Relieved, my own lips twitch in response. “Always.”
On the drive home, I try to ignore the weird pit in my stomach. I hated turning Miles down, but my life is too complicated to eventhinkabout dating. I have to keep my priorities straight if I want any hope of maintaining my sanity.
The lights in the downstairs front rooms of my house are on when I pull into the driveway. My roommate Celia is a student at the same college Kitty goes to, and she usually beats me home in the evenings.
“Honey, I’m home,” I singsong as I step inside. After kicking off my shoes and shucking my jacket, I peer around the corner into the tiny dining room. My gaze scans the pile of textbooks, notebooks, and assorted pens and highlighters before settling on a young woman with thick braids coiled around her head. “You’re not Celia,” I say stupidly.
She laughs. “Very astute. Celia and I have a project for class and she said it’d be easier to work here rather than at the library or student center. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not.” Despite living here for almost six months, Celia still has trouble thinking of this as ‘her’ place, even though I’ve told her a million times it’s as much her home as it is mine. We first met a year and a half ago when she and her former roommate, Ivy—who is now my best friend and boss—were hired as seasonal extras at Bellevue Village, where I work a regular nine-to-five as a manager. When Ivy moved in with her fiancé, Hugh—owner of Bellevue Village, and a longtime friend of mine—I suggested Celia come live with me. I’m ever hopeful someday she’ll stop referring to it as ‘Meredith’s place’ and start seeing it asours.
A string of rapid-fire Mandarin precedes Celia’s entrance into the dining room. She smiles when she sees me, followed by an eye roll as she points at the phone in her hand. “Yes, Mama. Okay, Mama. I have togo, Mama.” She says something else in Mandarin and disconnects the call, flopping into the chair across from her classmate.
In true Celia fashion, she skips the pleasantries and says, “You’re late tonight.”
“We fell asleep again.” Since Kitty is a client, I have to keep her identity anonymous, but I always tell Celia where I’m going, plus occasionally share details that don’t break the confidentiality agreement.
“Did she haveJoshua Treeon repeat again?” she asks with a smirk.
Details like that. “I now officially have the whole album memorized.”
Celia tilts her head in the direction of the other girl at the table. “This is Aneesha, she’s in my program at school. I was telling her about your companion work.”
Aneesha gives a little wave, making the chunky rings on each of her fingers glint in the overhead light. “I kept seeing the adverts around campus and thinking it sounded so wei—” Her eyes go wide and she claps a hand over her mouth.
“Don’t worry, I thought it was weird at first too.” I pry the lid off the container of baked goods and set it on top of one of Celia’s open textbooks before sitting down. I refrain from telling Aneesha that when I first heard of Human Touch Companions, I thought it was some kind of escort service. Even when I learned what they do, I still thought it sounded like being a call girl minus anything sexual. I quickly learned it’s so much more than that, and now I feel like I’m doing something worthwhile and helping people.
Aneesha drops her hand, revealing a rueful smile. “Weird, but in an interesting way, right? Like it makes you curious. I thought it was a joke at first, but Celia tells me it’s legit.”
“It’s the real deal,” I assure her.
“How did you get into it?” Aneesha asks, pulling a double chocolate chunk cookie from the container. I order myself not to think of Miles and his love of those particular cookies.
“Uh, well…” My eyes flit to Celia. I don’t know how much Aneesha knows about my roommate, and whether they’re simply classmates or friends.
“It’s okay,” Celia says to me. Then to Aneesha, “I’ve been in therapy for the last year or so. I had some…let’s say ‘anger issues’. After awhile, my therapist told me about Human Touch Companions. You have to have a referral either from a doctor or someone in the program, so I checked out the site and knew immediately it wasn’t for me. I don’t even like to behugged, but this little ray of sunshine—” She points to me with the cookie in her hand. “She’s a touchy-feely people person.”
I laugh at her description. “It’s true. When Celia told me about the program, it seemed tailor-made for me. I went in for interviews and training, and they said I was exactly the type of person they were looking for.”
Aneesha opens her mouth to speak, but Celia cuts her off. “Okay, less chatting, more studying,” she says, tapping her pen on her notebook. After knowing her for a year and a half and living with her for the last several months, I’m used to Celia’s bluntness and her patented snarkasm. Deep down, I suspect she could benefit from the kind of work I do for HTC, but she’d never admit it.
Since the girls already have their own snacks, I take the cookies upstairs with me, where I change my clothes and get settled at my computer. My hand hovers over the mouse as the screensaver moves through the slideshow gallery of my favorite photos. About half the pictures include Ivy and Hugh, as well as our mutual friends Bridget and Piper. Celia is usually the one taking pictures since she hates being in them, but she’s in a couple of shots and she’s even smiling. Sort of. The other half, and my absolute favorite pictures, are the ones of my mom and me.
The most recent one of us pops up on the screen and I lean in, wanting to be closer to my mom even though it’s just a photo. It was taken a little less than a year ago, right before she checked into Birch Hill, a facility in Kingston, the city where I grew up. She was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s about a year and a half ago at the age of sixty-eight, and the disease progressed with heartbreaking rapidity. I wanted to move home to take care of her, but she insisted a place like Birch Hill, where they specialize in the care of people with Alzheimer’s, was the right decision for her. She was worried I’d drop my whole life here in Bellevue to be with her, so she took the decision out of my hands and secured a spot at Birch Hill before I could quit my job or put my house up for sale. Now photographs and almost thirty years of amazing memories are all I have left of her.
The bittersweet melancholy I always feel when I think of my mother rises in my chest, threatening to suffocate me. Determined not to let it win—because Mom would hate that—I jiggle the mouse, scattering the slideshow. I pull up the website for Human Touch Companions and log into my account. Kitty has already left a glowing five-star review of our time together.
When I first signed up to be a companion, I instated a three-encounter maximum rule. My profile explains what I’m available for and my preferences on location and age. With Bellevue being a college town, the majority of my clients are college students, varying in age from fresh-out-of-high-school to students in their mid-twenties like Celia, plus a few more mature people who have returned to school or are learning a trade. I’m also popular with single women around my age and a bit older. After a session, I write a review that’s only visible to other companions, and from there I decide whether to leave my profile open or hide it from specific people so they can’t select me as a companion in the future.
I broke my rule with Kitty, though. I try hard not to think of her as a friend, but I’d miss our time together if I stopped seeing her. I’ve created a loophole in her case; she was given up for adoption at the age of three and then bounced around between foster homes and group homes until she found her ‘forever home’ a year before she started college. She’s had so little continuity in her life, I like to think I’m helping her by remaining her companion. She could request someone else on the site, but she still chooses me, so that says something.
I sift through my messages, reading updates from the admins, and making a note to check out the links for the new studies being done on the benefits of human touch. After confirming a few meetings with clients for next week, I open an email from a potential new client.
Hello Meredith, my name is Kieran O’Malley. I’ve been a student at Loyola since September, and I was referred by my roommate’s girlfriend, who lived in the dorms last semester and met with you a few times.
I’m here on a student visa from Ireland. My parents are the sort who have never approved of anything I’ve done, and coming to Canada for school is another black mark against me in a long line of perceived screw-ups. For some reason, they’re coming for a visit—likely hoping to drag me home with them so I can ‘finally take my rightful place in my dad’s company’. To most, a family gathering wouldn’t seem like something that requires backup, but you haven’t met my parents. I’ve made a few friends at school, but I don’t want them knowing my family troubles. Part of the reason I came here was for a fresh start, and airing the O’Malley family dirty laundry isn’t exactly in line with that goal.
I was hoping you’d consider accompanying me when I meet with them. I could use the emotional support…and also a buffer if I’m perfectly honest. They’re not bad people, truly. They wouldn’t treatyoupoorly. They reserve that for me.
