Eric shrugged like he thought he was Mr. Cool. No, he shrugged like Savannah would think he was Mr. Cool. She didn’t. That must have shown on her face, because he stammered his excuses. “It’s no big deal. I keep telling Hilary, and today I told Stacy the same thing—that it’s barely even a drug. I mean, it’s like alcohol, and you can buy that anywhere. Some people have a drink at the end of a long day, some people smoke tobacco products, I happen to smoke pot. So what?”
Tension sizzled in the space between them. She remembered the feel of his tongue on her clit after he’d frozen it with ice. That’s how she felt now: numb, and then subjected to Eric’s diatribe in defense of his drug of choice. She didn’t really know what to say. Or, maybe she knew what she wanted to say, but she didn’t actually want to say it. She didn’t want to start something. In fact, she wanted to end it.
“It’s not like I’m addicted or anything,” he went on. She could tell by the pitch of his voice that he was trying to convince her, and he could obviously see she wasn’t buying it. “That’s the great thing about pot—it’s non-addictive. It’s not like booze or cigarettes or hard drugs, where you get hooked and you can’t kick the habit. I mean, you’ve spent a lot of time with me over the last couple days. Have I smoked once? No! I even brought some stuff with me, and I haven’t been into it. Sure I use it, but I don’t need it. I can stop any time.”
Before she heard the words in her head, she was saying them. “So stop.”
The falling rain barely registered, but the thunder did, off in the distance. “Come on, let’s get inside,” Eric said. When he touched the arm of her wet sweater, she could have sworn his hand sizzled against it. She could feel his anger. He wanted her to be on his side, and she wasn’t. He wanted somebody to be on his side, and nobody was. Not even his college-student daughter. Who else could he turn to?
When they arrived in discomfiture back at the apartment, Stacy’s blaring radio cut their shared silence. Stacy’s bedroom door was closed. Heaving a sigh of relief, Savannah headed to her room to change out of her wet clothes, but Eric grabbed her arm before she got too far. Pulling her close, he whispered in her ear, “I guess you won’t let me change in your room this time.”
She took in a sharp breath and pulled away from him. “You’re welcome to it after I’ve finished.” Hobbling to her refuge, she shut the door. God, she wanted to sit down on her bed, fall back into pillows, and sleep. First she had to get out of wet pants, which had gone limp at the bottom. She’d walked on the hem all the way up the stairs.
There came a knock at her door as she slipped out of her clothes, and her heart raced at Eric’s intrusion. The door opened before she’d said a word, and just as she started to snip, “I said after I’m done!” Stacy poked her head inside.
“Oh sorry,” Stacy said, lowering her eyes to the floor. “Didn’t know you were changing.”
Relief. Or disappointment?
“It’s okay, hun. Come on in.” Savannah jammed her feet into fleecy pajama bottoms as Stacy closed the door and sat on her bed. “I pried,” she admitted. Throwing on the nearest T-shirt, Savannah collapsed on the bed beside her roommate. “I kept asking your dad what was wrong until he told me.”
Stacy slunk to the floor and, setting her head against Savannah’s bad leg, released a torrent of angry tears. “I felt so sorry for him when he came here saying all this stuff about mom and her intern guy and whatever, and it was all his own fucking goddamn fucking fault!”
Grabbing the box of tissues from her bedside table, Savannah pushed it down the bed. She hoped to hell Stacy wouldn’t pick up the heavy scent of Eric’s cum seeping from her snatch. Savannah was sure she could smell it. God, as if today hadn’t gone downhill fast enough!
What could she say to console her poor roommate? She was so bad at all this. She really and truly sucked at comforting people. “There are tissues, if you want.”
“My goddamn fucking father is a pothead! I mean, what the fuck is that? What the fuck? He’s, like, forty-eight years old!”
“Forty-eight?” Savannah asked. “Wow, he barely looks forty! I can’t believe that—forty-eight? Really?”
Stacy looked up with brow furled and a scowl planted firmly on her face. Her red cheeks glistened with tears as she sat up a little straighter beside the bed. Like a helium balloon, her expression suddenly popped, and she slunk back down onto Savannah’s fleece-covered leg. “I don’t understand how a middle-aged white-collar white guy gets pot in the first place. Like, what, does he hang out in the hood during his lunch hour? How would he even know where to buy it from? What, does he just, like, spot the nearest black guy and ask him for drugs?” And then she quickly self-corrected, “No offence, Sav. I don’t think all black guys sell drugs. You know I’m not racist. I just meant…”
“It’s okay,” Savannah interrupted. Better than let Stacy dig herself in any further. “Where he gets it probably isn’t the biggest issue here.”
Pulling a tissue from the box, Stacy blew her nose in one loud expulsion. “No, you’re right. It’s just so weird. And, you know, it’s not even because it’s pot. My dad was going on and on about, oh, you can buy alcohol everywhere, blah, blah, blah…”
“Yeah, he said that to me too.”
“But, like, if my mom had called me to say he was drinking every night, I’d feel exactly the same. It’s not about the substance, it’s about, like…” Stacy shook her head, like the words were in there but she couldn’t quite find them. “You know?”
Strangely, and maybe this was simply a result of living together, Savannah did know precisely what she meant. “You wonder what’s so bad in his life that he has to escape reality. And your mom’s his everyday reality, so when he comes home and smokes a joint…”
“More than one,” she said.
With a nod, Savannah went on, “Okay, when he smokes more than one, your mom wonders what she’s done so wrong that he needs to escape from her.”
Savannah was surprised to get all that out without sobbing, but she figured her emotional calm could only indicate a stabilization of her psyche. The last time she’d come this close to talking about her truth, she’d wept as hard as Stacy.
“That’s exactly it,” Stacy said, nodding in amazement. “How did you know?”
That was the question Savannah didn’t want asked. Right now, she knew she couldn’t skirt it. She couldn’t change the topic. She couldn’t run away. She just had to answer. “When I was young…” She tried to smile, but her lips quivered and fell. “My mom took a lot of prescription painkillers back then. I guess…I mean, yeah, she was addicted. For sure. She wasn’t working. She was home with us kids, and I remember even before she got up in the morning, she kept a bottle of pills right beside the bed. She’d be popping pills practically before she opened her eyes, and the whole day she’d be in a daze. One time she fell down the stairs. She was so doped up she couldn’t walk straight. I was just a little kid—I thought she was going to die.”
“You never told me that,” Stacy said. The tears had stopped rolling down her cheeks, so at least Savannah’s confession did some good.
Sitting up in bed, Savannah shifted until Stacy’s little blonde head rested on her thigh. Maybe this was how she could console her best friend, after betraying her so badly. Savannah petted Stacy’s hair. “So I know how you’re feeling right now. Ashamed?”
Stacy’s head shot straight up. Her eyes were wide with disbelief. “Yeah,” she said. “How did you know?”
There was so much of her childhood Savannah never talked about, even within her family, but Stacy needed comforting right now. Maybe she needed comforting too. She felt deceived by Eric. She felt like he wasn’t the person she thought he was. Maybe sex with her was just his substitute for the drug of choice.
“I was still little when my mom got help, but to this day I feel ashamed of who she was back then. She was so out of it. She’d stumble around, hold the pictures on the wall just to keep from falling over. I know was just a
kid, but I felt like it was my fault. It’s probably not what you want to hear, but those feelings never go away. I’m still mad that she wasn’t a good mom when I needed her the most. I’m angry about everything she put my dad through, but I have to remind myself she lived through war. She was little when she left Laos, but she remembers bombs. She remembers people being blown up. It wasn’t my fault. She was dealing with a lot of bad stuff inside her own mind. Still…”
Stacy hugged her around the waist and said, “Aww, Sav, it’s not your fault.”
With a strained laugh, Savannah fluffed Stacy’s hair. “Here I’m supposed to be comforting you, and you end up making me feel better! How did that happen?”
As they sat together in conciliatory quiet, Savannah tried hard not to think. She didn’t like opening a path by which the past could creep in. Instead, she reflected on Stacy’s problem. “Maybe in your dad’s line of work he’s seen a lot of bad stuff too, right? Maybe it preys on him.”
With a slow shrug, Stacy reasoned, “It’s possible. He used to do field work all over the world when I was growing up. But I just don’t feel like that’s an excuse for making my mom feel like shit.” Brushing away a flow of tears, Stacy sighed. “What the hell are we going to do with my father?”
Savannah firmly decided against doing anything more with him, but she didn’t tell Stacy that. “Send him home,” she said, though the words sounded harsh. “If your mother will have him, let them work it out.”
“Yeah.” Stacy stared at the wall behind the bed. “She wants them to have couple’s therapy. That’s probably a good idea. I still can’t believe it all, though. My parents! They’re like characters in a movie—one of those independent Canadian films.”
Savannah laughed. Stacy obviously didn’t know how right she was. “Your part would be played by Sarah Polley. That girl’s in everything, and she’s got your skin tone…and hair colour. There you go! You’ve got a box office draw already.”
“Yeah, for when I sell my life story.” Stacy’s brow furled and a quizzical expression took over. She’d spotted something, that was for sure. Oh god, had Savannah not put away her big black dong? Last thing she wanted was for Stacy to find that damn thing. Too late! Stacy crawled forward, reached under Savannah’s bed, and brought out… and brought out…a book!
“Since when do you read romance novels?” Stacy laughed. “Hey, you stole this from me! I remember the cover. Have no idea what the story was about…”
With cool dismissal in her tone, Savannah said, “They’re all identical anyway. One love story’s the same as the next.”
Stacy rose to her feet and smacked Savannah in the arm with the paperback. “Whatever! You were reading it, chickie.”
“Me? No,” Savannah mock-scoffed. “Never. Your dad must have left it in here.”
Throwing her head back, Stacy let out a loud cackle. “Yeah right. And what would my dad be doing in your bed? Hmm?”
Savannah felt her expression fall, though Stacy was still laughing. She gulped. She must look so guilty right now. What could she do to look less so? Smile. She forced herself to laugh. Stacy had no idea, and she’d never know. Savannah would never tell her.
“Yeah,” Savannah chuckled. “Your dad is so hot. I totally want his pasty white body.”
Stacy walked to the door, set one hand on the knob, and then hesitated. She turned around, and Savannah was sure the girl could see the truth. But she’d moved on, back to the problem sitting in wet clothes on their living room couch. “What do I say to him?”
Savannah searched her heart, but came up dry. She had her experience, but she was no expert. Shaking her head, she said, “I really don’t know.”
Chapter Seventeen
She would have called Chris, but she didn’t have his number. The apartment had gone silent, and she just wasn’t in the mood to sit around studying. It’s not like she could concentrate anyway. Eric. She kept thinking about Eric getting high. It seemed so unlikely—maybe that’s what had drawn Savannah to him in the first place: he’d seemed above reproach. Sure, he drank a lot those first few nights, but the binging seemed forgivable. Hell, he’d just been cheated on by his wife! He deserved to blow off some steam.
With an aching sigh, Savannah reached down to open the front pouch of her backpack. Strange—it was already unzipped. She must have been in such a rush to get out of the library with Chris that she’d neglected that one. Whatever. Nothing was missing. When she pulled out her planner, already open to today’s date, her eyes shot straight to the bright green ink at the bottom of the page. In highlighter, it read, To Do: Call Chris. His number was underneath.
Tossing her head back, she laughed with every ounce of glee rushing through her veins. Her fingers had minds of their own—they tapped against the mattress. When her toes did the same against the floor, a shock ran up her leg. Damn! She kept forgetting about that stupid ankle of hers. Why wouldn’t it just heal, for goodness’ sake?
As she searched her backpack for the eternally-errant phone, the hinge on the balcony door screeched. Eric and Stacy spoke in low voices as they came inside—she couldn’t hear what they were saying. The rain had cleared and they sky was dressed in shades of dusk. Savannah felt something plastic and buttony, and pulled it from her bag—a phone! What luck.
She felt strangely nervous about talking to Chris on the phone, despite having talked to him in person all afternoon, but she didn’t want to text him—she wasn’t sure if this number was a cell or home phone. Hell, she wasn’t even sure if he lived in residence, with roommates, with family, or what!
There came a muffled tap on her bedroom door and she nearly tossed the phone up in the air. “Sav?” Stacy asked, “mind if I come in?”
Savannah shoved her planner and her phone to the bottom of her bag. Her heart raced as she said, “Yeah, okay.”
Stacy looked like a wise mountain woman with a knit blanket around her shoulders and an expression of understanding on her face. “It’s getting chilly outside.” She smiled. Her cheeks were rosy, but her eyes and her nose didn’t look red with tears. “I’m going home with my dad.”
“You’re going to miss classes?” Savannah asked, though she wasn’t sure why that was the first question that popped into her mind. Seemed like the more relevant questions would be, “Did you talk? What did he say? What have you all decided about your family’s future?” But as those thoughts zipped like shooting stars across her mind, she realized it was none of her business. That hurt. She’d slept with Eric. She’d slept with him more than once. But had there ever been any sort of connection between them? Had she loved him? No more than she loved Stacy. She’d wanted to cheer him up, and at one point, to get back at Stacy and at Chris for a wrong she’d only imagined. Still…Savannah felt a loss.
“I’m driving home with him tonight and then I’ll take the five-thirteen bus back in the morning…if I can wake up that early. We both feel it would be good to sit down as a family and talk about everything. I think my parents want to stay together—at least, that’s the sense I get from them.” Stacy pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “So, I’m just going to throw a pair of pyjamas in a bag, and then we’re leaving.”
Savannah nodded, but couldn’t bring herself to say anything as Stacy traced a specter’s path to her bedroom. Eric was packing too—she could hear him in the living room. She couldn’t not say goodbye, right? She had to.
Easing herself off the bed, she hobbled into the hallway. When Eric looked up, she froze. For a moment, she felt so awkward she had to look away. Staring into the kitchen, she chuckled with a belly full of nerves. “So, you’re going home?”
“Yeah,” he said. Savannah managed to get a glimpse at his gauche smile as he folded clothes. “I’ll get out of your hair. I’m sure you’ll be glad to have your couch back, right?”
“Right,” she replied, for Stacy’s benefit. Their bedroom doors were thin, and the apartment was so damn quiet. Even the fridge wasn’t buzzing. Maybe it was broken
. She swept into the kitchen to check, but as soon as she’d opened it up, the motor kicked in. “I guess it’s okay,” she said to herself.
Eric perked up. “What’s okay?”
She’d meant the fridge, but was aware he thought she was referring to his leaving. Her breath rattled in her chest. “You’re leaving,” she repeated. As soon as the words had left her mouth, she was sure he’d heard “your leaving” in response to his question, and her stomach sunk. This goodbye was not going well. “I hope you can work things out with Helen,” she said before he could misinterpret anything else.
“With Hilary?” he asked.
Savannah leaned her elbows on the kitchen counter and let her head fall into her hands. “Yeah.”
Hilary—like the mom from Fresh Prince. Why was that so hard to remember? When she was little, she wished to hell any of the three actors who played that vacant but ever-present character would be her mother. Hilary. The name soured in her belly. Her ankle screamed with pain as she pawed through the cupboards for a soda cracker.
Savannah gave in. “I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to say.”
Eric’s eyes teemed with alarm as his gaze shot to Stacy’s bedroom door. He was right. She couldn’t break down now. “I hope…” She was going to say, “I hope you get better,” but she recognized that he didn’t feel as though anything was wrong with him. He wasn’t addicted. He wasn’t affected. He didn’t need it. And maybe if he lived alone and had no dependents, Savannah would agree. But that wasn’t the case, was it? He was hurting his wife. And everything he’d done with Savannah? How would Helen…no, Hilary…how would Hilary feel if she knew about that? It wouldn’t matter that she’d cheated first. She’d still be hurt if she found out her husband fucked a college girl—and their daughter’s roommate, to boot!
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