“For the call?”
“Well, yeah, or just talk to me for the next five minutes while I’m setting up and making sure my room looks presentable. But actually, if you’re down to stay, I wouldn’t mind the moral support.” It would also make me feel like less of a creep. Like,Look, Layla! This girl doesn’t think I’m an asshole, so you shouldn’t either!
“Stay for the call?” Maggie asks again, as if I’ve asked her if she’d care to dissect a cat.
“Or not, if that weirds you out. I’m just really nervous.”
“No, of course, yeah.”
“Either way, I really do need to go upstairs.”
“Okay,” Maggie says. “Yeah, I’ll follow you up there.”
“Okay. Great.”
I lead the way, Maggie right behind. I bet she’s having memories of coming up here with me before. I furrow my brow, like maybe I can activate some of my own deeply buried memories, creak open some trapdoor wedged between my brain folds, some secret entrance into past incarnations of myself.
Nope.
We step into my bedroom. I’d already started cleaning it so Layla wouldn’t get background glimpses of me being a mess of a person.
“Sweet banana peel,” Maggie says, pointing below my desk.
Dammit, missed that.
“That’s supposed to be there,” I say. “For good luck.”
“And good fragrance.”
“Exactly.” I pick it up and shoot it like a basketball across the room toward my wire wastebasket. I miss.
“Nice one,” Maggie says, taking a cross-legged seat on my bed, real casual, like it’s something she’s done dozens of times before. She shrugs off her winter coat as she’s looking around my room, and I can tell she’s having Feelings. Perhaps regret for coming here.
I’m having Feelings too. Maggie looks real good in that jumpsuit. Like the world’s hottest auto mechanic.
“So, yeah,” I say, drumming on my thighs like a dweeb. “I guess there’s not much else to really do before the call. What did you want to talk about?”
“Right.” Maggie looks down, and I notice there’s a red-hooded E.T. on each of her socks. So cool. She also has some kind of sparkly lip gloss on. I remember it from Shana’s party.Makes it hard to stop staring at her lips.
“Is it about Layla?” I ask.
“Not really,” Maggie’s mouth says. “Kind of.”
“Oh god. Is there something else assholey I did that I should be apologizing for? I’d prefer not to do more than one call with her, you know? Get it all apologized for at once.”
“Ha, right. No. There’s nothing else you did to Layla. That I know of.”
“Okay, good.”
“Yeah.”
I glance at my phone—5:28. “So...?”
“So... Okay.” Maggie pets my blue comforter like it’s an animal. She’s almost zookeeper-like in that jumpsuit, come to think of it. World’s hottest zookeeper. “So you heard about the Layla breakup from yourself, right?”
“Right.”
“And yourself heard about it from m—”
