Roomies

by Christina Lauren

  I want to vomit.

  I take the time to put on pajamas, selecting my favorite frog tank top and pink polka dot shorts for courage. And then I sit on the bed, waiting.

  We’ve spent nearly three dozen nights together in this room—what if, after this, he returns to the couch? Am I super weird? How would I feel if I found out he was essentially going out of his way to watch me for six months? How would I feel if he had video of me on his phone, and then offered to marry me to “help” me?

  A throat clears, and I look up to see him standing in the doorway, shirtless. He unfastens his pants, pushing them down his hips and kicking them into the laundry basket. “Do I need to ask, or are you going to talk to me?”

  “Ask what?”

  His eyes turn up, meeting mine, and I can tell he’s disappointed that I’m evading.

  “Yeah,” I say, chewing at my lip. “I know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Before I start, can I just say that Lulu was being terrible tonight? She made it sound different than it actually was.”

  He leans against the doorway, pulling off one sock. “What part did she have wrong?”

  “She made it sound a little more Fatal Attraction than it actually was. I wasn’t obsessed,” I say lamely. “I just . . . had a thing for you.”

  “Had a thing for a stranger you called Jack? Videotaped him in public? Followed him to a bar where he—”

  “I had no idea you were playing with that cover band,” I interrupt, face hot. “That was a total coincidence.”

  “Holland, imagine if the roles were reversed.” He’s half-naked as usual, and for once I want to ask him to put on some goddamn clothes so I can concentrate. “Imagine if you found out that I had gone to where you worked, taken pictures of you, taken video of you and sent it to a friend. And then we coincidentally end up in a marriage of convenience?”

  I shake my head and look at my hands in my lap. “Look, I know what you’re saying, but I also know me and what my intentions were. I never intended to try to talk to you, or even make this into more.”

  When I look up at him, I find him studying me dubiously. He moves his hair out of his eyes with a quick shake of his head. “Yeah, but I didn’t know you or your intentions. It washes things differently in hindsight.”

  The tiny seed of heat in my chest starts to burn brighter.

  “I admired you,” I say, feeling a little defensive now. “It was a private thing—for me. I wasn’t being weird about it; I wasn’t talking about you on Twitter or Facebook. I wasn’t posting video of you on Snapchat. You played at the station—some of my favorite pieces—and it was amazing. You seemed too good to be true sometimes. I got caught up in that and sent a fifteen-second video to exactly one person. Are you saying it’s a bad thing that I was so invested in you?”

  He walks over, sitting on the corner of the bed with his back to me. “I’m not saying that. It ended up being fine. It’s just odd.” He lets out a heavy breath.

  Fine? It ended up being fine?

  I watch his shoulders rise and fall as he breathes, hating that I can’t see his expression. “I thought we came into this the same—strangers—and you were helping Robert and I was helping me.” He tosses his socks into the hamper. “But I feel like—” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Like you lied to me.”

  “Lied?”

  “Yeah. Or manipulated me.”

  This hits a trigger beneath my ribs: the seed of heat turns into a flaming brick, and I reach my boiling point. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  He turns, meeting my eyes, but doesn’t say anything.

  “So what if I had a crush on you?” I ask. “Yeah, now I’m getting sex and some help paying rent—but I didn’t plan that part. In fact, if I recall, I was so covert about my feelings that you had no idea I felt them. I had to endure the anger of Jeff and Robert, my brother Davis isn’t sure how to even ask me about what we’re doing, and my parents don’t even know about this. Now Robert has the virtuoso he wanted, and you have the dream position in the most popular show on Broadway and sex at home, with your fake wife. You’re seriously giving me shit right now?” I stand, walking to the bathroom to get my toothbrush.

  He follows. “I just wish you had told me you had feelings.”

  “Is that what bothers you here?”

  “That’s part of it, yeah.”

  I turn to him, squeezing too much toothpaste on my brush, but I’m too angry and proud right now to do anything but shove it in my mouth. I immediately pull it out again.

  “Look, you were coming to live here, and I didn’t want you to think I had any expectations.” I point the toothbrush at him. “I was doing this for Robert, yes, but also because I’d admired your music for so long, and I wanted it for you, even if I didn’t know you.”

  I pause, and his eyes search mine, looking for some answer I’m not sure how to deliver. “I did tell you all of this in the interview with Dougherty,” I remind him.

  “Yeah, but then you let me think it was just a story.”

  “Right,” I say, nodding. “Because you called it ‘insane’ that I would do that.” I laugh dryly. “I like to think that it makes me kind. But here I am, doing shit for other people and getting treated like I’m monstrous somehow.”

  His jaw ticks and I can’t figure out what’s going on here. All I know is that I’m out of words, and I’m done explaining myself.

  You let me think it was just a story.

  But if he’d asked me whether it was true, I would have said yes.

  I bend over the sink, brushing my teeth with the energy of a woman who wants to lift up the entire building and hurl it into the ocean. I can feel Calvin standing behind me, wordless, but eventually he turns. I can tell from his footfalls that he’s walking to the living room, not the bedroom, and am a little heartbroken to realize that I feel relieved.

  I’m up at six, having slept like crap, but I must have slept some, because as soon as I open my eyes, I remember last night and a sense of dread falls like shade passing through a room. The last thing I want to do this morning is rehash everything, or feel the tension between me and my new favorite person, who is presently buried under blankets and sound asleep on the couch.

  I dress quietly and slip out before Calvin wakes up.

  It’s been forever since I did my little routine of walking to the Fiftieth Street station, taking the train to get coffee at Madman, but I want to do it today. I want to walk in my old shoes, to try to remember that surety that this mission was critical, that I alone was connecting two universally vital dots by bringing Robert to Calvin.

  The subway station is as busy as it always is, and there is no guitarist to greet me at the bottom of the stairs. There is, however, a sufficiently capable saxophonist, and I throw a five-dollar bill into his case. He stops playing to thank me.

  So, he’s here for the money, not to get lost in the music, and the honesty of that is so fucking refreshing. Calvin could have played his guitar alone, forever at Mark’s apartment if it really was only about the music for him, but it isn’t. It’s also about the audience, about the adulation, about the income—so how can he be so fucking upset that he’s receiving it? Sure—I should have told him at the outset that I’d been watching him at the station for some time, and admired his music. But his reaction to my crush was so overblown that it sours something inside me. I’m torn between staying away all day and rushing home to rip into him again.

  And . . . I actually cling to this feeling, because I never get angry . . . and I forget how being angry can feel so good because it makes me feel strong. For the entire time I’ve known Calvin, I’ve felt like I haven’t totally deserved having him in my apartment, in my life, in my bed. My anger is my new best friend, telling me I’ve deserved every second of the happiness I felt before this stupid fucking fight.

  I press through the crowd and onto the train, hopping from station to station, listening to every busker I
find. I’m on an unnamable mission, and it isn’t until I’m on my fourth or fifth station that I realize I’m looking for someone as talented as Calvin.

  But there’s no one like him in any subway station in New York. I’ve heard music my whole life; I know there’s no one like him anywhere. I knew it. I always knew it.

  Calvin was right that by coming into this only as strangers, we were equals. But . . . are we no longer equals because I had feelings before he did?

  Or is it that I have feelings and he doesn’t? Does this answer my question about whether he’s been playing me all along? Is banging me every day his way of keeping me loose, keeping me comfortable, keeping the government away?

  Back up on the street, I get my coffee and walk for hours. I cover miles. By the time my stomach gnaws at me to eat, I realize I’ve left both my watch and my phone at the apartment and have no idea what time it is. There’s a giddy thrill in knowing that I’m completely unreachable. I’m sure Calvin did just fine getting his grouchy ass up and fed. He can get himself to the theater later; I’m not going to bother going in. Contrary to the popular idiom, those T-shirts do, in fact, practically sell themselves.

  I show up unannounced at Jeff and Robert’s apartment at five, when I know for sure Robert won’t be there. For the first time in my relationship with my beloved Bobert, I feel a little disloyal, wanting to avoid him. I didn’t feel this way even when I went behind his back and married Calvin, because I was so convinced that it was for Robert’s own good. Obviously, Robert agrees with me about this now. He thinks Calvin walks on water, so I’m not sure how it would feel to hear him defend Calvin in all this.

  Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about that with Jeff.

  Jeff answers the door in his work clothes, holding a stack of mail. His eyes widen in surprise. “Hey, you.”

  “Did you just get home?”

  Stepping back, he waves me in. “Yeah. Aren’t you working tonight?”

  The familiar smell of sandalwood calms me almost instantly. “I’m going to call Brian and tell him I’m taking a personal day. Can I use your phone?”

  “Sure.” Jeff leans against the wall, watching me as I pick up the landline in their kitchen. “I guess this answers why you never replied to my text today.”

  A sudden panic about the interview barrels through me. “Oh shit. Did something—”

  “No emergency.” He seems to reconsider this. “I mean, at least I hope not? I’d texted a couple times because Calvin called me, looking for you.”

  “He called you?”

  Well. That’s something, at least. My anger dims, minutely. I give Jeff a grumpy look with my I’ll explain in one second finger gesture, and then finish dialing Brian’s number. Thank all that is holy—it goes to voicemail. “Brian, it’s Holland. I’m unable to make it in tonight. If you need anything, call me at Robert and Jeff’s.” I hang up and immediately step into Jeff’s arms.

  He speaks into my hair. “I take it all is not well in Married Land?”

  My “no” comes out muffled against his suit.

  “Marriage is hard,” he says.

  “I think fake marriage might be harder.”

  He stills, and then hums sympathetically. “Let me change into comfy clothes, and then we can have a night in.”

  I make tea while he puts on University of Iowa Hawkeye pajama pants and a Yankees T-shirt, and we meet on their enormous, fluffy couch. Jeff sits, pulling one leg up so he can turn and face me. Only a single lamp is on in the room, and it gives his cheeks a hollow, gaunt look. Jeff has always been slender, but for the first time in my life, I think he’s starting to look old. My heart breaks a little.

  “Okay,” he says. “Let’s have it.”

  I take a bracing breath; there’s no use warming up slowly to any of this: “Things with Calvin have been really good. We’re actually . . . together.”

  My uncle laughs in mock-scandal. “No. What will the ton say about two married people having an affair together!” He leans in and whispers, “We had a hunch.”

  I tilt my eyes skyward and ignore his teasing. “So, last night, we were mobbed outside the theater, and it was so surreal. Afterward, we had this moment—this super-intense moment that felt really grounding—where I felt like we were in this together. I felt so protective, and he was so grateful, and it was just . . .”

  “Loving,” Jeff finishes, with a question in his voice.

  “Yeah . . . But then we went to meet Lulu at Dutch Fred’s”—Jeff groans knowingly—“and she got really drunk—per usual, I guess—and told Calvin how I used to basically stalk him.”

  Jeff pauses, eyes narrowing. His voice goes low like it does when he’s turning more protective animal than uncle. “You had a crush on him, and were justifiably infatuated—in part because of his talent.”

  “Well, she put on a pretty great show and made me sound super creepy. She told him what I used to call him, how I’d go see him play, how I knew his schedule. It wasn’t just that she was being a dick, she completely shattered this really great moment we were having, and I feel like we went back to being strangers.”

  He runs a hand down his face.

  “So we got home,” I continue, “and Calvin wanted to talk about it—”

  “Which is good,” he gently interrupts with a hand on my arm.

  “Right, it was good, but not the way he did it. I got pretty pissed.” I look at him and explain how the conversation went, how Calvin made it sound like I’m getting the most out of this arrangement, how he feels lied to.

  “I hit a wall,” I say. “I did this for Robert, and for him—and maybe also for me—but why is that bad?” I stand up, walking across the room and back. “It’s not like I expected this marriage to turn real. It’s not like I put a video camera in the bookcase and took footage of him sleeping and stole his underwear.”

  “Of course not, honey,” he says. “You have an incredible ear for music, and of the tens of thousands of people who probably heard him, only you were able to connect him to Robert—to make this happen.”

  “But last night, the way he was talking about it, just made me feel so gross—just when I had accomplished something, when I was feeling good about having a voice and protecting Calvin like I did. I have nothing going for me,” I say, squeezing my eyes closed. “Nothing except you guys, and your support and hopes for me. I’m not Calvin. I’m not Robert. I’m not you.”

  “You’re right,” Jeff says, laughing. “You aren’t a buttoned-up financial analyst.”

  “You may not always love your job, but you’re good at it—and you found a hobby that you love doing.” I pull my shoulders up, feeling tense everywhere. “I have no idea what I want to do. I want to write and read and talk about books with people. I want to listen to music, and go out to dinner, and just live.”

  “That is a life,” he insists. “That is a good life.”

  “But I have to be able to support myself, too. I have all these things I wanted to do, and I haven’t done any of them.”

  “I didn’t find pottery until I was fifty,” Jeff reminds me. “Honey, you are only twenty-five. You don’t need to have it all figured out.”

  I fall back down on the couch, covering my face with my hands. “But shouldn’t I have some of it figured out?”

  He places a large hand on my knee. “That perception is only coming from you.”

  “Last night, it was coming from Lulu and then Calvin.” I drop my hands. “I love you guys, but I have to take your sentiment with a grain of salt. You’re biologically and/or legally obligated to love me.”

  Jeff leans in, pressing a kiss to my hair. “Hollsy, think of it this way: If I compared myself to Robert when we first met, I would constantly feel behind. He was a musical prodigy. I was a waiter, trying to figure out if I had the grades to get into the mediocre MBA programs in my area.” He smiles at me. “But I knew I wanted to be with him, and he wanted to be with me, too, and also knew what he wanted to do with his life. So, we compro
mised. He took the job in Des Moines, and it was my responsibility to get a job that would make enough money for what we needed, and that I enjoyed enough. I didn’t have to love it, but it didn’t matter whether I did, either, because I had him. I kept trying new things, too, and eventually discovered pottery. It’s fun, of course, but the most important part is that I didn’t feel like my job had to be my everything.”

  This is what I have to keep reminding myself. Sometimes a job can just be a job. We aren’t all going to win the rat race. “I know.”

  “You know I didn’t approve of your marriage,” he says quietly, and guilt floods my bloodstream. “You didn’t know each other, and your feelings being what they were, I worried you would get hurt.”

  I groan into a pillow, but Jeff pulls it away.

  “I’m not chastising you. Listen. All of that was true, but I also didn’t expect things to turn romantic between the two of you. Seeing you two lately is wonderful for us.”

  “I’m not sure it’s real, though.” I pull at my lower lip, working not to cry. After all the walking and righteous anger, not only am I physically exhausted, but the softer emotions are starting to rise to the surface. The thought that Calvin has been toying with me all this time is painful. It was easy to push the worry away when he was kissing me, when he was smiling at me. “Maybe it’s just a game.”

  “I’ve seen you together, and I know men. It would be very surprising if he was faking that level of absorption. He called me twice, Hollsy. He called Robert, too. He didn’t sound like he was playing a game.”

  I press my hands to my face. “But he needs things to be okay with us because he needs to stay here. I’m not sure how to trust anything he does.”

  “Well, that’s one of the reasons—”

  “I know. I know.”

  “But for the sake of optimism, let’s assume that he is genuine,” Jeff says. “If things work out between the two of you, Calvin is lucky because he has a job he loves and he has you. This gives you room to find yourself, and figure out what you want your life to look like. It doesn’t have to look like mine, or his, or Robert’s.”