Story 6: Deirdre, in Xeriscape: Geometry

I can always tell when Jodi has done something I won’t like. The first time she sees me, she ducks her head and gives me that Princess Di look, only Jodi’s eyes and hair are dark. Otherwise the resemblance is uncanny. But I have learned to wait. So we go to lunch and talk about the end of this semester. About being sophomores next year. Not that I was ever a freshman. But nobody cares about this one little sexist word like I do. I look up and see that Jodi’s eating like a pig, wolfing down an enchilada in seconds while I’m just picking at my lunch because let’s face it, Food Court food is always greasy or bland or salad. Which is what I got. She stops and stares at me, finishes her bite. Then she starts to talk.

“You know Natalie and Debbie have found an apartment?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, a three-bedroom up on 30th near Valmont. They were looking for a two-bedroom, but somebody recommended this place and they liked it.”

“Oh,” I said. I find it easier to be friends with Natalie and Debbie when they’re not together. When they’re in the same room, they focus on each other until I feel like I disappear. It reminds me of being around my parents when they’re talking about their patients; it just makes me crabby.

“They asked me to live with them.”

That revelation frees her to devour the second enchilada, apparently. I’m stunned. I crunch croutons for a while, then ask: “And where will I live?”

She says defiantly, “How am I supposed to know? Do I look like a housing service?”

Now Jodi never talks to me that way. Sweet is the only word that really describes her. I say, “You don’t want to live with me?” Then I try to cover it up, but I can’t. I stutter a few words and blink so tears will stay in my eyes. Of course, she’s done eating now. She gets up to bus her dishes.

“I want my own place,” she tells me when she sits down again. “But I can’t afford it right now. And if I lived with you, it’d be your place. You had everything planned.”

Well, excuse me, but that’s what she’s always liked about me. I took her to Rocky Mountain National Park once in high school, and she told me afterward how nice it had been not to have to do anything, just follow me up the trail and eat my picnic, right at the edge of Alberta Falls. My favorite place. Jodi told me that day I was better than a boyfriend. I’m good at detail. I know what works best. Just look at the Food Court, for instance. All these round tables placed an equal distance apart. It needs a couple of obvious lanes, front to back and side to side. Then people wouldn’t mill around with trays held at diners’ eye level and hit people in the head with them, which happens to me at least once a month. But while I’m musing, Jodi gathers up her stuff.

“Bye,” she says. “Got to get to class.” And that’s it. Then I cry. I even put my head on the table and sob a few times. Then I get an ice cream bar and coffee and blow off my history class. It’s only review, and I know more than everyone in the class put together, probably. Finally, I go back to my dorm room, and luckily Jodi doesn’t come back until much later. I force myself to calm down when I hear her turning the key in the lock. When she gets in, I look up, say “Hey,” and go back to my book, but the whole time we’re in there before dinner, I keep mentally surveying the room, thinking about the pretty curtains I made, and the little cabinets I bought and hung near each bed so that we could just grab our shampoo and stuff but not have tampons all over the room. You know, when boys come to visit. Girls can cope. And I think of my toolbox. How many freshwomen own complete sets of screwdrivers and wrenches?

It’s time for meal number two of this day, but I’m not that hungry. When we go down to the cafeteria, I pretend. I get the macaroni and cheese and eat it methodically, two ’ronis on four tines, over and over. Then Natalie and Debbie come over to chat, and Jodi asks them, right in front of me, when they need to go sign the lease. They all look at me sideways, thinking, “She knows!”

“Let’s go tomorrow,” Debbie says, finally. Then they leave. By this time, I’ve progressed from the main course to dessert, which is a spongy chocolate cake with thin frosting that I just adore. But tonight I’m not enjoying it so much. I look up, and Jodi is staring at me.

I say, “You won’t live with me because I slept with Josh. Isn’t that it? You think that once you’ve slept with him, he’s yours, all yours. Even though you don’t love him, and I do.”

This look crosses her face that I’ve never seen before. I realize it’s contempt. I get my fork underneath the cake and flip it at her, right in her face. Then I walk out as fast as I can and go to our room. Jodi comes back after I’ve gone to bed. I lie rigid under the covers because I’m waiting for her to throw something at me. But she just gets in bed. That’s it.