by Zhanna Slor
“I think the city of Portland would disagree with you,” Abby laughs.
“About a lot of things, probably.”
“Anyway, you know August when he gets a crush.” Abby rolls her eyes and puts out her cigarette in an ashtray on the patio table. Then she reaches into her bag for a flask and takes a sip. She offers me some, but it’s daytime, so I decline, until she explains that it’s kombucha in there and she recently happened to lose all her water bottles. It’s actually very good. “Margot is already on the hunt for new roommates.”
“She is?” I ask. “But did he say he wasn’t coming back?”
“He didn’t say it, no. He also didn’t mention he was coming back. Or send rent money. Which is due soon, in case you forgot.” Abby continues to stare at me, confused. “How do you not know about any of this?” she asks. I don’t have an answer for her. Perhaps I’ve been spending too much time in my head, or too much time talking to Zoya online. In either case Abby doesn’t seem to want to know the answer to her own question. She checks her watch, a cheap gold knockoff she got with me at the Portland Saturday market last summer, when I went with her to check out PSU. She didn’t end up going there, or anywhere. She got to do whatever she wanted, which at the moment involved a late-night radio show for Radio Milwaukee, a ridiculous amount of yoga, and smoking a ton of weed. Her grandparents were really wealthy was what I’d heard; she and her cousins got a monthly stipend of some kind. I didn’t really want to know the details so I could avoid being jealous. I mean sure, my dad covered my rent and food, but it was only a few hundred bucks a month, and anything else I needed I’d had to get jobs for.
“Fuck, I have to go. Stop at Foundation later if you’re up for it, okay?” Abby says. “You look like you need a drink.”
“I always look like I need a drink,” I joke back. She’s already halfway to Bremen St., her high-heeled boots echoing against the sidewalk. I always do need a drink, if I’m honest with myself. Ever since I’d learned about Zoya, I’d been wound up like a toy, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Or anvil, more likely. And yet, I still talked to her several times a week. Not about anything relating to the DNA test, which hadn’t arrived. Just in general. I told her about my life, she told me about hers. It’s apparently in shambles since her mother died, which I find understandable. I don’t know what I’d do if I woke up one day to find myself totally alone. I’ve never had to face a reality so cruel. It is perhaps my guilt of an easy life that keeps me talking to her. She calls, so I answer. She messages, so I reply. Half the time I don’t know what she’s saying to me, since my Russian is so bad, but it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t seem to have many other people to talk to. If I can make her life a little easier, then what harm would it do?
I head inside Fuel to eat lunch. After I drink coffee and study a bit for my Russian Lit exam—we’d just finished Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, which I thought I would hate due to its unnecessarily large size but totally related to—I take out my phone, which shows a notification that I have three voicemails. Two are from my dad, which surely would kill my mood, so I don’t listen to them. One is from my mom, just checking in. I scroll past the number for their house and click on Margot’s name. If we really do have to find a new roommate, I don’t want Margot choosing on her own, or we’d end up with a house full of her tediously dull friends from school. I’d been the one to convince her to allow Abby and August, who I knew from Riverwest parties, to become our roommates. She’d wanted to rent the extra room to a high school friend with zero conversational skills and teeth so perfect they looked fake. Margot was a magnet for uninteresting people, while I was completely drained by them. I’ll take a crazy person over a boring person any day.
“Hey!” Margot chirps, cheerfully, when the phone stops ringing. At least she’s not mad at me; the more I think about it the more I realize how little time we’ve spent together lately. I’m not sure how I didn’t notice. But what do I know about friendships? This is the first time since I was in grade school that I’ve had any. Not like my sister who’s had the same two best friends since she was like thirteen. Well. Had the same two best friends. It’s like the more normal you are the more friends you can have. “What’s going on?”
“Are you coming home soon?”
“Uh, no, I wasn’t planning on it. Why?”
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while,” I suggest. Before she can argue the point, I ask, “Can we get a drink later? At Foundation maybe? Abby is working the door.”
I hear some fuzzy noises on the other end of the line, as if Margot is moving around on a couch. I try not to spend too much time wondering who’s couch, if it’s not ours. “How does that girl keep her job when she’s always letting in her underage friends?” Margot asks.
“I don’t know how she keeps any job, honestly.”
“It’s called tits, Anna,” Margot laughs. I hear the clock of a lighter, followed by a deep inhale. “You should know a little about that.”
“Tits or not, you have to show up for work on time, generally speaking. Or like, at all.” Maybe Riverwest didn’t get the customer service memo, because half the time I go to Fuel I have to wait forever for the baristas to stop talking to each other so I can order. I lean back into the hard wood of the booth, and cross my legs out in front of me. It’s nice to talk to Margot again, even on the phone. “Anyway, do you? Want to get a drink?”
A short pause. “I can’t. I’m supposed to go to this party tonight for my friend Julie’s birthday.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want to come?” Margot asks. “It’s not that far. It’s off of Brady Street. Or maybe Oakland? I can get you the address later.”
“Can’t you come out here?” I say, disappointed. “It’s too cold to bike there at night, and I really wanted to talk to you about something.”
“I can’t, I promised I’d go, Anna,” she says. “I know you hate seeing people on the east side because god forbid you hang out with other college students for one second, but it’s not that bad. Just come, we can still hang out and talk there.”
“Okay, fine; I guess I’ll call BOSS,” I tell Margot. The idea fills me with dread but so does staying home, knowing Margot is out there looking for new roommates.
After inhaling another cup of coffee, I hop on August’s bike and head back to my house to get more homework done. Around seven, I call BOSS—that’s UW-Milwaukee’s free taxi service—for a van and take it to the address Margot texted me.
Immediately I realize I’ve made a mistake, that I probably shouldn’t have arrived sober. I never went to them in school, so I am still unsure how to behave at a party. At a Riverwest basement show, I can smoke cigarettes outside with whoever else happens to be as socially anxious as I am, or I can zone out in the basement watching the bands. Not here. Not at a college party that is half potheads in tie-dye beanies and half girls who don’t understand it’s okay to wear pants in winter. I don’t know anyone there besides Margot, and when I find her on an armchair in a back room, legs entwined around a tall, pale soccer player still in uniform, it’s too loud to hear what she says. The music cuts through every attempt at conversation we have until I’m left to stand awkwardly beside a large Big Lebowski poster, tacked crookedly onto a door, like pretty much every door within a mile radius. Margot looks at me sympathetically and hands me one of her Strongbows, which I chug down in a few large gulps, simply to have something to do until she finally tears her face away from the large-lipped man with wavy brown hair and turns to me.
“This is Jake,” she screams over the music, which has only gotten more loud. People start to dance. I’m pretty sure I see a beer pong table in the corner, though I can’t be sure since I have never seen one before. A girl in cutoff shorts is definitely throwing a plastic ball at something. I can’t help but wonder if this is what all those high school parties I missed were like, and if so, then I’m relieved. Maybe I was better off spending my nights at home painting. I kind of w
ish I could be at home painting now.
Instead, I wave at Jake. “Anna doesn’t like crowds,” Margot tells him, seeing my face. Jake does not care how I feel about crowds. He starts caressing Margot’s arm up and down, a giant smile taking over his face. This is when I finally realize they didn’t only meet at this party. They’re dating. No wonder I haven’t seen her around. Even though she is a self-proclaimed radical feminist, has a Chicks Before Dicks shirt in heavy rotation, when Margot has a new boyfriend, Margot drops off planet earth.
Margot tries to tell me something else, but I can’t hear her over the noise, which I’m no longer sure can be called music. It’s almost as if someone was making an effort to have every song be worse than the last, then decided on a mishmash of fire alarms instead. But I am the only one to think this, clearly; a group of girls scream with delight at this noise and start dancing against each other drunkenly. One of them falls onto the floor, taking an Obama poster down with her as she goes. Margot doesn’t seem to be bothered by any of it, as if she’s been here before a hundred times and this is perfectly normal. Which, I suppose might be correct. Despite having art in common, we don’t often hang with the same crowds. Margot likes to skateboard and hike in the woods; she enjoys normal things like going out for nice dinners or seeing movies with boys she meets in class, not going to basement shows or drinking endless amounts of coffee in cold cafés.
“Anna!” Margot cries, seeing me getting my sweatshirt and coat back on. She extends a hand towards me, shifting halfway up the armchair. But she doesn’t get up, either. I bumpily extract myself from the sweaty, perfumed bodies around us and escape onto the porch.
ANNA
________________
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I stop when I get to the stairs of the porch and take out a cigarette. Outside, thick, white flakes of snow are crashing into the ground in sheets. The lighter I thought I had in my pocket is gone, so I turn to the other person on the porch, a lanky punk rocker-type with bright blue eyes and blue hair. Before I can even ask, he is handing me an ornate BIC with a set of initials on them. TS. His eyes lock on mine, in a way that brings a shiver down my spine. I take another close look at him and notice he is older, likely approaching his thirties, with freckles pooling around his nose and stiff, muscular shoulders. He definitely doesn’t fit in with this crowd, but it’s college, so who knows how he ended up here. “You can keep it if you want. I have a few.”
“Oh no, that’s okay,” I reply.
“I’m trying to quit,” he says. “You’d be doing me a favor.”
I light my cigarette then pocket the lighter. It’s not worth it to keep arguing. “I should probably quit too, I guess,” I say. “But it’s not really the best time for me to be making any major life decisions.”
The cute guy’s eyes are still locked onto mine, deep and penetrating. Instead of turning away in boredom like most would, he asks, “Why not?” While I’m thinking of a non-TMI answer, the door opens and closes behind me, and I turn to see Margot, her thick hair looking more messy than usual, half falling out of her hat.
“Anna, hold on a sec,” she says, grabbing hold of my arm and pulling me down the steps, away from the cute guy and into the snow. She takes my cigarette and has a drag before continuing. “I have to talk to you about something.”
“Yeah, me too,” I add reluctantly. I’m expecting some sort of apology or an explanation about Jake, but what I get has nothing to do with any of that. “You go first.”
“Um,” she starts. “It’s about the house.”
“You mean August?”
“Not exactly,” she says. “I talked to Bukowski today about replacing August, and turns out he didn’t even know there were four of us living there and he’s kicking us out. He said it’s illegal.” Bukowski is our landlord. His name isn’t really Bukowski, but that’s what we call him because he is an exact ringer for the once famous poet.
“What!”
“He also said he’s been getting noise complaints from the neighbors, and that he doesn’t want to rent to college kids anymore,” Margot says. “It sounds like bullshit to me. Who else would rent that dump if not students? But anyway we have to move out.”
“I thought Abby said it was okay. She talked to him when August moved in.”
“Well,” Margot says, her eyes turning hard. “I told you we couldn’t exactly trust her. She’s a train wreck, Anna. You have to be blind not to see that.” She takes another drag of my cigarette. “I think it was that fire Abby started. It was the final straw.”
“What happened between you two?” I ask, finally unable to keep it inside any longer. “One second you’re in love and the next you hate each other.”
Margot laughs. “In love. Please. We made out a few times, that’s it.” She steals my cigarette and takes an angry pull. “She could fall in love with a tree branch if it called her beautiful.”
I frown. “That’s not very nice. What did she do that was so bad?”
Margot shakes her head again. “Forget it. Anna, some people are just not meant to cohabitate.”
“What about us?” I ask, visibly hurt.
“I didn’t mean us.”
“Where are we supposed to move in four days? And what about August’s stuff? He’s supposedly in Georgia. Or headed there, or something, I don’t know...”
“That’s the other thing.” Margot looks away, biting down on her lip. “Don’t be mad...”
My stomach drops. Her face shows pity, which is not a good sign. “What.”
“Well, with August gone, and the fact that we have to move out, and you know I can’t stand Abby anyway...” she says. “Anyway, Jake said I could stay with him during winter break, and then I might move in here, with Alex and Julie until the semester is over. One of her roommates is transferring to Eau Claire.”
This hits me harder than anything else I’ve heard so far. Maybe I really should have stayed home tonight. I could cry, if that was something I could ever possibly stomach. I may be many things, but I’m definitely not crying-in-public girl. That is Margot’s friend Julie. She is probably crying in there right now somewhere. “What the fuck, Margot.”
Margot still doesn’t look at me. “Sorry.”
“Don’t we have a lease?” I ask her. “How can he do that?”
“He can break a lease if there’s a violation,” Margot explains. “At least, that’s what he said. It’s not worth it to me to argue about it.”
“But we love our house!”
“Sure, I like the house…but I don’t like all the Riverwest people coming over as much as you do. Everyone there is so...angry. They’re like kids throwing a tantrum or something. Except they’re old, so it’s not cute.”
“I won’t let them over anymore,” I argue. “And we can ask Abby to move. Done.”
“It’ll just be for the rest of the semester,” Margot explains. “I swear. Next fall, we can get another place anywhere you want.”
“Next fall? What am I supposed to do till next fall?”
She thinks about it for a moment. “Live with your parents?”
“There is no way in hell I’m going to do that.” The fact that Margot suggested it only shows how distant we have become. It’s bad enough I’m already wasting most of my time studying a subject they chose for me, I’m not about to spend the rest of my free time sitting in their horrible house in the suburbs while they ask me where I am going and when I will be back. Plus, I don’t have a car. “You just fucking met this guy,” I say, waving towards the house. “Now you’re going to live with him?”
“For a few weeks, and then...” her voice trails off.
I want to scream. We were supposed to be old ladies together, that was our plan. Now I’m not sure we will make it through the year. I drop the cigarette on the ground and turn toward the street. My fingers are cold and red from the wind and snow, and I shove them in my pockets.
Margot follows me. “Anna,
I’m sorry—”
“I’ll figure it out. It’s fine,” I interrupt. I start walking down the sidewalk just for show. But then I realize the snow isn’t so bad and I might as well walk the whole way home. Margot attempts to follow me, but I stop and tell her, “Just go back to your boyfriend.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I’m making pretty good time zigzagging northward towards campus, walking past a late-night diner and sports bar on Farwell Avenue, when I finally realize someone has been following me. Not sure how long it’s been, but I’ve definitely heard the same footsteps behind me for a while. Heart pounding, I turn to make sure it’s not some deranged killer—though what would I do if it was?—and spot the blue-haired guy from the porch. He runs to catch up with me.
“Hey,” he says, his breath forming a cloud into the bitter cold air. “I thought you’d never slow down. Are you some kind of marathon runner?”
“What are you, a stalker?”
“I’m a concerned citizen. You shouldn’t be walking around alone like that. It’s not safe.” He starts to jump around a bit on the soles of his feet like a firecracker, his breath following him in short little bursts.
“I don’t even know your name,” I tell him. “How is that better than being alone?”
He stops and takes out his hand, and I shake it. “Hi, I’m Tristan,” he says. He sweeps his hand out, like the male version of a curtsey. “Nice to meet you.” His face melts into a smile, showing off his perfectly straight teeth.
I give him a funny look. “What are you on?”
“Nothing, scouts honor,” he says, holding both his hands up. Then he reaches into his pocket and produces a silver coin. “Two months sober today.”
