On Turpentine Lane(33)

“Nice place! How many rooms?”

“Five and a half.”

“Heating bills not too bad, I bet.”

I didn’t care to make small talk and told him so.

“You never liked small talk!” he answered. “Neither do I!”

I’d have offered any other guest a cup of something by now, but the only follow-up question I asked Stuart was “Exactly why are you here? I broke up with you. No matter how many times you e-mail me or text me or drop by that’s not going to change.” And before he could debate any of those points, I added, “You showed your true colors. And I didn’t like them.”

“Are we back to the women?”

“I never wanted to sound like a jealous fiancée, but now I can say that it was humiliating and highly annoying—posting pictures of yourself with your arms around busty women in every port.”

“But I came back! Why would I come back if I didn’t want to fix things?”

“Because you were cold. And broke! And probably bored.”

“Babe . . .”

It was said softly, apologetically. What if the Instagram pictures and Facebook postings were nothing but bravado, putting the best face on a failed, forlorn hike? Maybe the real Stuart was the home game after all, not the away one.

“Why did you come back?” I asked, expecting his old self to say, Isn’t it obvious, Faith? You.

But it was Stuart 2.0 who answered. With gusto, without a scintilla of Faith-based anything, he said, “I’d learned what I’d set out to learn—and one of those things was that you can’t eat, sleep, travel, drink, socialize, fraternize, or publicize without money. In that sense, it was a confirmation. Mission accomplished.”

Well, there it was, done and dusted. “You had to walk a thousand miles to discover that you can’t get a tuna melt or whatever vegans put in a sandwich unless you have money in your wallet? You don’t live in the real world. You’re a case of arrested development.”

“I’m starting a job on Monday. Doesn’t that make me a resident of the real world?”

“An actual job?”

“I’ll be working for my mother and Iona. They loved you, by the way.”

I ignored that preposterous notion, having done nothing but insult their son during their unsuccessful visit. “Doing what?” I asked.

“I do intake for their clients, in their practice.”

I wasn’t interested enough to ask, What do they practice? but Stuart needed no encouragement. “They’re psychiatric social workers. They met in graduate school, in fact. I never told you that? They specialize in adult eating disorders, mostly obesity. Their receptionist is on maternity leave and they were doing all the bookings and billing themselves.”

“So you’re the substitute receptionist?”

“I’m doing their social networking as well. Would you believe they don’t have a web presence?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Plus, I have a desk and a computer. I get to work on my memoir between clients. Believe me, it was no fun writing a book on an iPhone.” He stood up, which I took to mean he’d noticed the cold shoulder and had had enough. “Mind if I look around?”

I said, “Yes, I do mind.”

That led to his placing his hands on my shoulders and asking if we couldn’t be friends. And don’t friends give friends a tour of their house?

I said, “Let go of me.” And after he stepped back: “Didn’t your mother figures teach you to take your hat off when you’re indoors?”

“Whoops,” he said. “I’ve forgotten all my manners.” He said again, “I’d love to look around. Any harm in that?”

Who could resist saying airily, after months of Facebook indignities, “I’d better ask Nick.”

Wouldn’t most recently dumped fiancés look perplexed at the mention of a strange man’s name, let alone his domestic proximity? Not Stuart, who was probably assuming that a “Nick” under my roof would be short for Nicole.

“Nicholas!” I yelled in the direction of the stairs.

It didn’t take long before he was descending the steps, looking like a relaxed full-time occupant—in jeans and a white T-shirt, his feet bare and his hair wet.

I said, “Nick, this is Stuart. Stuart, Nick. My housemate.”

“Hey, man,” said Stuart. “Housemate, huh?” And to me, “How many bedrooms?”

Before I could tell the truth, Nick said, “One. Why?”

“One,” Stuart repeated. “What kind of house has only one bedroom?”

I shrugged. Nick shrugged. I said, “It must be why it was such a bargain.”

Wagging his finger between Nick and me, Stuart asked, “Did Rebecca and Iona know about this?”

“He means his mother and her wife,” I explained. And to Stuart, “It didn’t come up. He hadn’t moved in yet.”

Nick said, “I’ve only been here . . . let me think . . . since Faith broke off the alleged engagement. Which coincided with my own breakup. Isn’t that about right?”

“Since about Indiana,” I said. “Or maybe it was Illinois.”

“We share an office, too,” said Nick, “so it was a logical next step.”