Page 24 of The Roommate Lie

This is a Roscoe institution. A time-honored tradition that’s best served over-easy. With toast.

We held our inaugural breakfast after my mom kicked my dad out when I was fifteen. It involved a quick postmortem of their relationship for Carl’s sake. Then we dug into the real matter at hand—getting me into rehab. It was quite the breakfast.

That was nearly eight sober years ago, and our tradition is still going strong. My sister had already skipped town by the time we started, but the rest of us haven’t missed a single breakfast since I got back from the teen addiction facility in Cascade Canyon. Even when I went away to art school for a year, Mom and Carl just FaceTimed me in from my dorm.

Some families have Sunday dinner; we have Tuesday breakfast.

Normally, we relax and talk about our lives in general, catch up on what’s new before my mom and Carl have to go to work. But today, nobody wastes any time on small talk. They have too much to say.

Carl kicks things off the second he joins us at our usual breakfast spot downtown, Not Just Desserts. A place where the pie is just as amazing as their pancakes. Before he even sits down, Carl holds up his copy ofDispatch From the Hedgerow.“Is Alice from the bus station actually Anne Livingston?”

I nod.

“Where is she staying while she’s in town? Please tell me it’s at the hotel or the bed-and-breakfast—or with some sweet old lady who could really use the company. Please tell me she isn’t staying at your house for a week and a half.”

Well…

I take a long sip of my orange juice. Then I take another.

“Charlie, we talked about this. You’re already taking care of two other grifters. You don’t need more. How did this happen?”

My mom takes pity on me and cuts him off. “Oh, calm down—Alice seems nice. And don’t be so hard on Tyler and Lydia. They’re sweethearts.”

My mom is the only other person in Ponderosa Falls who knows the truth about Tyler, besides Lydia and me. When I went away for school, I made a big deal about how talented my roommate was. How I thought his webcomic was going to take off—then it did.

Tyler is not a man who’s built for fame. He’s more of a double-life kind of guy. We only roomed together for a year before I dropped out, but we stayed close. When I convinced him to move to Ponderosa Falls, he only had one request: anonymity. People could know my old roommate was the artist Vast Blue—they already did—they just couldn’t find out that was Tyler.

Except my mom.

She thought he might be a drug dealer, and I couldn’t make her worry like that.

Carl tries to say more about the Sharp twins, but Mom cuts him off again. Sticking up for my roommates as covertly as she can. “Don’t be such a grump. Tyler and Lydia aren’t causing any trouble. They’re practically family.”

It’s thepractically familypart that nearly kills my brother. He almost dies right there in our booth. He stares at our mother in dismay, his fork suspended in the air. His next bite of pancakes hovering motionless, as if his breakfast is stunned too.

“Family? Charlie met the guy at a crosswalk. We’ve known these people less than five months.Family?”

My mom waves her hand to change the subject. But mostly, she’s trying not to laugh.

“Calm down, Carl. I don’t want to spend our entire breakfast talking about the Sharps. We’ve got bigger problems.”

That shuts us up.

It doesn’t matter how much our mother is smiling when she says it. Carl and I hear those words, and we both stop cold. The last time she said “we’ve got bigger problems” at a family breakfast, our dad had liver failure, his girlfriend had bailed, and he wouldn’t let Mom come take care of him.

He wouldn’t even call her back after he told her he was sick. He refused to communicate with anyone except my sister, Roxie. And that was a very big problem.

He passed away a few years ago, but all I can think now is that my sister must be in trouble. She’s the only Roscoe who isn’t already here.

Across the table, my mother doesn’t say anything else right away. She takes a bite of her Denver omelet before gesturing to me with her fork. “How did the end of your semester go? Are your grades in? Did you finish the student teaching hours you needed?”

“Everything’s final. I’m all set.”

Graduation was last week, but I didn’t go. I never thought I’d return to college after I dropped out of art school. By the time I did, I just wanted to finish and move on. Breakfast with my family is the only celebration I need.

Except this doesn’t feel like a celebration. Not with the words “bigger problems” looming overhead.

My mom sighs happily and gives me a quiet, proud look I’m not used to. One that makes warmth tug in my chest and embarrassment itch under my collar.

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