Trip Wire_ A Cook County Mystery - Charlotte Carter [6]
CHAPTER TWO
TUESDAY
1
Nat woke me at 6 fucking a.m., and then made me eat oatmeal, the pebbly kind, from Ireland. After that, we walked to the corner together.
“I don’t have any classes today,” I assured him. “I mean, even if I wanted to go, I don’t have classes on Tuesday. Honest.”
He gave me a good-bye kiss on the forehead. Then he headed off for the el station, and I started walking back to Armitage.
The weather was a little milder that morning. We’d had no overnight snowfall, for a change. It was my turn to buy paper goods for the house. I did the shopping at the Jewel, and before I headed home I indulged in a couple of doughnuts at the Dairy Queen on Clark Street.
Barely 10 A.M., but the apartment was raucous when I arrived with my packages. Beth and Clea Benjamin, her friend and co-worker at the boutique on Lincoln Avenue, were dancing deliriously in the front room, warbling all out of tune with the Supremes.
“Sandy!” Annabeth called out. “We got the place.”
The place? What did she mean?
Oh, right. The place—upstairs. Our communal apartment was roomy by most standards. Still, we were beginning to trip over one another. Beth had come from money. Her parents didn’t much like the life she was living, and they kept threatening to cut off her allowance. But so far, those whopper checks were still a monthly cause for celebration. Beth had got wind of a vacancy on the floor above. “Far out!” she kept saying. “We’re going to have a fucking freak duplex. Upstairs and down. It’s gonna be great, guys.”
“The place, Sandy. You wanna move up or stay down here?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess it depends.”
Clea stopped spinning, turned her nose up at me. “Depends on whether Wilton and her move up. You do whatever they do, right?” Her—as far as Clea was concerned, Mia didn’t have an actual name—just her.
Clea was small and pretty, with a beautiful figure. But I swear I don’t know why Annabeth liked her. Clea could be so mean. It was unfortunate that she didn’t like me much, either. I had tried to make friends with her, but to no avail. I was just happy she didn’t officially live at the commune.
The way I saw it, Clea was attracted to Wilton but the feeling wasn’t mutual. Which must have stung her. She had had tons of boyfriends, I was told, and was accustomed to getting anybody she wanted. So her resentment of Mia was threefold: Mia had a man Clea felt ought to be hers, Mia was white and had a man Clea felt ought to be hers, and Mia was white and had a black man Clea felt ought to be hers.
As to why she disliked me, I figured there was something old and visceral about her antagonism, probably dating back to her childhood, and mine: I was the kind of kid who drew the wrath of her kind of kid like iron filings to a horseshoe.
I went to my room and tossed my bag on the bed. On the bureau was a beribboned chocolate Santa Claus propped up against my bottle of hand lotion.
“It’s from Jordan and me,” Cliff said, suddenly at my shoulder.
“Thanks. How come I rate this? It’s not Christmas yet.”
Couldn’t hear his answer. Shy Cliff tended to mumble when he was embarrassed. I broke off a foot and handed it to him, popped the other one into my mouth.
“So what do you think?” he asked. “You want to move up to the new place or stay here?”
“I’m not sure. I’m just glad we’re getting some more space.”
“Yeah. Beth’s picking up most of the new rent, but if Clea moves in, it’ll be even cheaper.”
Clea?
There it was again. Giveth and taketh away.
“Is Clea moving in?”
“She’s thinking about it.”
Shit, shit, shit.
Nobody was invited to move in unless the whole group agreed. We all ate together, did chores together, watched TV together. I’d be living with somebody constantly bad vibing or patronizing me. The thought of it was hideous. No, I’d have to turn thumbs down on her. But if I blackballed Clea, then Annabeth would be mad at