Page 9 of Regretting Youu

His words jar me. I put the car in park when I reach the end of the driveway and do my best at pretending nothing about his home shocks me. I change the subject entirely, looking at him with narrowed eyes.

“Some dude?” I ask, circling back to how he referred to me on his phone call.

“I’m not telling my girlfriend I caught a ride with you,” he says. “It’ll turn into a three-hour interrogation.”

“Sounds like a fun and healthy relationship.”

“It is, when I’m not being interrogated.”

“If you hate being interrogated so much, maybe you shouldn’t be tampering with the city limit.”

He’s out of the car when I say that, but he leans down to look at me before he closes the door. “I won’t mention you were an accomplice if you promise not to mention I’m adjusting the city limit.”

“Buy me new flip-flops, and I’ll forget today even happened.”

He grins as if I amuse him, then says, “My wallet is inside. Follow me.”

I was only kidding, and based on the condition of the home he lives in, I’m not about to take cash from him. But it seems like we somehow developed this sarcastic rapport, so if I suddenly become sympathetic and refuse his money, I feel it might be insulting. I don’t mind insulting him in jest, but I don’t want to actually insult him. Besides, I can’t protest because he’s already walking toward his house.

I leave my flip-flops in the car, not wanting to track tar into his house, and follow him barefooted up the creaky steps, noticing the rotting wood on the second step. I skip over that step.

He notices.

When we walk into the living room, Miller discards his tarred shoes by the front door. I’m relieved to see the inside of the home fares better than the outside. It’s clean and organized, but the decor is ruthlessly trapped in the sixties. The furniture is older. An orange felt couch with your standard homemade afghan draped over the back faces one wall. Two green, extremely uncomfortable-looking chairs face the other. They look midcentury, but not in a modern way. Quite the opposite, actually. I have a feeling this furniture hasn’t been changed out since it was purchased, long before Miller was even born.

The only thing that looks fairly new is a recliner facing the television, but its occupant looks older than the furniture. I can only see a portion of his profile and the top of his balding, wrinkled head, but what little hair he does have is a shiny silver. He’s snoring.

It’s hot inside. Almost hotter than it is outside. The air I’m gently sucking in is warm and smells of bacon grease. The living room window is raised, flanked by two oscillating fans pointed at the man. Miller’s grandfather, probably. He looks too old to be his father.

Miller passes through the living room and heads toward a hallway. It begins to weigh on me, the fact that I’m following him to take his money. It was only a joke. Now it feels like an extremely pathetic show of my character.

When we reach his bedroom, he pushes open the door, but I remain in the hallway. I feel a breeze sweep through his room and reach me. It lifts the hair from my shoulder, and even though the breeze is warm, I find relief in it.

My eyes scroll around Miller’s room. Again, it is not reminiscent of the condition of the outside of his home. There’s a bed, full-size, flush against the far wall. He sleeps there. Right there, in that bed, tossing about in those white sheets at night. I force myself to look away from the bed, up at a huge poster of the Beatles hanging where a headboard would normally be. I wonder if Miller is a fan of older music, or if the poster has been here since the sixties, much like the living room furniture. The house is so old I wouldn’t doubt it if this was his grandfather’s room as a teenager.

But what really catches my eye is the camera on his dresser. It’s not a cheap camera. And there are several different-size lenses next to it. It’s a setup that would make an amateur photographer envious. “You like photography?”

He follows my line of sight to the camera. “I do.” He pulls open the top drawer of his dresser. “But my passion is film. I want to be a director.” He glances at me. “I’d kill to go to UT, but I doubt I can get a scholarship. So community college it is.”

I thought he was making fun of me in the car, but now that I’m looking around his room, it’s sinking in that he really might have been telling me the truth. There’s a stack of books next to his bed. One of them is by Sidney Lumet called Making Movies. I walk over and pick it up, flipping through it.

“You’re really nosy,” he mimics.

I roll my eyes and set the book down. “Does the community college even have a film department?”

He shakes his head. “No. But it could be a stepping-stone to somewhere that does.” He walks closer to me, holding a ten-dollar bill between his fingers. “Those shoes are five bucks at Walmart. Go crazy.”

I hesitate, no longer wanting to take the money from him. He sees my hesitation. It makes him sigh, frustrated; then he rolls his eyes and shoves the bill in the front left pocket of my jeans. “The house is shit, but I’m not broke. Take the money.”

I swallow hard.

He just stuck his fingers in my pocket. And I can still feel them, even though they’re no longer there.

I clear my throat and force a smile. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

He tilts his head. “Was it? Because you look hella guilty for taking my money.”

I’m usually a better actress than this. I’m disappointing myself.