Fuck him, I think, and remain in my duck pajamas. I do comb my hair, though, and pull it back in a ponytail, which I’d have done in any case.
I eat a Pop Tart for breakfast, turn on The Today Show—though I have to admit that the drama playing out in my own life is considerably more compelling than what’s happening in Iraq.
I fold Josh’s dry clothes, like a good wife. Think about what I’m going to say when he finally gets up. Maybe something clever, à la the Talking Heads: “Well? How did I get here?”
Or caustic: “So, can I offer you a drink?”
But when he staggers into the kitchen around noon, wrapped in a pink-flowered quilt, his eyes bloodshot, his half-dozen or so cowlicks standing at attention all over his head, he looks so stupid that all I can do is laugh.
“Want some coffee?” I ask, trying to make up for it.
“You can’t make coffee,” he says. “Anyway, you couldn’t …
before.”
I shrug. “People change. Some people,” I add.
“Can you, now?” he asks irritably. “Make coffee?”
“No,” I say. “So?”
He snorts. Then he gets up and starts making coffee himself. He really does look ridiculous, like somebody’s grandmother in a pink housecoat, and it pisses me off the way he still knows where everything is in our kitchen.
“Just wondering,” I say. “You were standing outside in the blizzard last night, hoping you could come in and be a jerk?”
“I don’t know what I was doing last night,” he says. “If you want to know the truth.”
“Drinking. We know that.”
“Yeah, well.” He sits down with a mug of coffee and takes a sip. “Fuck,” he says, putting a finger to his burned lips.
“Is it a common thing with you now?” I persist. “Drinking till you don’t even know where you are?”
“I know where I am,” he says. “Was. Last night.”
“Oh. You just didn’t know what you were doing.”
He glares at me. “I came to tell you I was sorry. If you really want to know.”
“Sorry?” I say, astonishingly in control at this turn of events. “Sorry?”
“Yeah. Sorry. For high school. All that shit. I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while—” He takes another, more careful sip of his coffee. “Then, when I saw you that day with your grandpa, I decided I would. So, I’m sorry. I was an asshole, and I’m sorry. Okay?”
“And you think it still matters to me?” I ask.
“Yeah, I do.” He grins a little. “I think you miss me, like I miss you. Even though you’re mostly a pain in the ass.”
“Fuck you,” I say, but I can’t help smiling back at him.
“Listen,” he says, then. “Do you think I could just hang out here a while?”
Thirteen
His grades sucked, he says. His dad took away his credit card and cell phone—and sold the truck he’d given him for graduation. Worse, as far as he could tell, the only thing his parents have agreed on since their split-up was the fact that if he wanted to stay on campus at all he’d have to get a job and move out of the fraternity house into a dorm.
“Did they kick you out of the house?” I ask.
“You mean the basement dungeon I’ve been relegated to at my dad’s house since the new baby came? Or the couch in my mom’s Barbie pad? Fuck. Where’s the punishment in that?
“I just don’t want to be there,” he says. “With either one of them. Like my dad’s ever even home. Which leaves me with Shelley, who’s pregnant again and barfing all the time—and hates me, because I don’t fit into their perfect little family. My mom’s doing a Demi Moore trip, dating some guy about five minutes older than I am.
“You’re lucky, Emma,” he says. “Your parents are cool. Where are they, anyway? Up in Michigan?”
“Colorado,” I say. “They left yesterday. For the whole winter.”
“Man, I bet your dad’s pumped up about that.”
I nod.
“I figured he’d be having a good time with all that dough.” He laughs. “How many Corvettes has he bought, so far?”
“Just one. In the garage.”
“It’s a ’62,” he says. “Right? A 327, 4-speed.”
It kills me that he knows my dad so well. I get up and bustle around fixing Josh some toast, to distract myself from imagining the two of them in Michigan, working on the snowmobile with Gramps and Will. Me watching from the window with Mom and Jules.
“I heard you went out with Gabe Parker,” Josh says, after a while.
“I didn’t go out with him,” I say. “He interviewed me for an IDS story. About the lottery.”
“Yeah, well. He’s a good guy. You ought to go out with him.”
“Right,” I say.
“What’s the problem?” Josh says. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing’s wrong with him.”
“Well, then?”
“Listen, Josh,” I say. “You’ve been back in my life approximately twelve hours—eleven of which you were passed out, drunk and naked, on my bed—so let’s not get overly personal here, okay? You said you were sorry for being an asshole in high school. Fine. But you don’t know jack shit about anything that’s happened to me since then, so don’t go giving me advice about … whatever.”
“Okay.” He raises his hands, palms-out, in surrender. “Okay. Your call.”
It’s a beautiful morning, an after-a-blizzard morning—blue sky, sun dazzling the new snow. After Josh showers and gets dressed, we dig my Jeep out and drive around and around the block in four-wheel drive, mashing down the snow so our neighbors can make it from their driveways to the plowed streets and get where they need to go. I drive awhile, then Josh drives, fishtailing now and then, which is extremely entertaining.
When we get bored with that, we go over to Butler Hill and sled awhile. Then go to his dad’s house, get his stuff, and dump it in Jules’ room, where he’s going to stay till we go back to Bloomington. When Mom calls to let me know they’ve arrived safely in Steamboat Springs, I don’t mention he’s here. How, exactly, would I explain it? He was drunk and his homing instincts sent him to our house? It sounds lame, even to me. But the real problem is that any conversation about the situation is bound to lead to the suggestion that just maybe Josh’s sudden change of heart could have something to do with the fact that I’m now a millionaire.
It doesn’t. He said so when we were sledding. Grabbed my arm before I headed down for about the tenth time on my cookie-sheet sled. “Emma,” he said. “Listen. It doesn’t matter to me about the money. That’s not why—I mean, I just want you to know that.”
I can’t prove he wasn’t lying, of course. But I know.
Anyway, I tell Mom about the blizzard and what a blast it was, clearing the street with my Jeep. She laughs and tells me about how Dad hit the slopes fifteen minutes after they got to the condo—even though they’d driven straight through and he hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours.
“You go back, when?” she asks.
“Sunday,” I say. “Classes start the ninth.”
“And you’re okay?”
“Fine,” I say.
For once, I really am. In fact, the next few days, hanging out with Josh, I’m actually happy. I’m not dumb enough to think he’s ever going to fall in love with me. It’s enough being friends again, watching movies, eating pizza, talking. We go over to the mall and test ride those weird Segway walking machines. Stamp out a huge peace sign in the snow in the park across the street.
He talks a lot about his parents, admits he’s been totally screwed up ever since the divorce—and pissed. But, except for the fact that his crappy attitude is an inconvenience for them, they’re both so wrapped up in their new live
s that they don’t really notice.
The truth is, he says, he’s been hurting himself. Not them. Realizing that is what made him decide to get his shit together. He wants to do it. For himself.
I always brought out the best in him, he tells me. He figured the first step in getting a life of his own was remembering how to be the person he used to be, when we were friends. But it wasn’t until he was drunk out of his mind that he had the nerve to come and find me. Even then, he chickened out and couldn’t make himself actually knock on the door.
When he tells me about how his girlfriend broke up with him the day after he gave her the diamond earrings he saved up to buy her for Christmas, and I commiserate and we both laugh about the fact that her name really is Heather, I know we really have gone backwards to the way we used to be.
It’s also when I get the idea that I could make it a lot easier for him to get his shit together if I bought him a car. What he’d like to do is deliver pizzas, he told me in one of our conversations. You get tips on top of minimum wage, plus you don’t have to put up with much bullshit because you’re mostly driving.
“If I had my truck, I could do it,” he said. “Fucking asshole. I can’t believe my dad would take it away—and sell it. Like, he thinks I’m never going to be the kind of person to deserve it again.”
Okay. I’m perfectly aware of the fact that if I told anyone, especially my parents, that I was thinking of buying Josh a car, they’d say, “Are you crazy?” I don’t tell Josh I’m considering it, either. He’d just refuse.
But I look at it this way: if I didn’t have $70,000 a year that I don’t need, and had, instead, only the couple of thousand in my savings account plus the money I earned from my summer job, I wouldn’t think twice about spending a few hundred bucks to buy Josh a bicycle so he could get back and forth from his new job. My parents probably wouldn’t get freaked out about that at all. They’d probably commend me for being so generous. Josh might be a little embarrassed. But he’d be grateful.
Really, it’s a matter of proportion. If I weren’t so bad at math, I’m sure I could come up with an algebraic equation that would show how, under the circumstances, spending a couple of thousand dollars on a car was comparable to buying a bicycle. And it’s not like I’m thinking about buying him a Ferrari. Or even a truck, like the one his Dad confiscated. Just a nice, serviceable used car.
So, the morning before we’re supposed to go back to school, I just do it. Drive over to the used car lot where Dad bought Jules and me cars when we first got our driver’s licenses, ask the salesman to show me what’s available, then surprise the shit out of him by pulling out my checkbook and writing a check for $3,500 after settling on a very modest ten-year-old Honda Civic. I have a few complimentary donuts while I wait for him to call the bank and make sure the funds are actually available.
“Great. I’ll be back to get the car in half an hour,” I say, when he returns and happily announces that the funds are there.
“There are papers—” he says. “The title. Registration.”
“Oh, right,” I say, as if I hadn’t totally forgotten about that sort of thing. “Maybe you could draw those up while I go get the person the car is actually for.” I write down Josh’s name, address. He can fill out his social security number when he gets here.
Draw those up, I think, driving away. Very professional. I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself until it occurs to me that I also forgot about insurance. Josh will need that, too. Probably, we can add six months of it to the bill. I mean, how much could it be?
Josh is still in bed when I get home. I put a Counting Crows disc into the CD player, turn the volume up full blast, and pretty soon he comes staggering out of the bedroom.
“Jesus, fuck,” he says.
“It’s nearly noon,” I say. “Get dressed, okay? There’s something I need you to help me with. We can stop and get coffee on the way.”
He grumbles a little, but he’s game. Even cheerful, after we hit the Starbucks drive-through and he gets a little caffeine in his system.
“What’s up?” he asks. “Where are we going?”
“I bought you a car,” I say. “We’re going to get it.”
Dead silence.
“You bought me what?” he asks, finally.
“You need a car if you want to get a decent job, so I bought you one. That’s all. It’s not a big deal. It’s not even all that nice. It’s a Honda Civic, for God’s sake. Like something your grandmother would drive. Beige.”
“Emma,” he says. “You can’t do that.”
“Just shut up,” I say. “I already did. Look, you’re my best friend—even though you’ve been, well, on leave for a while. You’re in trouble. Why wouldn’t I help you, if I can?”
“How much did it cost?” he asks.
“Never mind,” I say. “It doesn’t matter. Josh, I told you how much money my parents gave me. Plus, there’s millions more where that came from. What do I care about a couple thousand dollars? You can get the pizza job if you have a car. Maybe even get to the point where you don’t need anything from your dad at all.”
“A couple thousand?” he says.
“Thirty-five hundred bucks, okay? No big deal.”
He’s quiet a long time, drumming his fingers on his thighs—that weird thing boys always do, and you think, what song are they hearing?
“You have to let me pay you back,” he says.
I shrug. “If you want to. When you can. Like I said, it’s not a big deal to me.”
“Well, it is to me,” he says. “I’m paying you back.”
“Fine,” I say. “Your first-born child. Preferably not for a few years.”
He laughs then, and I know what I did was okay.
Fourteen
Of course, I haven’t done a single thing to get ready for second semester. When I left for break, I was thinking that I might not come back—so why bother? So I spend the first day back in Bloomington buying books and generally organizing my life—in the company of Tiffany, who talks non-stop about what a fabulous vacation she had. I swear, nothing is unworthy of mention: every little gift from Matt, every cute thing her grandmother said, every fucking Christmas cookie she iced with her mother.
I have to admit I’m glad to see her, though. And our room feels, I don’t know, familiar to me—like maybe I sort of belong there.
“That friend of yours?” she says, plopping down on her bed. “Josh—? Matt told me he moved out of the house.”
“I know,” I say. “His dad made him.”
“Why?” Tiffany asks.
“Den of iniquity,” I say. She looks baffled, so I add, “Too many parties. His grades sucked, and his dad figured that’s why.”
“Well,” she says, personally affronted. “It’s not the fraternity’s fault his grades sucked. Plus, it’s not like there aren’t any parties in the dorms.”
“He knows that,” I say. “Josh does.”
Tiff raises an eyebrow.
“I saw him over break,” I say.
“Really,” she says.
“He got into a fight with his dad and ended up staying a couple of days at our house. That’s it. Zip. The end.”
“He’s cute,” Tiff says. “He looks kind of like Owen Wilson, you know?”
I shrug.
She sighs deeply.
“It’s a totally platonic relationship,” I say. “Can we just leave it at that?”
“Okay. Okay,” she says, but she’s lying.
The good thing is, the news of what she sees as a promising relationship with Josh makes her forget all about her determination to fix me up with Gabe Parker. She grills me for information about his life, wants to know every little thing about our—she says the word as if it has quotes around it—friendship. She’s ecstatic when
Josh calls to see if I want to go see the new Mission Impossible with him, and it’s all I can do to keep her from tying me down and dressing me in something other than jeans and a sweatshirt when it’s time for me to go down and meet him. Even after I explain (sans explicit details) that I once had a crush on him and it just didn’t work out, she persists in considering him an excellent romantic possibility.
I’m glad he’s not living in the fraternity house, where she could easily arrange to corner him and give him the third degree about his intentions. As it is, she’s got fucking radar for any moment I connect with him for any reason, and oh-so-casually drifts past. Wired for all I know. Nancy Drew goes digital.
The thing is, I don’t care. I’m happy.
The first week of the semester flies by. Josh and I see a few movies together, meet at Starbucks a couple of times; but I’m busy with my classes and he is, too. Plus, he’s delivering pizzas four nights a week. I’m proud of how hard he’s working, how determined he is to get back on track. So when almost a week goes by and he doesn’t surface, I don’t think much about it. I’ve got his new Kanye West CD, though, and I’m feeling guilty because I promised to return it as soon as I put the songs on my computer.
I know his schedule. No classes Tuesday or Thursday afternoons, and he usually spends that time in his room, studying. So I put the CD in my backpack Thursday morning, figuring I’ll just drop it off. It’s a great day, cold and sunny, and after my last class I walk through campus heading for Josh’s dorm, grooving to Pink on my iPod.
Then I see them: Josh and Heather.
They’re up ahead of me, walking hand-in-hand. She’s tiny and beautiful and blond, like all his girlfriends are, and he has to bend down, she has to stand on her tiptoes when they stop and kiss. All I want to do is get away from where they are. But when I stop short, thinking I’ll turn and bolt in the opposite direction, I crash into a girl walking behind me and scatter her books everywhere.
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