After the evening news they smoked their first bowl. It was a blue-green glass pipe, and Ilona packed it like a pro. Then they giggled their way through Jeopardy and a celebrity news show, which managed to show about three minutes of content for every five minutes of commercials.
“Who watches this crap?” Ben complained.
“Shut up,” Ilona said. “I want to know Michelle Obama’s trainer’s top ten tips for toned arms.” They both snickered as the impossibly fit blonde woman in the bright red dress tried a series of arm movements while another woman in fitness gear talked her through it. “What do you think aliens would think if they were watching this? I mean, what do you think they would think about our planet?”
“Uh, that we’re shallow and incredibly stupid,” Ben said.
“And that we have impossibly toned arms!”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed, “that’s like the goal of our entire society. The people with the best arm definition get all the money and live like kings.”
Ilona snorted. “That’s good.”
He liked making her laugh. He liked that she was lying on the sofa and that her shirt was riding up a bit, showing her stomach, and she didn’t care. He liked that a few minutes ago she blew her nose really loudly and burped without saying excuse me. “I’m hungry,” he said. “How long did they say for the pizza?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“But that was like an hour ago,” Ben complained.
“Uh-uh, it was like five minutes ago. You can check in the cabinet to see if there’s anything edible.” She pointed behind her head at the tall cabinet at the end of the island. Ben pulled himself off the couch, threw the clipboard with their notes to Ilona, and found the cabinet. An orange and white striped cat sprung out at him when he opened the door and sent his heart racing. Inside there were a few cans of tuna, a large can of baked beans, and a pretzel bag with only a few pretzel sticks swimming in a mound of leftover salt chunks in the bottom of the bag. He shook the bag for the rattling sound.
“Not much?” Ilona asked.
“Nothing,” Ben said.
“Yeah, Judy’s not much of a homemaker. Every couple of weeks she’ll throw a bunch of money at me and tell me to go shopping, but I usually blow it on takeout. My car’s got a flat anyway. I watched a YouTube video on how to fix it but almost killed myself when I tried to jack the car up. So there’s that.”
“What do the cats eat?”
“Cat food,” Ilona said. “But when it runs out, Judy just feeds them whatever. It’s really gross. You should see what happens when the pizza guy comes. It’s like they think it’s for them.” The buzzer sounded on the washing machine, and Ilona hopped up and went through the door to the basement. When she came back up, she had thrown a pair of black skinny jeans over her boxers. “I know you’re disappointed,” she said.
The doorbell finally rang when Ilona was upstairs gathering up more laundry. Ben scooped up the money on the couch and headed for the front door. Sure enough, there were five cats assembled in the front hallway and two more making their way down the stairs. The ones by the door were rubbing themselves against the door frame. He had to nudge them out of the way with his foot to open the door.
The pizza delivery guy had jet-black hair under his red uniform cap and a lip ring. He gave Ben a weird look but took his money. “Where’s Ilona?”
“Upstairs,” Ben said. It seemed all right to give the information out to someone who already knew her name.
“Oh,” the guy said as he fumbled for the correct change. Ben handed him back a few bucks for a tip. “Well, just tell her Pete said ‘what’s up.’ ”
“No problem,” Ben said, shutting the door quickly to stop any of the cats from finding their way out.
He didn’t wait for Ilona before he dove at the pizza. “Such manners,” she said when she came back into the room. She threw a paper plate at him like a Frisbee.
“Shorry,” he mumbled with his mouth full of hot salty cheese. The pot was having the usual effect of making everything in his mouth taste incredible. The pizza was electric; the rich, slightly sour tang of the tomatoes, the chewy yeasty crust, and that cheese. When he managed to swallow enough so that he didn’t feel like he was going to tear his face off from hunger, he passed along Pete’s message.
Ilona rolled her eyes.
“Not one of your ‘missing friends’?”
“Fortunately, no. Pete the Pizza Guy just happens to be the delivery dude at the only place in this town that makes anything that’s slightly better than what you can get in the frozen foods aisle.”
“Which you can’t get to anyway, because your car has a flat.”
“Point,” Ilona said. “For whatever reason, he thinks this means we have some kind of ‘relationship’ beyond that he brings the pizza and I eat the pizza.”
“That’s good,” Ben said. And then without really knowing why, he added, “He’s too old for you anyway.” He grimaced as soon as he said it and waited for Ilona to bust his balls about the comment, but she didn’t.
“That’s kind of a problem I have.”
“With pizza guys?”
“No, with older guys.”
“Oh,” Ben said. “You go out with a lot of older guys?”
“Not really, but I have a lot of friends who are older guys. Basically all my friends were seniors and now they’re all gone.”
“At college?”
“Mostly. A couple of them just moved to New York to start a band and wait tables and be a cliché.”
Ben smirked, wanting Ilona to think he was at least cool enough to get it. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He jumped at the sudden sensation against his thigh. It was Tyler wanting to know what he was up to. He texted back, “24 hours TV,” to which Tyler responded, “forgot” and “ski tomorrow Wachusett?” Ben texted back that he wouldn’t be done until the middle of the afternoon. Then there was nothing. Was Tyler annoyed? It was an assignment; he couldn’t just bail. He didn’t even really want to.
Wachusett was a tiny ski mountain about forty minutes from Easton, but calling it a mountain was being extremely generous with the term. When Ben was little, he took his first ski lessons there. He remembered how excited he was to follow Shannan over to the ski school area for the day. He also remembered that when his mom had signed him up, the instructor asked him what grade he was in. The helmet he was forced to wear made it nearly impossible for him to hear anything, so he didn’t respond, unsure of what the question was. His parents usually filled in for him in these kinds of situations anyway. But when he pulled his helmet off to ask if he and Shannan could eat in the snack bar for lunch, he heard the ski school instructor’s next question loud and clear.
“Is he slow?” she was asking his mother.
Even his mother had not understood at first. “Well, he’s still learning the snowplow, but I think he’s pretty comfortable moving on the hill . . .” Her voice had trailed off as she made sense of the question. It had never occurred to Ben that anyone might think there was anything wrong with him besides a little hiccup in his hearing. That’s what Dr. Usarian had called it when he explained it to Ben. It didn’t sound so bad, even though he didn’t like the way the plastic pieces felt in his ears. It had been nice to know he wasn’t missing anything anymore.
But this was the first time he realized the way other people saw his hearing aids—as more than just a hiccup. He put on his helmet, retreating into the padded silence, and pushed over to where Shannan was waiting to ride with him up the bunny slope.
“Hellooooo,” Ilona said. She threw a little piece of crust at him. “Commercials?” It took him a minute to understand. Then he picked up the clipboard and started recording again.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“Tyler wants to ski tomorrow.”
“So are you going to go?”
“Probably not.” He had to grip and regrip the pen. It felt so slick between his fingers, not gross and sweaty, but shiny and smooth. It had to be the pot, because his whole body was sort of numb and buzzing and Ilona’s words and even his own thoughts sounded slower and more meaningful. He was working pretty hard to stay mellow and not freak out about his buzz. Wheel of Fortune was almost over, and some medical science thriller was about to come on. Probably not the best thing to watch while he was blazing—he’d probably end up thinking he had some mutated megavirus.
“Tyler Nuson, huh?” Ilona asked, and Ben nodded. “I had a class with him freshman year. I think it was French. Yeah, it totally was, because I remember the teacher—she looked like she was right out of college. Anyway, she really liked Tyler. It was kind of gross, actually. I don’t think he even came to class half the time. But whenever he did show up, she practically humped his leg.”
Ben smiled, feeling like his lips were as wide as his face. He remembered Tyler talking about Madame Catrina—that’s what she wanted her students to call her—and how she would write him excuse notes for other classes as long as he showed up and acted like he really needed her help with some girl problem he was having. “Whatever happened to her?” He managed to choke out the words.
Ilona shrugged. “I don’t know. They probably recycled her down at the teacher factory and turned her into some middle-aged lady with super pointy boobs and wool slacks.” She let the hard A in the last word ring out like she knew how weird a word slacks was.
“Slacks,” Ben repeated softly. It made the sides of mouth crinkle. He licked there. It was salty from the crust and cheese. When he looked up, Ilona was looking at him smugly.
“You are baked,” she announced.
Ben didn’t even try to deny it. He just raised his eyebrows and pretended to concentrate on the clipboard. “Slacks,” he whispered.
“So what’s his deal anyway?”
“Who?”
“Tyler? Your BFF?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. He’s too perfect to be perfect. You know what I mean?”
“No, I don’t,” Ben said shortly. The tack this conversation was taking was crushing his buzz.
“Come on, he’s gotta have some deep dark secrets, right?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ben said. But he suddenly felt woozy and paranoid—like maybe Ilona did know something he didn’t.
“Whatever,” Ilona said. “I’m sure you know him better than I do.” But her tone was skeptical, and her words seemed to peck at his self-doubt. Ben’s phone buzzed again. This time he didn’t check it.
It was Tyler. He was sure of it. But he didn’t feel the need to drop everything and read the message. He didn’t feel like he should or he had to, or even really that he wanted to. It was shocking, really, an alien feeling he couldn’t remember experiencing before.
It was only ten o’clock, but it felt like four in the morning. They each had a beer and started playing a game where they had to drink every time the news anchor said “really” or “truly.” Ben told himself it was only the one beer and after that he would stop drinking. But there was really nothing else to do, and the Fritos Ilona had ordered with the pizza made him so thirsty and the PBR just went down so easily.
“Ugh,” he said after the news was over and the late night shows came on.
“Yeah,” Ilona agreed. “This is gross. How many people do you think get wasted doing this?”
“All of them,” Ben said.
“Even Hannah Greenberg?”
Ben grinned. Hannah sat in the front and took notes on everything Kapstein said on her Macbook Air. He was pretty sure she even wrote down the lyrics to the folk songs he played on the off chance they might make an appearance on a quiz—not that Kapstein gave any quizzes. “What’s she even doing in that class?”
Ilona threw her head back. “I heard she tried to take all AP classes and guidance told her she couldn’t—like they were afraid she’d end up a complete stressed-out nutcase. Oops, too late! So it was either this or a study hall, and she probably wanted a little something extra for her college application.” Ilona pumped her fist in the air.
“Oh, shit,” Ben said. “Can we please not talk about college?”
“What’s college?”
A little while later he felt something soft and warm land on him. He opened his eyes—unaware that he had been dozing—and found that a soft plaid blanket had been tossed on him.
“Wake me up after the show,” he said, waving a hand at the TV. “I’ll take the next shift.”
“Sure.”
But when he woke up there was a yellow streak at the horizon and the sky, though dark, was a deep navy instead of black. He wiped a strand of drool from his cheek and sat up, bending to one side to see if he could crack the stuck places in his back and side. Ilona was sitting on the other end of the couch, smacking loudly on a piece of gum and twirling what looked like a black leather keychain around and around on her finger. “You let me sleep,” Ben said. His voice was accusing and grateful.
“You seemed tired.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“No shit.” Ilona stood up and went to the fridge, where she poured herself a glass of orange juice. When she came back to the couch, she picked up the clipboard and tossed it to Ben. He threw the blanket over to her, and she lay down and pulled it up over her head. Within minutes her breathing became deep and even. Ben blinked a few times and stared at the workout routine that was being performed somewhere on a tropical beach or, more likely, in front of a tropical-beach green screen.
A little after two thirty, she walked him to the front door where they both blinked at the bright sunlight reflecting off the dirty snow in Ilona’s yard. Her spiky hair was flat on top, and her bangs were pushed into her eyes. She blew them out of the way with a sharp puff. “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” she said. He shook his head and looked down at his shoes. When he looked up, Ilona was holding out her fist. He pounded down, took a step back, and turned to go. Then he turned back to give a little wave. Ilona looked amused.
“See ya,” he said.
He went home and fell asleep until the buzzing of his phone woke him at 7:30. It was Tyler, and he sounded annoyed. “Where have you been?”
“Sleeping,” Ben answered groggily.
“You never texted me back.”
“Sorry, I fell asleep.”
“At that weird girl’s house?”
“Yeah.”
“Sketch, dude. You don’t even know her.”
“Neither do you,” Ben said. Why are you being an asshole? But instead he said, “Hey, listen, can I call you tomorrow or something? I’ve gotta crash. I feel like shit.”
“Yeah, later,” Tyler said, and Ben heard the click of disconnection. He went downstairs and ate a bowl of cereal before climbing back up and passing out again—this time under his covers and without his clothes on.
He didn’t call Tyler the next day. He didn’t consciously not call him; he just seemed not to get around to it. He was busy filling out his application for UMass, which suddenly felt like a pressing, needful thing to do.