The Girl He Used to Know(16)

It was early October and the days had grown cooler. The dampness in the air from the rain made it seem even chillier. I’d forgotten to bring a jacket and I rubbed my hands along my arms in an attempt to generate some friction.

“Are you cold?”

“I forgot my jacket at home.”

Jonathan fiddled with a dial on the dash, and air blew from the vents. “It might take a few minutes to get warm.”

Traffic slowed at the intersection. It was fully dark and at first I couldn’t understand why most of the cars had stopped at the green light, and why a few of them were honking their horns loudly, making me want to cover my ears from the awful sound. But then I spotted the goose and a long row of goslings trailing behind her as they tried to cross the road. Most of the cars were waiting, but of few of them sped through the intersection with no regard for the animals.

I jumped from the truck without a second thought, leaving the door wide open in my haste to assist the geese. Jonathan must have leapt from the car right after me, because I could hear him yelling, “Annika! Jesus! Be careful.”

The mother goose hissed as I worked on shepherding her and her offspring to safety. The rain pelted me, and Jonathan, too, because he’d begun directing traffic, holding out his hands like a policeman to stop the motorists from coming any closer. I walked alongside the geese and shielded them with my body as they slowly made their way single file through the intersection and down into the safety of the ditch on the side of the road. I flapped my hands in excitement because we had saved them, but then I put them over my ears to block out the cacophony of angry car horns. Jonathan and I got back in the truck and he pulled into the line of traffic when the light turned green. I turned around, craning to see the geese in the dark and feeling relieved when I located the bobbing head of the mother. They were heading away from the road, and I hoped they would continue on their way toward wherever they would settle for the night.

“That was wild,” Jonathan said. “I had no idea you were going to jump out of the truck like that. You scared the crap out of me.”

“Did you see those cars? Some of them seemed like they were going to run right over those poor animals. I don’t know why those geese were so off course.”

“Some people need to chill out.”

“Do you want to meet my roommate?”

“You mean now?”

“Yes.”

“I have to get to work, and I need to go home first to change into dry clothes.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot.”

“I mean, I can spare a few minutes if you really want me to meet her.”

Jonathan parked his truck and followed me up the stairs to my apartment. Joe and Janice were sitting on the couch watching TV. “That smell is incense,” I said.

“Okay,” Jonathan said.

I could read Janice’s expressions fairly well because I’d been studying them since the day I’d met her, and she was looking at us with her “I’m delighted” smile. “Annika! Who’s this?” she asked.

“This is Jonathan. He drove me home because of the rain.”

“Hi,” Jonathan said.

“That’s my roommate, Janice, and her boyfriend, Joe. He smells like pot which is why we burn the incense.”

Joe grunted a hello, but Janice and Jonathan shook hands. “Nice to meet you,” she said.

“You, too.”

“Why are you guys soaking wet?”

“We had to help the geese. A mother goose and her goslings were trying to cross the road by the union and people weren’t even stopping!”

“So you jumped out of the car to help them,” she said.

“Of course. No one else was going to help them.” I turned to Jonathan. “Okay. You can go now.”

No one said anything for a few moments. Jonathan walked to the door, but before he opened it, he turned around and said, “Don’t forget to take a jacket with you tomorrow. It’s supposed to be even colder than today.”

“I won’t.” But there was a good chance I would. Organization was not my strong suit. Shortly after Janice took me under her wing during those disastrous early days of our freshman year, she tried to help me get organized and soon discovered I was a lost cause. My side of our dorm room looked a lot like my bedroom at home: Clean clothes in one pile, dirty in another. Papers everywhere. To some, it looked like chaos, but to me it was organized chaos, and Janice learned not to disrupt it after she tried to help me while I was at class by folding all my clothes. I’d become so visibly upset that she never attempted it again.

Matching clothes and proper grooming were things I rarely thought about, but Janice was able to convince me that being color-coordinated was a good thing, and she gently reminded me to comb my hair whenever I started to resemble a mad scientist. There were still times I’d retreat under my covers with my penlight and a book, and Janice would ask if I was upset or depressed. Eventually I was able to assure her that sometimes, I just needed to be left alone. There were things I was confused about, mostly the proper responses in social situations, and as I grew more comfortable with Janice, I asked her about them.

Living with her had been like a crash course in how to be normal.

After Jonathan left, I shut the door and sat down on the couch next to Janice. “What do you think?”