Before he could answer, she was gone. He listened to her footsteps, heard the bathroom door open and close, and only when he could make out the unmistakable sounds of water gushing through faucet did he get up, retrieve his clothes from the floor, and leave.
Here’s what Richard’s never told her: sometimes, after they’ve spent the night together, he doesn’t shower. He carries her with him throughout the day, lifting the back of his hand to his face and breathing in her lingering scent. The shampoo she uses. Her skin. He can’t get enough of it. As opposed to her, jumping in the shower as soon as she’s awake, staying in there too long, and, according to her housemates, using up all the hot water and making them late.
She’s right. He must be part dog.
The racket from downstairs increases as voices are added to the mix, and Carrie stirs. Instinctively he tightens his arm around her. Her head, which has been tucked warmly between his chin and shoulder, lifts. The veil of blond hair lifts as well, detaches from his lips.
“Hey,” he says.
Carrie squints, wrinkles her nose. Shifts slightly away from him and buries her face in the pillow. “Who the hell is banging the drums?” she moans. She moves as if to rise, but he holds her.
“Just because your housemates are frying tempeh sausage instead of sleeping in doesn’t mean you have to get up,” he says.
He feels her relax slightly. She widens her eyes. They’re burnished brown, flecked with gold.
“It’s not tempeh,” she mumbles. “It’s tofu.”
“Same thing,” he replies. He waits for her to argue with him, but she closes her eyes.
“How much did we drink last night?” she says instead.
Richard blinks: no pain. He runs his tongue over his teeth: no cotton mouth. His eyes sting a little, but that’s probably from the smoke. A bunch of them had been sitting around a campfire they’d made in one of those metal dishes. A very Out--House--y way to pass a Saturday night. As opposed to the usual weekend “activities” in his house.
“Not much,” he says. “But I can’t speak for you.”
She rolls over, stares at the ceiling. “My skull feels like eggshells.”
“Want me to get you a glass of water?”
“Oh god. Would you?”
He pulls his arm out from underneath her and flips back the comforter. The cold air in the bedroom hits him like a slap; the students in Out House thrive on keeping the thermostat at igloo levels. It’s only October, but nights and mornings are cold. He searches quickly for his boxers. He’s already gotten an earful from the Hippie Witch, who shares the floor with Carrie, about seeing him slip into the bathroom without them.
“Nobody needs to see your naked ass first thing in the morning,” she cawed, like some crow, the morning he’d just needed to take a piss and mistakenly thought the coast was clear. He doesn’t get why Carrie lives with these people. It’s not like the house is that great.
“Hippie Witch caught me,” he’d reported the morning it happened. Carrie had gotten up and the dragon kimono was on.
“You know I hate when you call her that,” she’d said. “She has a name: Mona.” She’d brushed past him with the mesh bag, exiting.
“Exactly. Mona the Hippie Witch,” he’d directed at her retreating back, but she didn’t laugh. She also didn’t seek out his company for the next thirty--six hours; not even a text. Then, around eleven o’clock at night, while Richard was studying alone in his bedroom, Carrie knocked. He opened the door. She stepped in and her mouth was on his and she was unbuckling his belt before the latch fully clicked shut.
He figured she’d gotten over the Hippie Witch comment. But he’d learned his lesson.
Words, which Richard batted carelessly among his friends, were powerful things to Carrie. With the guys, he slipped easily into some shorthand that didn’t mean much beyond what was just said in the moment, possibly less, since their word choices were reflexive, unconsidered. For Carrie, words were volatile, intentional, Molotov cocktails of meaning.
Deep down, Richard knows she’s got a point. He should respect accuracy in language. But choosing words carefully was one thing; navigating minefields of political correctness was another, far more exhausting, thing.
Sometimes he wonders why he’s with her. Then Jordan reminds him.
“Older women have . . . knowledge,” Jordan had commented the Sunday of the chocolate chip pancakes. He’d tracked Richard down after brunch, discovered him in the library, and dropped his laden backpack on the long table where Richard had just started on his problem sets. Jordan sat. Waited.
“They do,” Richard agreed. That was it. He wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about Carrie. He wasn’t sure he knew what to say.
“So, this is a thing now?” Jordan continued. “You, the lowly sophomore, and Eco Carrie? Who just happens to be a senior?”
Richard laughed. “People call her that? Seriously?”
“Uh . . . everyone calls her that. Maybe not to her face. I mean, she pretty much is, right? Lives in the nuts and berries house, protests fracking, wears hemp . . . or does she eat it? Can you eat hemp?”
“No, but you can smoke it.”