Open House(15)
His hands push down my pajama pants, and I can see him taking in the sight of my new lace underwear. Josie was the one who said I was too skinny for boy shorts, and on Sunday when we were bumming around the mall eating Annie’s pretzels, she steered me into Victoria’s Secret, and we found a pale pink thong on sale.
My fingertips trail a line across Noah’s broad shoulders, but my eyes wander to the collage of my high school friends hanging above my desk, which actually really freaks me out, because none of my old friends would believe what I’ve been doing lately.
Josie’s desk is lonely in comparison to mine. There’s only one photo: Josie and her stepbrother, Chris, standing outside a stone church next to a nun who looks pissed off. Behind our desks, our shades are drawn to avoid imaginary creepers with telescopes in the dorm across the quad, and, maybe even more so, to stave off the four o’clock nightfall. We complain that the weather is mind-numbing and sleepy in conversations with our classmates, even if that isn’t really the whole truth. Because here at college I’m always on the edge, and so is Josie: we’re buzzing with something fear-inspiring and razor-sharp, and not even the frigid winter can take it away. We’re too wired to sleep, really, except sometimes in the late afternoons when we’re supposed to be studying. Josie tries to pass me Tylenol PMs and her prescription stuff, but I won’t even smoke cigarettes or pot because that’s how nervous I am about getting hooked on something, which drives Josie nuts. “Try being in college,” she says every time she nearly convinces me to take something. But I’m terrified and only thinking about myself, about the threat of vast shame in it all: Emma McCullough, art scholarship student, gets nabbed for possession; loses scholarship.
Shudder.
When Noah and I finish hooking up, he checks his phone and says something about lacrosse practice. We climb down the ladder from my bunk, and Noah’s yanking his warm-up pants over his boxers when the door swings open. “Hey,” he says, seeing Josie before I do.
Josie stops in the doorway, her hand on the knob. Half of her light hair is tied back, and the rest falls in curls over her jacket. The cold has made her cheeks flush, and black mascara makes her blue eyes look even paler. Her face betrays nothing at first, but then her features crack into a smile. I can tell she wants to laugh at my half-dressed state.
“Hey,” I say. College is so degrading.
“My class got out early,” she says, and it comes out like an apology I don’t really think she means.
Noah averts his eyes from her, which I’m pretty sure is because he knows how annoyed she gets now that he’s over so much. The room suddenly feels far too small for the three of us, especially when Josie shuts the door behind her. She sets her satchel carefully on her prim white quilt. We bought that quilt together at Target when it went on clearance. Josie has the tightest budget of anyone I know at Yarrow, and she makes it work by buying only things that are perfect. Less is more, she always says, making me believe it.
I adjust the waist of my pajama pants as Noah makes small talk. Josie tosses her jacket onto the floor, which is the first sign that she’s about to do something strange, because she never puts her clothes on the floor. She takes off her sweater next, and I can hear the break in Noah’s stream of chatter. She’s wearing a sheer lace bra, nothing else. She turns to us. “What were you saying?” she asks as if everything is normal, like she’s just changing the way she would in front of one of the other girls from our dorm.
“Josie,” I say, but she ignores me. For a second I think she’s about to take off her jeans, but instead she opens a drawer and pulls out a tank top. She turns and looks at both of us before yanking it over her head.
Noah averts his eyes, but it’s too late. He catches my glance and says, “I’m gonna go,” and then he does, scramming from our room as fast as he can. I’m not stupid enough to think he doesn’t want to see her naked. It’s just that nothing could be worth the tension in here.
We stare at each other. “What are you doing?” I ask.
Josie shrugs. “What’s the big deal?” she asks. She lies back against her bed, staring up at the cylindrical metal casing that keeps my top bunk from crashing down on her. “Why does he always take so long to leave?” she asks. She pats the quilt, clearly wanting me to sit beside her.
I give in and go to her. “Give him a break, Josie,” I say, because she’s always just shy of cruel to Noah.
“You think he deserves a cuddle?” she asks, her pink lips curving into a smile. “It must be why he likes you so much. You’re so nice, Emma.” She says it like an insult, and then shakes her head and sends shiny waves of hair over the pillow. “You’re not in love with him, are you?” she asks, her blue eyes all over me.
“No,” I say quickly, because I don’t think I am, though maybe I could be with more time. Josie turns away. She moves to the window and opens our shades. The sky is the mottled inky color of a bruise, the kind of night that makes me want to press pause as dusk hurtles into darkness, the kind of night that makes me feel desperate. Sometimes I’m not ready for the evening hours with Josie, for whatever she has planned for us, especially when it involves her brother. Chris gets so drunk and picks fights, and it’s embarrassing, really. I tried to say something to her once, but she shut me down before I could even finish my sentence.