“Yes,” she said eventually. “Please.”
I stacked shoe boxes on the shelf below the purses. I silently counted—
twenty-one—but knew better than to make a comment.
The mood between us slowly defrosted.
I helped her hang dress bags—six of them, with several dresses in each—
which filled half the closet. Once again, I kept my comments to myself.
I collapsed the empty cardboard boxes while she unpacked her everyday shoes and lined them along the bottom of the closet. She just kept adding more, from sneakers to loafers to docksides. She even had a couple of pairs of knee-high boots. She had six pairs of jellies alone, almost every color of the rainbow. The girl liked shoes. What could I say?
I managed to compose my expression by the time she finished.
“Thanks for helping.”
“My pleasure.”
“And thanks for letting me have the room with the bigger closet.”
“It was luck,” I said, “but I’m glad you’re happy.”
“I just wish it were bigger.”
I swallowed a laugh.
“What?”
“I don’t hear that very often.”
“Hear wha—? Oh!” Her tan cheeks turned rosy.
“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”
“Very funny.”
I shrugged, unabashed.
“Speaking of which,” she said after a moment, “how’s Gracie?”
“Fine, I guess.”
“You ‘guess’?”
“Well, yeah. ‘I guess.’ I haven’t talked to her in a while. A couple of months.”
“A couple of months? Some boyfriend you are!”
“What? Why should—? Hold on… Gracie and I broke up. Didn’t Wren tell you?”
“I told her n— Um… I mean, no, she didn’t.”
“It was a while ago. Before the summer. But after you left, I guess.”
“What happened?”
“Long story. We weren’t ‘compatible,’ I guess you’d say.”
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out.” She didn’t sound very sorry at all. She must’ve heard it too, because she immediately said, “So I guess you had fun this summer.”
Something about her tone made me frown. “How d’you mean?”
“Nothing. Just that you could date a lot of different girls.”
I heard the euphemism and felt the heat rise in my cheeks. “Is that what you think I do?”
“What do you mean?”
“That I sleep around?”
“You mean you don’t?”
I clamped down on my temper. Then I took a deep breath and let it out slowly through my nose.
Christy practically dared me to say something snide.
“I’d better get back to work,” I said instead. “In my own room.”
I didn’t speak to her the next day. I wasn’t rude about it, but she was persona non grata around me. She had a huge argument with Wren too. Trip and I stayed clear of both of them, which suited me fine.
The following morning I returned from my run to find Christy waiting on the porch. I couldn’t ignore her without being a jerk, so I stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She shifted nervously as I waited.
“I talked to Wren yesterday,” she said at last.
“I heard.” The neighbors probably had too.
“She told me about the summer.”
“What about it?”
“About trying to set you up with her friends.”
I felt a stab of irritation with Wren too, not only for the matchmaking, but also for discussing my private life.
Christy fidgeted with the hem of her pajama top. “She said you didn’t date anyone at all.”
That word again! “And?”
“And I’m sorry.”
I wasn’t ready to forgive her just yet. “What for?”
“What do you mean?”
“What are you sorry for?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Are you sorry you called me a man-whore, or just sorry you were wrong?”
“I—!” Her eyes fell. “Both, I guess.”
My anger flared anew, and I bounded up the stairs. “What gives you the right to judge me?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t know anything about me!”
“I know. You’re right. I—”
“And why do you care who I ‘date’?” I made it sound like pious doublespeak, which it was. “It’s my business, not yours. Don’t apply your goody two shoes Catholic schoolgirl morals to me!”
I stormed inside and slammed the door for good measure.
I replayed the whole thing in my head while I stood under the shower.
When I finally calmed down, long after the hot water ran out, I felt a mixture of frustration and guilt. Christy had no right to judge me by her standards.
And I had no right to yell at her when she was only trying to apologize.
Worse, I had no idea why I’d gotten so upset.
I dressed and went to find her. She was sitting at the kitchen table, poking halfheartedly at a slice of cantaloupe.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“It’s all right. You were right. I shouldn’t have judged you.”
“Yeah, I guess there’s enough blame to go around.”
She nodded glumly.
Wren entered the kitchen in her blue bathrobe. She yawned. “What was all the shouting and slamming about?”
“No clue,” I lied smoothly. “Must’ve been the neighbors.”
“Or crazy people,” Christy added.
“Definitely,” I agreed. “Crazy people.”
We shared a hesitant grin.
Wren filled Mr. Coffee and started him gurgling for Trip. “Well, I hope they’re gone now.”
“Me too.”
She grabbed a Coke and shuffled out of the kitchen.
Christy and I were silent. The tension had ebbed between us, but it wasn’t
completely gone.
“Want some cereal?”
“Yes, please.”
I set out two bowls.
She went to the refrigerator. She passed me the carton of milk and then poured two glasses of orange juice.
I opened the pantry. “Grape Nuts or Froot Loops?”
“Whichever you want.”
My hand wavered between them.
“On second thought, Froot Loops.”
I chuckled.
“What?”
“I’d just decided the same thing.”
“Oh. Good.”
We sat across from each other and ate in silence.
“I never realized…,” I said at last.
“What?”
“That bunnies eat Froot Loops.”
“They do.” She smiled into her bowl. “But only on special occasions.”
Chapter 2
By Monday we had the house more or less unpacked. Most of our matching furniture, courtesy of Wren’s mother, went in the main living room.
Trip had set up his expensive McIntosh stereo in the octagon room, along with a vintage console TV that took more than a minute to warm up. We filled the room with odds-and-ends furniture that didn’t fit anywhere else.
Christy and I claimed the two small bedrooms on the third floor. Their windows faced south, so they offered plenty of afternoon light. They’d originally been servants’ rooms, but we wanted to use them as studios.
She arranged a couch and a couple of beanbags in hers. They were castoffs from the Nixon-era decor that Trip’s stepmother had inherited when she married his father. She also added a small desk that had been mine when I was much younger.
My studio boasted a pair of mismatched cloth easy chairs and a large bookcase. I used an old writing desk in place of a drafting table I didn’t own yet, along with an ugly Naugahyde barstool that would do the job of a drafting stool until I found a proper one.
Christy didn’t have much to do in her studio, so she helped me unpack.
“I didn’t know you liked art so much,” she said as she arranged books on the bottom shelf.
“What do you think architecture is? It’s functional art. The best of it, at least.”
“I know. But I guess I never think of it that way. Art is sculpture and paintings.”
“Art is lots of things. I mean, most of the best Renaissance artists were