Page 32 of Devil in Disguise
Harlan held up a sleeper-thing printed with trucks and another one featuring an enormous yellow earthmover. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s not going to care what he wears. He’s a baby. He’s going to spit up and poop all over them, is what he’s going to do. Don’t spend big money, because you’ll be tossing half of that. Also, Dyma would say you’re inappropriately gendering him. And they’ve got this thing now. Online shopping. You’d know that if you lived in Wyoming.”
Harlan said, “See, that’s the problem with you. You don’t see the bigger picture. I’m letting Jennifer know I’m thinking about her and the baby. Pregnant women can get insecure. Plus, it’s better if you can feel the fabric and see if it’s soft enough.” He grabbed a sleeper printed with giraffes. “Giraffes are gender-neutral, right? If I get all of them, I’m genderingandnot gendering. Win-win. Also, I need to find Jennifer some stuff for after the baby. Draped neckline, things with openings, like that. For nursing.”
“Yeah, you know,” Owen said, “I’m just going to take a pass on that. You’re on your own, Thor. Don’t get mobbed. Text me when you’re done, and I’ll meet you.”
He wasn’t going to look at clothes. Definitely not nursing clothes, and not any other kind, either. He didn’t need clothes. He had jeans. He had button-down shirts and Western shirts and T-shirts. He had boots. He needed a new posthole digger for the ranch, but Neiman-Marcus seemed to be fresh out of them. He headed down the escalator to the women’s floor—oneof the women’s floors—then headed around to the next one. And then he thought about it for a minute more, turned around, and walked back up the moving stairs two at a time.
He’d just take a look.
16
Hick From the Sticks
The two girlswere sitting at desks by the windows, swiveled toward each other, talking and laughing with their feet up. When Dyma came through the door, they looked up at her with so much surprise, she wondered for a second if she had the wrong room.
“Hi,” the bigger one, a good-looking, extremely polished brunette, finally said. Her curly hair was held by a clip on top of her head, and her paperbag-style shorts were expensive-looking, if shorts couldbeexpensive-looking. “I’m Sydney. This is Cassandra. Your bed’s that one.” She pointed, like Dyma wouldn’t have figured it out.
The one against the inner wall of the room, next to the bathroom, while the other two loft-bed arrangements had their narrow ends up against the two big windows. A beanbag and a shaggy throw rug in acid green sat in the open space in the middle, and a little fridge, a microwave, and some dishes—matching—plus food-type supplies stood on shelves under the window wall. The room was all set up, in fact. For two people, was how it looked.
Dyma said, “Hey. This is my mom, Jennifer. Maybe we should talk more about the beds, you think? Figure out how we’re going to arrange things. Draw straws or something.”
Cassandra, an Asian girl with the kind of perfectly cut, shiny hair that you could toss over your shoulder, said, “Excuse me?”
“Well, it’s not exactly democratic, is it?” Dyma could feel her mom nearly wincing beside her, like,Don’t make waves right away.Dyma didn’t agree. To her, you started things out in the way you wanted them to go. What, she was just supposed to let people walk all over her?
“Democratic would be with a vote,” Sydney said. “Who votes to keep the room the way it is?” She and Cassandra raised their hands, and Sydney said, “So that’s done, I guess. You get here, and you pick your bed. If you get here last, you pick last. That’s how it works in college. And, hey, we made some rules for the room.” She reached for a piece of paper and held it out without getting out of the chair.
Dyma wasn’t good at not getting mad. She was even worse at notshowingshe was mad. She was about to tell Sydney where she could stick her stupid rules, but her mom got in there first and said, “How nice to be in such a modern dorm. I’m pleasantly surprised. Everything looks so new, doesn’t it?”
“They’re all new on this side of campus,” Cassandra said, her voice bored. “All pretty much exactly the same, too. Shades of prison block. I toured a lot of campuses with my parents. Let’s just say that the dorms here arewaydown the list.”
“I still can’t believe your parents said no to Pomona, Cass,” Sydney said. “They have the second-highest-rated college dorms in the country,” she deigned to tell Jennifer and Dyma. “Solar heated, and one of them has a rooftop garden. We don’t even have air conditioning! It’s not like her parents couldn’t afford it, either. Cassandra’s dad was one of the first three hundred employees at Microsoft, and here she is anyway. Here we both are, at the state school. In the hometown.”
“And you mightalsowonder,” Cassandra said, “why I’m in a triple room. Hello, living space?”
“Because you need to experience Real Life,” Sydney said. “Also, America is the land of opportunity, and knowing people from different backgrounds will be so helpful to your future.”
Cassandra groaned. “I know, right? How many people from Podunksville are running Fortune 500 companies, exactly? Or going to Harvard Law? I keep telling them, there’s a reason people pay for the Ivy League! There’s a reasontheypaid for private school! And my dad just keeps saying, ‘It’s all about connections. It doesn’t do any good to make connections in Southern California. This is where you need to meet people.’ Like, of course I’m going to stay in Seattle. Chinese parents,” she told Jennifer.
Jennifer kept on smiling. Her hair was coming down in a major way, and she shoved it back up, more or less into the bun, and said, “Wow. That’s impressive, about Microsoft. What are you majoring in?”
“Political science,” Cassandra said. “For law school. When your parents are from China, you can be a doctor or a lawyer. Preferably a doctor, but that wasn’t going to happen. Or possibly an engineer like my dad, but no thanks on the whole geek thing. This is just the start, because an undergrad degree gets you nowhere now.”
“How about you, Sydney?” Jennifer asked. She still looked so hot and tired, and Dyma would bet anything her feet had swollen up. Neither of her roommates had even gottenup.And people saidDymawas trash. At least she had manners!
Well, not now. But usually.
“Mom,” she said, “you should sit down.”
“I’m fine,” her mom said. “I’ve been sitting in the car all day. We’re from Wild Horse, ourselves,” she told the girls. “That’s in Idaho, and you’ve probably never heard of it, because it’s pretty small, but we actually moved to Portland this spring. Our first time living in a big city.” She waited for an answer, presumably not, ‘Oh, how wonderful! A connection to real people! Dirt-poor people, probably!’ It didn’t come.
Dyma put them out of their suspense. “And I’m here because this is where I got the best scholarship.” Might as well say it. “Majoring in, yep, engineering. Geekdom is my life.”
“Oh,” Sydney said, nobody said anything else, and Dyma thought,My mom might not be rich, but she’s a whole lot nicer than you guys.
Proving it, her mom said, still going for brightness, “So you’re both from Seattle, I guess. Friends from high school, maybe?”
