I finally pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and went upstairs. I was standing in the foyer, still trying to decide what to do, when I heard a creak on the stairs behind me.
“You too?” Christy said.
“Yeah. Couldn’t sleep.”
We glanced toward the master bedroom.
“They weren’t exactly
“But it was kinda obvious.”
“Yeah. So, um… you wanna hang out?”
“Sure.” I made an expansive gesture toward our little studios. “My place or yours?”
“Mine,” she said after a moment.
“Good call. Those beanbags are comfy.”
She kicked off her bunny slippers and curled up on the smaller bag, an ugly orange thing with a suspicious stain on the underside. The other bag wasn’t much better, a brown blob that had been patched several times.
We chatted for a few minutes, mostly small talk. Then she dropped a bombshell.
“How come you aren’t… you know?” She glanced again toward the master bedroom.
My eyes widened. Did she know about Wren and Trip and me? How could she? She wasn’t the type to understand swinging, much less condone it.
So I couldn’t imagine why Wren would’ve told her. I took a deep breath and said neutrally, “How come I’m not what?”
“You know…
“I dunno,” I said with disguised relief. “I guess ’cause I don’t have one.”
“Why not?”
My face grew still. I didn’t need another lecture about how I was a male slut.
“Oh, gosh— Sorry! I don’t mean it like that.”
“Then how
“I was just making conversation.”
I doubted it, but decided to answer anyway. “I don’t really want a girlfriend. Not right now, at least.”
“Oh. But… why not?”
“That’s harder to answer.” I shrugged. “I guess I want to find myself first.”
“Find yourself?”
“I need to be happy on my own before I can be happy with someone else.”
“I think I understand.”
“Do you?”
She nodded. “So… are you? Happy, I mean.”
“I think so.”
“I can tell.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“You’re… different… from when I saw you last.”
“I had a lot to think about over the summer.”
“Wren said you turned into a philosopher.”
“Ah. What do
“Me? I dunno. I think you’re different. That’s for sure.”
“Different-good or different-bad?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Too soon to tell.”
“Fair enough.”
We fell silent.
She thought of something and smiled. “You remind me of someone.”
“Oh? Who?”
“Nobu.”
My eyebrows shot up. “The Japanese monk?”
“You remember?”
“Of course.”
She smiled again. “He used to tell me there’s beauty in everything.”
“Ah.”
“And he was always very calm. Like you are.”
“It’s an illusion.”
“What is?”
“Me. Being calm. I have to work at it. All the time.”
“I think he did too,” she said.
I let her enjoy the memory.
“I’d better go,” she said all of a sudden. “I need to get some sleep.”
“Oh. Okay. G’night.”
She left before I could say anything else.
I listened to her pad down the stairs. Then I realized that she’d left her slippers. I thought about taking them down to her, but decided to leave them where they were.
I went next door to my own studio and turned on the desk light. I pulled a book at random from the shelf and sank into the nearest easy chair. I read for a while but didn’t really see the words. I was thinking about Christy and what she’d said. After a while I closed my eyes, just to rest them for a few minutes.
I woke up the next morning in the same chair. I was a bit stiff, but not so much that a good run wouldn’t take care of it. I went to rub my eyes and realized that someone had covered me with a blanket during the night. My book had slipped off my lap and now lay on the floor, closed, but with a
scrap of paper to mark my place.
My eyes fell on a drawing in the other chair. I picked it up and looked at it. It was a quick sketch in pencil, the kind of thing I made in my own sketchbook when I wanted to remember a design.
Christy had drawn me as I’d slept in the chair, covered with the blanket that still lay across my lap. My hand rested on the book I’d been reading. The scene was still and very serene.
I smiled.
She must have come upstairs during the night.
For her slippers, I decided.
Life settled into a routine in the new house. Class and studying took up most of our time, but Trip and I started working out together at the Sports Bubble.
Wren and Christy found an aerobics class at the same time, so we went together.
Separately, I kept up my morning runs, mostly to have some time to myself. I also made time for judo twice a week with my friend Glen. The girls went to the swimming pool about as often, while Trip joined an intramural football team with a couple of guys from his management class.
Wren made dinner most nights, although the rest of us promised to take an occasional turn to give her a break. Christy was a decent cook, but Trip and I were pretty bad. I steeled myself for Wren’s criticism, but she always found something to compliment (except once, when I carbonized dinner because I’d been sketching ideas for my design project; we ordered pizza that night).
