Naturally, I was traumatized about it, too. But by the time I hit fifth grade, my mother had already gone through my three brothers, who were so wanton that they would pull down their pants in front of me and my friends, bend over and fart for fun. So when I tried working the modesty angle for the gym shower excuse, my mother was in no mood to coddle. “You don’t want to take a shower in front of everyone? Get over it!” was pretty much her attitude with me.
“Anyway, I really need the money,” Will informs me. “I’m leaving in a few weeks, and I won’t be making much over the summer.”
“I thought they pay you.”
“They do, but it’s a fraction of what I get with Milos. I’m going to take a shower.” Will heads for the bathroom. “Then we’ll go out and get breakfast.”
“Lunch,” I amend, pulling out a cigarette and my lighter.
“Whatever. Hey, you know what? Could you not smoke in here?”
I pause with the butt midway to my mouth. “Why not?”
“It bothers Nerissa. She says her clothes smell like smoke whenever you’ve been here.”
“Oh.” I slowly put the cigarette back into the pack, trying to think of something to say to that.
I don’t have to. He closes the door behind him.
No more smoking at Will’s place?
Dismayed at this turn of events, I drift over to the couch and sit, grabbing a magazine from the pile on the floor. Entertainment Weekly. Will subscribes. I flip through it absently, stewing. It’s not that Nerissa doesn’t have a right to not smell like secondhand smoke. I understand where she’s coming from. But I feel vaguely unsettled and, I guess, embarrassed. Like I have this dirty, disgusting habit that’s infringing on other people’s lives.
Which I suppose is the truth, but Will never seemed to mind me smoking at his place before. Sometimes he even bums cigarettes from me when we’re out, and he says that if he weren’t a vocalist, he would definitely be a smoker.
There’s a part of me—granted, an irrational part—that wonders why Will didn’t stick up for me to his roommate. He could have told Nerissa that I can smoke in their apartment if I want to, and that she’ll just have to deal. After all, he moved in first. His name is on the lease, not hers. The more aggravated I get thinking about it, the more I want a cigarette.
I’m not one of those girls who started smoking behind the bleachers in junior high, or grew up in a smoker household. In my family, only my sister’s soon-to-be-ex-husband Vinnie and my grandfather smoke butts, and my grandfather’s had lung cancer for almost a year.
You’d think that would scare me into quitting, but the man is in his late eighties. I figure I’ll quit in a few years, when I’m married and ready to get pregnant, because I don’t think it’s fair to expose a fetus to all the potential damages of tar and nicotine. But until then, my smoking is not bothering anyone.
Except, of course, Nerissa.
I had my first cigarette my sophomore year of college. My friend Sofia had recently started smoking to lose weight, and she claimed it worked. Of course, by our junior year she ended up in the Cleveland Clinic with a severe eating disorder, so the ciggy habit was the least of her problems. Not the best role model for me, but I thought she looked cool smoking, and as always, I was willing to try anything—except cutting back on food or exercising more—to lose weight.
What I wouldn’t give to be thin, I think, gazing down at a two-page spread of Hollywood starlets at the Cannes Film Festival. Big boobs, teeny waists, no hips, no thighs. I don’t get it. I mean, in my world, big boobs are a given. I come from a long line of women with racks. If you think I’m stacked, you should see my grandmother on my mother’s side. She still wears this 1940s-style bullet bra, and you can see her coming from blocks away. She takes pride in what she coyly refers to as her “figure.”
Not me. My figure, I could do without. I’d gladly swap everything between my ribs and clavicle for a flat chest if it came with the ten-year-old boy body I so covet—the one that supposedly went out of style with the waif models years ago. Yeah, right. As if Rubenesque is ever really going to be back in vogue.
I listen to Will in the shower. He’s singing some Rogers and Hammerstein type song. He has a great voice, in my opinion. Sometimes I wish he would just scrap the whole Broadway scene and make a pop record. But he doesn’t want to do that. His dream is to make it big on stage.
So far, he’s only done a couple of off-off-Broadway musicals—one a revival of some obscure show, the other an original written by this guy he met in acting class. Both of them closed within a few weeks.
That’s why this summer stock thing could be really good for him.
I just can’t help wishing he were a little more wistful about leaving me behind. Or that he’d ask me to come with him, rather than making me wait for the right time to suggest it myself.
I haven’t really thought it through yet—what I’d do if I actually did go along. I mean, I know I wouldn’t be able to live with Will, who’s staying in the cast house. But how hard would it be to find a small room to rent for the summer in some dinky little town almost an hour north of Albany? And there must be jobs there, because it gets touristy in the summer. I’m definitely not fussy. I could waitress, or baby-sit.
I know what you’re thinking, but look, I love the thought of not having to take the subway to a nine-to-five job in the hot, smelly city where I answer somebody else’s phone and make copies all day. It would be so freeing to do something else for a while.
As for the advertising career…well, I could always find another agency job in the fall. Or something else. After all, it’s not like I have my heart set on becoming a big-time copywriter. It just seemed like something I could do with my English degree.
Other than teach.
My parents think I should teach. They think it’s the perfect job for women. My mother was a teacher before she married my father. My Aunt Tanya still is a teacher at the middle school back home. My sister was a teacher before, during and after her marriage to my ex-brother-in-law Vinnie, who came home one day last year and told Mary Beth he didn’t love her anymore.
She was really broken up about it—they have a couple of kids, so I know it’s a big deal—but if you ask me, she’s better off without him. He was always flirting with other women—especially after Mary Beth gained a permanent twenty pounds with each of her pregnancies.
Maybe not so permanent. She’s trying to take the weight off now. Hence, the health club. She doesn’t teach anymore. She lost her job about a week before Vinnie dumped her. She was devastated about the job, but that didn’t stop old Vinnie from kicking her when she was down. Shows you what a special guy he is.
The running water and the singing come to an abrupt halt, and moments later Will opens the bathroom door. Mist swirls around him as he comes out with a towel wrapped around his waist.
I find myself wondering if he does that when Nerissa’s here. I guess it wouldn’t surprise me, because he’s so casual about nudity. Plus, like I said, she has a boyfriend, and he has me, so it’s not like anything could happen between them. They’re just roommates. Right?
Right?
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Reading Entertainment Weekly.”
“No, I mean, you were staring at me funny. Like something’s bothering you.”
“I