The Smartest Girl in the Room (11 page)

It wasn’t worth pointing out that she hadn’t
known whether they would have a place to live or food to eat- and
that she had had no control over it. "Did you give your husband a
hard time every time he needed money for anything?"

Emily’s mother smiled. "No, but he didn’t
have anyone else to help him."

Emily couldn't stop herself. "You’ve taken
such good care of him, I’m going to nominate you for Mother of the
Year."

"You know what? This isn’t working out."

"What isn’t working out?" Emily knew but she
needed to hear her say it.

"Your attitude. I’ve had it. I’ve really had
it. You can’t be civil, much less grateful. You think you’ve been
wronged? Well, maybe you have, maybe I wasn’t the best mother I
could have been. Oh well. You’re not able to get past any of it, so
we can’t live like this anymore. You have to go."

"I have to go." She said that so the words
could sink in. "Right now?"

"No, I’ll let you stay until the end of the
quarter, but then you have to go. You’ll still be able to go to
school on my dime, but you can’t stay here anymore."

Emily felt herself leave her body. "Fine."
Then she went back to her room and studied some more.

~~~

Mitch had spent that week dividing his time
between studying for his finals, working on his law school
application and being with Kyra. The studying and the application
were nerve-wracking, so he was grateful Kyra wasn’t demanding of
his time. She set the boundaries and that was a relief. He was used
to being the one who had to back someone away. That never went
well, whether through his artless technique or initial bad
judgment. He was good about not pushing anyone’s boundaries, so
this worked out perfectly. Although...he hadn’t spent one night in
her apartment, even if that meant leaving after midnight.

He had three papers and two tests. The
professor of Mid-East Poli Sci really wanted to make sure they knew
their stuff, so it was one exam and one paper. Although he had been
a model student while at his frat and a very good one since then,
he had spent quite a bit of time this quarter working on the SGC
bill and application and getting ready for Ireland. Therefore, the
week and weekend before finals saw a lot of time in the library and
late nights once he was home.

He had walked into the library some nights,
afraid he might see Emily. Of course he owed her an apology, but he
couldn’t deal with that now. He had so much work to do. As luck
would have it, he didn’t see her at all. When he needed a mental
breather and he walked around and didn’t see her, he realized that
she must have been all set for her finals, probably weeks in
advance, and hadn’t she said something that night about the Math
department? So he was safe, and he could go back to his studying
with a bit more ease. Then he would settle back into his chair, and
he would realize that not only did that not ease his conscience,
but it also didn’t ease his desire to see her.

Between Kyra and studying and writing and
worrying about his trip, the five hours of sleep he got were pretty
fitful, and his dreams were strange. Many times, he would see Emily
as she had been that night. He would touch her face, as he had that
night. And he would kiss her. And she would kiss him back, and
suddenly they would be at her special place by the river.

He closed his eyes sometimes, as if he could
squeeze the memory out. It wasn’t good to think about her when he
was awake.

Emily handed her papers in to two of her
professors on Monday as soon as she could find them. Professor
Hazlett patted her arm. "It was a pleasure to have you in my class.
I hope I see you again." By ten-thirty, she had finished the final
that had started at ten. She wasn’t allowed to leave for another
fifteen minutes, so she checked her work three times before she
handed it in. The teacher was annoyed, and then more annoyed when
he corrected it and wrote "100%" in front of her. She thanked him
for the class too, then walked to the Women’s room in the Kay
Center and cried.

This was not the way finals week was supposed
to go. This week was supposed to be a triumphant reward for all of
the hard work she had put into the quarter. Instead she was going
to be homeless by the end of the week. She knew that her mother
would relent with just the right amount of groveling, but she would
not grovel. She would rather be homeless, destitute and out of
school than apologize for asking for help.

Her next two finals were on Wednesday and
then her last on Thursday. Emily wiped her tears. That meant that
she could devote all of Tuesday to searching for an apartment, and
she could scope out leads today. She took a deep breath so that she
wouldn’t cry again. She didn’t have enough money to last her three
months, much less six. She could get a job, but then she wouldn’t
be able to take five classes, and then she wouldn’t be able to
graduate in the spring. She felt an even greater urgency than
before, because she could barely trust that her mother wouldn’t
leave the university by then. This was her chance to be done.

It had occurred to Emily that Zainab would
happily let her stay with her, but she couldn’t bring herself to
call her and tell her why she was going to be homeless. Normal
people never understood.

She found a free computer in the library and
started to scan the apartment listings. Those that were in her
price range were available for about a month, and the rest were
either too expensive, way out of Boston, or both. There was one
that was cheap and close to school, but it required childcare,
which was guaranteed to be impossible with her schedule.

She wandered around campus, trying to figure
it out. She had taken out no loans since she had been there. Was
there any money still available that she could take now? Who could
she ask for money? How many more months did she need to pay for?
Six? Could she do something during her breaks? Was there a job she
could do on the weekends only? She could always waitress, except
that she was a lousy waitress and hostess, having tried once with
embarrassing results in high school. It made her miserable that her
good grades, her only asset, were meaningless right now. And, by
the way, how was she going to pay for the books that had been the
issue in the first place when she wasn’t even going to have enough
to pay rent?

She was so distracted she almost walked
straight into Drew. "Oh, God! I’m sorry, I didn’t even see
you."

"I’ve been called irrelevant, but no one has
ever called me invisible."

"Um, yeah- I mean, I’m sorry. I’m just in my
own little world right now. I’m lucky I didn’t walk into a building
instead of you."

"Thinking about running off with Richard's
cousin last week?"

Thinking about her new friend made her
chuckle. "No, just the usual. Speaking of which, did you hand in
your paper?"

"Er, not yet."

"Wasn’t it due today?"

"It was, but she agreed to give me an
extension."

"She’s pretty nice."

"And reasonable. I’m kind of in the midst of
a housing drama right now."

"You’ve got to be kidding me."

"No, seriously. It turns out one of my
roommates was stashing some ‘stuff’ in our dorm, and after the
police flipped over everything, they decided I wasn't
involved."

"What?" It was a relief to listen to someone
else’s drama.

"My fingerprints weren’t on any of the
baggies or paraphernalia, but everyone else’s were. So, after
getting something of an apology from the university and the police,
I got my lawyer to throw in a new place. The catch is that I have
to move right now, so my finals are screwed."

"That’s a good lawyer. I thought student
housing was at a premium here."

"Oh, it is," Drew nodded, his eyes widening a
bit. "But there’s always something they keep for their VIPs-
graduate students, football jocks, you know- and now one of them is
mine."

"Finally, the recognition you deserve. But...
what about your roommates?"

"My ex-roommates are going to do a little
singing for the feds before they come back, or so I heard."

"No witness protection program or anything
like that?"

"The stuff wasn’t that good. There was a lot
of it though."

"And how did you miss all this?"

"You’re not the only smart one here."

She absorbed what he said for a moment. "How
long did you know?"

"You could pretty much smell it on them as
soon as you walked in, and then there were the visitors and the
long ‘conversations’ in the bathroom."

"And of course you had nothing to do with
their bust?"

"Would I turn on my roommates, who never once
even offered me a puff?"

Emily was genuinely surprised. "Let me guess:
you heard about some housing opening up, and you thought it might
be a good time to talk to someone?"

"You know, it’s funny, but the cops and the
university said that they had no idea- absolutely none- how they
came into this information." He shrugged. "It must have been an
anonymous tip."

"Lucky you." Who was she to judge right
now?

"I am feeling lucky today." He moved in a
little closer. He had a strong body odor that almost made her stand
back. "I think I’d like to share my good fortune with someone right
now."

"Really? And who did you have in mind?"

"I don’t know. Can you think of anyone who
might want to have lunch on my dime?"

"Lunch?" She shuddered a little. "No, I don’t
think I could eat anything right now. But maybe a drink would be
nice."

"What did you have in mind? More chamomile
tea?"

She was touched that he remembered.
"Chamomile tea sounds like just what the doctor ordered."

"Let’s go."

"Don’t you have moving to do and finals to
study for?"

"Eh, it can wait!" He grabbed her hand. "Come
on. I feel like celebrating!"

They made it over to Princess Cappuccino and
meandered into a conversation about his hometown in Ohio. He had
two younger sisters, a mother and father, and two grandfathers. He
was from old Swedish stock on both sides, although there were
rumors of English interference in the 1850s. "Nothing was ever
proven though," he said with a big wink.

During the next two hours, Emily learned he
had done extremely well in high school- "Top one percent of my
class"- but that the financing for Harvard that his father had
painstakingly worked out fell through at the eleventh hour because
"some well-connected rich kid, who was in the fiftieth percentile,
needed the cash award from the organization so that his dad’s
company could ‘match’ the scholarship funds. Not like he was going
to spend any of his own money." Thus he ended up at their
university, which hadn’t even been a safety school for him, because
everywhere else had filled up by the time he found out. Luckily,
there had still been some scholarship money available, but not the
Kay Scholarship money.

Emily reviewed what he said and compared it
to what he had said before about his guidance counselor screwing up
the application. Which was it? Her first instinct was to confront
him, but something told her that he might not bear close
scrutiny.

When Emily returned her attention to him, she
heard him say something about his "druggie" period. "I’m sorry,
what?"

"Did I say that out loud?"

"When was this?"

"My last year of high school. I guess the
stress of applying to college got to me. So I started taking some
pills."

"What kind of pills?"

"Anything I could get my hands on. I’d go to
my friends’ houses and pull a couple of whatever was in the
medicine cabinet."

Yet more surprises. "That’s pretty crazy,
even for a high school senior."

"I wouldn’t take them until I could look them
up. If they were an upper and I wanted a downer, or vice versa, I’d
save them until the time came handy. It’s the spendthrift’s answer
to drug abuse."

"If the question needs answering. Did
anything ever happen?"

"I threw up a couple of times, and I almost
passed out once in class. But nothing serious."

"So why did you stop?"

"Honestly? I felt like an idiot. I kept
finding myself in situations I didn’t want to be in."

"Like what?"

"Like... being in the backseat of some
football player’s car with one of the cheerleaders, and not
remembering how we got there, or what her name was. Or driving
around and not remembering where I was or why I was there." He
shook his head. "It was scary. I guess you do it to lose control,
but losing control isn’t as much fun as it sounds."

"I never would have guessed. But I guess you
never do, right? And it’s totally foreign to me, because the most I
ever did was drink a little…"

"Yeah, I had a little bit of an alcoholic
period with the pills. Again, people’s parents’ stash of whatever.
That was a little bit more fun, I guess..."

Emily wasn’t offended. She didn’t want to
talk about herself today but she noted how easily he made
everything come back to him.

Drew looked at his watch ten minutes later.
"Oops- got to meet Richard. He's helping me move into my new
place."

"Oh." Emily hadn't pegged Richard as the best
person for physical labor. "Tell him I said hi. And then I guess
you should study?"

"Study schmudy. I’ve got a pretty good
excuse, and more importantly, I’ve got walks out of most of my
classes. That’s what break is for!"

"Weren’t you going to go home?"

He shrugged. "I’ll probably pop on home for a
few days for Christmas, but... it’s a small house, and I honestly
think they’re happy not to have me there too much."

"Sorry. At least you’ll have a cool new place
to come back to."