Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
West sighs mournfully. “Yes.”
“Should I put pants on for this? It feels like we’re leading up to a pants-on conversation.”
“That’s entirely up to you.”
I stand, limping in one slipper to the bedroom. When I emerge in a pair of shorts, West is still standing exactly where I’d left him.
“You can sit, you know.” I gesture to the splendor of my living room: the half-empty Big Gulp cup on the coffee table that Jack left a few days ago; the dog toy on the floor that Lindy bought even though we don’t have a dog; the laundry basket overflowing with clean clothes neither of us feels like folding. “I know the place feels like an interior design showroom, but we aren’t fussy.”
With vague trepidation, West sits on the couch. I climb back on, leaving a little distance between us, but reach out to poke his knee. “Okay. You’re real.”
He squints at me. “How high are you?”
“I’m like a five right now. I can’t ever get to a ten. I only sort of like edibles, but I didn’t know what else to do today.”
“A job search felt ill-advised?”
“I thought I deserved a day to wallow.”
He looks around again like he’s not sure I can afford to wallow. He’s right.
“What have you been up to?” I ask.
“I’m a professor with a joint appointment in economics and cultural anthropology at Stanford.”
My brain screeches to a halt. “Wait, are you fucking serious? Like Indiana Jones?”
He exhales patiently, and even stoned me realizes he must get that a lot. He runs a long finger along an attractively dark eyebrow. “This is anthropology. You’re thinking archaeolo—”
“Do you go in caves? Swing from vines?” I lean forward. “Yes or no: Have you ever been chased through a jungle?”
West blinks at me and says flatly, “Routinely.”
I reach forward, slapping his arm. “Shut the fuck up!”
He stares at me, trying to hide how distressed he is over everything happening right now. The I’m doomed look is back. I sit up, trying to compose myself. Truthfully, the man before me does not fit my mental image of a modern-day Indiana Jones. I expected more of a Patagonia half-zip, cargo pants, and well-loved hiking boots look than the expensively tailored white dress shirt and navy pants he’s wearing. His shoes are so polished I could probably lean forward and see my reflection and realize how grubby I look in contrast: A ratty old Tom Petty concert shirt of my dad’s that falls off one shoulder. Terry shorts barely covering my ass. Still just the one slipper.
“Didn’t your family live in the area?” I ask. “I haven’t seen Jake in like two years.”
“They’re down in Orange County, yeah. Jake is in Newport Beach working for the family business.”
“Cool.” Other than the sound of Conan grunting on the TV, silence falls, and I’ve lost the thread of why West is here.
He adjusts his posture on the sofa, turning slightly to face me. Oh, right. He came here to ask me for help. I sit up, too, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. Focus, Anna.
“Okay, so here’s the situation,” he says. “You remember, I’m sure, the circumstances of how we came to be roommates?”
Indeed I do. At the end of my sophomore year, my two roommates graduated, and I couldn’t afford the rent for our one-bedroom apartment near campus alone. In fact, I couldn’t afford any rent on any apartment within biking or walking distance. Jake already had a roommate; Vivi lived at home with her parents and commuted a half hour to school every day from Playa del Rey. Even though the Amirs offered me a room, I didn’t have a car and LA public transportation is so deeply shitty that if Vivi and I didn’t carpool, it would take me nearly two hours to get to school from their house every day. Given my penchant for oversleeping, I knew it wouldn’t work.
But Jake’s older brother was working on his doctorate and needed graduate housing; unfortunately, he’d been offered only family housing, which required him to be married. So Jake had the idea to connect the two of us for a little harmless rule-breaking. A legal lockdown on my vagina was well worth the pennies in rent I’d have to pay. I met West for the first time at the courthouse, where we had a brief ceremony. I signed some papers when he moved in and some papers when he moved out, and that was that. Easy.
For two blissful years, I had cheap housing and an apartment all to myself most daylight hours. West had been one of the best roommates I’d ever had—certainly I had never caught him with his ankles tied to his wrists on the couch.
“I do remember,” I say. But then something occurs to me and panic washes me out for a second. “Wait. Are we in trouble for fraud or something?”