Settling

“Lynne! Where are you? We’re so worried! Call me, Mom.”

“Lynne! You call me right now or I’m going to be so angry! Mom.”

“Lynne, this is your father. Your mother wants you to call her. She’s so angry she cannot speak. I really don’t appreciate this.”

“LYNNE IF YOU DO NOT CALL ME BY FIVE O’ CLOCK I AM CALLING THE POLICE I DON’T CARE WHAT ADRIAN SAYS SO YOU CALL ME OR SO HELP ME I WILL—” Beep.

“Wow, Lynne,” Cricket said from the couch, her eyes wide. “I think you’d better call her.”

“You think?” I grumbled, erasing the six following messages after listening to the first word—they got shriller as I went on—and checked the clock. Six-thirty. Shit.

“Mom?”

“LYNNE. Thank God!”

“Mom, you thouldn’t get so exthited.”

“Where have you been?”

“It really not good for your heart.”

“Where are you?”

“One of theeth days, your heartbeat’th jutht not going to thlow down.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeth, Mom, I’m fine,” I said, relieved I’d avoided her other questions for now.

“Where are you?” Dammit.

“I’m with a friend.” I grimaced, bracing myself.

“What friend? Is it a man? Get back here to Adrian, Lynne!”

“Mom, I…I broke up with Adrian.” Yes, that’s right, Lynne, protect the bastard. I loathed myself.

“What? You love Adrian! I went rooting through your closet just last week and found stacks of Bride maga—”

“I know! I know. But…he’th…controlling. And I love thomeone elth.” I hit myself on the forehead. Damn my inept impromptu! There’s no way that wouldn’t bite me in the ass later!

“You love someone else,” my mom said dryly. “Who?”

I frantically searched my brain for a name—someone legitimate, someone I wouldn’t have to make up anything about… “Keyth!” Keyes?! Where did that come from?

“Keith?” My mother could be so snotty. “Who’s Keith?”

“What about Keyes?” Cricket shouted, surprised, from the couch. She had a pint of chunky monkey on her lap and a giant spoon. I couldn’t wait to join her.

I mouthed nothing! at Cricket and said, “Not Keith, Keyth!”

My mother sighed. “I can’t understand you. But no matter. Come home, now.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Goodbye Mom!” I slammed down the phone. “God!” I jumped over the back of Cricket’s couch and nearly landed on her feet. She squealed and pulled them back, putting her chin on her knees.

“Why were you talking about Keyes?” Cricket asked, watching me closer than was comfortable.

“It thad. You can underthand me better than my mother, and you’ve only known me a little over a year.”

“Lynne, don’t change the subject. I know you do that a lot.” She gave me a stern look, and I tried avoiding her dark eyes.

“What mathcara do you uthe?” I asked weakly, knowing my efforts would be crushed.

“Stop. Now. Why were you talking about Keyes? How do you know Keyes? God, he’s such a…a—”

“I don’t know him. I jutht needed an excuthe. For breaking up with Adrian.”

Cricket blinked at me. “But he broke up with you.”

“Yeah, but my mom doethn’t need to know that.”

She sighed, stretched her arms above her head. I could hear her joints popping as she rolled her neck around. “I don’t understand you, girl. He’s an asshole. End of story.”

I shrugged, and she stood up. “I’m not going to argue with you. I’m sure you have your reasons.” I nodded, picked up the remote, and switched it to the news. “And there’s my cue to leave!” Cricket wrinkled her nose. “I can’t believe you can watch that.” She was already headed for the bedroom—she, luckily, had a queen bed, so I was spared the torture of sleeping on the small couch.

“You going to bed?” I asked, surprised. It was only six-thirty, after all.

She gave me a strange look, her flawlessly sculpted eyebrows coming together. Even the little wrinkles on her forehead looked cute on Cricket. I sighed. “Duh, no! I’m ordering takeout.”

I eyed the empty ice cream container and raised an eyebrow. “You’re taking the whole ‘don’t-be-anorethic’ thing a little ethtreme, aren’t you?”

“I said I’m ordering it, I never said I’d eat it,” Cricket said with a wink, and disappeared to her room. I sighed again. This girl was going to take some taking used to.

--

The next day, I was put on grocery duty. It was only physically possible for me to carry two bags by myself, so I had to economize—one jar of peanut butter, one of jelly, one loaf of bread, one container of eggs, one box of cereal, half a gallon of skim, a hefty bottle of cheap dessert wine—the necessities. I could tell we’d be going to the store quite often.

It was hard enough carrying the heavy paper bags on flat ground, so when I reached the bottom of the stairs, I was stumped how. Four flights. Four. I supposed I could leave one at the bottom and just hump it up with one, but that idea was so undesirable that I considered just sitting down and waiting for someone to help. Lucky enough, I didn’t even have to sit.

“We used to have an elevator,” said a voice quite near my shoulder. I jumped and nearly dropped my bag.

“Oh?” It was Keyes. He was better shaven today, and I found I preferred him with stubble—he looked like a fresh-faced teenager. Even less comparable to Adrian. I sniffed.

“Yeah,” he replied, taking one of the bags from my arms. I could almost feel my arms rising from the sudden lack of weight. “It broke down, though, and wasn’t too safe to begin with. It’s back there.” He nodded his head to a dark hallway to our left.

“You’ve been here a while, then?” I asked, not really interested, but he was helping me out, so I figured I’d pretend.

“Eh, long enough. Four years. I’m moving out once I finish college next semester.”

He was around twenty-four, then. I could hardly believe it. “What are you thtudying?”

He glanced at me sideways—I’d thus far been able to avoid the cursed “s” sound, so I could see why. “Economics, mostly.”

I made a noncommittal noise and we continued up the stairs in silence for a few steps.

“Tho—where did the name Keyth come from?” I asked, honestly curious.

“Keith? No, my name is Keyes.”

“That’th what I thaid. Keyth.”

“Oh. Oh.” His eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. I wondered crossly what incorrect assumption he’d just made. His speech was considerably slower as he said, “I’m not sure, actually. I never thought to ask.”

I thought this was peculiar; even I, with a normal name like Lynne, had asked my parents its origin. We reached our floor, and he handed my bag back to me. “And you’re Lynne, right?”

I nodded, fumbled for the keys Cricket had given me, and opened my door.

“Well, Lynne, it’s nice to meet you.” He got an odd sparkle in his eye and spoke so slowly it infuriated me. I could see what was going on in that little brain of his. “By the way, I think it’s really cool you can read lips.”

I made an involuntary angry sound deep in my throat and closed my eyes. “I’m not DEAF!” I snarled and slammed the door behind me.

People could be so stupid.

--

“Tho, that Keyth guy is an idiot,” I droned to Cricket once she reemerged from her bath. She worked at Victoria’s Secret and had brought me back a consolatory pair of lacy underwear. I thanked her, though internally I wondered how on earth underwear should make me feel better. She was really earnest about it, though, and I wasn’t about to be the one to tell her Santa wasn’t real.

“An idiot? Why do you say that? I heard he was, like, a math wiz or something.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. But he jutht totally called me deaf in the hall.”

Cricket’s mouth fell open. She knew how touchy I was about being mistaken for a deaf person—it was pretty much the most insulting thing you could call me. “Oh my God! Guess what he did to me?”

“What?”

“Well, when I first moved here I was thinking, hey, cool, I’ve got a pretty cute guy living across the hall, right?” I nodded. “So I bring him over a plate of cookies—from the store, there’s no way I’d bake them—and he comes to the door all nice and cute and thanks me for the cookies. And then he says, ‘Hey, you want one? You look like you could use it.’” It’s my turn to have my mouth fall open. “Yeah. Exactly.”

“God, what a jerk. What did you say?”

“I was pretty much speechless. I said ‘Excuse you!’ and stomped back into my apartment. And—get this—he came back later to apologize, but his excuse was that he had Tourette’s. How lame is that? I mean, I’m not stupid, asshole.”

I shake my head in disbelief. That guy should have left it well enough alone. Tourette’s—to my knowledge—was a syndrome involving bodily tics and involuntary swearing, in some cases. Keyes had neither. “What a dick.”

--

I was in a good mood when the doorbell rang. I turned the music I was listening to down—I had been dancing around Cricket’s living room—and tried to get my breathing under control. I pulled the door open with a smile.

It fell as soon as I saw who it was. “What do you want?” I asked.

Keyes’ eye twitched—I saw it and wondered if it was part of the act—as he said, “I wanted to apologize for what I said earlier.”

“Yeah?” I was still pretty pissed about that incident.

“Yeah…I have a mild case of Tourette’s…it’s where you…”

“I know what Tourette’th ith, thank you.”

“Well, I’m taking medication for it, but I sometimes slip up, especially in front of pretty gir—”

“I don’t want to hear it. Cricket already told me you’re lying. But I don’t care. Jutht forget it.”

Keyes put his foot in the door as I went to close it, and stuttered, “No, wait, I’m not lying! I honestly do have it!”

“You don’t randomly swear,” I hissed, leaning forward to get in his face. One of my red pigtails swung in my face, and I pulled it back angrily.

“In my head I do!” His volume had escalated, and his eye was twitching openly now—I wondered if Cricket and I were wrong, but that thought was so embarrassing I stamped on it.

“Whatever. Up your dothage. Goodbye.” I slammed the door in his face, still breathing hard.

I turned my music up loud again, and tried hard not to think. I especially tried not to think of Keyes’ twitching eye and the earnest way he plead—no, don’t even go there, I told myself. It’s not your problem; why do you care about him, anyway?

I decided I needed a job to occupy myself. I’d had to quit work at the record store—it was much too far to commute now, especially without a car—so I was currently jobless. If I’m going to get Cricket to let me stay, I reasoned, I’d better pull my weight. I grabbed my coat, put the house keys around my neck, and made my way to the bank.

--

A/N: Hm. Big mystery, eh? Oh yeah. sigh I tried, haha.

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Julia