1 An Open Relationship #4
I laughed as they argued gently with each other.
Will turned onto a little-trafficked street of apartment buildings and closed shops, and halfway down, he pulled into the one empty space in the garage.
I got out and stared a moment at a black SUV with movie and music stickers all over the back.
I passed my thumb over one of them, curious.
“Shall we?” Naya said, breaking the spell.
“Huh? Oh, yeah.”
I followed them to an attractive building lobby, and Will pushed the button on the elevator for the fourth floor.
“Are you sure your friends won’t mind that I came?” I asked, twiddling my thumbs and trying to tell myself to hide my insecurity.
“Of course not,” he assured me. “Ross will be especially happy to see you again. He liked you.”
I’m sure my surprise was evident as I asked, “He mentioned me? We were only together for a couple of minutes…”
“Yeah, but he said you seemed nice. And that Naya would probably make you want to kill yourself soon enough.”
Naya rolled her eyes and said sarcastically, “Yeah, Ross, he’s just the best.”
On the fourth floor, there were two units and a closed window in the hallway. Will took out his keys and opened the door on the right. The scent of Chinese food immediately made my stomach growl. Will pointed to a coat rack. “You can leave your jacket there.”
Naya had never been in the apartment, and she seemed almost as nervous as I was.
I followed the two of them into a simply furnished living room: two easy chairs, a coffee table covered in bags of food, a huge TV and various video game consoles, a shelf by a window, and a wide hallway that seemed to lead to the bedrooms. A tiny window opened onto the kitchen.
Oh, and one other detail: there were two couches, one with two people sitting on it.
“Finally!” Ross shouted. “I was dying of hunger.”
“Happy to see you, too,” Naya said.
There was a girl there, too—Sue, I assumed?
She frowned at me and then looked away. Ross smiled at Naya malevolently.
As they bickered, Will threw his jacket in Ross’s face, eliciting a laugh.
Ross threw it across the room into one of the chairs, and Sue, who clearly found the whole scene annoying, tried to focus her attention on the bags of food in front of her.
She looked a bit like me. Soft tan, brown hair, the same color eyes.
But she was thinner and her eyelashes a bit longer.
She was pretty, even if she covered it up well with her constant grimacing.
Ross looked at me. “I’m impressed you haven’t taken off running yet.”
“Don’t frighten her,” Naya told him. “She’s my roommate and I don’t want to lose her yet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you’re annoying, Ross.” Naya grabbed my hand. “Here, Jenna, come join us.” Will had made me a place on the sofa next to him, and Naya sat on his other side.
“She just got here, and she’s already insulting me,” Ross said.
“You’re trying to scare my roommate!” Naya shouted.
“I’m not trying to scare anyone, and stop shouting! Anyway, if she’s going to live with you, she needs to know what she’s in for.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Wait till they keep you up all night for an entire week with their noises. Then we can have this conversation again.”
Will butted in. “Ignore him, Jenna. We’ve all learned to.”
There was a brief silence when all I could hear was Sue unwrapping her chopsticks.
When she saw I was looking at her, she scowled.
She didn’t introduce herself, so Naya did for her.
As I got my own chopsticks, Ross told me how Ross was actually his last name and Jack was his first, but since his dad had the same name and Jack Ross Jr. was too long, he ended up going by Ross.
I grabbed a spring roll as Will asked, “So, Jenna, are you from around here?”
I swallowed quickly and responded, “No.” I nearly choked, but then I managed to get out, “My family’s like seven hours way.”
“Did you drive here?” Naya asked.
“Yeah. Well, I rode. I actually slept the whole way.”
“Why here, then?” Ross wondered. “Is it the air pollution that drew you here? Or the convenient location near a bunch of depressing gray factories?”
“The schools are better here,” I replied. “Plus I actually wanted to get away from home.”
“Ahhh,” he said. “The fledgling leaving the nest.”
“Home was no good?” Will asked.
“It wasn’t bad. I mean, I was fine at home. But I’m from a small town: always the same people, the same places… It’s so repetitive. I wanted something new.”
They kept asking me questions for a long time about home, my studies, my boyfriend.
I got a little upset, though, when I recounted the story about Monty from that afternoon.
I’m just that type. I can’t keep my mouth shut even when I barely know someone.
Naya seemed never to have heard of an open relationship, so I tried to explain it.
“I’m not sure if he made it up, but he says it’s when two people love each other but they can sleep with other people. ”
Ross said, “I’ll never get two people acting like they want to stay together forever.” Then, looking at my egg roll, he asked, “Are you going to eat that?”
“It’s all yours.”
“Hey, I like this girl!” he said.
Will told Naya, “Hey, maybe we should give an open relationship a try, babe?”
“Sure! If you want me to kill you in your sleep,” she warned him. “I could never relax if I knew Will was sleeping with someone else.”
“But she said it’s not someone you love, right?” Ross said.
“I guess that’s the idea,” I responded.
“Yeah, but what if you do end up liking them?” Naya shook her heard. “Sorry, that’s a no go for me.”
I hadn’t thought about it, but Naya was right.
What if he did like the other girl more than me?
What would I do then? It was best not to think about it.
Not then, anyway. I didn’t want to freak out over something that hadn’t even happened yet.
I leaned back against the cushion, trying to get comfortable, but then I straightened up when I heard what sounded like a shrieking cat.
It was no cat, though, it was Sue, who was crucifying me with her stare.
“Mine,” she said, snatching the cushion away.
“Eh, sorry,” I mumbled. “I didn’t know.”
She hugged it to her chest hatefully. “Sorry’s no good.”
As I tried to figure out what to say to her, Ross burst out laughing. “Don’t take it personally. She’s crazy.”
“I’m not crazy, dumbass.”
“OK, sorry, you’re not crazy. You’re off your goddamn rocker.”
Sue flipped him the bird. Will and Naya were so busy making out that they didn’t notice. So they were one of those couples. But the worst part wasn’t the kissing; it was the noise. It was impossible to talk over. Ross was grimacing at them, disgusted.
“You want to go, Jenna?” he asked me.
“I exist, too,” Sue said irritably.
“OK, Sue, you want to join us?”
“I’d rather die.”
“There you have it then. Jenna?”
Since Naya had apparently forgotten about me, I said, “Yeah, let’s go.” Better that than watching the soft-core porno movie being acted out in front of me. Ross thanked me for not being boring.
I followed him through the front door and he opened the window in the hall. “What are you doing?” I asked him. “It’s cold out.”
“Do you know a better way to get on the roof? Come here, help me.”
“Help you what?”
“Just come.”
When I walked closer, I saw there was a fire escape outside leading upward. “Are we really taking that?” I asked.
“It’s safe,” Ross replied with a smile. “At least, I’ve never seen anyone die on it.”
“With my luck, I’ll be the first.”
I looked down and froze and then took his hand and we hopped out through the window frame and grabbed the handrail.
He told me to go up first and followed close behind me.
We had to climb two floors before reaching a flat roof, covered in gravel, with a couple of giant tubes that I guessed pumped air through the building.
You could see the college from there, and the park that was next to it.
And most of the city, too. I wished it wasn’t so cold.
I rubbed my hands together and put them in my pockets.
“Not bad, right?” Ross said.
There were four camping chairs up there, plus some thick blankets and a dorm fridge. They’d thought of everything, it seemed.
“What do you do when it rains?” I asked.
“We run up here and cover everything.”
“And if you don’t make it in time?”
“Then we wait for everything to dry off. Are you thirsty?”
I nodded and he tossed me a beer. I hadn’t had one in forever. Monty hated the taste of beer and wouldn’t kiss me if I’d drunk one. The first sip reminded me of how much I liked it, and I licked my lips as I covered myself in the thick blanket Ross passed me.
“Your neighbors don’t mind you being up here?” I asked.
“They’ve never come up here.”
“So they don’t know.”
“So they don’t care,” he corrected me.
“And what if they do, what’s your plan?”
“Give them a beer and ask them to join us.”
“If that doesn’t work?”
“Toss them off the roof,” he said with a laugh, raising his beer. “No witnesses, right?”
“It really is gorgeous up here. Apart from all those abandoned factories back there,” I told him.
“If you pretend they’re forests, it makes it nicer.”
He dug around in his pocket for something. A pack of smokes. I watched him light one and as he put it in his mouth, I imagined the look of disgust on Monty’s face if I… Dammit! Why couldn’t I stop thinking of him? He hadn’t even called me.
I asked Jack if he’d known Naya a long time as I tucked my face down inside the blanket.
“Since high school. She was already going out with Will. Seven years they said they’d been together, right? Jeez, time flies. It makes me feel old.” He took a sip of his beer. “When did you meet her?”
“Two or three hours ago?”
“Wow! So you know how to fit in.”
“I wish. I barely even had any friends in high school.” Congratulations , I thought to myself, you just blew your chance to look cool.