“That’s what he said.” I looked back down at the book. “I just have to mist them every day and check the humidity. He also needs a ride to the airport.” I lifted my head and smiled. “I’m going to drive him in, and then I get the car for the weekend.” I leaned back in my chair and waved my hands above my head. I was that excited.
“Wow. The one that says ‘FASCIST PRICK’?”
I frowned. I wasn’t going to let her bring me down. She had a car. She didn’t understand. “He got most of that off,” I said. “You can barely see it now. He’s giving me fifty dollars. And I heard his place is really nice. I think he has a Jacuzzi.”
“Yeah, I heard that, too.” She looked over my shoulder to check the door to her room. She looked over her own shoulder, too. “You know why it’s nice, in my opinion?”
I shook my head.
“Drogas,” she whispered. Gretchen was taking Spanish, too. “He’s selling drogas.”
I frowned again. This was information I did not want.
“You actually know this?”
She looked at me as if I were stupid, not just about chiral molecules, but about the world in general. “How many college students do you know who live in a luxury town house by the country club? And that car?”
“Circumstantial evidence,” I said. It was what my father would have said, what Elise would have said. I could think like them sometimes. I just couldn’t mimic the intimidating way they said things, sounding bored and ready to fight at the same time. I just sounded anxious. “Maybe he has rich parents.”
“Then why does he have a job that pays minimum wage?” She fastened the lid on the chicken. “Please. It’s for contacts. He’s supplying the dorm, I bet. Maybe all of them.”
I paused to consider what she was saying. It was a weakness of mine, this need to slow down and take information in, to always wonder if I was, in fact, in the wrong. Neither Elise nor my father ever seemed to do this. When I got quiet with either of them, they considered me stumped and, if we were arguing, conquered. But Gretchen was waiting patiently, her chin resting in her hand.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “If it’s true, then why did he call the police on the marijuana?”
“Because he’s mean.” She shrugged. “I heard he mostly sells pills.”
I drummed my fingernails on the table. My fingernails were not painted sparkly pink. They were chewed to the quick, awful-looking. “You heard this from a lot of people? People who would know?”
She shook her head. “Just a couple of people.”
“So basically you’re telling me a rumor?”
She put her palms up and nodded.
I nodded, too. Fine then. So it probably wasn’t true. And even if it was, really it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to be Jimmy Liff ’s friend. I was just going to stay at his nice house, and drive his nice car. Also, I had already told him I would do it. He was counting on me.
Gretchen squinted. “No offense, but I wonder why he asked you. You in particular, I mean.”
I shrugged as if I didn’t know. In truth, the answer to this question was embarrassing. Jimmy Liff had actually looked me in the eye and explained that I was simply the most boring person he knew. “I don’t mean that as a bad thing,” he’d added quickly. “I don’t mean you’re like, boring to talk to. I mean you seem boring in a good way. In a way that would be good for my plants and my car. You don’t even smoke, do you?”
It didn’t hurt my feelings. I understood what he meant. Jimmy and I had landed in the same Shakespeare class the previous spring, and though I had been a little afraid of him at the beginning, we had been paired by the teacher to work on a presentation for Measure for Measure together. I went to work right away. I made handouts; I memorized one of Isabella’s soliloquies; I found video recordings of several different productions. Perhaps I went a little overboard, but it was a good thing I did, as all Jimmy did was show up the day of the presentation. But group work was group work, and we’d both gotten A’s. He’d acted chummy with me ever since.
“I don’t care why he asked me.” I reopened the Chicken Satay. A drop of sauce fell on a diagram of