Guyaholic

  But instead I mutter, “Chicken nuggets, fries, and a Coke.”

  As I hand him my money, I notice he’s wearing a chunky silver ring that says CLUE. I wonder if that’s a sign. Well, even if it is, it can’t help me because I definitely don’t have one.

  As we’re hauling my bags up the four flights of stairs to Mara’s apartment, she tells me she’s planned a Power Day for us tomorrow, complete with a tour of Chicago and several rounds of coffee.

  “Ugh,” I mutter, pausing on a landing.

  “Not feeling powerful?” Mara turns to grin at me. “Or have you quit coffee? Please don’t tell me you’ve quit coffee, because I can’t be the only caffeine addict in the family.”

  “Aimee still drinks coffee,” I say. But then, as we resume our ascent, I add, “At least I think so.”

  Mara opens the door and gestures me inside. We toss my stuff on the floor and I glance around. It’s a crappy student apartment that Mara and her Yale roommate are subletting for the summer. Mara is a neat freak, so the living room is tidy. But all the cleaning products in the world couldn’t disguise those yellowy stains on the futon or the unmistakable frat-boy stench of farts, beer, and late-night Chinese food.

  “My room is on the left,” Mara says. “You’ll acquire the fewest diseases in there. Over there is Emmy’s room. She’s out all the time, so you probably won’t see her, but don’t be surprised if you hear sadomasochistic sex in the middle of the night.”

  “Emmy?” I ask, staring at Mara. My only memory of Emmy was when my grandparents and I visited Yale for Parents’ Weekend and she was all equestrian team and pink cashmere sweater sets.

  “I know,” Mara says, rolling her eyes. “She’s a different person since we got here. She met some guy, a graffiti artist. Luckily, they usually bring the handcuffs to his place.”

  “What about you?” I ask as Mara leads me into the kitchen and sets a bag of chips and a jar of salsa on the table.

  “Handcuffs?” Mara shakes her head. “Nah . . . I prefer whips, sometimes blindfolds.”

  Mara laughs, and as she does, I laugh, too. It’s great to finally see Mara. I can tell it’s already been a good summer for her. Even she admits that she tends to go overboard with stressing about academics and her future as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. So after an intense year at college, Mara decided to join her roommate in Chicago. Emmy is completing some premed requirements. Mara, on the other hand, is working at Starbucks and doing yoga and taking a drawing class. Plus, she’s growing out her hair, so it’s curly around her face. And she’s wearing low-rise shorts and a white tank top that shows off her tanned shoulders.

  After a moment I say, “You’re avoiding my question.”

  Mara pours us glasses of water and indicates that I should sit down.

  “Still avoiding,” I say.

  “Fine.” Mara opens the chips and scoops out a handful. “There’s a cute guy in my yoga class, but I have no idea how to ask if he wants to hang out. I haven’t been with anyone since . . . well . . . since . . .”

  “James?”

  “Yeah,” Mara says, grimacing.

  James was Mara’s boyfriend from Brockport. They worked at Common Grounds together during her senior year and were inseparable all of last summer. But then when she came home for Thanksgiving, they had a big talk and decided long-distance wasn’t working for them. Mara told me it was a smart decision, but as she boarded the train back to New Haven, her eyes were puffy and bloodshot.

  “So,” Mara says, “any brilliant seduction advice? All I’ve done so far is ask how he does the camel pose so well.”

  “The camel pose?”

  “Sort of like a back bend, but much more painful.”

  “You asked him how he does the camel pose?” I ask, grinning.

  “I know!” Mara buries her face in her hands. “I’m pathetic.”

  I drag a chip through the salsa. “I can’t get over the fact that you’re taking yoga.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I still run to class all caffeinated and checking my voice mail.” Mara sips her water. “But enough me about me. . . . How’s the road trip going?”

  I groan. “Can we please talk about Camel Guy instead?”

  “Now look who’s avoiding.”

  “Fine,” I say, and then I describe driving one hundred miles in the wrong direction, fooling around with Nate in Erie, thinking I was going to crash in Cleveland, and then today how I trucked across Ohio and Indiana, but then hit construction before Gary and a standstill on the Skyway into Chicago. Also, I couldn’t remember Mara’s exit, and the bumper-car traffic was too terrifying for me to look away from the road and find my phone. By the time I finally called her, I had a pounding headache and I’d gnawed off all my fingernails.

  “Why are you doing this again?” Mara asks. “Why not just fly out there? And speaking of Texas, why are you even going in the first place?”

  I shake my head and tell Mara that I truly, deeply want to discuss the guy from her yoga class.

  “Still avoiding,” Mara says.

  I yawn and rub my eyes.

  “Now you’re using the tired defense,” Mara says. “But I’ll take it, seeing that you’ve just driven ten million miles. How about to-be-continued?”

  I shrug. Mara puts the salsa in the fridge. Then we head down the hall and into her room. There’s a twin bed, a desk with a laptop and some sketch pads, and a rectangle of available carpet space. Mara offers me the bed, but I tell her I’ll crash on the floor.

  “Do you have a sleeping bag?” she asks.

  “It’s in the car. Your parents —”

  “Oh, my God! Did they buy you that zero-degree one from Dick’s?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “They got one like that for me, too,” she says. “Are they obsessed with the North Pole or something?”

  “It actually looks okay . . . sort of cozy.”

  I reach into my pocket, but Mara takes the car keys out of my hand and insists on getting it herself. Once she’s gone I collapse onto her bed and stare out the window. I can see the flickering blue of a neighbor’s television. A car alarm begins shrieking and then stops. A commuter train whizzes by. I close my eyes and wait for Mara to get back.

  Mara and I sleep until ten, shower, and then traipse down the four flights of stairs and onto the street. She’s skipping her art class this morning and has announced that our Power Day will begin with a trek over to her Starbucks. She’s on an equally tight budget, but she said that if this one psychotic manager isn’t around, we can probably score free lattes and maybe even some Danishes. Otherwise, we’ll just use her employee discount for breakfast.

  We turn right on Cornell and wander the quiet sidewalks of Hyde Park. The trees are lush and full. The brick row houses have trimmed lawns and wrought-iron fences. Mara tells me it’s mostly a college neighborhood, which makes sense because we’ve passed a few tweedy professor types pedaling bicycles and some wan students lugging overstuffed backpacks.

  After about ten minutes, we reach a populated strip with restaurants and bookstores. Mara steers me into Starbucks and introduces me to this skinny Indian guy named Navneet. He propels us behind a display of organic beans, leans in, and whispers, “Noelle just went to the pharmacy to pick up her Prozac. You want two drip coffees? I can do that quickly. With steamed milk? Okay? Okay.”

  Ninety seconds later Navneet chucks us a bulging bag. “I put in sugar packets and stirrers and napkins and a few apple streusels,” he hisses. “Now get out of here!”

  We thank him, and as we’re saying good-bye, he smiles extra-long at Mara, and in that extra-long moment, I realize that if he ate seventy thousand apple streusels, he’d actually be cute. Also, he obviously has a thing for Mara, only she has no idea, or if she does, she’s not letting on.

  We hurry out the door, turn left, and cross the street to a small park. We’re just settling onto a bench when Mara hands me a coffee and says, “So now can you tell me why you’re doing
this road trip?”

  I pry the lid off my cup. “What do you want to know?”

  “All I know at this point is that things were over with Sam, and my parents were threatening to send you to therapy, and then you called and asked if you could stay here on your way to Texas. I assumed you were running away from Sam, but then you told me he’s in California, so I’m confused.”

  “I guess I’m still running away,” I say, “but it’s a lot of things . . . the person I became in Brockport and also all the Sam memories. Did I tell you I ran into Rachel?”

  “Bitch,” Mara says, rolling her eyes.

  “It’s not Rachel’s fault. I’m the one who pushed Sam away and kissed Amos and fucked everything up.”

  “She didn’t have to say you wrecked him.”

  “Well, I deserved that.”

  Mara hands me a piece of streusel. “So why is Aimee suddenly the big destination?”

  “What do you mean?” I peel up a wilted slice of apple and pop it into my mouth. “I haven’t seen her in a year and a half, and she didn’t come to graduation —”

  “Exactly,” Mara says. “She didn’t come to graduation because she has this pattern of letting you down. No offense, but why drive all the way out there when she might hurt you again. Is that what you need right now?”

  I take a sip of coffee and say, “She can’t let me down this time because I’m the one going there, so it’s not like I’ll be waiting around for her to show up.”

  “I guess.”

  “Maybe you can’t understand this because you grew up with two parents who never left your side for eighteen years, and you’ve lived in the same house since you were born, and, hey, you actually know your father’s last name . . .” I pause for a second. I know I’m being harsh, but that’s how Mara and I are with each other. She’s given it to me this way before, actually a lot worse. It stings in the moment, but we both agree it’s better to clear the air than leave stuff unsaid. “At the end of the day,” I add, “Aimee is all I have, so I can’t exactly write her off even if everyone else thinks she’s a big flake.”

  Mara shakes her head. “That’s bullshit.”

  “Which part?”

  “That Aimee is all you have. You have me and my parents. You have lots of people.”

  “Who else?” I ask. “Seriously . . . let me know because I’m curious.”

  When Mara doesn’t respond, I say, “We moved so much that I’ve always lost everyone. I think at some point I realized that it hurt too much to get close to people. It’s easier to have, you know, quick things. Shallow things.”

  “So shallow you’re drowning,” Mara murmurs.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Mara shrugs. “When you said that you don’t let yourself get close to people . . . are you talking about Sam?”

  “I don’t want to talk about Sam.”

  “Fine,” Mara says. “But you didn’t lose all those people. You just moved. You always had the option of staying in touch.”

  “Like pen pals?” I laugh sarcastically. “No . . . I lost them.”

  Mara sips her coffee, and we stare across the park at this squirrel frantically digging a hole in the dirt. After a minute she turns to me. “Listen . . . I’m sorry. I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

  “Maybe I will,” I say. “Maybe Aimee will bail on me and I’ll have to deal . . . but in the end, it’s not like I’m that much different from her. I’m running away just like she does. And look how I let people down. Look how I let Sam down.”

  “You let Sam down because you were scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of allowing him to love you . . . of admitting that you love him back.”

  When Mara says that, my stomach flips over. I set my coffee on the bench and touch my hands to my cheeks.

  Mara glances over at me. “We don’t have to talk about Sam if you don’t want to.”

  I take a deep breath and exhale slowly.

  “By the way,” she adds, “I don’t think you’re like Aimee.”

  “Thanks,” I say quietly.

  Mara reaches over and pats my shoulder, and then we just sit there for a while, watching the squirrel pry a nut out of the ground and carry it into a tree.

  “Okay,” I say, reaching across the table for the canister of crushed red pepper. “I’m ready to talk about Sam.”

  Mara sets down her forkful of pizza. “Seriously?”

  I nod quickly and glance around the restaurant. It’s seven thirty in the evening, and Mara and I are eating at Pizza Hut. Not that I was having pangs for my former workplace. Basically, Mara and I were total tourists today. We went to Millennium Park, where we checked out this giant metal sculpture that’s so shiny you can see your reflection staring back at you. When we left there, we meandered down Michigan Avenue, browsing in and out of shops. Mara got a funky beaded headband and we bought matching lime-green tank tops. We paid a gazillion dollars to ride this insanely fast elevator to the top of the Hancock building, but it was totally worth it because the sky was so clear and open we could see all the way to Wisconsin. When we hit the bottom, we splurged on tall cups of Jamba Juice, which we sipped as we sat in the plaza, people-watching and soaking in the sunshine.

  By dinnertime we both realized we’d blown way too much cash. Mara suggested going back to her place and having chips and salsa for dinner. That’s when I remembered my Pizza Hut gift card. We took the train a few stops and, well, here we are.

  “So,” Mara says. “Sam.”

  I drink some iced tea and explain my theory about how, for one, I pushed him away because so far in my life my main experience with love, meaning my mom, has taught me that it hurts. And, for two, I could never let Sam get to know the real me because, deep down, I suck and I didn’t want him to figure that out.

  When I’m done, Mara traces her finger around the rim of her cup.

  “What?” I push my hair behind my ears. “Do you agree? Or am I full of shit?”

  “You want the truth?”

  “Of course.”

  Mara wipes her lips with her napkin. “I’d say semi-full of shit. For one, you don’t suck. Look at everything you’ve done. Getting into Bost —”

  “Off the wait list,” I say.

  “Getting into BU and kicking ass in those school plays. You have to know how talented you are. And driving all the way to Tex —”

  “I haven’t made it to Texas yet.”

  “You’ve made it to Chicago, and I seriously wouldn’t have the guts to drive six hundred miles by myself.” Mara breaks off a piece of pizza with the edge of her fork. “And for two, I think Sam did know the real you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember when I came home last month and we all went to the Lilac Festival?”

  “Yeah?”

  “And remember how I said I’d never seen you that happy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What I meant was that I’d never seen you that calm, especially around a guy. But when you were with Sam, it seemed like you weren’t putting on any act. You were just you, and Sam loved you for it.”

  I poke at an ice cube with my straw. The server comes over with drink refills. As soon as she’s gone, Mara squeezes some lemon into her cup. I dump in a packet of sugar and say, “I still don’t know if I could have been this perfect girlfriend for him. I don’t think life is a fairy tale that way. You don’t get hit on the head with a hockey puck and fall into the lap of Prince Charming and he saves you and everything is changed forever.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t happen in a fairy-tale second,” Mara says. “But maybe you meet someone and you really like him and gradually certain things start to change in your life and, one day, you realize you’re able to let him in.”

  “Maybe,” I say, slurping some iced tea, “but I’m not convinced.”

  “He’s totally, completely gay,” I declare.

  “No way!” Mara shrieks.

  “Gay.” br />
  “Take it back.”

  “Gay.”

  “Will you please stop saying that?”

  Mara and I are in her room, reading the online profile of the guy from her yoga class. We were about to go to sleep, but then Mara popped out of bed, turned on her laptop, and said that since I’m leaving tomorrow morning, she needed some tips for landing Camel Guy. But as soon as I saw his picture and read his information, my gaydar went into high alert.

  “How do you know?” Mara asks. “It doesn’t say he’s gay.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know yet. Or maybe he doesn’t want his parents to know. But believe me, this guy is totally —”

  “Don’t!”

  I turn to Mara. “What about Navneet?”

  “From Starbucks?”

  “He definitely seemed like he was into you.”

  Mara gazes dreamily at her gay fantasy boyfriend.

  “Navneet is cute,” I add.

  “Maybe,” she says, “but he’s so skinny. . . .”

  “Skinny is good.”

  Mara raises her eyebrows at me.

  “You can feed skinny,” I say, “but you can’t change someone’s sexual orientation.”

  “Now I’m depressed.” Mara stands up and heads toward the door. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Think about Navneet in there!” I shout.

  I can hear the bathroom door close and the water start up. I type my password into Mara’s laptop and send a quick e-mail to Aimee’s friends in Springfield. I let them know I’m planning to sleep over in St. Louis tomorrow and will arrive at their house around noon on Saturday. Then I e-mail my mom and tell her I should be in San Antonio by early next week. I’m about to log off, but then I decide to scroll through my contact list and . . . there it is.