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“I was going for a ‘when you’re here, you’re family’ vibe.”
I take back what I said about killing a man with her bare hands. I’m pretty sure Lucie Lamont could do it with just her eyes.
“I swear, I’m usually not this messy,” I continue. “It’s only been me for the past few days, and all the freedom must have gone to my head. I thought I was rooming with a girl from Nebraska, but then she never showed up, so…”
We both go silent. Every time I fantasized about college, my roommate was someone who’d end up becoming a lifelong friend. We’d go on girls’ trips and yoga retreats and give toasts at each other’s weddings. I’d be shocked if Lucie Lamont went to my funeral.
She drops into her plastic desk chair and starts the breathing techniques she taught the Nav staff. Deep inhales, long exhales. “If this is really happening, the two of us as roommates,” she says, “even if it’s just until they move me somewhere else, then we’ll need some ground rules.”
Feeling frumpy next to Lucie and her couture tracksuit, I throw on the knitted gray cardigan hanging lopsided across my own chair. Unfortunately, I think it only ups my frump factor, but at least I’m no longer shivering. I’ve always felt less next to Lucie, like when we teamed up on an article about the misogyny of our middle school’s dress code for the paper we were convinced was the epitome of hard-hitting journalism. By Lucie Lamont, read the byline, our teacher elevating Lucie’s status above my own, and in tiny type: with Barrett Bloom. Thirteen-year-old Lucie had been outraged on my behalf. But whatever bond had once existed between us, it was gone by the end of ninth grade.
“Fine, I’ll bring back guys to hook up with only every other night, and I’ll put this sock on the door so you know the room is occupied.” I reach over to the closet, which is just wider than an ironing board, and toss her a pair of knee socks that say RINGMASTER OF THE SHITSHOW. Well—just one sock. The ninth-floor dryer ate one yesterday, and I’m still in mourning. “And I’ll only masturbate when I’m positive you’re asleep.”
Lucie just blinks a few times, which could be interpreted as lack of appreciation for my shitshow sock, a visceral fear of the M word, or horror that someone would want to hook up with me. Like she didn’t hear about what happened after prom last year, or laugh about it in the newsroom with the rest of the Nav. “Do you ever think before you speak?”
“Honestly? Not often.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of keeping the room clean. I’m allergic to dust. No pasta bowls or clothes or anything on the floor.” With a sandaled foot, she points underneath my desk. “No overflowing trash bins.”
I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek, and when I’m quiet a moment too long, Lucie lifts her thin eyebrows.
“Jesus, Barrett, I really don’t think it’s too much to ask.”
“Sorry. I was thinking before I spoke. Was that not the right amount of thinking? Could you maybe set a timer for me next time?”
“I’m getting a migraine,” she says. “And god help me for needing to acknowledge this, but I feel like it’s common courtesy not to… you know. Indulge in that particular brand of self-love when someone else is in the room. Sleeping or not.”
“I can be pretty quiet,” I offer.
Lucie looks like she might combust. It’s too easy, really. “I didn’t realize this was so important to you.”
“It’s a very normal thing to need to navigate as roommates! I’m looking out for both of us.”
“Hopefully by next week, we won’t be roommates anymore.” She moves to her suitcase and unzips a compartment to free her laptop, then uncoils the charger and bends down to search for an outlet. Sheepishly, I show her that the sole outlets are underneath my desk, and we discover there’s no way for her to type at her desk without turning the charger into a tightrope. With a groan, she returns to her suitcase. “I can only imagine what your priorities would have been as editor in chief. We’re lucky we dodged that one.”
With that, she unpacks a familiar wooden nameplate and sets it on her desk. EDITOR IN CHIEF, it declares. Mocking me.
It was ridiculous to think I had a chance at editor when asking people if I could interview them sometimes felt like asking if I could give them an amateur root canal.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. Later today, I’ll interview for one of the freshman reporter positions on the Washingtonian. No one here will care about the Nav or the stories I wrote, and they won’t care about Lucie’s nameplate, either.
“Look. I’m also not entirely enthused about this,” I say. “But maybe we could put everything behind us?” I don’t want to carry this into college, even if it’s followed me here. Maybe we’ll never be the yoga-retreat type of friends, but we don’t have to be enemies. We could simply coexist.
“Sure,” Lucie says, and I brighten, believing her. “We can put your attempt to sabotage our school behind us. We’ll braid our hair and host parties in our room and we’ll laugh when we tell people you gleefully annihilated an entire sports team and ruined Blaine’s scholarship chances.”
Okay, she’s exaggerating. Mostly. Her ex-boyfriend Blaine, one of Island’s former star tennis players, ruined his own scholarship chances. All I did was point a finger.
Besides—I’m pretty sure the Blaines of the world won in the end anyway.
“I just have one more question,” I say, shoving aside the memory before it can sink its claws in me. “Is it uncomfortable to sit down?”
She looks down at the chair, at her clothes, forehead creased in confusion. “What?”
Lucie Lamont may be a bitch, but unfortunately for her, so am I.
“With that stick up your ass. Is it uncomfortable to—”
I’m still cackling when she slams the door.
