A great habit, Frances. Hm? That’s it. Saving.
The phone call ended shortly after that. When the others came out of the shop, Bobbi was holding two ice-cream cones, one of which she gave to me. I felt a terrible gratitude that she had bought me an ice cream. I took the cone and thanked her, and she scanned my face and said, are you okay? Who was that on the phone? I blinked and said, just Dad. No news. She grinned and said, oh, okay. Well, you’re welcome for the ice cream. I’ll have it if you don’t want it. In the corner of my eye I could see Melissa lift her camera and I turned away irritably, as if Melissa had wronged me by lifting her camera, or by doing something else a longer time ago. I knew it was a petulant gesture, but I’m not sure Melissa noticed.
*
We smoked a lot that night, and Nick was still kind of high when I got to his room, after everyone else had gone to sleep. He was fully dressed, sitting on the side of his bed and reading something on his MacBook, but he was squinting like he couldn’t see the text that well, or it was just confusing. He looked good like that. He was maybe a little sunburnt. I guess I was probably high too. I sat on the floor at his feet and let my head rest against his calf.
Why are you on the floor? he said.
I like it down here.
Oh hey, who was that on the phone earlier?
I closed my eyes and leaned my head harder against him until he said, stop that.
It was my dad on the phone, I said.
He didn’t know you were here?
I got up on the bed then and sat behind Nick, with my arms around his waist. I could see what he was reading, it was a long article about the Camp David Accords. I laughed and said, is this what you do when you get high, read essays about the Middle East?
It’s interesting, he said. So hey, your dad didn’t know you were over here, or what?
I told him, he’s just not a very good listener.
I rubbed my nose slightly and then put my forehead on Nick’s back, against the white cloth of his T-shirt. He smelled clean, like soap, and also faintly of seawater.
He has some issues with alcohol, I said.
Your dad does? You never told me about that.
He closed his MacBook and looked around at me.
I’ve never told anyone about it, I said.
Nick sat back against the headboard then and said: what kind of issues?
He just seems to be drunk when he calls me a lot of the time, I said. We’ve never talked about it in depth or anything. We’re not close.
I got into Nick’s lap then, so we were facing one another, and he ran his hand over my hair automatically like he thought I was somebody else. He never touched me like that usually. But he was looking at me, so I guess he must have known who I was.
Does your mother know about it? Nick said. I mean, I know they’re not together.
I shrugged and said he had always been the same way. I’m a pretty horrible daughter, I said. I never really talk to my dad. But he gives me an allowance when I’m in college, that’s bad, isn’t it?
Is it? he said. You mean you think you’re enabling him, because you take the allowance but you don’t hassle him about the drinking.
I looked at Nick and he looked back up at me, with a slightly glassy, earnest expression. I realised he really was being earnest, and he really did mean to touch my hair like that, affectionately. Yeah, I said. I guess so.
But what are you supposed to do instead? he said. The whole financial dependency thing is so fucked up. Everything definitely improved for me when I stopped having to borrow money from my parents.
You like your parents, though. You get along with them.
He laughed and said, oh God, no I don’t. Are you kidding? Bear in mind these are the people who made me go on TV when I was ten wearing a fucking blazer and talking about Plato.
Did they make you do that? I said. I assumed it was your idea.
Oh no. I was very troubled at the time. Ask my psychiatrist.
Do you really see a psychiatrist, or is that part of the joke?
He made a noise like hmm, and he touched my hand sort of curiously. He was definitely still high.
No, I have these depressive episodes, he said. I’m on medication and everything.
Really?
Yeah, I was pretty sick for a while last year. And, uh. I had a bad week or two over in Edinburgh, with the pneumonia and all that. This is probably a very uninteresting thing to tell you about. But I’m feeling okay now anyway.
It’s not uninteresting, I said.
I knew Bobbi would know what to say in this situation, because she had a lot of opinions about mental health in public discourse. Out loud I said: Bobbi thinks depression is a humane response to the conditions of late capitalism. That made him smile. I asked him if he wanted to talk about being sick and he said no, not desperately. He had his fingers in my hair, at the back of my neck, and his touch made me want to be quiet.
For a little while we kissed and didn’t talk at all, except occasionally I would say something like: I want it so much. He was breathing hard then and saying things like hm, and oh, good, like he always did. He put his hand under my dress and stroked the inside of my thigh. I held his wrist on a sudden impulse and he looked at me. Is this what you want? I said. He looked confused, like I was posing a riddle which I might answer for him if he couldn’t. Well, yeah, he said. Is it … what you want? I could feel my mouth tightening, the grinding machinery of my own jaw.
You know, sometimes you don’t seem that enthusiastic, I said.
He laughed, which wasn’t really the sympathetic response I expected. He looked down, his face was a little flushed. Do I not? he said.
I felt hurt then, and said: I mean, I talk a lot about how much I want you and how much fun I’m having and it’s never really reciprocal. I feel like I don’t fulfil you a lot of the time.
He lifted his hand and started rubbing the back of his neck. Oh, he said. Okay. Well, I’m sorry.
I am trying, you know. If there are things I’m doing wrong I want you to tell me.
In a slightly pained voice he said: you’re not doing anything wrong. It’s me, you know, I’m just awkward.