Yours and Mine (Freshman Forty #2)

by Christine Duval

  There is nothing but the sound of crickets outside. This is going to be a long night with no one to talk to. Guess I can use the time to study. I boot up my laptop.

  Around eleven, I decide I’ve had enough and climb up the creaky wood stairs to what will now be my bedroom on alternating weeks. I strip down to my boxers and pull down the quilt that looks like it could be close to a hundred years old and crawl in. The mattress is soft, probably as old as the quilt. My back is not going to thank me for this in the morning.

  In the still of the night, I lie thinking of Laurel and what she’s probably doing right now somewhere on that college campus, wherever it is. I don’t like the pictures that come to mind. I roll over and pull the pillow over my head and try to force sleep.

  Chapter 18

  I awaken to total darkness, stare at the ceiling and listen. It sounds like a car just pulled in the driveway. I grab my watch off the dresser. 1:15 a.m. Soon I hear the door open, close, and lock.

  I climb out of bed and stand near the doorway, in the shadows and out of sight, and try to peer over the landing to the foyer below. The lamp in the hall illuminates the boots Laurel was wearing earlier, lying on the floor next to her book bag. She must be in the kitchen.

  I’m not sure if I should let her know I’m awake or pretend I’m asleep. I shake my head. I do enough pretending with Ava, so I slip into my shirt and go downstairs.

  Laurel is sitting at the kitchen table, eating Wheat Thins with a glass of milk. Her mascara has run down her cheeks, dry now, but she clearly has been crying.

  “Laurel.” I speak gently so I don’t scare her.

  She doesn’t look up.

  “You okay?”

  She sniffs, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I’m fine.”

  I don’t know what else to say because I don’t want to barge in on her personal life, so I just stand there.

  She sniffs a few more times and then glances up at me. “There’s been this girl, a freshman, who’s been hanging around a lot lately.”

  I see this as my opportunity to slide into a seat. “Hanging around who?” I ask and grab a fistful of crackers from the box.

  “Around Mike. The guy I’ve been seeing.”

  “You have a boyfriend?” I ask, my voice low. I am instantly deflated. I mean, I know Laurel is a catch, but what guy would take on a girl with a baby from another guy? I guess I figured with this custody arrangement, she and I could give each other another shot.

  I grunt without meaning to and Laurel looks at me.

  “Not that you want to hear about this.”

  “No. It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

  I regain composure and focus on Laurel’s face. She looks so sad, but her eyes remain dry. Maybe she’s cried all the tears she’s had already.

  She continues, “He lives in this huge dorm called the Towers. It’s the party dorm on campus. That’s where I was tonight.”

  “So what happened? You catch him boning this girl in the bathroom or something?” I try to make her laugh.

  Laurel smiles. “No.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “Her name is Ashley. She lives a couple floors away and I’ve noticed that she’s in their suite a lot. He lives with three guys and their suite has a common area that’s kind of like a living room. Every time I’m there, she’s planted on their couch. Up until tonight I figured she probably likes one of his friends.”

  “But?”

  “Tonight at the party I noticed that she was going out of her way to talk to Mike whenever she had the chance and he kept laughing. At anything she said.”

  “Laurel, it was a party. People talk and laugh. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I know that. And I told myself to stop being insecure, but the thing is…”

  “What?”

  “On Saturday, after I got back from Long Island, he came over here to see me. And it was great at first. He was going to cook dinner. He brought a bag of groceries. But then Carolyn.” She sighs. “She kept crying and crying and we couldn’t finish one conversation without me stopping to console her. I think she was cranky from the long car ride.” She pauses. “I swear he could not get out of here fast enough. He made up some excuse about having to study. He never studies on Saturday nights.”

  “That’s not cool. It’s not your fault she was crying.”

  “I know, but she’s not his kid. He’s sweet to her, but at the end of the day, it’s an added burden. Last year when I was pregnant, yeah, he knew I had a kid on the way, but there was never the distraction of a baby crying.”

  “Wait, you were together when you were pregnant?” My jaw drops open.

  Her cheeks flush. “No. I mean, we were friends, but the attraction was there, you know? Then over the summer we stayed in touch, and when I got back in August, it was amazing for the first few weeks. He was happy to come over here and change diapers, play house. It was good. But now school is in full swing, he’s living in the rowdiest dorm on campus, and there’s this whole new crop of freshman girls who are looking for a boyfriend. Why would he want to be with me? I’m all alone over here, eighteen miles away on this lake…with a baby that isn’t his.”

  Now the tears are rolling.

  I don’t want to tell her that she’s probably right. I wouldn’t want to take on a girlfriend with a kid. But she’s really upset, so I’m not going to rub it in. “Well, so what happened tonight?”

  “We went back to his room. I was planning to spend the night.”

  “And.”

  “And then I mentioned it. I said I think Ashley likes you. And he got so defensive I knew I’d touched a nerve. No one gets that upset if they aren’t hiding something.”

  “What do you think he’s hiding?”

  “That he likes her back.”

  I shrug.

  “We got into this whole big argument about it and I left.”

  “He let you leave in the middle of the night and drive all the way back here after you’d been drinking? This guy sounds like a jerk to me.”

  Laurel wipes her tears. “He’s not a jerk. He tried to get me to stay, but I said no. I don’t blame him for liking Ashley, either. Why would he want me with a kid and all this responsibility when he could have a carefree fling with a girl right in his dorm?”

  I reach across the table and squeeze her hand. I don’t want to tell her she’s probably right, even though she is. I know guys too well. They’ll take the easier road nine times out of ten – when it’s a girl we’re talking about, at least.

  “I’ve got to go to bed.” Laurel pulls her hand out from under mine. “I have three classes tomorrow and they’re all lectures.”

  Chapter 19

  I roll over and adjust my eyes to the sun that is slicing through the blinds of the one small window in this room. As my eyes acclimate to the light, I hear voices downstairs. Laurel is talking to someone, a male voice. I lift up the blind and see there’s an extra car in the driveway. I check my watch. 7:30.

  Throwing on some jeans and a T-shirt, I open the door and check Carolyn’s room, but she’s not there. I walk down to the kitchen and Laurel is sitting at the table, feeding Carolyn in her high chair while a guy with no shirt on is standing at the stove, making scrambled eggs.

  “Um, hi,” I say, trying to conceal my confusion.

  Laurel’s face is scrubbed clean of the mascara that was bleeding down her cheeks a few hours ago. She looks tired but cheerful. She smiles when she sees me in the doorway.

  “Hi, Danny.” She turns to the guy at the stove, who has forgotten about the eggs and is now staring me up and down. “Mike, this is Danny.”

  He turns off the flame. He’s not tall, maybe five feet seven or five feet eight, and he looks like he works out a little but not enough to pull off walking around shirtless. His haircut is a tribute to Justin Bieber.

  He extends his hand and walks towards me. “Hey, man. Nice to meet you.”

  Laurel says, “Mike came over last night af
ter you went to bed. In case you were wondering.”

  I nod my head. Well, obviously.

  “You want some eggs?” Mike asks, turning back to the stove.

  “Um, no, that’s okay.”

  “There’s coffee.” Laurel gestures to a half-filled pot on a butcher-block bench against the wall.

  “I’ll have that. Where are the cups?”

  I try to stifle the awkwardness of this setup by pouring a cup and sliding into the chair next to Carolyn as casually as possible, but even I can’t ignore the irony of Laurel, her boyfriend and me, the father of her baby, all sitting down to breakfast together.

  Mike places a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her and then sits next to her with one for himself. He’s really not going to put a shirt on?

  He digs into his food. Laurel barely touches hers. She seems to be concentrating a little too hard on putting pureed bananas into Carolyn’s mouth. After a while of us all sitting in silence, she looks at me. “What are you going to do with Carolyn today, Danny?”

  “I don’t know. What is there to do around here?”

  Mike snorts at my response, a little too hard. “Not much. I thought Milton was rural but Dresden. Man!”

  Worry lines frame Laurel’s face, but she shrugs. “It takes getting used to, but I like it.”

  Mike sits back in his chair, his plate now empty. “You should sell this place like your dad wants and get an apartment closer to campus.”

  Laurel shakes her head. “I don’t want to get an apartment near campus.”

  “You keep saying that, but why not?” Mike sighs.

  This is obviously a discussion they’ve had before.

  “All the apartments around campus are filled with students. No one would want me with a screaming baby moving into their building. Plus I wouldn’t want to live where there are parties going on around the clock. That’d be bad for Carolyn.”

  “I’m sure you could find something that would work. Better than this.” The tone in his voice is insensitive and sarcastic. I suddenly have a new appreciation for Dresden.

  I let their argument or whatever it is continue without saying a word.

  “Mike, I love this house. It was my grandparents’. My mother grew up here. And I also like having the distance from school. It makes it easier to function in both worlds, having the separation.”

  “It’s just a pain having to drive eighteen miles to get here. The roads are dark. There’s no one around.”

  “Well, I don’t usually drive in the middle of the night.”

  “I’m just saying it’d be nice if you were closer.”

  Laurel changes the subject back to me. “If you continue north, you can go into Geneva. There are several stores there. Or take a drive back down to Watkins Glen. Or you could even drive over to Kashong Lake and go see Colman. It’s supposed to be nice today.”

  “What would Carolyn and I do at Colman?”

  “You could meet me for lunch. I have fifty minutes free starting at 11:30.”

  I’m aware of Mike watching the two of us interact. I can’t imagine he’s thrilled about the results of our custody hearing and the fact I’ll be sleeping at his girlfriend’s house every two weeks. And now she’s inviting me to meet her for lunch in front of him after they’ve just had makeup sex. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to enjoying this more than I should.

  “Sure. Where should we meet you?”

  Mike gets up from the table. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  When he’s up the stairs and out of earshot, Laurel says, “After I went to bed last night, he called me and apologized.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

  She bites her lip. “No, I’m not. I just was filling in the blanks.”

  “Cool. I’m glad things are good between you.”

  We look at each other without saying a word, and just long enough for it to be uncomfortable.

  She pulls back from the table. “Carolyn’s ready for her bottle. Can you give it to her while I get dressed?”

  I nod and do as I’m told while she heads upstairs to get naked in front of her boyfriend again.

  Chapter 20

  Navigating Colman’s campus proves challenging. To say the place is impressive is an understatement with its red brick buildings covered in various shades of ivy, its breathtaking lake views, and its very good-looking student population. Here is where America’s top gene pool comes for an education, I guess. It makes LIU look like a dump. Without a map, I drive around in circles, trying to find a place called The Moose, a restaurant that Laurel told me to meet her at.

  Even though I hate stopping to ask, once Carolyn starts fidgeting, I resort to rolling my window down and calling to a pack of girls. In one way or another, they are each a version of Laurel. She fits in just fine here. One of the girls points over my shoulder and I turn to see a painting of a moose hanging over a dark wood door.

  “Thanks.” I roll up the window and pull into the parking lot in front of it.

  While I’m putting Carolyn in her stroller, Laurel approaches, with a tall blonde.

  “You found it,” she says, her book bag slung over her back. “Liz, this is Danny. Danny, this is my friend Liz.”

  Liz looks me up and down, and I can tell by her confidence that this is a girl who puts out. “Nice to meet you, Danny,” she says with a Southern drawl. “Laurel didn’t tell me her baby daddy was such a hottie.”

  Laurel rolls her eyes and grabs the stroller. “Come on. I only have forty-five minutes and this place is packed.”

  Liz and I follow Laurel inside.

  The Moose is a café without table service, so you have to go to the counter and order and then wait until they call your number. “They have really good chili,” Laurel says, eyeing the menu written in chalk on a huge board behind the registers. There are two dozen people in front of us, but the line moves.

  “So where are you from, Danny?” Liz asks.

  “Long Island. What about you?”

  “Florida.”

  “That’s a long way to travel for school.”

  She nods. “It is. But it’s Colman College. I couldn’t not come when I found out I got in. It is damn cold in the winter, though.”

  Three guys walk past us and go out of their way to make themselves known to Liz. She smiles a huge smile when she sees them. “Hey, boys!”

  “You coming to our party tonight?”

  “How could I miss it?” she twangs. “Where you off to?”

  “ATM machines.”

  “Mind if I come with?” Then to us, “I’m not really hungry anyway. I’ll catch up with you later, Laurel, okay?”

  Laurel glances at me and shrugs.

  “Nice meeting you, baby daddy.” She smiles and then she grabs one of the guys by the arm and they disappear.

  Once we’re seated at a table in a corner, me with chili, Laurel with a Cobb salad and a side of applesauce for Carolyn, I say, “Liz is a piece of work!”

  Laurel laughs. “She’s definitely guy crazy.”

  “She doesn’t seem like someone you’d be friends with. She’s so…”

  “Outgoing?” Laurel jokes.

  “That’s a generous way to put it.”

  Laurel puts a spoonful of applesauce in Carolyn’s mouth. “Honestly, we don’t have tons in common, but she was one of the few people who didn’t totally disown me when they realized I’d been hiding a pregnancy all year right under their noses.”

  I look around the room filled with preppy, privileged kids, jocks, and conceited-looking professors with inflated heads and I shake mine.

  “What?” she asks, taking a forkful of salad.

  “I don’t know how you got away with it. Especially here.”

  “Me either, actually. Lots of clothing layers. A big down vest.”

  “I get why you’d rather live in Dresden.”

  We link eyes and her cheeks turn rosy. After a minute, she says, “Hurry up and eat and I’ll give you
the penny tour. I can miss the first few minutes of my next class.”

  ***

  We walk along the lake, past a number of mansions, and Laurel points out where the president of the college lives, a few of Colman’s more famous professors, and then we head up a hill to a handful of dorms on a circular driveway.

  “This is where I lived last year.” She points to a dormitory with the word Miller stenciled on a transom window over the front door. “It is all singles. Not having a roommate made it a lot easier to stay off people’s radar.”

  Then we follow a path, past a parking lot filled to capacity, to a group of high-rise buildings in a cluster that don’t fit in architecturally with the older buildings everywhere else on campus. “These are the Towers, where Mike lives.”

  “Big,” I say.

  “Huge,” Laurel says. “They’re like a small city. They have their own cafeteria, laundry on every floor, and there’s even a gym on one of the roofs with a pool.”

  “Must be nice to go to Colman.”

  While we stand and talk outside the main entrance to one of the buildings, I notice Laurel’s eyes veering off in the direction of the parking lot, her face suddenly tense.

  I turn to see that Mike and a girl are getting into a car. They’re deep in conversation and neither one notices us. When they’ve backed up and left the lot, Laurel whispers, “That’s Ashley.”

  “I figured that out. Where do you think they’re going?”

  She shrugs. “To get lunch together somewhere? I don’t know. He’s done with classes for the day. They could be going anywhere.”

  Although I’d like to turn this situation in my favor and rub it in, I care about her too much to make her feel worse. “Laurel, he drove eighteen miles in the middle of the night to be with you a few short hours ago. Maybe they’re really just friends.”

  It doesn’t look like she’s buying it. “I’ve got to get to class. Will you be able to find your way back to your car?”

  “Sure.”