While I had no idea who the band was, I was familiar with the sounds of Liz and David moaning through the walls as they pleasured each other in ways I could only, but had no desire to, imagine. After three years of dating, they still went at it like two rabbits on Spanish Fly—which, let me tell you, is so wonderful for a lonely single girl to hear in anot at allkind of way. But, hey, I’m no hater. I was glad at least one of us was getting some action.
An abrupt stillness would always follow Liz and David’s heated sexcapades, and then Liz would meander into the kitchen, her heart-shaped rear peeking out from the bottom hem of David’s shirt, to scavenge for juice. I assumed that’s what she was after now.
“Hate to break it to you, toots,” I said. “All we’ve got is grapefruit.”
She blinked at me dourly, probably because the stuff tasted like battery acid. A few days back, we’d gotten it after watching an infomercial for an industrial-grade juicer that could take off a person’s arm if used incorrectly. The guy hocking it was allegedly ninety-five, though he didn’t look a day over thirty; honestly, you could scrub laundry clean on his abs. While we didn’t have the “four easy payments of just $49.95” for the machine, we vowed to eat clean and consume nothing but raw fruits and vegetables for the following month. We zipped to the grocery store, where we filled our cart with items like unsweetened juices, kale, and sprouts, making it five whole hours at home on our insane health kick before driving back to buy a frozen pizza.
Despite her frown, it seemed Liz was keen to give the grapefruit juice another shot. Which was great, except that she delivered me an unadulterated view of her lady bits when she bent over inside the fridge. Good thing she wasn’t just my roommate but also my best friend, or else I might have been alarmed.
I flung a hand over my eyes, nonetheless. “God, vagina!”
She twisted around, her face a portrait of innocence. “What?”
I’d concluded long ago that if I were allowed only one term to describe the girl, it would bebrazen. At twenty-eight, she was a little older than me, though seniority had nothing to do with it. With the amount of self-confidence Liz had, she’d probably emerged from the womb a vixen. As a somewhat reserved individual, I envied her confidence.
“You’resouptight,” she sang. “It’s not likeyoudon’t have the same parts betweenyourlegs. If you don’t, I’m thinking one of us needs to call the doctor!”
“Right,” I agreed lamely.
Liz finished pouring her juice and then set the drink aside. I couldn’t blame her for stalling, though if I was her, I’d do the smart thing and pour it all straight down the drain. “Hey, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen—”
“Your vagina?”
“No, idiot.” Her chuckle was cut short by retching as she finally took a sip. “Ugh, I forgot how nasty this is. Does it have anything to with those letters?”
I scowled at the stack of envelopes I hadn’t realized I’d been white knuckling. I set them aside on the kitchen table. “I’m a little behind on my student loan.”
Liz and I split rent, utility charges, and food fifty-fifty. Not wanting to concern her, I didn’t elaborate on my other bills and likely depleted checking account balance. She made decent money as a hairdresser and could easily cover my expenses if push came to shove, but the humiliation of her pity would kill me. I was no mooch. Blame my prideful blue-collar upbringing, but I’d live out of my car before I’d seethathappen.
“Oh no.” Liz’s tone was so gloomy that the debt could have been her own. Blowing air out of her puffed cheeks, she ran her fingers through her auburn tresses. A couple weeks earlier, she’d cropped off several inches. Her long hair had been beautiful, but I thought the new bob suited her nicely. The cut was done on impulse, a totally Liz thing to do. She’d given her locks to a charity that made wigs for children going through chemotherapy, another totally Liz thing to do. It didn’t seem possible that someone so cool and stunning could also be so selfless, but there she was. “How much do you owe?”
“A hundred and eighteen thousand.”
Liz choked on the godforsaken juice she seemed determined to finish. Some of it dribbled onto her chin and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. “Dollars?”
I nodded, my stomach churning. “It’ll end up being more because of interest.”
“Shit.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I mean, I knew you had student loans, but I had no idea it was so much. That’s more than what some people pay for a house.”
I barked out a laugh. “Not around here.”
“Okay, in tiny, middle-of-nowhere towns, but still.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Her auburn brows furrowed. “Wait, I thought Dewhurst gave you a scholarship?”
“They did, but it only covered about half the tuition each year. Star athletes who put asses in stadium seats are the ones who receive full rides at that place,” I said tartly. “On top of the partial tuition I paid, I also had to buy several textbooks for each class at about a hundred dollars a pop. And then there was living expenses: rent, food, utilities, and my phone bill. Four years of living in the Bay Area without employment? It adds up fast.”
Liz already knew this, so I didn’t add that I hadn’t been able to work while in school because of my full-time schedule, which had come with the disadvantage of erratic hours that no employer would have been able to accommodate; by the time I would have arrived at a job after one class I would have needed to turn right back around to attend another. Another tidbit that never made Dewhurst’s brochures was that they designed their curriculum so that courses mandatory for graduation were offered only once every twelve months. Thus, skipping any would result in being an undergrad for five or six years. For what I’d been paying, four was plenty.
Dewhurst administrators assumed their students were so rich that they didn’tneedto work and wouldn’t dream of jeopardizing their degrees by prioritizing a minimum-wage job over studying and doing the elaborate homework every professor at that place was hellbent on assigning. Which, to be fair, was the case for about ninety-nine percent of the student body. Unfortunately, unlike my classmates at Dewhurst, my parents hadn’t set up a cushy trust fund in my name the instant I was conceived. Sadly, I lost them when I was four to a brutal car accident—though, even if they were alive today, I doubt they’d even know what a trust fund is, let alone have any money to put into it. Drugs and booze would see to that.
“What are you going to do?” Liz made a move to tug at what used to be the ends of her long mane, snatching only air. It was odd how she tried to play with it as like was still there like an amputee suffering from phantom limb.
