Page 18 of The Ground Beneath Our Feet
“Babe. Do you even know what it’s like to be hungry?”
She looked at me like I’d asked her the rudest question ever. “I’m serious. You know, you have this thing called a body. It’s your earthsuit. When you wear your earthsuit, you have to take care of it. So you feed it. Just eat if you’re hungry. Don’t worry about what I or anyone else thinks.”
“I’m not hungry,” she said, but I knew she was lying. I didn’t know what it was with women who wouldn’t eat. It was like they were scared to show that they were human and had needs. Like it was wrong to want to put food into their bodies.
My phone rang. “Sorry, it’s my mom.” I answered it.
“Mikey, darling. You have your new roommate there?”
“I do.”
“Invite her over for dinner next week.”
“My mom says you’re invited for dinner next week,” I repeated to Jessica, who looked like she would do anything to get out of it.
It was hilarious.
But she nodded. “That’s fine.” I knew she didn’t want to go, and it was wrong that she agreed so quickly.
But I let it go, told my mom, and hung up. Then I cleaned my plate—by eating, not by washing.
When we finished, she rose from the table, and took her plate over to the counter. “Thank you for dinner.” With her back turned toward me, I could perv out on her prettiness in peace. She bent down and started opening up cabinets under the sink. Hot damn, I shouldn’t perv out too much or she’d see.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning.”
I squinted at her. “Why? I’ll get it.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said. But I knew she did. There was a week’s worth of dishes there. I’d been busy.
I got up and stepped into her face. Her pretty, golden face. She smelled like piña colada, like suntan lotion. My favorite. But she flinched again. I hated that I made her flinch. Her eyes had seen all the wrong things. I lowered my voice. “So it’s messy. So what? The Health Department isn’t gonna come. Let it be.” I took the cleaner from her hands and tried to be gentle. But I was not ever gonna not say what I thought. “Jessica, you’re not my mom. Don’t ever clean up after me. I’ll do it.”
“I can’t live with it messy.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
“I’ll clean it tonight, babe. Okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered back. But I had the unsatisfying feeling that I’d won a fight by default. I’d have to teach her to push back.
No time like the present. I’d better set the tone for how I did things. I crossed my hands over my chest. “Okay, here’s the way it works in this house. You tell me what you really think. I don’t do this ‘be polite and keep it in’ shit. Let it out. Tell me your opinion. If we’re gonna be roommates, I can’t read your mind.”
Her face morphed from startled to blank. It was like she had control over her reactions, was trying to keep it all in so that no one would know what she was thinking. Like she didn’t have the right to exist. “It’s fine,” she murmured.
“Yeah, I’ll believe that. Get it out. You’re a neat freak.”
She started to shake her head, then slowly nodded.
“And you’re not used to telling people what you really think.”
Her eyes widened. “I guess.”
“It’s not ‘I guess.’ I can tell. It’s so obvious.” I paused. “Here’s the deal. Around me? Be yourself.”
“I am.”
