6 Forbidden Dreams #2
“There’s never enough beer,” he said. “Oh, tobacco. I need tobacco, too.”
“You should quit,” I told him. “It’s toxic.”
“I thought you said we had to get vegetables. Tobacco’s a vegetable. Anyway, you’ve got to die of something.”
“Have you ever kissed anyone who smoked?”
“Jen, are you trying to seduce me?”
I kept walking, ignoring him, and complaining that he didn’t even have salt. I honestly didn’t know how he had survived that long. Ross tossed a chocolate bar in the cart, and I took it back out and put it on the shelf.
“Why are you being so stiff? Shouldn’t we try to enjoy life a little?”
“Yeah, and the way I enjoy life is not wasting all my money and then having to worry about where my next meal is coming from.”
“Boooring,” he said. This was turning into a mantra for him. “I have money.”
“I don’t need your money. And you should try to be less wasteful,” I said, picking out a tomato sauce and looking into the cart.
“We still need…” he began.
“If you say ‘beer’ again, I’m going to strangle you.”
He smiled and pinched his lips closed with his thumb and index finger.
I asked him again how it was possible that he’d never bought his own groceries, and he shrugged and said they had someone who took care of all that at his house. “For real? Are you rich?” I asked.
“My parents have money.”
“I hate you. I’ve always been poor. And it sucks,” I replied.
“If we got married, my fortune would be yours.”
“But I’d have to put up with you all day. I’m not sure it would be worth it.”
“Imagine saying that to the person who opened his doors to you,” Ross said.
I stopped at the checkout line and started loading my things onto the belt.
When I looked up, Ross had vanished. A few seconds later, he returned with two chocolate bars, a packet of gummies, and a bag of popcorn.
I narrowed my eyes at him and he just smiled as usual.
He put the junk food on his card and we carried everything outside.
It was raining again, so I threw my wet coat in the back and he rubbed his hands together as he turned on the heat.
“Well, that was the last thing I’d planned on doing with my day, but it was OK,” he said.
“I used to love going grocery shopping with Dad. It’s weird, but it’s just one of those things we did together, and it pops up in my mind a lot now that we don’t live in the same city. I miss him. I miss all of them.”
“You should go see them,” Ross said.
“Ross, if I don’t have money for the dorm, how am I going to buy a plane ticket home?
I’m worried about it, too, because my mom’s birthday’s coming up and I can’t go and she’s going to lose her shit.
I don’t know what I’ll do about Christmas.
My sister was giving me a hard time about it this morning, but her scrounging money off my parents is half the reason they don’t have any to give me. I’m sorry, I must be boring you…”
I wasn’t used to anyone letting me talk for so long.
I couldn’t say more than five words to Monty before he started yawning and interrupting me to talk about basketball practice.
At home, I could never get a word in edgewise.
How did you know if another person thought what you were saying was interesting?
“You couldn’t bore me if you tried,” Ross reassured me. “Where did you say your parents lived?”
“About seven hours south of here.”
He turned pensive, and I asked him what he was thinking, but he wouldn’t respond, even as he started the engine and I pinched him on the cheek.
“You know,” he told me, “this thing of pinching my cheek is turning into a habit. Now leave me in peace; I’m trying to listen to The Smiths. This is one of my rituals.” Then he turned up the volume so loud he couldn’t hear me.
We returned to find everyone in the apartment alive and moving.
Sue was making some strange racket in her room, Naya was sitting on the couch, and Will was drinking a beer in the kitchen.
He froze when he saw us carrying in the grocery bags, as if we’d showed up with a buried treasure or a rare animal.
“Ross, please tell me I didn’t miss a news report about the apocalypse, because I can’t think of anything else that would drive you to go to the grocery store.”
“I had to drag him there,” I said. “It was hard, but it was worth it. Finally there’s something decent to eat in this house.”
Ross had just taken out his bag of gummies and was about to tear it open when Naya leaped at it and tried to tear it out of his hands. “Hey, those are mine!” he shouted.
I told Will with disappointment, “He says he wants to make chili for dinner.”
“Chili, again?” he sighed.
“Is it really that bad?” I asked.
“Let’s just put it this way. I hope you like hot food.”
Two hours later, Ross was playing mad scientist in the kitchen while I sat on the couch recopying my philosophy notes. Will was sitting next to me, flipping through the channels, while Naya was on the other couch asleep.
“So is it really true Ross’s parents are loaded and they have people who buy him groceries and stuff like that?” I asked. When Will nodded, I said, “Jeez. I wish I’d been born rich. What do they do?”
“His father’s Jack Ross, Sr.” Will said. “Does that name not ring a bell for you?” I tried to think as I watched Ross opening and closing drawers, looking utterly baffled.
“No. And Ross hasn’t really talked about him. I feel like he said his mom was a painter and maybe that his dad reads a lot or something.”
“His father’s a retired concert pianist. Like one of the best in the world.
He travels all over. I think he played for the president or something.
And his mom’s not just some painter. She’s a photographer, too, but she also sells art.
I think she has five galleries in London, New York, and I don’t know where else. ”
“Weird,” I said, feeling stupid. “Ross doesn’t act rich.”
“Ross…” Will replied. “He’s just Ross, you know.” I must have had a look of terror on my face because he added, “I don’t know what you’re worried about, but you should relax. He’s completely normal.”
I tried to protest that I was relaxed, but he said, “Yeah, right,” and turned back to the TV.
A while later, Ross started to shout for someone to set the table and we all jumped to it.
The table , of course, meant the coffee table.
God forbid there be a decent place to share a meal.
When the scent of chili was too strong to resist, Sue came out and sat down without a word.
Ross sat next to me. My stomach was grumbling.
“Not to be a show-off,” Ross said, “but this turned out amazing.”
“Let’s eat!” Naya shouted.
Honestly, I thought it was delicious, but it was incredibly spicy.
Ross didn’t seem to notice, but Naya kept drinking more and more water, which only made it worse, and soon her face and neck were glowing red.
Suddenly, a weird silence overtook the room.
I looked at Will, who was looking at Sue.
Her expression was grim, and since nobody had spoken to her the whole time, I decided to ask her, “Are you OK?”
I instantly regretted it when she responded, “Does it matter if I’m OK?”
“Uh, I don’t know, I just…”
“Like what are you even doing here?” she grumbled. I wasn’t sure what to say, couldn’t understand why she was so mad, and felt too confused and embarrassed to speak.
“Don’t be like that now,” Ross said. “She was just trying to be nice.”
“She might as well save herself the effort,” Sue responded, and Will tried to comfort me, telling me, “Ignore her. She’s just trying to get some attention.”
But I couldn’t. Before I could stop myself, I exploded, “Sue, do you have some kind of problem with me?”
“Wow, you’re smarter than you look,” she said. “Yeah, I have a problem. Literally no one here even knows shit about you, and all of a sudden you’re living with us?”
“If that’s an issue…” I began.
“There’s no issue.” Ross interrupted me, almost glowing with anger, then turned to Sue. “I invited her in here, so if you have a problem with her, take it out on me, not her.”
“Oh, I will, don’t worry about that. I live here, too, you know, and nobody even asked my opinion.”
“Sue, if we had to ask your opinion, we’d never do anything. You’re the most hateful, bitter person I think I’ve ever met,” Will said. “Now can we just eat our meal in peace?”
But Sue couldn’t quit grumbling about how no one cared what she thought, about how I was basically a stranger, how the last thing they needed was another person taking up space there, and Ross got angry.
It was the first time I’d seen him actually angry.
He kept telling me to ignore her, that I was welcome there, and the third time I repeated that I could leave if my living there was going to be a problem, Sue shouted, “Of course there’s no problem.
He wants to fuck you, so that means there’s no problem with you being here. ”
That phrase hung there a few moments in the air.
A few moments that seemed like an eternity.
I felt ashamed, and I looked down into my plate.
The silence was so dense, you could cut it with a knife.
When I finally glanced over, I saw Ross staring at Sue with murder in his eyes.
She dropped her utensils, stood, and stomped off to her room.
Naya smiled nervously, trying to rescue the situation with a little joke.
“Well, I guess Sue’s not cleaning up tonight, so I’ll get to this.
” She kicked Will under the table, and he added, “Yeah, we’ll take care of this.
Jenna, feel free to watch TV or take a shower or whatever. ”
I knew Ross was watching me, but I was too nervous to look back. So I stood and hurried off to the bathroom, stopping just briefly in front of Sue’s bedroom door to curse under my breath and flip her the bird.