“I guess not. I mean, I’m pretty sure I would remember.”
Michelle, half dozing on the couch, buried the box of cereal she’d just had her hand in beneath a couch cushion and we all laughed at what a loser he was.
It was inevitable that I would end up sleeping with him.
One day men with big metal cranes showed up to tear down our house. Boy were we surprised! It was a Wednesday morning, but as luck would have it, we were all home. Steph tried calling our landlord, but none of us could remember who it was. We just gave our money to Nora every month and she took care of things. We asked her who to call, but her English was mysteriously failing her in this time of crisis. She kept saying she couldn’t understand, couldn’t understand.
“Write it down?” she said, gesturing like she was wiggling a pen.
“Let’s band together,” said Bob. “This is our home and we aren’t leaving without a fight!”
I curled up on the couch and decided I would just do whatever everyone else decided to do.
Outside, the big ball on the crane was swinging ominously overhead.
“Pick your battles,” said Sam, pushing his granny glasses up his nose.
“Yeah, screw it,” said Steph. She grabbed her backpack and her weed and she was gone. This made the rest of us panic.
None of us had time to do much besides throw together what we could in some duffel bags and laundry baskets. Sam and I were driving around together, wearing pajamas, homeless, with everything we had been able to grab in the back of my car. As the afternoon turned to evening and our worry grew, we passed a rickety four unit over by Camp Randall. A ‘For Rent’ sign was nailed to the front porch, which the landlord happened to be repairing. We stopped the car, talked to him for a few minutes, and looked at the apartment. Next we were signing a lease he retrieved from his car, and just like that, our problems were solved and we were living together. It seemed like an obvious decision. I would even say we both felt pretty lucky.
As the months in our lice nest ticked past, we came to realize that we needed to get better jobs. My part-time job at the yarn store and Sam’s reliance on finding garbage and selling it on eBay were making it hard to scrape by. He was still posting his thoughts on the bathroom mirror as his only means of real communication, and I was beginning to notice a theme: I Want Groceries. was Monday’s message. Starving. How About You? on Tuesday. Ramen Again? No Thanks. was on Wednesday. Finally he got a job at Merry Maids and I started working at Border’s.
It was the fall of 1999 and everywhere you looked, The Millennium was the theme. The. Millennium. A looming, ominous abyss, just a few steps away. There was fear and excitement about what a new millennium might bring. Would computers still work? Would our bank accounts freeze? Would we say the year was two thousand, or would we say twenty oh oh?
Border’s was filled with Millennium-themed calendars and coffee mugs and books about Nostradamus’s predictions. My supervisor Krystle was putting together a newsletter about all of us employees she called her Y Not Get 2 Know Your Border’s Team Gazette. Her boss was totally impressed that she had taken it upon herself to go above and beyond the call of duty. In actuality, she was one of those lazy, creative types who found ways to tie up all her time with little diversionary projects. She interviewed every last one of us over the course of that fall. By December she had stacks of the newsletters ready for customers to take. “They’re free! Learn about Your Border’s Team!” We stuck them in people’s shopping bags until Corporate found out and told us that was taking it too far. Stacks by the door were allowed though.
In February we all got to divide up the leftovers. I still have a few. It’s not very often I’ve had half a page devoted to me. I must admit, it was kind of flattering. I showed a copy to Sam. “What’s so special about that,” he said, still in his Merry Maids outfit. “Everyone is in here. It’s not like you won some kind of contest.”
By the summer of 2000 Sam was getting really depressed. Despite his cynical outlook, I believe he had expected the new millennium to bring some kind of positive, sweeping change to the world, and it had not. His messages were getting longer and ramblier, and less subtle.
There was this one in June: I Can’t Even Tie My Shoes Anymore Without Spending Ten Minutes Trying To Psych Myself Up For It. Everything Hurts. Especially My Teeth. I Wish I Was Dead. And then in July, this: I Try Overdosing On Tylenol Almost Every Day Now But I Am Too Big To Die. I Think I Will Buy A Gun.
He and I never had sex anymore, which was fine considering how unattractive I found him. He was starting to not even shower. Plus, there was someone new at work who made Sam seem even worse than he actually was, if that was possible. It was Adrian.
Adrian had started in the early spring, but our schedules hadn’t crossed until summer. When I first saw him I looked twice, then a third time. Inexplicably, I seemed to have captured his attention too. It was impossible. He must be gay, I decided, remembering Alex Wescott, the only other cute boy who had ever liked me. The last I heard, Alex was tap dancing off Broadway and living with some ancient, emerald-encrusted sugar daddy named The Captain. Adorable, sexy, straight men might be my type, but I was not theirs.
In August Krystle bought her first home and invited everyone over for a housewarming party. I invited Sam to come along, but he said he would rather eat glass shards.
I had the closing shift on the night of the party, and so did Adrian. We had never worked together before. When I saw both our names on the schedule, I got butterflies.
“Are you going to Krystle’s?” Adrian asked me, while we were straightening one of the front tables that some little k
ids had demolished two minutes before we closed.
“Yeah, I guess so. Are you?” I tried to act cool.
“Yeah…” he said. I waited for him to say something more.
The thing is, I had no idea Adrian was married. I knew practically nothing about him and I was not “in” with the Border’s gossip. He never wore a ring. I felt like he wanted to ask me to go with him, yet now he was silent, straightening the books and not looking at me. What if this had been The Opportunity, the only one I got? I struggled against it slipping away, trying to come up with the right thing to say. “I hate finding new places at night. Do you know where Krystle lives?” I asked. “So I can follow you, in my car,” I added.
He turned back to me and said, “Why don’t you come with me? We can ride together. It just makes sense to not take two cars.”
“Okay. If you’re sure,” I said.
“I’m sure,” he said. Then he seemed to reconsider. “Hey, do you mind finishing this? I’ll be back in a minute.” He disappeared in the direction of the break room and I kept straightening.
He’s calling someone, I thought. He’s making an excuse why he will be late.