For the first few months, things went amazingly well—swimmingly, as her mom would say. Then two things happened, although Cleo couldn’t say which had happened first, or if one thing caused the other, or if they just happened at the exact same time. The first thing was that Monica became severely anorexic. She started running for hours each morning, first at the gym on campus and then, when spring came, outside. After her run, she’d do sit-ups in the common room. As they all stumbled out of their bedrooms to make it to class in the morning, they’d find Monica flying up and down as she worked her abs, her arms crossed in front of her chest in an X, counting her progress in an angry, loud voice. “One, two, three, four,” she would huff. When she got to “twenty-five,” she’d stop for a few seconds, lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling, and then she’d start all over again.
“She’s like a soldier,” Laura whispered one morning. It was an accurate description and it made Cleo nervous.
This seemed to come out of nowhere. Monica was anything but fat, and while both of the girls drank Diet Coke and frequently looked in the mirror and said, “I’m a cow,” or “Look at my giant ass,” it didn’t mean anything. It was just what girls did. Cleo hadn’t seen any behavior that would have led her to believe that Monica was going to be one of them: an Eating Disorder Girl. At Cleo’s high school, there was one in every group of friends—a thin, chilled girl with bags under her eyes who was eventually taken out of school to go to a rehab clinic and returned eating measured foods and seeing the school counselor once a week. She couldn’t understand how she’d missed this in her best friend.
Monica kept a notebook to write down every piece of food that she ate. Once, Cleo looked over her shoulder as she wrote down, “Baby carrots, lettuce (NO dressing!), gum, water.”
“It doesn’t seem like you’re eating enough,” Cleo offered.
Monica slammed the notebook shut. “I’m being healthy,” she said. “Not like the rest of you, eating candy and french fries all day.”
She stomped off to her room, where she spent most of her time with the door closed listening to music. She was always tired and cold, sometimes coming out to nap on the couch in the common room, because the sun came through the windows, and she could curl up there like a cat trying to warm itself.
When the rest of them ate, Monica watched them closely. “Is that a waffle?” she’d ask, sniffing the air. She’d sit and stare as Cleo put syrup on her Eggo, suggesting that she add butter, or maybe more syrup. Then she’d fill a glass of water and drink it while she watched Cleo eat, with an almost erotic look on her face. It was really freaky.
Cleo noticed one day that Monica’s arms were covered with peach fuzz, and she knew she had to call her parents. They came right away and took Monica out of school for the last month of sophomore year, keeping her home all summer and the first semester of junior year. They left everything in her room, paid her rent, and told the girls she could return when she was better. Sometimes Cleo would open the door and look in Monica’s room, which was just as she’d left it—the bed was made, there were books stacked on the desk, a box of Kleenex on her nightstand—except there was a fine layer of dust over everything, so that it made Cleo feel like time had stopped. She would stand there and stare at it, until it made her feel too lonely, and then she’d shut the door and go to her own room.
Once Monica was gone, Cleo wished she wasn’t staying in Lewisburg for the summer. The house felt empty, and even though Monica had been in her own calorie-counting world for most of the year, Cleo missed her greatly. But the arrangements were made, and it was too late to back out of the summer job working in the Visitors Center. And so she stayed.
The second thing that happened that year was that Laura and Mary turned into complete and total bitches. The house had always been a little divided, like they were on two teams—Monica and Cleo on one and Laura and Mary on the other—but they still all got along pretty well. And then once Monica got sick and left, the other girls seemed to blame Cleo in some way. They were annoyed at her all the time, made passive-aggressive comments about her jacket’s being left on the couch, or the amount of noise that she made. Post-it notes were left on milk cartons and said things like, This is Mary’s Milk. Unless you’re Mary, then hands OFF.
Cleo had used Mary’s milk on her cereal exactly once, and then she found the note there the next day. She honestly couldn’t figure out how Mary could have known, until she looked at the side of the plastic carton and saw little black lines to mark the level of the milk. She placed the carton back in the refrigerator carefully, and closed the door softly, as if someone was going to jump out and catch her.
It became clear that it had been a mistake to move in with these girls so soon. Everyone else in their class had waited an extra year to make their permanent living choices, giving them time to weed out the crazies, to form real friendships, and now they all had their own living pods that were full and had no room for Cleo.
IN JUNE, RIGHT AFTER SOPHOMORE YEAR ENDED, Cleo went to a party with a girl she knew from her Foundations of Accounting class. It was at that party, standing by the keg in a dirty kitchen with a sticky floor, that she met Max. They were both holding red plastic cups, and waiting in line to get them filled. This was a story that pleased Cleo. It seemed like such a perfect way to meet a boy in college, the way he’d started talking to her in line, then pumped the keg and taken her cup to fill it first, tilting it perfectly to make sure there was no foam on top.
She liked him immediately, mostly because he was taller than she was. Cleo was five nine, and it was surprising how many boys she towered over, especially when she wore heels. But Max was well over six feet tall, and her head just cleared his shoulder. The two of them hung out the whole night at the party, and once when she went to the bathroom and they were separated for more than ten minutes, he came up behind her and put his arm around her shoulders. “There you are,” he said. “I was afraid I lost you.”
At the end of the night, Max said, “I really liked talking to you.” He said this like it was something that boys in college said all the time, when Cleo knew from experience that it certainly was not.
Max was so easy—and not in a bad way. He was so sure of himself, so honest, so happy. After that first night, he was always around and Cleo was thrilled to have someone to hang out with, someone to distract her from her haunted house of eating disorders and milk Post-its. He always wanted to actually do things. Unlike most of the boys at Bucknell, who sat around in sweatpants and played video games, Max suggested real activities, like playing tennis or going to see a movie.
By August, they were a serious couple, by the college definition. When Max’s parents came up to visit one weekend, he asked Cleo to come to dinner with them, and so she put on a sundress and waited for them outside of her house, feeling more nervous than she ever had before.
They ate dinner at a steakhouse, and Max’s mom encouraged Max to get the biggest steak, made sure that all the leftovers were wrapped up for him, and asked about ten times what he was making himself for dinner these days.
Max’s mom fascinated Cleo. Weezy was doting. Cleo had never used that word much before, but it was the only word to explain Weezy’s relationship with Max. When she walked into his apartment, she almost immediately began to clean it, stocking the kitchen with groceries she’d bought, dusting shelves and changing sheets.
During her first visit to the Coffey house, she and Max were sitting on the couch when Max mentioned in an offhand way that he was hungry. “Do you want a snack?” Weezy asked. She got up and went to the kitchen, began returning with options, holding up bags of chips and cold cuts, like she was one of those ladies on a game show, presenting the contestants with their prizes.
It was no wonder Max was such a happy person. Sitting there, watching Weezy fall all over him, she got it. His whole life, people had been doing things for him, telling him how cute and funny he was—and he was all of those things, but still. Cleo couldn’t remember the l
ast time her mom had made her a snack. She might have been around five years old, and the only reason her mom got involved was because the granola bars were on a shelf that was too high for her to reach. After that, the granola bars were put on a lower shelf so that Cleo could help herself to one whenever she wanted.
The first time that Cleo met the whole Coffey family, she was overwhelmed, to say the least. They were loud and could be crass. They hugged often, sometimes for no reason at all. With no warning, they’d just reach over and pull the person standing next to them into an embrace. They touched each other’s hair and squeezed shoulders when they passed by. More than once, Cleo jumped when a hand surprised her.
“You have a family of touchers,” she told Max. Then she tried to take it back and explain what she meant, because it sounded like she was accusing them of something. But Max just laughed. It was nearly impossible to upset him.
WHEN MONICA RETURNED, HALFWAY THROUGH junior year, Cleo was ecstatic. She couldn’t wait to introduce her to Max, to talk to her every night, to have a friend in the house again. But Monica wasn’t interested in any of it. She spent most of her time shut away in her room. She seemed mad at everyone, like they’d all betrayed her. Cleo apologized for calling her parents, but it didn’t make a difference. Monica just shrugged like she couldn’t care less. When Cleo talked to her—about school or Max or parties—she’d just look back at her, visibly bored. It was as if they’d never known each other before.
Cleo didn’t know how to make it better. For a few days, she’d give Monica space, and then she’d decide that it would be better to spend more time together, so she’d force her way into Monica’s room, sit with her and do homework. But nothing seemed to work. Monica was different and no matter what Cleo did, it wasn’t getting better. It was lonelier than when she’d been gone.
Max lived on the top floor of a house in Lewisburg that was converted to a two-bedroom apartment. At the end of junior year, his roommate, Charlie, was asked by the college not to return the following year (a polite way to kick someone out), and Max asked Cleo to move in with him.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s perfect. I don’t want to get some random to move in, and you’re here all the time anyway.”
That was true, but Cleo wasn’t sure. “I’m not sure my mom would like that.”
“My mom wouldn’t like it either,” Max said. “We just won’t tell them.”
Cleo was, first of all, just a little offended at the thought that Max’s mother wouldn’t like their living together, even though she’d just said the same thing about her own mom. Still. It was different.
“Just think about it,” Max said.
And so she did. She thought about what it would be like to give up her house and move in with Max. How she could use his milk whenever she wanted, how he would never yell at her if it was her turn to buy the toilet paper. It was tempting. Very tempting.
But it was a crazy idea. Couples in college didn’t live together. They’d barely been dating a year, and what were they going to do? Live together for the rest of their lives?
“You’re overthinking it,” Max told her.
But Cleo didn’t think she was. She tried to picture herself living there, tried to imagine what it would feel like to wake up with Max every morning, to have all of her clothes there in a real dresser instead of the Tupperware box that she kept them in now. But then she thought about what would happen if they broke up, how she’d probably end up sleeping in the other bedroom since it would be impossible to move midyear.
That was enough to make Cleo decide to stay in her own house. Also, she felt disloyal leaving Monica, even if she barely spoke to her anymore. It was just one more year, and really she could do anything for a year. Maybe things would change and senior year at the house would end up being fun. Maybe Monica would go back to her old self. Anything could happen.
A few days later, Laura came out of her bedroom holding a cardboard wheel and looking full of purpose. Laura, a sturdy girl from Iowa, had gained all the weight that Monica had lost over the years, and was now bordering on being truly fat. People always used to say that Laura “had a really pretty face,” but Cleo didn’t think they even said that anymore.
“What is that?” Cleo asked. She was sitting cross-legged on the couch, eating a bowl of Life cereal and flipping through a gossip magazine.
“It’s a chore wheel,” Laura said. “Well, more than a chore wheel, really. See, there’s a part here that also reminds us whose turn it is to buy toilet paper and toothpaste and dishwasher soap. So it’s fair.”
Fairness was something that Laura talked about often. When Cleo first started dating Max, Laura mentioned that she thought they should have a rule for how many times a boyfriend could sleep over in one week. “It’s not fair to the rest of us if there’s a stranger here all the time.”
“He’s not a stranger,” Cleo said. “He’s my boyfriend.”
“Still,” Laura said. “We have to be fair.”
And that was why Cleo ended up spending all of her time at Max’s, keeping clean underwear and pajamas in the Tupperware box that he had in his closet.
Now Laura stood in front of Cleo, clutching her cardboard wheel, and called Mary and Monica out of their rooms to show them her creation.
“See?” She pointed to the wheel. “For one week, it will be someone’s responsibility to clean the bathroom, and someone else will be responsible for the kitchen and so on. Then we’ll switch.”
“Fine,” Monica said. “Fine with me.” She sat on one of the futons in the room, hugging her knees to her chest and looking bored. She was pretty agreeable these days. “The bathroom’s disgusting anyway.”
Cleo tried to catch her eye, to look at her so that she could see that Monica really thought this was stupid too. She wanted them to roll their eyes at each other and then go into one of their rooms and laugh about how crazy and annoying Laura was being. But Monica kept her eyes down, picking imaginary fuzz and stray hairs off of her leggings.
“Wait,” Mary said. “What if, like, let’s just say it’s my week to clean the kitchen and then Cleo leaves her cereal bowl in the sink. Do I have to clean that?”
“I don’t leave my bowl in the sink,” Cleo said.
“Okay, sure,” Mary said. She snorted and shook her head.
“I don’t. I don’t leave my dishes in the sink.”
“Okay, guys,” Laura said. “I mean, the fair thing is for the kitchen person to just be there for the big stuff, like emptying the dishwasher and just making sure it’s clean. We’re all still responsible for our own mess.”
“Are we?” Mary asked. She looked at Cleo.
Cleo was still staring at Monica, willing her to look up and defend Cleo, or at least acknowledge that the girls were ganging up on her. But Monica only looked up to say, “So are we done?”
Cleo stood up and put her cereal bowl on the coffee table. Her hands were shaking and she knew she was about to cry. “Actually, I think a chore wheel sounds like a great idea,” she said. “Fantastic, actually.”
“Really?” Mary said.
“Yes, really. I’d also like to say that I won’t be living here next year. I’m moving out.”
“What?” Laura asked. “You’re just telling us now? What if we can’t find a new person? This is so unfair.”
“Everything’s unfair,” Cleo said. She knew she wasn’t making sense and she didn’t care.
When she told Max, he screamed, “Yes!” He hugged her around the waist and her feet came up off the ground. “This is going to be great,” he said. “You’ll see.”
THEY MOVED ALL OF CLEO’S STUFF into the apartment right away, and spent the summer working and going to barbecues. Cleo had gotten a marketing internship, working for the Little League World Series in Williamsport. Elizabeth had advised her to take an internship in New York, but Cleo remained firm.
“You don’t even want to go into marketing,” Elizabeth said. “And you don’t even like sports.”
“I like sports,” Cleo said. “And maybe I will want to go into marketing.”
“This is a mistake, Cleo. When you’re up against another candidate that did an internship at a well-known firm in New York, and then they look at you and see you wasted away your time as a ball girl in some stupid town, do you really think you’ll win?”
Cleo was determined to show Elizabeth that she was wrong. Also, she didn’t want to be away from Max, so an internship in New York was out of the question. She didn’t give Elizabeth too much information about her job. She wasn’t a ball girl, but she was mostly just typing out schedules and directions to send to the parents of the players, and getting coffee for people in the office. She was pretty sure there was no marketing involved whatsoever.
At the apartment, Cleo pretended they were married. They played house, making dinner (usually just pasta and jarred sauce) and drinking wine, like they were adults. She knew that her old roommates were wrong when they told her she was making a mistake. “This will end in disaster,” Mary had said as she packed up.
Cleo had become friends with some of Max’s friends, but it felt like they were on loan, like they never really made the switch to being hers. She had really started to like his friend Ally, had started to think that maybe she would be the one that Cleo clicked with, until she heard her say at a party, “Cleo’s totally nice. She’s supersweet. She’s just, you know, sort of a loner.”
A loner? Cleo had been waiting for the bathroom when she heard this, and Ally was around the corner, out of sight, talking to someone else. She wanted to ask Ally what she meant by that, but she didn’t. Instead, she stood there praying that she could get into the bathroom before Ally saw her.
Later that night, she’d told Max what she’d heard. “Do you think I’m a loner?”
“No.” Max laughed.
“It’s not funny. Why would Ally say that? I thought she liked me.”
“She does like you,” Max said. “Don’t let it bother you.”
“I can’t help it.”
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