Page 68 of The Way I Used to Be
“Why?” she asks, pretending to be surprised.
“Because, Mara, I’m not going to fucking double-date with you and fucking Cameron, okay?” Too harsh, my tone, I know. I can’t help it though.
“Well, excuse me—God, Edy, you can be so mean sometimes! You know, I already promised Steve you would come. And besides, you owe me.”
“How do I owe you?”
“Please, I’ve covered for you more times than I can even count—probably more times than you even know!”
I stand up with my cereal bowl in hand; I walk over to the sink and dump the excess milk down the drain. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks a lot, Edy. Way to be there for me. I never ask you for anything!” She crosses her arms and jerks herself back in her chair, pouting like she’s a twelve-year-old.
I stand there, trying to calculate how serious she is, how mad she would be if I bail. “Oh God,” I moan. “Look, I’ll go with you, but please just make it very clear this is not a date.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine.”
“I have to go.”
“Wait, don’t go,” she says, standing up like she might actually try to stop me.
“No, I told Vanessa I’d help her do something.” But that’s a lie. I scrape my soggy cereal into the garbage can under the sink. “Just call me later and let me know what time I should meet you.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“I’m sorry.” I relent, realizing how nasty I’m being. “I’m not mad. I’m just hungover, you know, I need a cigarette, my head hurts.”
I don’t bother getting dressed, or brushing my hair or even my teeth. I just grab my backpack and jacket and I’m out the door as quickly as possible. Mara’s house is the one place in the world I’ve never been in a hurry to leave. But things change all the time. As I take steps farther away from her, the sidewalk seems a little unstable under my feet. I cut through two backyards and have to outrun a rabid terrier just to avoid walking past Kevin’s house—Amanda’s house.
I stand outside the food court, sure to be early—a peace offering for Mara—proof that I’m not above going to the mall if it truly means that much to her. I sit on the edge of a big concrete planter near the drop-off area and light a cigarette. I notice my hand shaking as I bring it to my lips. I feel on edge. Nervous. I’m dreading this entire night. It’s just too wholesome and purposeless. I switch my cigarette to my other hand, but this one shakes so frantically, it slips right through my fingers. I have to jump to my feet so it doesn’t fall into my lap and burn me.
Just as I’m brushing the ashes from my coat sleeve, Mara’s voice startles me: “You all right, there?”
“Oh!” I gasp. “Hey. Yeah, I just dropped my—whatever, never mind—hi.”
“Hey.” Cameron raises the hand that’s conjoined with Mara’s, black nail polish peeling from his fingernails. “Glad you could come with,” he lies. The streetlight glints off a metal ball inside his mouth as he talks, off the rings curled around his bottom lip and left eyebrow. “Steve’s parking.”
As we stand there waiting, Mara grimaces through a smile, as if to tell me to play nice. Then I see Steve power walking through the parking lot in his sweater-vest—his wallet chain all shiny, dangling from his back pocket, his Converse sneakers too clean. Like he’s dressed for a date. He hasn’t even arrived and already he’s trying too hard. “Hi, Eden!” He waves as he approaches us, smiling so hugely.
“Hey.” I try not to sigh too loudly.
During the movie Mara and Cameron hold hands. She leans her head on his shoulder. He kisses her forehead, then gives me an awkward smile when he catches me staring. I turn to look at Steve next to me. He smiles shyly and focuses intently on the movie screen. There are few things in this world that will make you feel like more of a loser than this.
The movie’s in French, with subtitles. I guess Mara forgot to mention that part. After the first five minutes I’ve stopped reading them altogether. At some point I shut my eyes instead. And right in that space between being asleep and being awake, I hear my own voice, whining: “No, I wanna be the dog—I’m always the dog, Kevin.”
And it’s like I’m back there, but not as myself. I’m there as someone else, like a bystander sitting at the table with them, watching her slide into the seat opposite him. It’s like I’m watching it in a movie—looking for signs of what’s going to happen in only a few hours. He reaches his arm across the kitchen table and places the little metal dog in front of her with a smile. “Thank you,” the girl sings. She can feel her face turning pink, blushing for him.
“I guess I’ll be the hat.” He’s resigned.
“Be the shoe—the shoe’s better.” Their options were pretty limited. The dog was obviously everyone’s first choice. They had lost the car several summers earlier in an ill-fated outdoor game of Monopoly that got rained out, so they were left with only the wheelbarrow, thimble, hat, and shoe. In the girl’s mind, the shoe was at least a little more relevant than the others—it could walk. Theoretically, anyway. Hat, thimble, and wheelbarrow just seemed too arbitrary to her.
“Okay. If you think the shoe’s better, I’ll be the shoe.” He smiled across the table at the girl. They placed their pieces on the GO square at the same time, and she couldn’t tell if she had made their fingers brush against each other or if he did. “You want me to be the banker, right?” he asked her. She nodded. And her stomach suddenly felt sick, but in a strange, good way. He had remembered that she hated being the banker. And she was flattered. Her face was burning pink like a total idiot’s.
He made it around the board twice while she was stuck in the cheap properties: Baltic Avenue, then Chance, which had her back up three spaces to Income Tax. Monopoly had never been her game, anyway.
“Where’s my brother?” the girl asked him casually. It was unlike him to be detached from Caelin. It was unlike him to be treating her like a human being, to voluntarily be spending time with her like this.
“On the phone.” He rolled an eleven and bought St. Charles Place, giving him a monopoly on the pink properties; he put two houses on Virginia.
