Free Deep Pockets by Linda Barnes Page B

didn’t make her move out. I liked her. I mean, like, I never had a roommate before. I don’t have any sisters or brothers. She was pretty and smart, you know, blond and all, but really strong.” Abruptly, she was crying again. The brunette waitress gave me the eye from behind the counter, checking to make sure I wasn’t slapping the kid around. “Like, all the other girls, they got along fine with their roommates. They were like sisters.”
    I nodded encouragingly at the waitress, patted Jeannie on the shoulder. “But not you and Denali?”
    “Like, I tried; I had a lot of friends in high school. Everybody told me my roommate would be like my best friend, but Denali didn’t want to spend time with me or talk to me or anything. I mean, like the only time she ever started a conversation was when she had a toothache and wanted to know did I know a good dentist. Honest to God. And my mom’s college roommate, she was, like, maid of honor at her wedding, and she’s still her best friend. But that’s in Illinois. You know, this place is so weird.” She lowered her voice to a throaty whisper. “They tell you its not like cliquey here, not like high school, but everybody sorts themselves out: future presidents, business leaders, lawyers, and shit.” She tried to force a smile, but it only made her look more miserable. “Then there’re the also-rans.” She didn’t add “like me,” but she might as well have.
    “And Denali?”
    “Oh, she was no also-ran. I mean, she was an athlete and everything, a rower. Maybe that’s another reason they paired us. I’m, like,
interested
in rowing, but she was here on a rowing
scholarship
. She was world-class. She had, like, boxes of trophies. What, am I gonna talk to her about, like, the time I came in first at camp?”
    She was thin and small, with a plain, earnest face and close-cropped dark hair. Her T-shirt was frayed, but it fit like a glove. It might have cost her twelve bucks at a discount store, but I thought it had probably run a hundred at a boutique on Newbury. She had rings on her fingers that weren’t dime-store merchandise and small diamond studs in her ears. Her sandals tied at her ankles and her toenails were painted pearly orange.
    Food was steadily disappearing off her plate; she seemed to be regaining some color. “I mean, how am I supposed to concentrate? This is, like, almost finals week, and here I am, talking about my ex-roommate instead of going to class. How can I study or anything when there’s, like, this stupid lawsuit looming over everything?”
    I’d been about to order another Pepsi, more milk. Instead, I froze and waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, I repeated that single word
lawsuit
, raising my pitch to make it a question.
    She moistened her finger and stabbed at some wayward crumbs. “Well, Denali’s family — it’s, like, a wrongful-death suit. Like she shoulda been in the dorm, and they’re gonna make me testify, and then they’ll blame it all on me, on how I was such a shitty roommate.”
    “Jeannie, look at me. Nobody kills herself because her roommate tries to be friendly.”
    “Worst of all, I didn’t tell anybody when she left. I mean, I was, like, so embarrassed. What was I supposed to say? Excuse me, but my roommate moved out ’cause she can’t stand me? I mean, I didn’t know what to say.”
    “She didn’t leave a note or say good-bye?”
    “You knew her, right?”
    “A long time ago,” I said, lying.
    “Well, believe me, she didn’t do a whole lot of explaining. Like when she first moved in, she had almost no clothes, you know, and sometimes she’d borrow my stuff, but she’d never ask. It’s not like I minded or anything. I didn’t complain when she kept her kayak in the middle of the floor or her trophies under the bed. And when I said maybe we should buy curtains and bedspreads and stuff, she said no, the room was fine the way it was, just bare. I mean, she didn’t even sleep on the bed,