We Are Okay(12)

She’s never told me this before.

“It wasn’t about a manicure,” she says. She shakes her head as though the idea were absurd, even though it’s the only version of the story I’ve known until now. Then she turns and goes into my room.



“What have you been doing for dinner?” she asks.

I gesture toward the desk, where an electric kettle rests next to packages of Top Ramen.

“Well, let’s do it.”

“I bought food,” I say. “There’s a kitchen we can use.”

She shakes her head.

“It’s been a long day. Ramen is fine.”

She sounds so tired. Tired of me and the way I’m not talking.

I take my usual trip to the bathroom sink for water, and then plug in the electric kettle at my desk and set the yellow bowls next to it. Here comes another chance. I try to think of something to say.

But Mabel rushes in before me.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“I met someone at school. His name is Jacob.”

I can’t help the surprise on my face.

“When?”

“About a month ago. You know the nine hundredth text and phone call you decided to ignore?”

I turn away from her. Pretend to check something on the kettle.

“He’s in my literature class. I really like him,” she says, voice gentler now.

I watch until the first puffs of steam escape, and then I ask, “Does he know about me?”

She doesn’t answer. I pour water into the bowls, over the dried noodles. Tear open the flavor packets. Sprinkle the powder over the surface. Stir. And then there is nothing to do but wait, so I’m forced to turn back.

“He knows that I have a best friend named Marin, who was raised by a grandfather I loved like my own. He knows that I left for school and a few days later Gramps drowned, and that ever since the night it happened my friend Marin hasn’t spoken to anyone back home. Not even to me.”

I wipe tears off my face with the back of one hand.

I wait.

“And he knows that things between us got . . . less clearly defined toward the end. And he’s fine with that.”

I search my memory for the way we used to talk about boys. What is it that I might have said back then? I would have asked to see a picture. I’m sure there are dozens on her phone.

But I don’t want to see his picture.

I have to say something.

“He sounds nice,” I blurt. And then I realize that she’s barely told me anything about him. “I mean, I’m sure you would choose someone nice.”

I feel her staring, but that’s all I have in me.

We eat in silence.

“There’s a rec room on the fourth floor,” I say when we’re finished. “We could watch a movie if you want.”

“I’m actually pretty tired,” she says. “I think I might just get ready for bed.”

“Oh, sure.” I glance at the clock. It’s just a few minutes past nine, and three hours earlier in California.

“Your roommate won’t mind?” she asks, pointing to Hannah’s bed.

“No, it’s fine.” I can barely get the words out.

“Okay, great. I’m going to get ready, then.”

She gathers her toiletries bag and her pajamas, picks up her phone quickly, as though I might not notice, and slips out of the room.

She’s away for a long time. Ten minutes pass, then another ten, then another. I wish I could do something besides sit and wait for her.

I hear her laugh. I hear her grow serious.

She says, “You have nothing to worry about.”

She says, “I promise.”

She says, “I love you, too.”





chapter five


MAY




I COPIED DOWN all the passages about ghosts I could find and spread them over the coffee table, sorted them, and read them each dozens of times. I was beginning to think that it was never the ghosts themselves that were important. Like Mabel had said, all they did was stand around.

It wasn’t the ghosts. It was the hauntings that mattered.

The ghosts told the governess that she would never know love.

The ghost told Jane Eyre that she was alone.

The ghost told the Buendía family that their worst fears were right: They were doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

I scribbled some notes and then I took Jane Eyre and stretched out on the couch. Along with my other favorite novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, I’d read it more times than I could count. While One Hundred Years of Solitude swept me up in its magic and its images, its intricacies and its breadth, Jane Eyre made my heart swell. Jane was so lonely. She was so strong and sincere and honest. I loved them both, but they satisfied different longings.

Just as Rochester was about to propose, I heard Gramps downstairs jangling his keys, and a moment later he walked in whistling.

“Good mail day?” I asked him.

“You write a letter, you get a letter.”

“You two are so reliable.”

I ran downstairs to help him carry up the grocery bags and put the food away, and then I went back to Jane Eyre and he disappeared into his study. I liked to imagine him reading the letters in there by himself, in his recliner with his cigarettes and crystal ashtray. The window open to the salty air and his lips mouthing the words.