in my room, I remember that this is not my room at all. This is Rachel’s guest room, and my sleeping here confirms what I already know: I am merely an interloper. I glance around, wondering if I left my laptop open. I don’t need her to see my IMs with SN, or, God forbid, my Google history, which has way too many questions that begin with “Is it normal to…” Phew, my cover is closed, tattoos visible even from the door. No, nothing for her to see here. Bras and thongs away in the drawers, the dirty ones in the wicker box Gloria has considerately provided. My tampons too are hidden. Even my toothbrush is tucked into the bathroom cabinet, banished, along with all of my makeup, so that Rachel’s counters remain empty except for her self-congratulatory soaps.
“Oh, hey,” she says, pretending she wasn’t just looking at the only thing I have on display: the photo of my mom and me. “I was waiting for you.”
“Okay,” I say, cool but not impolite. I am mad at my dad, which by extension may now include Rachel, but I don’t know how these stepparent things work. My parents were usually a single unit, had very little patience for me playing one off the other. Usually, if I was mad at one, I was mad at both. But Rachel is still a stranger. Her vows to my father have done little to change that.
“Your dad says you’re not talking to him,” she says, and sits down on my bed, or her bed, or whatever. She is sitting where I sleep, and I would prefer she didn’t.
“I’m not sure that’s any of your business,” I say, and then instantly regret it. Recent circumstances with my dad notwithstanding, I don’t do confrontation. When someone bumps into me in the hallway, my reflex is to say sorry.
But maybe I’m not sorry. Who is she to get involved in this? I didn’t marry her.
“You’re right. That’s between your dad and you. I just wanted to give you this. Well, we wanted to give it to you, but your dad thought since it was my idea, I should be the one…Just here.” Rachel hands me a folded piece of paper.
“What is it?” I ask, wondering if it’s an eviction letter or something. A quick glance makes clear it’s not a check. Damn. That could have been useful.
“Open it,” she says, and so I do. A flight itinerary: LAX to ORD for next weekend. Round trip.
“I don’t understand.”
“We thought you might want to go home for a visit. See Scarlett, hang out with your old friends for a few days. I heard you were homesick,” she says, and she picks up the photo, a conscious decision to look at my mom and me and to let me know she’s looking. She examines our details: how I held on to my mom’s leg, like an anchor. Or maybe Rachel is not looking at me at all but is trying to get a sense of my mother, of her husband’s first wife. I want her to put it down—I don’t like how her fingers are leaving tiny smudges.
“Who said that I was homesick?” I ask, which is a stupid question. Of course I’m homesick, the longing sometimes so overwhelming that I’ve even marveled at how accurate the word is, how the feeling comes over me like the stomach flu. Violent, unforgiving. No cure, just waiting for it to relent.
“Scarlett’s parents called your dad,” Rachel says, and finally, finally puts down my photo. It takes all my willpower not to move it so it’s facing the bed, not the door. To wipe the glass clean with some Windex. Erase her fingerprints. Reclaim it as mine. “But how could you not be? This has been a huge adjustment. For all of us.”
Is that regret flickering across her face? Does she wish she never married my father, that there was an easy way to undo their joint mistake?
“Wait, what?” Scarlett’s parents called my dad? Did they tell him about my plans for their basement? What did Scarlett tell them? I’m not sure if I should be angry or thrilled, because right now, I have in my hand a plane ticket, an actual plane ticket that will take me from here to home, to Scarlett and to a life that’s familiar, in under six hours door to door. We didn’t fly out here when we moved. Instead, Dad and I caravanned our two cars