I practically sprinted to the teachers’ lounge when the bell rang, anxious to talk things over with my best friend.
“There you are!” I exclaimed when I saw her. Shay was standing by the coffee machine and gave me a confused look.
Her purple hair was long gone, as was her half-shaved head. Now she had her dark-brown hair styled in a pixie cut that emphasized her large brown eyes. Where Delia wore gauzy skirts and peasant blouses, Shay always looked like she was about to walk into a law office. Pencil skirt, berry-colored satin blouse, blazer. “Here’s where I always am during my break. What’s going on with you?”
I came over and grabbed her arm, pulling her to an empty table. “I have so, so much to tell you. So my aunt—”
“Frederica? I love that crazy broad. I have to admire anyone with such naked ambition.”
“What? That’s not the point. Anyway, she took me to more horrible places—”
“And you have to keep sleeping on my couch.” She said it with a smile, but I could hear the weariness in her voice. We loved each other, but I knew I was starting to get on her nerves. Shay had her limits and I’d stretched each and every one. I knew how to be a good guest, making sure I wasn’t messy as was apparently my natural inclination, but her place was tiny and even best friends could get sick of each other. I also kept hearing my mother’s voice in my head reminding me that houseguests, like fish, go bad after three days.
And it had been three months.
“No, I am officially moving out!”
“Finally!” A mortified look covered Shay’s face. “I mean, yay for you! You found a place!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s okay. It is long overdue. But Frederica is the one who found me the most amazing apartment and I won’t even have to pay rent. I’m going to do the cleaning and take care of his dog while he’s out of town in exchange for living there.”
“He?” she echoed. “You’re going to live with some random guy and clean up after him? So you can live rent-free? Let me guess, do you have to sleep with him, too?”
“What? No!” I was outraged that she’d even suggest I’d stoop that low. Then I saw her real smile, letting me know she’d been teasing me. “This guy—his name is Tyler, by the way—had a bad situation years ago where his roommate fell in love with him and I think the only reason he’s letting me move in is that he thinks I’m in a relationship.”
“With who? The leprechaun from Lucky Charms?”
My mother hadn’t allowed any sugary cereals and I may or may not have gone a little crazy when I moved into Shay’s and was no longer following any of my mother’s rules. Plus, cold cereal was the easiest thing to make for myself and it was inexpensive. “Oh, ha-ha. No, he thinks I’m in a relationship with an actual person. You should have seen his face when Frederica told him I was with Brad.”
“Was it a look of disgust?”
“Why would it be? He doesn’t even know Brad.”
“You don’t have to know Brad to be disgusted.”
“No, Tyler looked like a prisoner on death row who had just been pardoned. He is unnaturally happy that I’m with someone else.”
She studied me skeptically. “Is this Tyler dude blind? Because you are gorgeous. Why wouldn’t he want to get with you?”
I was much vainer than I would have ever admitted out loud. I suspected this was because I had been raised by a self-centered woman whose entire identity was based on her outward appearance. Even though I tried telling myself that my outer shell didn’t matter, I still spent a lot of time trying to make mine pretty.
Although I was limited in my new financial situation. I now had to use a grocery store brand to dye my hair blonde and was trying out drugstore makeup products to go along with my hazel eyes and fair skin.
I didn’t know how well it was actually working.
“You’re a very good friend,” I told her. “But I get the feeling he doesn’t care how I look. He made it pretty clear he’d prefer to have his female roommate involved in a relationship so that she wouldn’t become his personal in-home stalker.”
“So this Tyler guy wants someone to live in his apartment who will clean up after him, look after his dog, and not have sex with him. Don’t they usually call those people wives?”
“You’re hilarious,” I said, while rolling my eyes.
“I just can’t believe you’ve been reduced to this. The other apartments couldn’t possibly have been as bad as you described.”
“Then I haven’t been explaining it thoroughly enough. Those other places . . . it was like the plagues-of-the-apocalypse type of stuff. I went in with the absolute lowest expectations and I still managed to come back disappointed. This Tyler thing fell out of the sky like manna from heaven. I’m not passing it up.” Defending my position restored my faith in the choice I’d made and I felt easier about it. “Not to mention that I get to come home to this.”
Frederica had sent me a link to an old listing of Tyler’s penthouse that had pictures of all the rooms. She had included a link to Tyler’s Instagram account, too, which I had clicked on quite a bit since she’d sent it. My hope was that I could somehow inoculate myself to his pretty, make myself immune to his charms.
So far it wasn’t working.
“Here.” I handed her my phone. She needed to see for herself how nice the apartment was. “Just click on that link and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
Shay let out a strangled sound. “Are you kidding me with this? Way to bury the lede! Great googly moogly! Someday, when I tell this tale to my grandchildren, I will tell them my ovaries grew three sizes that day.”
“What are you talking about—” It was then that I realized that she’d clicked on the second link instead of the first and was now ogling Tyler.
“Suddenly you wanting to move in with him makes so much more sense.”
“That’s a tall drink of wow.” I looked up to see Delia standing behind Shay, peering over her shoulder.
“Madison’s going to live with him,” Shay gleefully informed her. The last time I’d seen her this giddy was when one of our fellow teachers, Owen James, poured coffee on himself before the first bell.
“Good for you!” Delia grinned at me as she took the empty chair next to Shay. “I’m really out of the loop. I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”
I detected the slightest note of hurt in her voice. “No, we’re not dating or anything. I’m his new roommate.”
“And his maid,” Shay couldn’t help but add.
At Delia’s shocked expression, I hurried to fill her in on everything I’d told Shay so far, adding, “I thought you had recess duty today or else I would have waited for you.”
“I switched with Amanda. I have to help Jayden with one of his perspective art projects after school and so I’m going to stay late.”
“You are like a human granola bar,” Shay told her. “You’re too nice.”
“That’s kind of a weird insult,” she replied. “But my niceness is not what we’re discussing. Like shouldn’t we talk about the problematic implications of what Madison’s doing?”