• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I love Hope and Wynn. Just the very sound of them is so positive. He won’t be around much anymore because he’s living with his parents in Pittsburgh while he earns his M.F.A. in Multimedia/Visual Communications at Carnegie Mellon. This should make my sleeping arrangement less pervy than it was all summer. There won’t be as many opportunities for third wheeling, that is, suffering in the bunk alone, excruciatingly aware of the entwined lovers above or below.

I always had a single at Columbia, so I was never subjected to the various collegiate indignities suffered when one roommate is getting laid and the other is not. Since we’re older now, and this isn’t a dorm, Hope and I tried to put a “no sex” rule into effect during third wheelers. As you are well aware, you and I violated that rule last week. In our dubious defense, we did check and double-check to make sure Hope was asleep before the bunk started its rhythmic squeaking and creaking. But I can’t say with any real certainty that she was really out cold, or just too embarrassed to say otherwise, as I was all summer long when Hope and Wynn whispered and moaned in the dark. Horny twentysomethings hath no shame.

“So you two are still together,” Hope said slowly, carefully, as if she were trying to find the upper-right corner of the sky in a five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle.

“What would be the polar opposite of breaking up?”

“Um…staying together?”

“The ultimate commitment.”

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice wandering off in search of the answer. “His’n’hers tattoos?” She politely laughed at her own joke.

“Marriage,” I said. “Marcus asked me to marry him.”

I had expected Hope to respond with a joke. Something along the lines of “But what about Kirk? Won’t he get jealous?” Because what did this sound like but the grand setup to some great big joke? But she just blinked at me from the top bunk.

“I’m not kidding,” I said, wiggling the fourth finger of my left hand. “He got down on one knee and everything.”

THWACK! Hope smashed her head against the ceiling.

“Holy shit! Are you okay?”

“Sort of,” she said, rubbing her curls. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed.

(Confessed isn’t really accurate, is it? Is it possible to confess the obvious? Would I be writing in this notebook if I were certain of anything, even my own okayness?)

“I mean, this isn’t something I ever thought would happen,” I said. “Especially not yesterday. And I’m still not sure what to make of it.”

“I don’t blame you,” she said. “Tell me everything.”

I climbed up to the top bunk and obliged.

“And so,” I said, finishing up, “he wants an answer when he comes back from Outdoor Action on Saturday.”

Hope’s eyes popped out of her face. “You didn’t come right out and say no?”

“Uh, no.”

Hope rattled her head in disbelief. “Jess!”

“What?”

She shut her eyes and screwed her mouth tight.

“Hope,” I said. “You’ve been my best friend since seventh grade. And you’ve known Marcus even longer than I have. You can’t say the wrong thing.”

Hope was about to respond when I heard the unmistakable sound of muffled whispers right outside our door. I shushed Hope with my hand, climbed over the side of the bunk, then crawled across the floor to the bedroom door. I flung it open so quickly that the two interlopers tumbled cartoon-style right onto the lemon-curd carpet.

“I dint hear nuttin’!” Shea lied.

“But I did!” Manda said, pushing her way past her pangendered partner in crime.

“Invasion of privacy?”

“Oh, puh-leeze,” Manda said. “If you want privacy, you gotta pay more.”

She had a point. Meanwhile, Shea preened behind Manda, winking and wagging her green-stained Sparks tongue for Hope’s, uh, benefit.

“So come on,” Manda said, tapping her foot. “Let’s see it!”

“See what?”

“The rock!”

“There’s no rock,” I said, holding out my hand so she could inspect the silver.

“No rock? Puh-leeze!” she said, dropping my hand as if it were something toxic. “What kind of engagement is that?”

“I wouldn’t have