hope it’s not me.

  As soon as she’s gone, he leans toward me. “So, listen…Zoe and I haven’t seen each other in more than a month, and we were wondering if maybe…could you give us the room tonight? And maybe on Saturday, after we get back from camping? You can obviously sleep there tomorrow, while we’re gone.” He looks apologetic, but I can tell it’s not really a request.

  I don’t know why I’m surprised; obviously Zoe and Carlos want to be alone tonight. They’re not exactly going to lie chastely side by side and catch up on Boulder gossip while I sleep six feet away. In a couple of hours, they’re going to have sex—full-on, naked sex, where no body parts are off limits and nobody pushes anyone’s hands away. Maybe if I were satisfying her even a little, she would’ve canceled his trip.

  I can’t be upset with Carlos for any of this. It’s entirely my fault he’s here.

  “Sure,” I say, and my voice comes out scratchy and hoarse, like it had to claw its way up my throat. “You can have the room. That’s fine.”

  “Thanks, Brooklyn.” Carlos puts his hand over mine and gives it a grateful squeeze. “Zoe said you were cool. I can see why she likes you so much.”

  Half of me is going, Zoe likes me so much! and the other half is going, I really wish my girlfriend’s boyfriend would let go of my hand. I flash him a quick smile and pull away.

  When Zoe comes back from the bathroom, she slides into her chair and beams at us. “What’d I miss?” she asks. “Did you guys bond?”

  “Yup,” Carlos says at the same time that I say, “You didn’t miss anything.”

  Zoe turns back to her boyfriend, full of questions about his summer job, and I slide my phone out of my purse and text Russell.

  You still free tonight?

  The rest of dinner is excruciating. I spend the first half cataloging every detail of how Zoe and Carlos interact. It’s obvious she likes him better than she likes me, but I want to know exactly how much better. Of course, that quickly becomes exhausting. By the time I’m halfway through my burger, I’m too worn out to pay that kind of attention, and I settle for keeping my eyes on my plate and making sure my mouth is always too full to talk. The second the check lands on the table, I plunk down a twenty and stand to leave.

  Zoe looks up at me. “Where are you going?”

  “I told Russell I’d meet up with him.”

  She makes a pouty face. “Can’t you meet him later? We’re going to get ice cream at Moo-Moo’s. They have that blackberry chocolate chip you like.” I’m not sure why she’s trying to get me to stay; she obviously wants to be alone with her boyfriend.

  “No, thanks. I’m too full for ice cream.” I sling my bag over my shoulder, certain my head is going to explode if I stay here one more second. “Have fun camping tomorrow.”

  “Won’t I see you back in the—” Zoe starts, but Carlos puts his hand over hers, and she stops talking. I guess they’re one of those couples who can communicate telepathically. “Thanks, Brooklyn,” she says instead.

  “See you Saturday.” Zoe moves to get up and hug me, but I can’t handle her arms around me tonight; it’ll only feel like a consolation prize. I pretend I don’t see how she’s reaching for me, and I walk out of the restaurant.

  I’m not even twenty paces down the street when my phone chimes with a new text:

  You’re not mad, are you?

  No, I write back. Have fun. I add a smiley emoticon, glad she can’t see my actual face.

  The phone chimes again immediately.

  You’re the absolute best. xoxoxo

  I want to feel like I’m in control of something, so I don’t reply.

  I go straight to the dorm and stuff my laptop, a book, pajamas, toiletries, a towel, and a change of clothes into my duffel bag. It’s probably way too much stuff, but I don’t know what time they’re leaving tomorrow, and the last thing I want is to show up when they’re still in bed, sleepy and naked. I try not to even look at Zoe’s bed as I pack, so I won’t think too hard about what’s going to happen there in a couple of hours.

  Russell texts me his room number in Dewald, and I head over. I assume he’ll have a roommate, too, but when he opens his door, I’m surprised to see that the room is a tiny single. The walls are covered in black-and-white posters of architecture, and there’s a small drafting table set up in the corner and a pile of unfolded laundry on the bed. I kind of expected the room to smell musty or sweaty, like Jason’s always did, but instead it smells like detergent.

  “Hey,” he says. “Come on in. What’s with all the stuff?”

  I plunk my bag on the floor and sit on the edge of his bed. “I got sexiled,” I say.

  “Oh, man. That sucks. Wait, who’s Zoe dating?”

  Me, I want to scream, but instead I say, “Someone from home. He’s visiting from Colorado. Carlos.” His name comes out of my mouth like it’s a synonym for “slimy” or “chemotherapy.”

  “Is he terrible?” Russell asks.

  “No, he’s fine. He’s actually really nice. I just…I want to sleep in my own room.” With my own girlfriend.

  “Where are you going to sleep tonight?”

  I shrug. “The lounge in Ramsey, I guess. I know we’re not really supposed to, but I don’t think anyone ever checks.”

  “Those couches are kind of short, aren’t they? Do you want to stay here?”

  I look around. “Where?”

  “You can have the bed—I washed the sheets today. I can crash on the floor. I have a sleeping bag.”

  I search his face for signs that he’s just being polite, but he kind of looks like he wants me to stay. “Really?” I ask.

  “Really. It’s no big deal.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “And, um, do you think maybe I could sleep here on Saturday, too? Zoe and Carlos won’t be around tomorrow, so I can have the room then.”

  “Of course you can. It’ll be cool to hang out. Let me fold this stuff, and then maybe we can watch a movie or something.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I say. I’m too distracted to talk, and I don’t want Russell to notice how preoccupied I am.

  He takes his time folding his laundry into superprecise squares, and I try not to look; we’re not close enough to know what patterns are printed on each other’s underwear. I’ve learned enough uncomfortably intimate things already tonight. When Russell’s done, he joins me on the bed, facing his giant desktop computer. We pick a silly buddy cop movie—I can’t deal with watching people have actual feelings right now—and switch off the light. A few minutes into the movie, Russell wraps a friendly arm around my shoulders, like he knows I need to be comforted, and I snuggle against his side. It makes me feel tiny and warm and protected. I’m not able to forget about Zoe and Carlos, exactly, but knowing someone’s here for me numbs the pain a little.

  When the movie ends, Russell doesn’t move, and his breathing is so deep and steady that I wonder for a minute whether he’s fallen asleep. I’m about to slip out from under his arm and go sleep on the lounge couch after all, when he clears his throat. “Did you know there are more heavy metal bands per capita in Scandinavia than anywhere else in the world?”

  I snort. “That is…not as surprising as it probably should
be.”

  “Damn. I was trying to blow your mind.” He thinks for a minute. “Did you know female kangaroos have three vaginas?”

  “What? No. That does blow my mind.” Russell laughs, and he’s so close that the sound rumbles through me like when you stand too close to the speakers at a concert.

  “Hey,” he says. “You seemed upset earlier. Was it the sexiling, or is something else bothering you?”

  It’s nice that he noticed, though it’s also annoying that Russell is so much more in touch with my emotions than Zoe, who should be paying the closest attention. “Thanks, but I don’t want to talk about it, if you don’t mind,” I say. “I feel better now that I’m here. You and the movie and the kangaroo vaginas totally helped.”

  “Kangaroo vaginas—the cure for what ails you.”

  I laugh and sit up. “We should get some sleep. Are you sure you’ll be okay on the floor?”

  “Yup,” he says. “I don’t really fit in that bed anyway.”

  “I feel bad. I can still go to the lounge if—”

  “Brooklyn,” he says. “Shut up and let me be nice to you.”

  I shut up.

  He goes to brush his teeth, and I change into my pajamas and climb into his bed, which has dark blue sheets and a striped comforter that screams “boy.” It’s a little pilly and not nearly as soft as my green polka-dotted bedding, but at least it smells clean. Russell comes back from the bathroom wearing square glasses that look really cute on him, and he spreads out his sleeping bag right next to the bed like he’s guarding me from something. I offer him the only pillow, but he lets me keep it and balls up a couple of sweatshirts under his head instead. When he turns out the light, I expect things to get awkward, but they don’t. Lying there in the dark with him feels surprisingly comfortable.

  “Russell?” I say.

  “Mm-hmm?”

  “Road trips—love or hate?”

  “Love,” he says. “Before I got this gig, my sister and I were talking about driving across the country this summer. We still might do it next year. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason. It’s a game someone taught me.”

  “Oh, okay.” Russell’s quiet for a second, and I think that’s the end of it, but then he says, “Emo songs about how love is a lie and people always disappoint you—love or hate?”

  I laugh; that’s a really good one, much more creative than anything Zoe or I ever came up with. “Most of the time, hate. But in that first week or so after a relationship ends, love. When you actually feel like love is a lie, there’s nothing like a good angsty song to validate you.”

  “You don’t really think love is a lie, though, do you?”

  Right now I think love is a big confusing snarl, but I say, “No, of course not.”

  “Good. That would be a depressing way to live.”

  “Looking at other people’s vacation photos, love or hate?”

  “Fewer than fifty, love,” Russell says. “More than fifty, get over yourself, nobody cares. Marathoning a TV show you know is objectively bad but that you can’t seem to stop watching, even though you have no idea why—love or hate?”

  “Hate. I have to take my guilty pleasures in small doses or it makes me feel gross. Like, I actually feel physically sticky.” Russell makes a snorting sound, and I say, “What?”

  “I don’t believe in guilty pleasure,” he says.

  “Oh, come on. Are you telling me there’s not one single thing you secretly love?”

  “Of course there is. But I think that if you like something, you should just like it. You don’t need to apologize for it or explain yourself to anyone. Why should liking something make anyone feel guilty?”

  “You’re right,” I say, and I wonder if he’s thinking about Olivier.

  With Zoe, I was always satisfied playing this game with normal topics like amusement parks and sad books and the idea of having children. But Russell pushes me to come up with quirkier, funnier, more creative topics: guessing the killer right from the beginning of a mystery, sticking your hand out the window while you drive, that feeling of falling you get when you’re right on the edge of sleep. I had thought Zoe’s and my new version of Love or Hate was as good as the old way, but now that I’m playing this game with words again, I’m surprised by how much better I like it. Having someone really listen to me actually makes me feel closer than touching does.

  When you start dating someone, people always say you’ve become “more than friends.” But now, as I laugh with Russell, I’m less sure that what Zoe and I have now is more than we had before.

  I hear him roll toward me in the dark. “Hey, Brooklyn?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  I hadn’t planned to do much of anything besides sulking in my room and hoping Zoe came home early. “Nothing, really. Why?”

  “I was thinking of driving around the Hudson Valley a little bit and checking out some of the other weird small towns around here. You want to come?”

  “Is there a group going?”

  “No, it would just be us.”

  For a second I feel disloyal to Zoe for even thinking about it; first I’m playing our game with someone else, and now I’m considering spending my day off alone with Russell. But she’s the one who should feel guilty; she’s across campus having sex with someone else right now while I’m having an innocent pajama party with my gay friend.

  “That sounds really fun,” I say. “I’d love to.”

  “Great. Maybe we could grab breakfast at Kayla’s first? I’ve been meaning to try their scones.”

  I tell him I can’t wait, and for a few minutes, I’m proud of myself. If Zoe gets to have fun without me, I get to have fun without her, too. But as I try to fall asleep in an empty bed for the first time in eight days, I can’t help missing her.

  The next morning is bright and sunny, and Russell and I pick a random direction and set off down the highway. We stop in every town we pass and investigate the weird little shops—the one that sells knives carved from animal bones, the bookstore full of tomes about conspiracy theories, the antiques shop with the dresses that were supposedly owned by Audrey Hepburn. We buy a baguette and some cheeses with fancy names and have a picnic next to a half-dry creek. We play Love or Hate. We think up titles for silly Shakespeare-musical mash-ups, like A Midsummer Night’s Dreamgirls and The Lion King Lear and Thoroughly Modern Macbeth. Russell tells me you can write a thirty-five-mile-long line with the average pencil and that it’s illegal to burp inside a church in Nebraska. When we get back to Allerdale in the evening, we grab dinner at Sammy’s and spend a couple of hours messing around on one of the practice room pianos.

  It should be a perfect day. Instead, I spend the entire time missing Zoe.

  The scenic crew and I start loading the Macbeth set into Legrand early on Saturday morning, so I don’t see her again until we’re all called in for a surprise company meeting that night. The second Russell and I walk into Haydu, she calls my name from across the room, and a smile breaks across my face when I spot her waving and gesturing toward the seat she’s saved for me. She looks a little tanner from hiking, and it’s strange and terrible that she could change even a little bit in the two days we’ve been apart.

  “I’m going to sit with Zoe,” I tell Russell. “You want to get dinner after the meeting?”

  He looks surprised; we’ve spent so much time together the last couple of days that I guess he expected me to sit with him. But when he says, “Sure,” he doesn’t sound upset at all. “I’ll meet you out front when this is over.” He smiles at me and then heads straight for Olivier, who’s chatting with Barb near the stage.

  I bump into a bunch of people as I hurry over to Zoe; I can’t get to her fast enough. When I sit down, she hugs me close, and even though the arm of the chair is digging into my side, even though I know I should be pissed at her, I never want her to let go.

  “Hey,” she says close to my ear. “I missed you.”


  I think, No you didn’t, but what comes out of my mouth is, “I missed you, too. Where’s Carlos?”

  “He’s showering. Hopefully this meeting won’t take long. Do you know what it’s about?”

  “No,” I say, and I try not to think about the reasons Carlos might need to shower at six in the evening. “Hopefully it’s nothing bad. Did you guys have fun camping?”

  “Yeah, it was great! The Catskills are gorgeous, and the hike we did was supereasy after what we’re used to at home. Look at this!” She digs out her phone and shows me a picture taken from the top of a small mountain.

  I scroll through her photos: trees, a lake, Carlos with a makeshift walking stick, Zoe eating a granola bar, about fifteen selfies with their faces pressed together, a few shots of them kissing. Then come the photos of Zoe setting up their tent and Carlos roasting marshmallows over a campfire. When I get to one of Carlos shirtless in a red sleeping bag, I hand the phone back. “Looks really nice,” I say.

  “What’d you do while we were gone?”

  Before I can answer, Bob Sussman jogs onto the stage. “Good evening, warriors for art!” he shouts. “Is everyone having a good summer?”

  The whole company cheers, and Bob smiles so hard, I think his face might split down the middle. “Wonderful,” he says. “I am so pleased to hear that.”

  “How’s your summer, Bob?” someone shouts from the front row, and everyone laughs. If someone asked Marcus Spooner a question like that, he’d probably give us a lecture about how happiness is detrimental to acting, then throw a few cream pies at us for good measure.

  “My summer has been spectacular!” Bob answers. “Thank you for asking! It’s such a delight to see all of you. The work you’ve done over the past six weeks has been phenomenal. Some of our long-time donors have told me they think this might be the very best season Allerdale has ever had, and that’s all down to you. Thank you for making it so special.”