Page 12 of Go Back to December

Chapter Three

Lacy insisted I take my mind off the calamitous day and forwarded me the listing for a sublet near the university. She made an appointment for me to view it after work before I could muster an excuse.

If I don’t find something soon, I’ll be on the street in a few weeks. Manny’s been kind about extending his offer to stay at his new place, but crashing indefinitely on the couch while a couple of guys bunk upstairs is too close to frat house territory for me.

I’ve hesitated to commit myself to another lease, because it’s admitting my chances at getting the Lightman are slim. With the café on the verge of closure, the odds are worse, and I can’t think about how close I am to staring down another failure. This house-hunting exercise is a distraction, and I need to stay optimistic.

When I arrive at the townhouse with the pastel-painted shutters, manicured front lawn, and luxury convertible parked in the driveway, my idealistic outlook dims.

It’s too perfect to be real.

The Money Honey who answers the door is a real woman with real curves, and her handshake is no-nonsense. Lacy said she’s a surgeon, and I bet she’s a good one. She wastes little time with idle chit-chat as she gives me the grand tour. There are professional-grade appliances in the kitchen, a gated back patio with space for furniture, and the second bedroom on the third floor has its own bathroom. It would be a first for me, not having to share with someone. My tiny collection of toiletries would barely fill the first shelf of the medicine cabinet.

I finally ask about the rent, and she throws out a figure that is double what I can afford as casually as she’d mention the price of a container of milk. Because she probably buys organic without checking how much it costs. She leaves me to linger over the royal ransom in the wide-windowed bedroom suite that could be mine.

I pull out the calculator on my phone and indulge in a few minutes of crunching numbers. There are two more months of student loan payments to cover. I could forgo my weekly Thai takeout indulgence, monthly movies at the independent cinema. Possibly pick up a waitressing gig I could work around the café schedule.

If I manage to save the café. Which will require every ounce of energy I have.

It’s borrowed time, which is nothing better than borrowed money, and I know better than to play with it. That was my father’s problem.

For the first twelve years of my life, we moved so often, I went to a new school almost every single year. Then Dad finally retired from the service and bought Mom that house he’d always promised her on a corner lot, with views of the mountains in the distance, and a full kitchen to cook holiday dinners.

He never made a single payment on the mortgage. I have to force myself not to fall down the unforgiving rabbit hole of trying to decipher why he did what he did, or how Mom let him.

I’m as bad as he was, trying to make this work for me, refusing to acknowledge that by Groundhog Day, I could be out of a job, out of a home, and in debt. Wanting this house reminds me of what I lack, not what I have, which is far more than most people ever get.

But the dirty secret I will never admit to these Moneys is that I crave nice things too.

“It’s a beautiful house,” I say when I return downstairs. I should tell her now I can’t take the room, but the chip on my shoulder that comes with things being out of my reach won’t let me. “Can I get back to you tomorrow?”

“Of course. It’s the holidays, things are crazy. And I’ll be honest, the first two people who came by to view it, I wouldn’t trust to keep a plant alive.”

I smile. I like her and hate myself a little for being less than honest about my situation. In the parallel universe where I could afford this house, maybe we’d be friends. The kind that borrow each other’s clothes and eat ice cream together straight out of the carton, while we rage at all the patriarchy. I haven’t done anything like that with anyone in years. Work and volunteer commitments are my life. There hasn’t been space for anything else.

“So, you also work at Blackhart & Steele?” she asks. It’s a polite way of assessing my economic situation, and I give her points for the tact.

“Yes, but I’m not a lawyer.”

“Thank God.”

We both laugh awkwardly.

“Do you know Sebastian Johnson? Baz,” she amends.

I check my physical reaction. There is nowhere left in this city I can run to escape Baz. I’m going to have to get the Lightman just to get the hell away from him. “We’re acquainted. You two are friends?”

“No, not at all. I went to medical school with Allie.”

The dark expression that crosses her face is how I imagine I would look if I received the news that the universe has run out of chocolate. I feel sadness by association, which is confusing since I don’t know who Allie is.

But I can fully imagine Baz Johnson did something terrible to her.

It’s my first party at the Jungle House.

Technically, it’s the Swim Team House, the off-campus townhouse where eight seniors live. People call it the Jungle House because of the crazy tropical mural painted on the brick wall in the backyard.

Given the mural’s notoriety, you’d think people would be out admiring it while they suck down cheap light beer in red plastic cups. But I’m the only one here willing to brave the sting of the early December wind.