Chapter Nineteen
Ruby was thrilled to see me go. Not just because she would have her privacy back, but because she was gobbling up Eli’s invitation to be roommates like it was the latest plotline to unfold on her favorite TV show.
“I have to text Gwen,” she said.
I shook my head as I folded up the bedding I’d stolen from Brody’s pool house—which would come in handy. “Why would Gwen care that I’m moving out?”
“Oh,” she said with a snort. “I think she’d be more interested to hear who you’re moving in with.”
I narrowed my gaze at her as she pecked at the screen of her phone. “Ruby, you didn’t tell people about me and Eli, did you? You know us getting married was just a silly dare from college. The ink hadn’t even dried on that marriage license by the time it was annulled.”
She swallowed and looked up with such convincing innocence that I almost bought it. “I don’t recall you categorizing that information as private.”
“Ruby, are you serious? Was I supposed to have you sign an NDA or something?”
She sat back at the kitchen table and took a sip of her iced tea. “Couldn’t hurt.”
“My life is not your entertainment,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
She shrugged. “Well, I’ve never really considered your life to be entertaining, so this is new territory for me, I suppose.”
I took a deep breath and walked into the kitchen to gather up Marlon’s food. “When you spend the first half of your adult life taking care of two grown women, then you can talk to me about living a more entertaining life.”
She was taken aback, the dramatized hurt clear.
Ruby and I had gone toe-to-toe plenty of times, and the outcome was always the same.
She would stand up and give a monologue about how ungrateful I was for her and how I could never understand all the sacrifices she’d made for Mom and therefore me.
She’d dramatically storm out and I’d be left wondering if this was all real or just a truly compelling performance.
I’d apologize, because it was easier than ever expecting things to change.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted before she could tell me all the ways that I was wrong.
I couldn’t hear it right now. “I’m glad I was there for Mom .
. . and that you were too.” Even if she hadn’t been.
Not in the same way I had. Even if the moment I was old enough to wear a bra, she clocked out of adulthood and suddenly, I was the one organizing bills and reminding Mom about her prescriptions in between school and homework.
“It’s fine,” she said curtly.
It wasn’t, but I’d settle for fine.
“I’m going to start packing up the car.”
She nodded.
“Marlon’s going to miss you,” I said, trying to soften her just a bit. “But I’m sure he’d love to visit. We’ll be just at the edge of the property.”
“Yes, I fear he’s been spoiled by my velvet settee.” Then she spoke to Marlon. “You’ll just have to grow accustomed to used IKEA furniture, my darling.”
I glanced at him over my shoulder. Paws crossed, he looked like a little prince sitting on a silk pillow. He really was meant for designer purses and private jets. “He’ll weather the storm.”
Packing up my car took longer than it should have, because even though I’d hardly accrued new things since crashing with Ruby, my belongings seemed to have somehow expanded and nothing fit back in its bags or boxes.
The employee housing sat at the edge of the property in apartments that looked like they’d been added on in the eighties and had seen a few sparing cosmetic updates.
The architecture didn’t quite match the mid-century aesthetic of the rest of Starlight Palms, but each mint-colored door was painted with the silhouette of a pink flamingo, which served to unify the building with the rest of the complex.
Eli had put my key on an elongated diamond-shaped Starlight Palms key ring that was included in the resident welcome packs and was a replica of the original property keys.
Regardless of how long this living situation lasted, I decided that the key ring would be mine to keep because I’d coveted one since seeing Ruby’s.
With Marlon tucked under my arm, I let myself in and found the lights had been left on. The door led right into the living room, where there was a modern but plush-looking sectional sofa and one of those TVs that looked like it could be a painting.
I snorted when I noticed the selected artwork was The Treachery of Images by René Magritte. On a cream background was a painted pipe with the French translation of “This is not a pipe” in cursive below.
The only class I ever shared with Eli was art history, and though he was always so hot and cold during that time, he did choose to sit next to me during lectures.
Our professor was obsessed with this painting and I once scribbled a note on the edge of a paper for Eli to see about how our professor probably wanked to fantasies of this painting.
Because I can’t have nice things, I accidentally dropped the paper on the way out of class only for the professor to pick it up, read my note, and then return it to me, all while holding the most awkwardly intense eye contact.
I snatched the paper back and Eli and I stumbled out into the hall, barely holding it together before laughing our asses off. The painting was probably our only inside joke that didn’t include Brody.
The kitchen counters of Eli’s apartment were bare save for an espresso machine that was worth more than my car. On the breakfast bar was a note in his familiar slanted handwriting.
Your room is the first one off the hallway. I’ll be home late. —E
Home. I was in Eli’s home. And for a short while, it was mine too. A sharp chill ran up my spine at the thought.
After I got Marlon settled with his bed and a chew toy full of frozen peanut butter, I brought the first load inside, including my bedding.
When I let myself into the guest room, I didn’t expect to find a mattress on the floor bachelor pad–style, but I also hadn’t expected a room that looked like it came straight out of an Anthropologie catalog.
There was a sage-green arched cabinet in the far corner just waiting to be filled with books and knickknacks.
The queen bed was made with a fluffy cream duvet and pillows that looked like they could absorb every neurotic thought I’d ever thought until my brain was blissfully empty.
The headboard was a mauve tufted velvet arch to complement the cabinet and the closet was full of unused hangers—the fancy slim velvet kind.
It was more like a hotel room than a guest room.
With the bed already made, I stored Brody’s pool house bedding on the top shelf of the closet like a forgotten trophy.
I’d never been the kind of woman to have the luxury of multiple types of bedding, but maybe this was indicative of a new era.
An era where I owned white shirts that weren’t stained and I remembered to send my dry-clean-only clothing to the actual cleaners.
I spent the evening getting settled in and ordered myself a poke bowl for dinner. When I got to my toiletries, I ventured into the shared bathroom. Were it not for the half-burned cucumber melon candle and electric toothbrush charging on the counter, I would have no idea which side was Eli’s.
Just about every bathroom I’d ever had looked like a drugstore had thrown up on the counter, but since Eli had set such a tidy tone, I found a home for each thing in the cabinet under the sink.
I opened the drawer in the middle of the vanity, hoping I might be able to store my toothpaste there, but instead I found an unopened box of condoms and a few small bottles of lube.
Slamming the drawer shut as though I were in danger of getting caught, I decided to leave the toothpaste on the counter.
Eli could handle toothpaste on the counter.
It was better than toothpaste in the lube replenishment drawer, which would immediately indicate to Eli that I knew he had a lube drawer.
It threatened the kind of embarrassment I’d felt the one time I attempted to shop for lingerie to wear for Brody and then immediately ran into my high school geometry teacher and his wife while she shopped for new bras post–breast reduction.
I was holding a thong. A crotchless thong.
(Granted, if you asked me, all thongs might as well be considered crotchless, because my vagina has been known to swallow thongs.
Surely I wasn’t the only person whose vagina was wider than that appalling excuse for a gusset.) The continued embarrassment of that interaction still kept me awake some nights.
By the time midnight rolled around, I was still wide awake. Or maybe it just felt too weird to fall asleep knowing that Eli could walk in the door at any moment. So I decided to take out my notebooks and see what notes I could piece together on The Wunderkind.
The problem was the couch was fucking cozy. I could say a lot of things about Eli, but the man knew how to buy a couch. As I settled in, I found myself slipping into a reclining position until I was just fully horizontal with my head on the armrest and my notebook on my chest.
The Wunderkind was about a young female piano prodigy who was older now and less remarkable with age. She fell for a charismatic boy at college who always seemed to stumble into good luck. In so many ways, it was a story about me and Brody. Except for the part where I was once a prodigy.
I got only a few pages in before my vision began to blur. It didn’t help that Marlon was already fast asleep between my legs.
I should have been a big girl and taken myself to bed. It wasn’t like I needed to stay up and wait for Eli. He didn’t have a curfew. It didn’t matter where he was or who he was out with. I wasn’t his keeper. I was his roommate.
Briefly, I wondered if he would bring someone back here at some point. I mean, he could. It was his right, of course. But surely with these old, thin walls, I’d hear everything.