Friends and Strangers - J. Courtney Sullivan Page 0,133
starving,” he said. “Let’s order something in.”
“Any place that delivers around here closes by nine,” Sam said.
Then she remembered her key to the kitchen, the one Maria gave her her first year, when she worked the early shift. Sam had never given it back.
“Come with me,” she said, leading him by the hand down the back stairwell.
The dining hall felt foreboding with no one in it, and all the lights turned off.
“Where are you taking me?” Clive said.
“You’ll see.”
They crossed the room in the pitch black, his hand creeping down her back, squeezing her butt. Sam let out a squeal, and Clive said “What? What happened?” as if it hadn’t been him.
When they reached the heavy metal kitchen door, she inserted the key, pushed it open.
“Dinner is served,” she said as she switched on the light.
She went to one of the refrigerators and pulled out half a tray of leftover enchiladas from Mexican night on Saturday and three-quarters of an apple pie. Clive took a small bowl of mashed potatoes, looking guilty and gleeful, like the two of them were a pair of criminals.
Sam glanced over her shoulder before carrying the food to the microwave. It felt illicit, opening the door, closing it, pressing the buttons, each of which let out a loud beep.
Clive’s lips were on the back of her neck before she had a chance to turn around. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, his hands on her breasts.
“Pull your pants down,” he said.
Sam did so, watching the enchiladas spin. Her grandmother had once told her you could get cancer from standing in front of a microwave.
Clive slid one hand down between her legs.
“Spread them wider,” he whispered.
She could hear him unzipping his jeans.
* * *
—
By Wednesday morning, Clive’s alleged allergies had turned into the flu. He had a temperature of a hundred and two, the chills, a hacking cough. Sam went to class for three hours, and when she returned home for lunch, he had filled her trash can with dirty Kleenex.
She kept thinking she felt achy, waiting for it to hit her.
“Snuggle with me?” Clive said pathetically, and Sam curled her body against his like they were two Pringles in a can, all the while trying not to breathe.
When she returned from her afternoon classes, he was propped up on pillows in her bed, watching TV. A chair had been pulled up beside him. On it sat a bowl of chicken soup, a dish filled with crackers, lemon wedges, and honey packets, a mug, and a large silver thermos.
“What’s all that?” she said.
“Tea,” he said. “Soup.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“I went down to the dining hall for a glass of water, and one of your friends took pity on me.”
Sam felt some small sense of alarm. “Which friend?”
“Delmi. The cafeteria worker. She told me to get right back in bed and she’d bring this all up. She’s a saint. We spoke a little Spanish. She tolerated my bad accent.”
“Oh. Delmi,” Sam said. Then, thinking it over, “That’s not really her job.”
Clive just smiled back.
At dinnertime, when Sam walked into the kitchen to thank her, Delmi was talking close with Maria. They were speaking Spanish, but Sam recognized one phrase, a favorite of Maria’s.
“Hay pericos en la milpa.”
There are parakeets in the cornfield.
Two student workers were washing dishes, their backs to the room.
Were they the parakeets, Sam wondered, or was she?
“Hi, Sam,” Delmi said, with no trace of her usual smile.
“You didn’t have to do that for Clive,” Sam said. “That was so nice of you.”
“It was nothing,” Delmi said.
She stared down at a cell phone in her hand, then showed Maria what was on the screen.
“Clive said he talked to you in Spanish. He lived in Spain for a while.”
Delmi seemed agitated. “Hmm? Yes, he speaks very good Spanish.”
“I hope he wasn’t annoying.”
“It’s fine, Sam,” Delmi snapped.
Sam thought of what she and Clive had done in this room the other night. It felt fun and harmless at the time, but now she wondered if somehow they knew. She regretted her behavior. It was thoughtless. Gross.
“Are you mad at me?” she said, sounding childish, feeling her face grow hot.
Delmi looked up from the phone. “What? No! Of course not.”
Sam brought food upstairs for Clive and herself. She told him what had happened.
“Like she said, it’s nothing to do with you,” he said. “She’s probably just having a bad day.”
Clive looked pale. When he closed his eyes, she could tell it hurt.