Roomies by Sara Zarr, Tara Altebrando Page B

graduated from there and he got a job so he’s staying in Chicago.” He nods excitedly. “I think being near him again could be cool.”
    “That’s awesome,” I say, wishing for a second that I were also moving toward a sibling and not an estranged parent.
    He turns and looks at me a little bit like he’s afraid to say what he’s going to say; then he asks, “Do you want a beer?”
    And the thing is, I do. I want to drink a beer and feel loose and free and not have it go warm in my hands while I sit by a bonfire alone. I nod and say, “I would love one.”
    “Good.” He seems to relax a little around the shoulders. “Me too.”
    Inside, the house is crowded, smoky, loud—everything I usually hate—but it all feels a little exciting. Especially when Mark looks back and takes my hand and says, “Follow me,” and leads me through the crowd to a cooler full of beer, where he doesn’t drop my hand as he grabs two bottles by the neck. He leads me out the other side of the house, and there is something about his pulling me forward that feels so incredible. Because I wish that I were being guided a bit more through life, that I didn’t always feel as if I were drifting, like an untied balloon that someone didn’t even realize was slipping away.
    We end up on a big deck that overlooks the bay and the dock, where I can see some pasty bodies, clearly naked, doing repeated cannonballs and jackknifes and generally whooping it up.
    “This isn’t my usual scene,” Mark says, “for the record.” He opens one of the beers and holds it out to me, and my hand is warm from his touch.
    “No?” I take the beer. “What is?”
    “Good question,” he says; then he takes a swig of beer and I do the same and already I don’t want the night to end.

MONDAY, JULY 15
    SAN FRANCISCO
    I don’t want to go to work.
    I really and deeply do not want to go to work.
    But I have to. I can’t avoid Keyon forever.
    And of course I need the money and would never leave Key and his dad, Joe, in the lurch with no notice, et cetera whatever, but if I could get away with faking a broken arm and not have it not be an obvious avoidance tactic, I would.
    It’s muggy out, for San Francisco, and the ride downtown on the L Taraval (aka the Hell Taraval) is gross. When I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window, I feel like I’m gross, too. My hair isn’t growing out its last cheap cut very gracefully and is basically a frizz ball. The dark-red polish I put on for the party is already chipping. I didn’t have time to shave my legs this morning, or yesterday morning, or the morning before that, and the hairs prickle against my jeans.
    Mostly I feel gross inside.

    On the train, I narrate to Ebb in my head….
    So, yeah, I went to the party. There were way too many people packed into Yasmin Adibi’s little Bernal Heights house, music bumping, and within like five minutes of getting there I already had a headache. Zoe drove but immediately peeled off when she saw Melissa Birch, one of her arty friends who graduated last year. “Mel!” she screamed (when I say “screamed” I mean it), and that’s basically the last I saw of her until we left.
    It felt like half an hour before I squeezed through the crowd and made it to the back door so I could escape into the yard. Typical San Francisco summer night weather—cool and foggy, enough to keep the outdoor crowd pretty thin, which, you know, fine by me.
    I found a rusty lawn chair away from the cluster of smokers, and sat on that, and looked up to the sky and, I don’t know, just felt so lost all of a sudden. Okay, not all of a sudden sudden, because I’d felt that way most of the day. We went to Trader Joe’s—yes, the whole family at once, it’s what we do on Saturdays, and I’m sure it’s a frightening sight for the other customers—and P.J. opened a bag of chili-lime pistachios (have you had those? they’re yumm-eee) and got them all over the floor. I picked them up while this