I only keep the phone for the most necessary of communication—texts, mostly one-way, from them to me. When I have to, I’ll use it to let Margot know where I am or if I’m going to be late. That was part of the deal for me staying here. It’s understood that that’s all the information I’ll part with. No How was your day? No Did you make any friends? No Have you looked for a therapist yet? Just basic logistical facts. Talking has never been the issue. Communication is the issue.
The message is from Margot. Went to grab take-out for your first day. Back in a few. I’m still trying to get used to eating at four o’clock. Margot works the night shift, which means we eat dinner early so she can shower and get to work. Then again, apparently lunch here is at ten forty-five in the morning, so I guess it all works out.
I kick off the torture devices and change into running clothes so I can go after the early bird special. I’d go now, but it’s hot and I make sure never to be outside at this time of day when the sun has a way of stalking me, searing memories into my skin. I won’t even go out to check the mail if I don’t have to. My phone vibrates again. I look at the screen. Mom. Hope your first day was good. Love you. M. I put the phone back on the table. She doesn’t expect a reply.
Margot gets back with all manner of Chinese food. We won’t need to cook for a week. That’s a good thing, because I can’t cook real food to save my life and I get the feeling, from the drawer full of take-out menus, that Margot can’t either. I’ve been here for five days and I don’t think the kitchen’s been used once. At least meals aren’t awkward with Margot. She has no problem talking enough for both of us. Whatever I fail to bring to the conversation, she dutifully makes up for. I’m not even sure she needs me sitting here.
After less than a week, I know who she’s dated for the past three years and who she’s dating now. I know all of her workplace gossip, even though I have no idea who any of the people she mentions are. I’m sure Andrea would not appreciate the fact that Margot is telling me about her financial problems and Eric would not want me know that his girlfriend cheated on him and Kelly would be appalled to learn that I am aware of her bipolar disorder and every medication she takes for it. But the more Margot talks, the less awkward it is that I don’t, and I prefer conversations about people I don’t care about. The times she brings up my family are worse, because I don’t want to think about them, and I can’t tell her to shut the hell up.
After we eat, she rushes to shower off a day’s worth of sweat and suntan oil and I pack up container after container of leftovers and wait for the sun to fade so I can run.
I never even make it out the front door because the sky turns black before sunset and opens up in torrential rain. I don’t mind running in rain but this is even a bit much for me. It’s too difficult to see and impossible to hear anything through this kind of downpour. When I look out the sliding glass door at the back of the house, it seems like it might be raining horizontally, and even I’m not desperate enough to go out in this kind of lightning. I kick off my sneakers and sit and then stand and then sit and then stand again. My brain is on the spin-cycle right now.
I have no treadmill here so I do jumping jacks in place until I get bored, switch to alternating sets of chest presses and mountain climbers, move on to weighted squats and lunges and then do as many push-ups as I can before my arms give out and I drop my face into the carpet. It’s not the kind of soul-draining exhaustion I’m looking for, but for tonight, it will have to do.
I pull out clothes for tomorrow and pack up all of the signed paperwork and shove it into my backpack. I almost wish I had homework, but I don’t, so I wander around the living room. Margot’s got a stack of newspapers piled up next to the front door and I realize that I haven’t checked the birth announcements for nearly two weeks. I grab the papers and sift through them until I find the right section. The first one is disappointing. Nothing new. All of the overused classics and the same trendy crap that I wouldn’t saddle a cat with, much less a kid. My name, of course, is never there, but it’s not my name I’m looking for. I scan four papers; there are three Alexanders, four Emmas, two Sarahs, a crapload of names ending in –den (Jaden, Cayden, Braden, gag), a bunch I don’t remember, and one worthy of going on my wall. I cut it out and grab my laptop. I pull up the internet and wait for my start page to load. Within seconds, I’m staring at the lovely, pink-and-blue-splattered baby name website that greets me every time I get online.
I type in my newfound query, Paavo, which turns out to be nothing but the Finnish version of Paul. It’s kind of a letdown.
I like names. I collect them: names, origins, meanings. They’re an easy thing to collect. They don’t cost anything and they don’t really take up any space. I like to look at them and pretend that they mean something; and maybe they don’t, but the pretending is nice. I keep most of them on the walls of my bedroom at home—home where I used to live. I keep the ones that echo. Good names with significance. Not the crap everyone seems to be using these days. I like foreign names, too; the unusual ones that you rarely see. If I ever had a baby, I’d pick one of those, but babies aren’t really something I see in my future, even the far off one.
I fold up the papers to put them away, glancing down one more time. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch one of the Sarahs again, and I smile. It reminds me of the one amusing part of my day.
I was running to my locker between classes and had to duck around the corner and wait when I saw Drew in a heated exchange with Barbie, two lockers down from mine. I decided that if I had to choose between being tardy to class or walking into the middle of that verbal smackdown, the tardy was the lesser of the evils. It wasn’t that difficult dodging Drew’s not-so-subtle come-ons when I ran into him by myself, but I certainly didn’t want to take the chance that he’d proposition me in front of his girlfriend. That would definitely make my ever-growing list of things I do not need. So I leaned against the wall and waited for them to move on.
“Give me twenty bucks.” I heard Drew say to her.
“Why?” Apparently annoyed is the only quality her voice possesses.
“Because I need twenty bucks.” His tone indicated that this should be enough of a reason.
“No.” Then, what must have been the sound of her slamming her locker. Hard.