Roommates

by Whitney Lyles

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When is this due?”

  “Today.” She didn’t seem too worried. “And it’s supposed to be five pages.”

  “What was the exact assignment?”

  “I have to pick a poem from this book.” She held up a completely thrashed hardcover book with remnants of Dickinson’s portrait on the cover. “Then I have to analyze it.”

  “Let me see the poem.” They spent two hours working on Megan’s paper, and though she hadn’t actually sat down and written it for her, she felt as if she should probably still be paid. She had stood over Megan’s shoulders, practically telling her what to write verbatim.

  The thought of money reminded her that she needed to go to the bank to deposit a check that Justine had given her for some of the bills before she’d moved out. Even though all the utilities had been in Justine’s name, and Elise had typically written her checks, she had covered the bills for the last couple of months, and Justine paid her back. She wanted to deposit it right away while she was fairly certain that her former roommate had money in her account.

  “Do you have any idea where there is a Mission Federal Credit Union around here?” she asked Iris.

  “Oh yeah. There is one right by campus. I need to go there, too. Do you want to go together?”

  “Okay. I’m going right now though,” she said as she reached for her car keys.

  “That’s fine. But I’ll drive.”

  They walked to a basic four-door sedan. The only thing unique about the Saturn was its light lavender paint. It wouldn’t have been Elise’s first color choice, but maybe it appealed to a younger crowd. Surprisingly, the car was immaculately clean and smelled like fresh lemons. A tree-shaped car air freshener dangled from the rearview mirror.

  “That was nice of Nicole to let you use the car while she’s away,” Elise said.

  “Yeah, she said we could drive it around because it’s not good to leave a car sitting for that long.” She opened the sunroof.

  Elise sensed that Nicole had probably assumed they would take it to the grocery store every once in while. While eating brats and drinking Heineken, she probably had no idea that her roommates were using her Saturn as their primary source of transportation.

  They waited in line at the bank. Elise looked at the tellers, girls her age, working behind the counter. She was just starting to think that it was rare to meet a male bank teller when her eyes landed on one. He was unique for a couple of reasons. One, he appeared to be the only guy who worked at the bank. Two, he was drop-dead hot. She guessed that he was no older than twenty-one, and way too young for her. But perhaps he could date Iris or Megan.

  He looked like the type of guy who would be in a soap opera. All those daytime actors looked as if they hit the gym six days a week and had spent the last two weeks tanning in the Bahamas. Even from where she stood she could see how bright his sea green eyes were. They looked like crystals, and he had the kind of long, dark eyelashes every girl dreamed of growing. The only thing that needed some work were his clothes. He wore a white short-sleeved button-down shirt and a very bland tie that looked as if he had borrowed it from his father’s closet. She couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing in those clothes, or any clothes for that matter. Why didn’t he run off to Vegas and join Chippendales? He could probably make three times the amount he made at the bank, just in tips.

  She was thinking of ways to subtly point him out to Iris when she realized he was staring at her. She smiled at him, and though he was too young, she couldn’t help but feel flattered that he’d noticed her. He lifted his hand to wave, and that’s when she realized that he wasn’t checking her out. He was waiting for her to come to the counter. It was her turn.

  She handed him the check from Justine and a very small check she’d been meaning to deposit for some time. When she was in elementary school her father had bought her stock in Nordstrom, and she still received very small checks from the department store a few times a year. She handed the hot bank teller the money and glanced at his name tag while he typed her checking account number into the computer. Billy.

  He looked at her Nordstrom check, flipped it over, then looked at it again. She suddenly felt really absurd for depositing a four dollar check. He looked puzzled. He flipped the check over and examined the front of it. “This check isn’t made out to you,” he said.

  She’d been depositing these checks for over ten years, and no one had ever said anything to her. “Well, yes it is. My name is right beneath my father’s on the check. See.” She pointed.

  “Yeah, but the way it’s written it means that you’re a minor and that your father is the payee.”

  Maybe she should just roll with this and pretend she was a minor. It would work to her benefit if she was ever feeling lonely. “Well, I have to be honest. This is the first time anyone has ever said anything to me about this, and I’ve been over eighteen for some time now.”

  “That’s really strange. I can’t figure out why anyone hasn’t said anything to you.”

  “Well, we’re talking about checks that are under four dollars here.” She found herself approaching The Cliff of Babble. “I mean, I just never really thought they were that big of a deal. I always just saw them as meaningless little checks. Little ones here and there to cover the fees when I was overdrawn from my checking account.” This was only getting worse. Not only did she appear totally over the hill, but also poor and irresponsible in front of the Chippendales bank teller.

  “Meaningless money?” he said. “I’ve never heard anyone call money meaningless before. If you saved five of them, it would be a tank of gas.”

  She felt her cheeks going red and was tempted to explain that he was completely right, and she didn’t believe money was meaningless at all, but people were starting to stare, and Iris had finished taking care of her accounting and was now waiting in the back of the bank with her arms folded over her chest.

  He lowered his voice. “But listen. I’ll deposit this check for you today. You have to call Nordstrom though and have them change the account to just your name.” He winked at her. “I’ll hook you up just this once.”

  Was he flirting with her? She hadn’t been winked at in ages. She deposited her checks, and as she said good-bye, she thought maybe she would need to return to take out a loan or open a new savings account. She loved feeling like Demi Moore.

  They stopped at Rubio’s in Pacific Beach for fish tacos on the way home. She was fishing in her purse for money when she noticed the light on her cell phone blinking. She had messages. The first one was from Carly.

  “You still have stock in Nordstrom? I can’t believe you haven’t sold that thing by now. The market is good—you should cash in. But first you need to learn how to lock the keys on your cell phone. You dialed me again, and I just heard your whole conversation at the bank. You better be careful. Anyway, call me!”

  Oops. Thank God it had only been her weird encounter with the bank teller. One of these days someone was going to overhear her gossiping.

  Next message. “Hey Elise. It’s Max. I was thinking about heading to the track on Thursday and wanted to see of you wanted to come with me. Give me a call when you get a chance.”

  She was going out with him.

  17. And They’re Off

  The morning of Elise’s date with Max she woke filled with nervous energy. Bella slept next to her, and Scrubbles slept at the foot of her bed. Lying next to the two pets made her relax a little more.

  If it were up to Bella, the two pets would be best friends. She wagged her tail furiously and even jumped in circles sometimes when Scrubbles entered the room. However, the cat had kept his cool. He wasn’t entirely sure about the dog yet and often eyed her suspiciously if she came too close. Despite his trepidation, Scrubbles had seemed to find comfort in Elise’s room. Who could really blame him? The apartment was too gross, even for an animal.

  She pictured Max in his shop, his toned arms peeking from a T-shirt while he tuned a G
ibson. He was probably as calm as could be. She felt hungry, but when she thought of food, nothing sounded good to her. She opened the fridge and scanned the contents. Leftover pizza. Yogurt. Beer. A bottle of vodka. The only thing that sounded good to her was toast, and she headed for the pantry, nearly tripping over Iris’s Ugg boots en route.

  While she waited for her toast to cook, she thought about what she should wear. Her only experience with the track had been seeing Seabiscuit on the big screen. Since watching the movie she’d been under the impression that horse races were a dressy affair. Women wore sundresses with matching gloves and glamorous hats. What would Max think if she greeted him at the front door, wearing a flowered sundress with gloves to her elbows and a hat that Princess Diana would’ve sported? She envisioned a look of panic washing over his face, the color draining from his cheeks. She’d stick with jeans and a blouse.

  The toaster let out a loud ding, and she pulled out the bread with the tips of her fingers. When she opened the silverware drawer it was almost empty. Except for the dull butcher knife Elise had taken from her parents’ Salvation Army pile eight years ago and a cheese grater, there was nothing else. She looked at the mound of dishes in the sink and decided she would rather not pick through lasagna explosions and bowls with cereal mush to find a butter knife. She’d unloaded her silverware, but Megan and Iris had already used every single piece, discarding them all in the wasteland known as their sink when they were finished.

  While buttering her toast with a butcher knife she debated waiting for Max on the street corner a block from their apartment. This way he wouldn’t have to see the dish heap in their sink or the three-day-old cranberry vodka cocktails on the coffee table, a roach clip floating in one.

  Though she didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot, she decided to ask them to help her tidy up a bit before Max arrived. It was only fair, considering she hadn’t mixed one cocktail yet. However, it was ten o’clock, and Max was picking her up at two. The girls were still asleep. So far they hadn’t gotten out of bed before eleven. And the odor of cat urine that wafted from Iris’s room was enough to keep her away for the moment.

  She took a trip to the Dumpster and when she returned, she heard music coming from Megan’s room. She knocked on the door and waited. “Coming!”

  When her roommate opened the door, she wore a G-string and pink tank top, which didn’t leave much to the imagination. Elise waited for her to explain that she hadn’t done laundry in six months and thus had run out of clean pants and a bra. Instead she waited for Elise to explain what she was doing in her doorway with the vacuum and a bottle of 409.

  “Hi,” Elise said. “I don’t mean to bug you, but I have a date today, and he’s picking me up here . . .” She hated being the anal one and could feel an uncontrollable babble attack coming on. The moment she stumbled off, she’d uncontrollably spew out sentences like a broken sprinkler head. She tried to remain placid and continued, “And anyway, I was wondering if you guys could help me clean up because well, he’s going to be here in about two hours, and he hasn’t seen my place yet, and um—”

  “You have a date? Yeah, I’ll help you clean. But you know most of the mess is Iris’s. And if she didn’t sleep all day, our apartment wouldn’t look this way.” She immediately headed to her sister’s door and let herself in.

  “Iris! Elise has a date, and we need to clean the apartment.”

  “What?”

  “Get up. We need to clean the apartment. Elise has a date, and he’s gonna be here soon!”

  “Get out.” Hangovers had a way of making people sound like they were dying.

  “Get up and help. You can start by cleaning out that cat box. It’s disgusting.”

  “What’s disgusting is the sound of you having sex every night. Maybe I wouldn’t sleep so late if there was any peace and quiet around here.”

  “Shut up, Iris,” she hissed. “He’s still here.”

  Iris looked at Elise. “Did you hear her last night, Elise?”

  She had heard something but was so tired she never quite figured out what the noise was. “Um. I fell asleep early,” she said not wanting to get involved. She was thinking of ways to prevent them from fighting when out of Megan’s room sauntered a guy with a severe case of bed head and extremely wrinkled clothes. Elise thought that perhaps she would be introduced to this gentleman, but instead he walked past them and mumbled, “Later.”

  Who was this? Obviously he was responsible for keeping Iris up all night, but Megan was clearly not going to provide many details about his identity as she sat there bantering with Iris in her underwear. Elise really hoped she got dressed before Max arrived.

  Iris hopped out of bed, also wearing only her underpants and a tank top. “That guy is such a loser,” she said. Elise wondered if he could hear them. “Such a player.”

  It was awkward standing there while the two of them fought in their underwear. However, listening to them argue was way too good to pass up. She had no idea Megan was romantically involved with anyone, let alone some cad who apparently enjoyed loud sex.

  She avoided looking at them and let her eyes wander over Iris’s room. The carpet was covered in dirty laundry, crusty underwear, and jeans with grass stains around the lower hems. If Elise were asked what color Iris’s carpet was, she would honestly have no clue. There was not one square inch of unoccupied floor space.

  A congealed Salisbury steak dinner rested on her nightstand next to several half-full glasses of wine. Cigarette butts floated like dead logs in her Chardonnay, making the liquid appear piss-colored. There was dry cat food sprinkled over her dirty clothes, and Elise noticed a small stain of blood on her sheets.

  “Whatever, Iris. At least I get some. When was the last time a guy even called you?”

  Elise cleared her throat. “Listen guys, I didn’t mean to start a huge argument. But um . . .”

  “I’m not the one who had people over to watch The Real World last night,” Megan said to Iris. “The living room is your mess.”

  “Why don’t we all just pitch in and take different tasks?” she asked. “It will make things go faster.”

  “I’m not doing the living room.” Iris was clear.

  “Well, I’m not—”

  “Okay, I’ll do the living room,” Elise said. “Iris, why don’t you do the bathroom? Megan, you do the kitchen.”

  They spent all morning cleaning. Elise suspected they were doing a half-assed job, shoving everything in closets and cupboards just to make things look tidy. But there was no time to complain. After showering she spent several minutes picking out an outfit and settled on her favorite jeans and a white Spanish-looking top with red flowers that fell off her shoulders.

  While she waited for Max she watched a rerun of The Real World with Iris and Megan. She’d never been a huge fan of the show, but since she had moved to Mission Beach she had really begun to conclude that you had to be a total nut to qualify for the show.

  The doorbell rang, and Iris and Megan didn’t even bother to take their eyes from the television. This was fine with her, because she didn’t really want a huge audience while she greeted Max.

  There was something about a guy with wet hair that turned her on, and seeing Max with his damp hair slicked away from his face made a flock of butterflies explode in her stomach. He smelled delicious, too, and except for his little soul patch beneath his lip, his face looked smooth and clean from a fresh shave.

  Thank God she hadn’t run out and bought a Princess Diana hat and dress. He was dressed in jeans and a green T-shirt.

  “Come on in,” she said. She wondered what he would think of her after meeting her college-aged roommates and seeing her run-down apartment. He owned his shop and the loft that he lived in above it, and she suddenly felt slightly insecure about her living situation.

  “I gotta admit,” he said. “I was a little jealous when I drove in here.”

  “You were?”

  “Yeah, I mean, you must get the best sunsets ever
y night living down by the water. I grew up at the beach, and that is one thing I really miss living out in North Park.”

  “Well, you’re welcome to come over anytime. We can actually see them from our balcony.”

  “I might have to take you up on that.”

  “Max, this is Iris and Megan.”

  Her roommates sat with their feet on the coffee table and each waved a hand at her date. “Great to meet you guys,” he said.

  She felt a need to get him out of there before he noticed the stains on the carpet or Megan’s butt peeking from the bottom of her shorts. “Well, all right. We should be on our way.” She reached for her purse.

  “You mind riding on my bike?” Max said. “I have an extra helmet.”

  She had forgotten about his motorcycle and wondered how she could miss such a huge detail. She’d be touching him. “No. Not at all.” However, this suddenly changed everything. If she had dragon breath she could forget making it to date two with him.

  He looked at her flip-flops. A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “You can’t wear those on the bike though. You gotta wear something that covers your feet.”

  She quickly headed back to her room and changed into her Pumas with the silver stripes up the sides. After sliding into her sneakers she tore through her desk drawer like an animal. Of course she was out of breath freshener when she needed it most. For a moment she debated brushing her teeth again. However, he was waiting around the corner, and would probably hear the frantic sound of her grating toothbrush. Instead, she slipped into the bathroom on her way back to the living room, squeezed a dollop of toothpaste onto her finger, shoved it in her mouth, swished it around, and swallowed before joining them.

  The air outside was unusually warm and dry for the beach. She was glad they were experiencing a dry, hot summer, because this meant the ocean’s humidity wouldn’t make her face look like wet spaghetti.