and Monica hugged, and then Monica’s mom and dad each hugged her. Elizabeth looked at Monica with a fond but distant smile, like she was sure she’d seen her somewhere before, but couldn’t say where. When they went to say good-bye, Monica’s mom hugged Cleo again, and whispered in her ear, “We’re all thinking of you,” which made Cleo feel strange, and weirdly like Monica had told on her. She pulled away and said the only thing she could think of, which was, “Thanks.”
They all went out to an Italian dinner at a restaurant where Weezy had made reservations months earlier. Every restaurant was booked, of course, and unless you remembered way ahead of time, you were out of luck. Cleo wondered what they would have done if they weren’t with the Coffeys. Elizabeth probably would have just driven back to New York.
They all said good-bye outside the restaurant. Cleo and Max had to go pack up their apartment, and everyone else was driving back that night. It felt weird packing up the apartment with Max. “I don’t feel like we graduated,” she said. “I don’t feel like anything’s over.”
WEEZY MADE THEM UNPACK THEIR BAGS on the driveway. “Who knows what you’re bringing back from that place?” she kept saying. Cleo wasn’t sure if she thought they had bedbugs or that mice were hiding in their clothes, but she was offended. She managed to convince Weezy to let them bring the stuffed chair from their apartment down to the basement, after Weezy inspected it and sprayed it with some sort of foam that she then vacuumed off of it.
Cleo wondered what the neighbors must have thought, looking out to see Weezy in cropped workout pants and an old hockey T-shirt of Max’s, sweating as she pulled the vacuum around, the orange extension cord trailing out of the house, while Cleo just stood there and watched, her hands resting on her stomach, which was as big as a beach ball.
After they moved everything in, Max sat on the edge of the bed and Cleo stood by the dresser. They were exhausted and sweaty. The room felt tiny, like it could barely hold the two of them.
“Well, here we are,” Max said.
“Here we are,” Cleo said.
MAX STARTED LOOKING FOR A JOB the very next day, which was annoying. There was no point in her even applying anywhere, since no one was going to hire a girl that was almost eight months pregnant. Cleo looked at his résumé and wanted to tell him that she should be the one getting a job, that she’d be able to get a better one than he could. It was always understood between them that she was the smarter one, and now she wanted it acknowledged. She had to bite her lip to keep from saying something out loud. Instead, she sat and watched Max send out his résumé, feeling like a big blob of nothing.
THEN MAX GOT A JOB DOING AD SALES for a small business magazine, and Cleo spent her days sleeping late, wandering around the house, reading, sleeping, and waiting for Max to come home. Then when he did, she listened to him talk about his job. She wanted to hear everything about his coworkers. Who brought tuna for lunch every day and who napped in their cubicle? She herself had nothing to share, except for the day that she took Ruby for a walk and the poor thing got diarrhea. Max was so tired every night. “I can’t believe this is what a job feels like,” he said. Most nights, he fell asleep while they were still watching TV in bed.
The days got even more boring. Weezy tried to help, which some days Cleo appreciated and some days it made her want to scrape her teeth with her fingernails. “Shall we go look at some strollers?” Weezy would say. Or, “Why don’t we go get you some new tops?” That last comment made Cleo cry a little, since she was sure that Weezy was telling her that her shirts were too tight.
One day, even Weezy seemed at a loss, and the two of them sat upstairs on the couch, reading. Weezy had given Cleo an old copy of The Thorn Birds that she’d found on a bookshelf in the basement. The book was wrinkled, like it had gotten wet and the pages had dried all wavy, but Weezy promised she’d enjoy it. “It’s so dramatic, full of love affairs with a priest, and—oh,