We sit on Hal’s couch with the light from his TV casting shadows over our faces. He’s wearing his glasses tonight and it’s like catnip to me. I like the way they frame his sleepy, half-closed eyes. Physically, we’re opposites. Hal has a lanky frame and slightly unruly light brown hair, while I’m short and medium-sized—all roundness and curves—with a dark, blunt bob.
“Oh come on,” I groan as he selects one of those channels that only plays episodes ofUnsolved Mysteriesfrom before we were born. The reenactments are especially hilarious when we’re not sober. “Is this what you put on when you’re trying to impress some hapless girl you’ve conned into coming back to your apartment?”
I do this sometimes. I poke at him just to see if it knocks loose a nugget of information he wouldn’t have revealed otherwise. For example, that maybe therehasbeen a girl coming back here who doesn’t realize that Hal uses his cousin’s log-in on every streaming service.
“Since when are you ‘hapless’?” he replies.
That kind of answer is fine on the surface. But we’ve never officially promised not to hook up with other people; I don’t want to be the one to bring it up and push for something he has no reason to agreeto.
I want Hal to bring it up. I want Hal to say—
Jughead
Hey.
On the couch in the dark living room, Jughead Jones turns to Lydia Deetz.
Jughead
We’re only sleeping with each other, right?
Lydia’s tiny red mouth turns up into a little smile.
Lydia
Oh, should I cancel the orgy I scheduled for tomorrow?
Jughead doesn’t laugh. He just looks Lydia in the eye for a few seconds.
He leansin.
An inch closer. TheUnsolved Mysterieslogo shines on their faces.
Lydia holds her breath.
Closer. Closer…
Maddening.
6
On Monday, I bravely battlethe alarms that go off at 6:14a.m., 6:49a.m., and 7:23A.M., snoozing them three to four times before putting them out of their misery. Not that I even need the alarms today, because there’s a squealing drill penetrating the drywall a few inches from my pillow. The cheap metal frame of my daybed vibrates.
THUMPTHUMP. THUD. THUD!
I bang on the wall with my fist, shouting, “This is ashared wall, dickhead!Do you need to finish this construction project first thing in the morning?”
“It’s after nine thirty!” a man’s booming voice responds. The drilling resumes.
There’s a knock from the other side of the room. “Everything okay in there?”
“Everything’s fine!” I call out before my mom can open the door. Even though I’m not doing anything wrong, whenever she enters the office, I feel like a teenager who needs to hide her stash in a hollowed-out book.
“Do you want to take Houdini out?” Her phrasing is so careful. My theory is that my mom is afraid of treating me like a child, so she tiptoes around any request that could be perceived as nagging. Taking the dog out is one of my few visible contributions to this household and I like to at least appear to be helping.
The person I was six years ago wouldn’t have left the apartment wearing pajamas and two pimple patches. The person I am today knows that the only people she’ll run into outside are a couple of elderly residents walking their schnauzers and they don’t seem to notice that I’m not wearing a bra.
Houdini takes his time. He knows I have nothing better to do than wait for him to find the perfect spot to relieve himself.
