Love and Other Things I'm Bad At, page 24
Fortunately, a customer came to the desk wanting lottery tickets and I looked behind me and there was a line that had formed. Because were we fine? Probably not, unless I apologized for the spring break thing. But I couldn’t find a way to bring it up!
“Anyway. See you around?” I said.
“Call me when you find out what you’re doing,” he said. “And, uh, if I hear anything about any kind of, you know, openings . . . I’ll call you.”
“That’d be great. Thanks.” I started to walk away.
“Courtney!” he called after me. “I need your number.”
“Right. Right.” I jotted my cell number down on the corner of a brown paper grocery bag, then tore a piece off and handed it to him.
“I could have added it to my iPhone,” he said. “You just wasted a bag.”
Stupid green team initiatives. I ran out to the car and started crying. So emotional. Nothing worse than getting corrected by Grant, Mr. Perfect.
Mr. Perfect Ex-Boyfriend.
LATER
Got home. Shaken and crumbly like a stale carrot cake muffin. Tried to call Wittenauer but he was heading into class and didn’t have time to talk. Instead, called Jane. Told her that I’d just seen Grant.
“You’re kidding!!! How is he? Tell him I said hi!”
“Jane. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t a social visit.”
“It wasn’t?” she asked.
“No!”
“What was it, then?”
“I don’t know. Awkward!”
She asked if I’d told him about Wittenauer yet, and I said, no, of course not, considering as how I only saw him a few minutes and we were in the middle of customer service. Did she really expect me to rub salt in an old wound the first time I saw Grant?
But does Grant know I’m still with Wittenauer? I wondered. Why would he? How could he? Well, that could wait until our next conversation. If we had one.
Jane and I talked so long that I was still on the phone with her when Wittenauer called back after class, and we talked for hours again. He still wants me to move back. Says he’s miserable. I told him I’m more miserable. It was a contest trying to one-up each other on how miserable we are. I think I won, but is it considered winning when it’s a contest for most miserable?
There is no “able” in miserable. Oh wait, there is. Able to feel misery. Lots and lots of misery. We are Les Misérables. We get very pathetic.
Do I move back to Wisconsin so I can be with Wittenauer? Or do I stay here so I can go to school, but only at a place where Grant is?
CSU has 25,000 students. Even if I do go there, and it’s not guaranteed I could get in, it’s not like I would see a lot of Grant. So that’s not the problem, really.
The problem is that every day Wittenauer and I are not in the same zip code, I miss him. I get nervous about our prospects. And we risk splitting up.
And I hate splitting up. (See: Parents’ Divorce.)
9/11
Mom proudly handed me a letter when I went down for coffee this morning. “Congratulations! You’ve been accepted as a transfer student. On behalf of everyone here at Colorado State University—your future—your education—” Blah blah blah—
I was still reading it, but I started crying. Mom and her man-friend wanted to know what was wrong. “I got in, all right?” I told them, sobbing.
“Hon, that’s wonderful. Now all we have to do is find you a room or an apartment up there.”
“Don’t call me ‘hon’!” I said through my blubbering.
“Wait a minute. I thought you wanted to live on your own,” said Sterling. “Don’t you?”
“Yes, but—that’s—that’s not the point.” I shoved my chair back and went to the sanctity of my former room. Then I had to run back, grab my coffee, and vanish again. So much for dramatic exits.
Yes, I want to live on my own. It’s not like I want to live in my mom’s workout room forever. But this just all feels overwhelming and it would be nicer if I didn’t feel like Mom is pretty much throwing me to the werewolves.
I called Wittenauer and we talked for a long time. He didn’t want me to get accepted because he still wants me to return to CFC, but he said we need to take “the long view.”
The long view: We both need to go to college. We both need to finish college. Then we can make decisions about what to do with our lives.
The short view: I have to start classes two weeks late, and will be living in my car.
Wait. I don’t have a car.
9/12
So far I’ve spent the entire day looking for a place to live in Fort Collins.
Mom is so desperate for me to “gain my independence” that she went with me. We had searched every online listing first—then we drove around neighborhoods near campus looking for signs. Nothing. The places were terrible, or the roommates were horrible. As much as I wanted to move, I couldn’t justify risking my life by moving in with someone who kept a pet boa constrictor.
“Mother, if you’d like to help, perhaps you could buy a house for me,” I suggested. “You’ve been saving all that money for years, I bet you have a large nest egg, and it’d be a great investment because people are always going to need housing, plus, the market is, um, really soft. Or hard. Anyway, there are houses—”
“Why don’t you call Grant instead, see if he has any leads?” she replied.
“You call him,” I said. “I already asked him for help.” The fact that he hadn’t called me since I saw him didn’t instill me with confidence. More like fear that he hated me and wanted nothing to do with me ever again.
“Ask him again,” she said.
“Mom.”
“Do it. Courtney, it’s only Grant. Maybe you’re not close anymore, but he’s not going to bite. He’ll probably do everything he can to help you out, hon.”
She was bothering me so much that I decided I’d do whatever it took to find a place in Fort Collins. Forget that this was as embarrassing as, well, tromping all over campus with my mother in her workout gear, because she wanted to do some trail running after we settled this housing thing.
Called Grant. Initiated begging and pleading. “And I’m not asking at all to live with you, not at all, but I was wondering if you have any ideas or any leads, if you know anyone—”
“Court, I’m sorry! I’ve been meaning to call you but I’ve been so busy. Why don’t you move onto my block?” he asked.
Whaaaa . . . t? “Your b-block?”
“Yeah, I just noticed there’s a room for rent in a house on my block.”
“Seriously?” Grant must not hate me too much if he was willing for me to live close by. Or was this a trick? Was he setting me up to live in a total dump, to get his revenge? But that would be so unGrantlike.
“Yeah. I can give you the phone number from the sign.”
I called and talked to a girl named Shawna, who seemed really, really nice. She said they had a room left to rent because a girl who was supposed to live there had moved in with her boyfriend. It was a long story. I didn’t catch all of it, partly because she talked a mile a minute.
She gave me directions but said she couldn’t meet for a couple of hours, so I applied for a few jobs on College Ave., nothing too exciting, while Mom jogged. Wait. Here she comes.
Time to go. Wish me luck.
9/13 MOVING SOON—HOORAY!
When we got to the house, a cute little brick bungalow on a small, quiet street, a girl was sitting on the front porch waiting for us. When she stood up to greet us, she looked so familiar, I felt like I knew her already. But I couldn’t place her. She had long, strawberry blond hair, a lot like mine, and was tall.
I started to introduce myself but before I got very far, we both realized that we had been in the same class year at Bugling Elk High School back in the day. We weren’t really friends then—she was more of a jock, on the basketball team (coordinated, unlike me)—but we had definitely known each other, enough so that I knew she wasn’t a horrible ax-murderer-type roommate.
“I moved away sophomore year,” Shawna explained. “Colorado Springs. We had that, like, awful Spanish class together. Remember?”
“I’ve never been able to learn any languages since. Scarred for life.”
She laughed and asked what I was up to, why I was starting at CSU so late in the semester and had no place to live. (She talked so fast that I just sort of guessed at some of what she said.) I told her the story of freshman year, and how I’d been sent back to Colorado and was now transferring to CSU. She was sorry that I had to transfer, but completely psyched I might be moving in. I asked if she was on the basketball team and she laughed. “No. Not exactly. I’m more into cycling and hanging out. You?”
“I’m more into, um . . .”
Just then her phone rang. “It’s my mom,” she said. “Calls twenty times a day. ’Scuse me.”
The other housemate came home a second later, pulling up in a French-looking car. Her name’s Dara and she’s very urban chic. She wears all black, has black-dyed hair with one purple streak in it, and wears these narrow glasses that somehow automatically made me feel stupid. She’s from Seattle and is majoring in Poetry. “Well, technically English, but with a minor in Russian, I mean, it’s obvious I’m a poet.”
“Right.” I smiled, thinking, Not exactly. And you’re kind of intimidating, really.
“So, how did you end up here?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask. I freaking hate the mountains. And the sun.”
As if Colorado was such a terrible place to be? I mean . . . wait. Maybe she was just homesick. I remember that same thing happening to me when I mistakenly shipped out to Cornwall Falls last . . . fall.
From the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.
“So, do you want to see the room or not?” asked Dara. She struck me as the very impatient type.
“It’s in the basement,” said Shawna.
“Oh?”
“But it’s huge. It’s actually most of the whole basement.”
We tromped down the stairs, and I found out she was right. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded, and it had potential. If you like concrete blocks, that is. If you like a general bunker feeling to your life and like to be ready for the next millennium. There were enough bottled Starbucks Frappuccinos down there to last through another ice age—Dara mentioned she had a slight problem making it through the day without a few.
I did not want to live in a basement, but did I have a lot of choice? No. I had zero choice.
And there was Mom, grinning and standing beside me like wasn’t it the most beautiful basement in all of Colorado?
“Shawna, are pets allowed?” Mom suddenly asked.
“Oh yeah, definitely!” Shawna said.
“Maybe,” said Dara.
“Mom,” I muttered, nudging her. Why do parents always ask the most embarrassing questions? Just when things were starting to gel between us, she has to ask about pets. “Why? I don’t have a pet.”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you, hon.”
And I’ve been meaning to knock you on the head, I thought. Repeatedly. Hon.
“Sterling is allergic to Oscar, plus we want to travel to do marathons and triathlons and Oscar would just have to go to the kennel and he doesn’t do well at kennels, you know.”
I glanced nervously at Shawna, and even more nervously at Dara. “So I’m taking Oscar with me if I move. You’re just telling me this now?”
“Well . . . please? Can you consider it?” she asked. “Because he’s really making Sterling’s life miserable.”
It was the kind of thing I wished Grant was there to hear. How people put themselves and their feelings above their so-called beloved pets. If I had to rescue the mangy mutt, then so be it.
“OK, fine, I’ll take Oscar. If they say it’s OK.” I glanced at my potential housemates again. They had moved over to the laundry area and were busy discussing the washer’s flaws. “But it might not be OK and this is the only place we’ve found so far where I can live so this is not going to be a deal breaker, Mom.”
She stared at me, looking stunned.
I was the one who was stunned. Mom was kicking out me, plus Oscar . . . I wondered if Bryan knew that he was living on borrowed time. I’d have to tell him to start asking his friends when he could move in. And if Alison was planning to move home after college, she could just forget about it, she might as well stay out in Oregon.
Mom used to go crazy by being too frugal.
Now she was in love, and instead of it being a good thing, it was horrible.
My dad was looking like a superhero in comparison. He moved away; he didn’t make us move away.
When Dara and Shawna came back from checking out the washer, I asked them if it might possibly, maybe, be slightly OK if my dog moved in.
Dara shrugged. “I’m the landlord. My parents own the house. As long as your dog gets along with DeathKitty, it’s OK.”
“DeathKitty?” I sort of choked out.
She explained that she has a black cat named DeathKitty, which is the opposite of Hello Kitty, in that she’s neither cute nor pink. I was thinking, shouldn’t that be Good-byeKitty, when Mom chimed in again with her sales pitch: Take the dog.
“Oscar wouldn’t hurt a flea. He’s freaky, but gentle,” Mom said.
Remind me to never have her describe me to someone.
“Wish I could say the same for DeathKitty,” Dara murmured.
I worried for poor Oscar. “So we’ll try it out and see?”
“Yup,” Dara agreed.
“Well. I think this is going to be just great,” Mom said as we drove home to Denver. “You’ll have a fresh start here.”
“A fresh late start,” I complained. I pointed out that I didn’t need a fresh start, it’s not like I started off really badly in college and this was my second or third chance at it. I’d aced college.
“All I’m saying is that starting over will be difficult. But remember, you hated CFC at first. And you and Mary Jo didn’t get along right away and you ended up becoming great friends.”
“True,” I said. “But, Mom. What are you expecting me to hate?”
She didn’t answer. Too busy thinking of how to turn my old room back into Workout Central, no doubt.
Now what. Do I call Grant and thank him?
Do I call W and give him the bad news? I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t find a place and would have to move back to WI with him, whether it made sense or not.
I texted them both while Mom drove. What was the abbreviation for Parent Next to Me Driving Like Crazy Woman?
Oops.
Got distracted when Mom slammed on the brakes and sent my text to W to G’s number instead.
Embarrassing.
Full of x’s and o’s.
What do you mean sorry you’re going to csu and you’re sorry you found a palace to live, Grant texted back. I thought that was what you wanted.
I didn’t find a palace, I wrote back, trying to keep things light. It’s a basement.
No response.
I added, Please disregard former message, it was not 4 u.
Ten minutes later: Then who was it 4? Grant wrote.
Um, Beth, I texted. I was sorry she’s in Italy and missing all this.
Why so many x’s and o’s?
I miss her! Isn’t it obvious?
You’re crazy. That’s obvious.
Then look out because your block just got a whole lot crazier, I replied.
No response.
No doubt regretting giving me housing advice.
So. Tx, I wrote.
Whatev. C U around.
Whatev? Since when did Grant use a word like that? I mean, whatev, Grant!
9/14
Packing up my limited stuff. Most of it I’d never unpacked from the boxes that I shipped here from Cornwall Falls.
Last night, told Wittenauer about finding a place and starting classes at CSU this week. I thought he’d be happy for me, but didn’t sound that way at first. “CSU. Do you really think that’s a good idea?” he asked.
“Well, why not? I mean, Grant does go there but so do twenty-five thousand other students, and—”
“I didn’t mean Grant. He’s the last thing on my mind. I meant, it’s far from here, silly. Does it have a good rep? Does it have a good law school?”
“How should I know?”
“Court. You should know,” said Wittenauer. “It’s our future we’re talking about here. The big picture. The long view. Remember?”
“Right, right. Uh. I’ll find out about, um, all that.” Wasn’t it enough that I had to scramble to find a place for just right now??? Was I supposed to make everything perfect for both of us for all time? Who am I, Oprah all of a sudden?
9/15
Moved into the house last night with Oscar. Bryan drove me up after school, because Mom and Sterling had to do their “long run” after work today.
“Don’t get me started,” Bryan said when I complained about it. “This was my long run day long before it was theirs.” He hoisted boxes from the trunk.
DeathKitty—largest, fluffiest black kitty I have ever seen—watched from the brick ledge on the porch and, as we approached up the sidewalk, started to hiss. Oscar put his tail between his legs and then lay down on my feet, which made it hard for me to carry boxes. Shuffled along the sidewalk with German shepherd mutt on sandals.
Fortunately or unfortunately I don’t have a lot to move in. Clothes, bookcase, books, one foldable chair, assorted boxes of personal items.
On the way into the house, Bryan tripped and fell because DeathKitty ran out and got in his way.
“Omigod, you’re, like, really hurt!” Shawna got a wet washcloth for his nose, which had started to bleed profusely. Onto the white living room rug.
“Gah, I’m so sorry,” Bryan said. “I’m not usually a klutz.”
Dara stared at the rug. “I kind of like how that looks, actually. Random drops of blood on white. Very Jackson Pollock.”
“OK . . .” Bryan said slowly.
I had no idea what she was talking about, either. I wondered if that was how DeathKitty got her name, by taking out people, accidentally on purpose of course.
“Anyway. See you around?” I said.
“Call me when you find out what you’re doing,” he said. “And, uh, if I hear anything about any kind of, you know, openings . . . I’ll call you.”
“That’d be great. Thanks.” I started to walk away.
“Courtney!” he called after me. “I need your number.”
“Right. Right.” I jotted my cell number down on the corner of a brown paper grocery bag, then tore a piece off and handed it to him.
“I could have added it to my iPhone,” he said. “You just wasted a bag.”
Stupid green team initiatives. I ran out to the car and started crying. So emotional. Nothing worse than getting corrected by Grant, Mr. Perfect.
Mr. Perfect Ex-Boyfriend.
LATER
Got home. Shaken and crumbly like a stale carrot cake muffin. Tried to call Wittenauer but he was heading into class and didn’t have time to talk. Instead, called Jane. Told her that I’d just seen Grant.
“You’re kidding!!! How is he? Tell him I said hi!”
“Jane. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t a social visit.”
“It wasn’t?” she asked.
“No!”
“What was it, then?”
“I don’t know. Awkward!”
She asked if I’d told him about Wittenauer yet, and I said, no, of course not, considering as how I only saw him a few minutes and we were in the middle of customer service. Did she really expect me to rub salt in an old wound the first time I saw Grant?
But does Grant know I’m still with Wittenauer? I wondered. Why would he? How could he? Well, that could wait until our next conversation. If we had one.
Jane and I talked so long that I was still on the phone with her when Wittenauer called back after class, and we talked for hours again. He still wants me to move back. Says he’s miserable. I told him I’m more miserable. It was a contest trying to one-up each other on how miserable we are. I think I won, but is it considered winning when it’s a contest for most miserable?
There is no “able” in miserable. Oh wait, there is. Able to feel misery. Lots and lots of misery. We are Les Misérables. We get very pathetic.
Do I move back to Wisconsin so I can be with Wittenauer? Or do I stay here so I can go to school, but only at a place where Grant is?
CSU has 25,000 students. Even if I do go there, and it’s not guaranteed I could get in, it’s not like I would see a lot of Grant. So that’s not the problem, really.
The problem is that every day Wittenauer and I are not in the same zip code, I miss him. I get nervous about our prospects. And we risk splitting up.
And I hate splitting up. (See: Parents’ Divorce.)
9/11
Mom proudly handed me a letter when I went down for coffee this morning. “Congratulations! You’ve been accepted as a transfer student. On behalf of everyone here at Colorado State University—your future—your education—” Blah blah blah—
I was still reading it, but I started crying. Mom and her man-friend wanted to know what was wrong. “I got in, all right?” I told them, sobbing.
“Hon, that’s wonderful. Now all we have to do is find you a room or an apartment up there.”
“Don’t call me ‘hon’!” I said through my blubbering.
“Wait a minute. I thought you wanted to live on your own,” said Sterling. “Don’t you?”
“Yes, but—that’s—that’s not the point.” I shoved my chair back and went to the sanctity of my former room. Then I had to run back, grab my coffee, and vanish again. So much for dramatic exits.
Yes, I want to live on my own. It’s not like I want to live in my mom’s workout room forever. But this just all feels overwhelming and it would be nicer if I didn’t feel like Mom is pretty much throwing me to the werewolves.
I called Wittenauer and we talked for a long time. He didn’t want me to get accepted because he still wants me to return to CFC, but he said we need to take “the long view.”
The long view: We both need to go to college. We both need to finish college. Then we can make decisions about what to do with our lives.
The short view: I have to start classes two weeks late, and will be living in my car.
Wait. I don’t have a car.
9/12
So far I’ve spent the entire day looking for a place to live in Fort Collins.
Mom is so desperate for me to “gain my independence” that she went with me. We had searched every online listing first—then we drove around neighborhoods near campus looking for signs. Nothing. The places were terrible, or the roommates were horrible. As much as I wanted to move, I couldn’t justify risking my life by moving in with someone who kept a pet boa constrictor.
“Mother, if you’d like to help, perhaps you could buy a house for me,” I suggested. “You’ve been saving all that money for years, I bet you have a large nest egg, and it’d be a great investment because people are always going to need housing, plus, the market is, um, really soft. Or hard. Anyway, there are houses—”
“Why don’t you call Grant instead, see if he has any leads?” she replied.
“You call him,” I said. “I already asked him for help.” The fact that he hadn’t called me since I saw him didn’t instill me with confidence. More like fear that he hated me and wanted nothing to do with me ever again.
“Ask him again,” she said.
“Mom.”
“Do it. Courtney, it’s only Grant. Maybe you’re not close anymore, but he’s not going to bite. He’ll probably do everything he can to help you out, hon.”
She was bothering me so much that I decided I’d do whatever it took to find a place in Fort Collins. Forget that this was as embarrassing as, well, tromping all over campus with my mother in her workout gear, because she wanted to do some trail running after we settled this housing thing.
Called Grant. Initiated begging and pleading. “And I’m not asking at all to live with you, not at all, but I was wondering if you have any ideas or any leads, if you know anyone—”
“Court, I’m sorry! I’ve been meaning to call you but I’ve been so busy. Why don’t you move onto my block?” he asked.
Whaaaa . . . t? “Your b-block?”
“Yeah, I just noticed there’s a room for rent in a house on my block.”
“Seriously?” Grant must not hate me too much if he was willing for me to live close by. Or was this a trick? Was he setting me up to live in a total dump, to get his revenge? But that would be so unGrantlike.
“Yeah. I can give you the phone number from the sign.”
I called and talked to a girl named Shawna, who seemed really, really nice. She said they had a room left to rent because a girl who was supposed to live there had moved in with her boyfriend. It was a long story. I didn’t catch all of it, partly because she talked a mile a minute.
She gave me directions but said she couldn’t meet for a couple of hours, so I applied for a few jobs on College Ave., nothing too exciting, while Mom jogged. Wait. Here she comes.
Time to go. Wish me luck.
9/13 MOVING SOON—HOORAY!
When we got to the house, a cute little brick bungalow on a small, quiet street, a girl was sitting on the front porch waiting for us. When she stood up to greet us, she looked so familiar, I felt like I knew her already. But I couldn’t place her. She had long, strawberry blond hair, a lot like mine, and was tall.
I started to introduce myself but before I got very far, we both realized that we had been in the same class year at Bugling Elk High School back in the day. We weren’t really friends then—she was more of a jock, on the basketball team (coordinated, unlike me)—but we had definitely known each other, enough so that I knew she wasn’t a horrible ax-murderer-type roommate.
“I moved away sophomore year,” Shawna explained. “Colorado Springs. We had that, like, awful Spanish class together. Remember?”
“I’ve never been able to learn any languages since. Scarred for life.”
She laughed and asked what I was up to, why I was starting at CSU so late in the semester and had no place to live. (She talked so fast that I just sort of guessed at some of what she said.) I told her the story of freshman year, and how I’d been sent back to Colorado and was now transferring to CSU. She was sorry that I had to transfer, but completely psyched I might be moving in. I asked if she was on the basketball team and she laughed. “No. Not exactly. I’m more into cycling and hanging out. You?”
“I’m more into, um . . .”
Just then her phone rang. “It’s my mom,” she said. “Calls twenty times a day. ’Scuse me.”
The other housemate came home a second later, pulling up in a French-looking car. Her name’s Dara and she’s very urban chic. She wears all black, has black-dyed hair with one purple streak in it, and wears these narrow glasses that somehow automatically made me feel stupid. She’s from Seattle and is majoring in Poetry. “Well, technically English, but with a minor in Russian, I mean, it’s obvious I’m a poet.”
“Right.” I smiled, thinking, Not exactly. And you’re kind of intimidating, really.
“So, how did you end up here?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask. I freaking hate the mountains. And the sun.”
As if Colorado was such a terrible place to be? I mean . . . wait. Maybe she was just homesick. I remember that same thing happening to me when I mistakenly shipped out to Cornwall Falls last . . . fall.
From the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.
“So, do you want to see the room or not?” asked Dara. She struck me as the very impatient type.
“It’s in the basement,” said Shawna.
“Oh?”
“But it’s huge. It’s actually most of the whole basement.”
We tromped down the stairs, and I found out she was right. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded, and it had potential. If you like concrete blocks, that is. If you like a general bunker feeling to your life and like to be ready for the next millennium. There were enough bottled Starbucks Frappuccinos down there to last through another ice age—Dara mentioned she had a slight problem making it through the day without a few.
I did not want to live in a basement, but did I have a lot of choice? No. I had zero choice.
And there was Mom, grinning and standing beside me like wasn’t it the most beautiful basement in all of Colorado?
“Shawna, are pets allowed?” Mom suddenly asked.
“Oh yeah, definitely!” Shawna said.
“Maybe,” said Dara.
“Mom,” I muttered, nudging her. Why do parents always ask the most embarrassing questions? Just when things were starting to gel between us, she has to ask about pets. “Why? I don’t have a pet.”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you, hon.”
And I’ve been meaning to knock you on the head, I thought. Repeatedly. Hon.
“Sterling is allergic to Oscar, plus we want to travel to do marathons and triathlons and Oscar would just have to go to the kennel and he doesn’t do well at kennels, you know.”
I glanced nervously at Shawna, and even more nervously at Dara. “So I’m taking Oscar with me if I move. You’re just telling me this now?”
“Well . . . please? Can you consider it?” she asked. “Because he’s really making Sterling’s life miserable.”
It was the kind of thing I wished Grant was there to hear. How people put themselves and their feelings above their so-called beloved pets. If I had to rescue the mangy mutt, then so be it.
“OK, fine, I’ll take Oscar. If they say it’s OK.” I glanced at my potential housemates again. They had moved over to the laundry area and were busy discussing the washer’s flaws. “But it might not be OK and this is the only place we’ve found so far where I can live so this is not going to be a deal breaker, Mom.”
She stared at me, looking stunned.
I was the one who was stunned. Mom was kicking out me, plus Oscar . . . I wondered if Bryan knew that he was living on borrowed time. I’d have to tell him to start asking his friends when he could move in. And if Alison was planning to move home after college, she could just forget about it, she might as well stay out in Oregon.
Mom used to go crazy by being too frugal.
Now she was in love, and instead of it being a good thing, it was horrible.
My dad was looking like a superhero in comparison. He moved away; he didn’t make us move away.
When Dara and Shawna came back from checking out the washer, I asked them if it might possibly, maybe, be slightly OK if my dog moved in.
Dara shrugged. “I’m the landlord. My parents own the house. As long as your dog gets along with DeathKitty, it’s OK.”
“DeathKitty?” I sort of choked out.
She explained that she has a black cat named DeathKitty, which is the opposite of Hello Kitty, in that she’s neither cute nor pink. I was thinking, shouldn’t that be Good-byeKitty, when Mom chimed in again with her sales pitch: Take the dog.
“Oscar wouldn’t hurt a flea. He’s freaky, but gentle,” Mom said.
Remind me to never have her describe me to someone.
“Wish I could say the same for DeathKitty,” Dara murmured.
I worried for poor Oscar. “So we’ll try it out and see?”
“Yup,” Dara agreed.
“Well. I think this is going to be just great,” Mom said as we drove home to Denver. “You’ll have a fresh start here.”
“A fresh late start,” I complained. I pointed out that I didn’t need a fresh start, it’s not like I started off really badly in college and this was my second or third chance at it. I’d aced college.
“All I’m saying is that starting over will be difficult. But remember, you hated CFC at first. And you and Mary Jo didn’t get along right away and you ended up becoming great friends.”
“True,” I said. “But, Mom. What are you expecting me to hate?”
She didn’t answer. Too busy thinking of how to turn my old room back into Workout Central, no doubt.
Now what. Do I call Grant and thank him?
Do I call W and give him the bad news? I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t find a place and would have to move back to WI with him, whether it made sense or not.
I texted them both while Mom drove. What was the abbreviation for Parent Next to Me Driving Like Crazy Woman?
Oops.
Got distracted when Mom slammed on the brakes and sent my text to W to G’s number instead.
Embarrassing.
Full of x’s and o’s.
What do you mean sorry you’re going to csu and you’re sorry you found a palace to live, Grant texted back. I thought that was what you wanted.
I didn’t find a palace, I wrote back, trying to keep things light. It’s a basement.
No response.
I added, Please disregard former message, it was not 4 u.
Ten minutes later: Then who was it 4? Grant wrote.
Um, Beth, I texted. I was sorry she’s in Italy and missing all this.
Why so many x’s and o’s?
I miss her! Isn’t it obvious?
You’re crazy. That’s obvious.
Then look out because your block just got a whole lot crazier, I replied.
No response.
No doubt regretting giving me housing advice.
So. Tx, I wrote.
Whatev. C U around.
Whatev? Since when did Grant use a word like that? I mean, whatev, Grant!
9/14
Packing up my limited stuff. Most of it I’d never unpacked from the boxes that I shipped here from Cornwall Falls.
Last night, told Wittenauer about finding a place and starting classes at CSU this week. I thought he’d be happy for me, but didn’t sound that way at first. “CSU. Do you really think that’s a good idea?” he asked.
“Well, why not? I mean, Grant does go there but so do twenty-five thousand other students, and—”
“I didn’t mean Grant. He’s the last thing on my mind. I meant, it’s far from here, silly. Does it have a good rep? Does it have a good law school?”
“How should I know?”
“Court. You should know,” said Wittenauer. “It’s our future we’re talking about here. The big picture. The long view. Remember?”
“Right, right. Uh. I’ll find out about, um, all that.” Wasn’t it enough that I had to scramble to find a place for just right now??? Was I supposed to make everything perfect for both of us for all time? Who am I, Oprah all of a sudden?
9/15
Moved into the house last night with Oscar. Bryan drove me up after school, because Mom and Sterling had to do their “long run” after work today.
“Don’t get me started,” Bryan said when I complained about it. “This was my long run day long before it was theirs.” He hoisted boxes from the trunk.
DeathKitty—largest, fluffiest black kitty I have ever seen—watched from the brick ledge on the porch and, as we approached up the sidewalk, started to hiss. Oscar put his tail between his legs and then lay down on my feet, which made it hard for me to carry boxes. Shuffled along the sidewalk with German shepherd mutt on sandals.
Fortunately or unfortunately I don’t have a lot to move in. Clothes, bookcase, books, one foldable chair, assorted boxes of personal items.
On the way into the house, Bryan tripped and fell because DeathKitty ran out and got in his way.
“Omigod, you’re, like, really hurt!” Shawna got a wet washcloth for his nose, which had started to bleed profusely. Onto the white living room rug.
“Gah, I’m so sorry,” Bryan said. “I’m not usually a klutz.”
Dara stared at the rug. “I kind of like how that looks, actually. Random drops of blood on white. Very Jackson Pollock.”
“OK . . .” Bryan said slowly.
I had no idea what she was talking about, either. I wondered if that was how DeathKitty got her name, by taking out people, accidentally on purpose of course.
