3. Ryan

There’s a little spring in my step as I push open the heavy double doors of the Student Services building. The reception area is swathed in walnut wood panels, an austere look that quickly unravels into big watery blue floor tiles, boxy cubicles with desks laden with printers and paperwork, and people who look none-too-pleased to be here. Coming here always feels like you’ve stepped into one of those country clubs with discrete Gentlemen Only signs on the doors, only to take a few steps in and find yourself in the DMV as if you traveled by portal.

Ah, home away from home.

I corner right and then left and sit on one of the four metal chairs nearest Bev’s desk. Despite stopping on the way for an eye-wateringly expensive but scientifically proven to work red velvet cupcake, I’m nice and early. I’m about to start mentally rehearsing my complaint when a mass of long dark hair in a multicolored fringed cardigan sweeps in.

Oh shit.

It’s Emily Parker. The Emily Parker. Easily one of the most beautiful girls on campus. Easily. I try not to look, but regardless, my ass starts to sweat.

Calm down, you dork. She’s not going to talk to you. Probably won’t even notice you.

I look straight ahead and resist the urge to give her the old surreptitious side-eye check-out because my friend, Nicole, has told me multiple times that women always know when men do that. I think her exact words were, “Every woman on Earth knows when men do it. We know, and we judge you Judily for it.”

“Excuse me.”

I look to my right, then my left. There’s no one else here.

Jesus. She is talking to me.

“How may I help you?” I say, adopting a very bad, very plummy British accent for some unknown reason.

Fuck!

It’s things like this that remind me that I really, really shouldn’t be allowed to people.

She smooths her hair down with both hands and tucks it behind her ears. Her cardigan falls off one shoulder. She pulls it back up, but the movement makes it fall off her other shoulder. She concedes defeat on the cardigan-shoulder situation, leaving a bared pale creamy shoulder for me to add to the list of things to try not to look at.

“Do you know if I’m where I need to be to see”—she riffles through a stack of loose papers in her lap and finds a torn-off scrap of paper, crooking her head to the side to read what’s been scrawled on it—“Beverly Washington?”

Part of me thinks it might be best to continue with the British accent because I’ve already committed, but the rest of me humbly suggests that since I fucked it up royally the first time, I nip that shit in the bud.

“Yep.” I nod elaborately, rocking my entire body back and forth. “You’re right where you need to be to see Bev.”

She seems not to notice the accent change, or if she does, she doesn’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole, and who can blame her for that. Not me, that’s for sure. “Is she…like, okay?” Her mouth dips and horizontal lines crease her forehead. “I’ve heard she’s kind of scary.”

“Well”—not to blow my own horn, but I know Bev pretty well—“she doesn’t suffer fools. I think that’s the best way to put it. So if you’re going to complain about a roommate, you better have a serious issue, you know?”

She smooths her hair again. “I-I think I do. My roommate, she, um, she likes to keep a chicken carcass in the bathroom cabinet. I don’t know why, but she’s, s-she just really likes it. The last one, it was there for a long time.” She grimaces. “It smelled so bad I thought I was going to be sick. I threw it away yesterday. I had to. I bought gloves and these tong things to grab it…and, and…she noticed right away. She went ballistic about it. She screamed at me for almost an hour. I didn’t know what to do.” Big blue eyes dampen, and she wipes at them quickly, looking away from me as she does it. “And you know how the handbook says we can’t deface the walls or the furniture?” I nod supportively. “Well, she did. She painted a weird, angry face with these big eyes with flames in them on the wall above her bed. It was red when she first painted it, but once it dried, it turned a brown color and…and—” This time, a single tear rolls down her cheek, but she doesn’t wipe it or look away. She lowers her voice to a whisper. “I think it’s blood.”

Jesus.

“I really don’t want to be one of those people who complains about everything, but, but I just don’t think I can live with her anymore. I don’t think I can.”

The blind on Bev’s cubicle window rolls up with a loud snap, saving me from having to educate Emily on the numerous reasons it’s completely fine to complain—or advocate for yourself, as I prefer to think of it.

“Ryan Haraway,” Bev booms, “that better not be you.”

Emily looks up at me nervously.

“It is me.” I smile sheepishly, holding out my hand to her.

She takes it in hers. Her grip is light, her hands bony and soft. “Emily.”

I think I do a reasonable job of pretending that’s new information, but I’m not sure. “Don’t worry about Bev. This is how we…play. Come on, I’ll come with you.”

“Bev, just give me a second. You are going to love this.” I happen to know that Bev’s been in this role for almost twelve years, and the main reason she’s still doing it is because she lives for horrifying roommate stories. Lives for them. Eats them up and takes them home in a doggy bag to share with her husband, Mal.

I sit on one of the seats in her cubicle and Emily takes the other. I hand Bev the red velvet cupcake. She eyes it suspiciously, but she takes it. It’s a good sign.

“Student number,” she says, tapping impossibly long, brightly colored nails on her keyboard while maintaining unblinking eye contact with Emily.

I hardly think she needs my student number. Probably has it memorized or written on a Post-it stuck on her computer screen right under the words Banned or Blacklisted or Do not engage with this person.

I give it to her anyway, just to be safe.

Emily launches into her tale of woe, her voice weak and quivery but gaining strength as she goes.

“Uh uh.” Bev’s eyes widen with disgust. If you know her like I do, you’ll detect a subtle undercurrent of interest neatly pinched in the corners of her eyes and mouth. “And this chicken, was it roast chicken or fried?”

She’ll need this level of detail to take home to Mal.

“Uh, I think it’s just rotisserie chicken. You know, the kind you get from Costco at the counter in those plastic containers.” Bev nods sympathetically. “She keeps the containers too.”

“Nuh-uh,” Bev says three or four times as the story escalates, head shaking in disbelief. “Oh no, she did not!” she cries when Emily gets to the bloody mural. “Girl! You should have been down here months ago. You can’t live like this!”

Emily crumples in relief, dropping her face into her hands and omitting annoyingly sweet little sniffles and the odd hiccup.

Bev widens her eyes at me and, when I don’t get her drift, points hard at Emily and then makes a very unsubtle patting motion.

Oh.

I reach over and pat Emily’s shoulder lightly three times, half expecting her to recoil. Instead, she leans into my touch and cries onto my shoulder while Bev taps away furiously.

“Okay,” she says at last. “I got a place for you. It’s a one-bed.” A one-bed?? A one-bed? What the hell, Bev? You’ve been swearing black and blue for months that there are no one-beds left on the entire campus. “I keep this one open for emergencies like this.”

Emily takes the tissue Bev offers her, wipes her eyes, and blows her nose. Her lashes are wet and sticking together, making her look like she’s wearing glittery mascara. There’s no hint of bloodshot eyes or blotchy cheeks. In fact, she might look better now than she did before she started crying.

Life really is a cruel and unusual little bitch, isn’t she?

“I take it you’re only here to help your friend, Emily,” Bev says.

“No, no, ‘fraid not, Bev. Sadly, the new roommate isn’t working out.”

Bev crosses her arms tightly across her chest. “Oh no? Why not?”

I’ll be honest: no one wants to follow an act like Emily’s when complaining about a roommate. You just don’t. It’s thrown me off my game a little. I find myself struggling to come up with something that isn’t “He makes me coffee in the mornings and serves it to me in a dick mug” or “He doesn’t know the difference between Superman and Clark Kent glasses.”

This isn’t my first rodeo, and even though I know Bev has a soft spot for me and red velvet cake, she’d laugh me out of the building for that.

“Irreconcilable differences,” I say firmly. Sometimes, less is more when it comes to making formal complaints. Sometimes, real power comes from showing restraint.

Bev’s mouth squeezes into a tiny puckered dot. She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t look amused in the slightest. If dealing with me isn’t the last thing she needs in her life, it’s definitely second or third to last. She’s not remotely in the right mood to help me right now.

“More irreconcilable than Steve the Snorer?” she asks snippily.

“Yes.”

And that’s the God’s honest truth.

“Worse than the one who chewed flaxseed crackers incessantly and picked them out of his teeth with his pen?”

Um, it’s called misophonia, Bev, and don’t pretend I haven’t explained that to you before.

“Yeah, way worse.”

She knits her fingers together and rests her chin on them expectantly.

I flounder. It isn’t like me at all. Usually, I come into my own during situations that require self advocation, but right now, I can’t think of a single thing to say other than, “He’s a dick, Bev. A dick who walks around naked all the time. A dick with pale pink nipples. Nipples that match the color of his lips almost exactly. Nipples that have been erect every single time he’s taken his shirt off, by the way. And I’m not entirely sure yet, but I think he might have a fetish for taking the damn thing off. A dick whose hair stays where he puts it for no good goddamn reason. A dick with a long, thick… A dick with a dick I can’t stop thinking about. A dick so goddamn long and thick that even when it’s soft, I’ve only had one single solitary thought since the second I saw it.”

Obviously, I can’t say any of this to Bev, but it’s true. I can’t help it. It’s not like I’m trying to be like this. It’s not even that I’m straight or bi or upset about either one of those options.

It’s that I’m curious.

Is Miller MacAvoy a grower or a shower?

And if he’s not a shower, then God’s a sadist.

Bev takes my silence as an acknowledgment of defeat, waving a slightly crooked forefinger at me. “I hooked you up with that placement, Haraway. And you know it.”

Bev prints off several pages and has Emily sign and return two of them. Her thick stack of Pandora bracelets clinks as I get ready to take my leave, and she gives me a self-satisfied little grin and then turns her attention to Emily. I realize too late she’s not done with me yet.

“Why don’t you ask Ryan here to help you move, honey? His first lecture isn’t till noon, and you’re moving into his building. He’d love to help.”

“Really?” Emily is all shades of relieved, her face pinkening and cracking into a massive smile. “Oh, thank you.”

Bev smiles, looking unbearably pleased with herself, winking and mouthing, “You’re welcome,” when I look back to give her a death stare.