Olivia (20 page)

“
I’m going to work on my homework
with him, though,” I plead with him. “Nine-thirty?”

“
Nine,” he says. “And I’m going to
read your essay when you get home.” I stare out the window and roll
my eyes. Of course I wasn’t going to do my homework.

“
Fine.”

When we reach the Columbia campus, I direct Dad to a
parking lot close to Jon’s dorm. Mom gets out of the car to give me
a hug.

“
I hope everything’s okay with Jon.
If you need anything, let me know.”

“
I’m just worried about him, Mom.
He didn’t seem okay last night on the phone.”

“
Let us know... or if you want us
to come get you, I’ll talk Jacks into it.”

“
I know. Thanks,” I tell her,
embracing her once more. “Love you, Dad!” I say to him as my mother
opens her car door, waving once more on my way toward Jon’s
building.

I sit on the front stoop of his dorm, waiting for
him. I don’t know his roommates well enough to go to his room. Jon
shows up a little after six.

“
Hey, you,” he says as he
approaches the doors. “This is a nice surprise.” I stand up and
meet him on the edge of the sidewalk, catching him off guard as I
press my lips to his. I open my eyes a little, watching his
reaction as I scrape his bottom lip with my teeth. We both smile
together. “This is just what I needed.” He holds me close, tight,
for a long time.

“
What’s going on?” I ask
him.

“
Let’s go inside,” he says, his
posture slumping a tad as he takes my hand and leads me into the
building. His resident advisor nods at me on the way to his
room.

Frederick is sitting at his desk, typing something
on his computer, and another guy is lying on the bed, looking at an
adult magazine. He quickly throws it on the side of the bed when he
sees me enter the room.

“
Hollis, this is Livvy.”

“
So I see,” he says, standing up
and nodding at me. “Livvy Holland, in the flesh.” His eyes travel
the length of my body–
twice
.

“
Watch it,” Jon says as he sets his
bag down on his bed.

“
Nice to meet you,” I tell
him.

“
Well?” Frederick says, turning
around and acknowledging us. “What’s the latest? Is she out?” Jon
shakes his head at him before looking at me.

“
Have a seat,” he says to me with a
sad smile, pointing to the only seat on his side of the room. I sit
on his twin bed with my back against the wall, kicking off my shoes
before pulling my knees into my chest. “I have some bad news.” He
sits down next to me, facing me, but talking to everyone in the
room. “So, Mom was involved in a hit and run last
night.”

“
Is she okay? She’s in the
hospital?” I ask him, worried.

“
She hit and ran,” he tells me
dryly. “She’s in jail.”

“
Oh, my God. Where are your
brothers?”

“
Yeah,” he sighs. “Social services
picked them up last night. Apparently, they’d been alone for two
days. She got fired and went on a bender that ended when she
rounded a corner and clipped a parked car.”

“
Whose car was she
driving?”

“
A friend’s. A boyfriend? I don’t
know the guy.”

“
She was drunk?”

“
Luckily,” he says, “she’d stopped
drinking early in the day. Her blood alcohol was below the legal
limit. If there’s any good news, it’s that. But none of this is
good news.”

“
Yeah,” I say, stunned. “Wait, your
brothers were alone for two days?”

He stares at me seriously.

“
I should have let you go over
there,” I tell him, feeling awful that I’d convinced him to spend
most of his free time over the weekend with me.

“
If I’d wanted to go, Liv, I would
have. I thought since they didn’t call, they didn’t need me. It
turns out, Will didn’t call because he didn’t want me fighting with
Mom again.”

“
Well, how long is social services
going to keep your brothers?”

“
I don’t know,” he tells me.
“They’re researching the case.”

“
Can you get them?”

“
At this point, no. They are
researching this from every angle, and they don’t know me from
Adam.”

“
Well, where will they
stay?”

“
Foster care,” he says, “until they
find that she’s a fit parent.”

The room is silent. I certainly don’t know what to
say, but I think about Max and wonder what his young mind must be
thinking.

“
Are Will and Max
together?”

“
Right now they are. I talked to
Will on the phone. Max wouldn’t stop crying. He’s really
scared.”

“
Jon,” Frederick begins, “you’ve
told me before that you weren’t so sure your mom
was
a fit parent. Isn’t that exactly what your last
fight was over?”

“
Yeah,” he says, not at all humored
by the situation. I wasn’t even aware that they were fighting, and
feel a little left out.

“
So what if they agree with you?”
he asks. I watch Jon’s face, noting the defined lines on his
forehead as I take his hand in mine. He holds on tightly, looking
down at the bedspread.

“
I don’t know... I apply for
custody? I don’t know how that works. I could be their legal
guardian.”

“
But how are you going to go to
school and raise your brothers? How are you going to pay bills?”
Hollis asks.

“
Maybe I don’t go to school,” he
says quietly.

“
Jon,” I tell him in disbelief.
“This is what you’ve worked your whole life for.”

“
Well, I didn’t know that my
brothers would be in a predicament where they wouldn’t have a
parent to raise them at all. Plans change.”

“
Is there no one else?”

“
Mom has a sister in
Utah.”

“
Have you talked to
her?”

“
Yeah, she’s actually flying up
tomorrow to bail Mom out.”

“
Jon, I could ask my
dad–”

“
Liv.”

“
I’m just putting it out
there.”

“
Well, don’t. It’s bad enough that
they have to know about it at all.”

“
Jon, don’t be ashamed of this,”
Frederick tells him. “Everyone messes up. Maybe this is what she
needs to happen to get her life back on track.”

He shakes his head in disagreement. “She’s not gonna
change.”

“
Even when her kids have been taken
from her?” I ask, trying to talk some sense into him, to give him
some bit of hope.

“
All she’s done since I left for
school, Olivia, is complain to me about how hard it is raising them
alone. She’s probably living it up in her jail cell. That’s her
freedom,” he half-jokes.

“
Maybe your aunt can help her.” I
rub his arm with my other hand, wishing I had something better to
say to him.

“
Maybe.” He tries to smile at me
and leans in for a quick kiss. “I hope she can.”

Hollis stands up and stretches, grabbing a piece of
paper from his desk and balling it up, throwing it at Frederick.
“Fred and I were going to go grab a bite. You guys want to
come?”

“
I’m not hungry,” Jon says, then
quickly amends his answer. “Did you want to go?” he asks. “We can
go.”

“
No, no. I’m fine.”

“
Can we trust you two alone?”
Hollis teases, giving us a sideways glance as both he and Jon’s
other roommate put on their jackets.

“
Probably more than I could trust
you alone,” Jon says. “I can’t imagine what you do when the rest of
us are gone. Oh, wait, yes I can. The evidence is under your
bed.”

“
Screw you,” his roommate says,
still smiling. “Don’t touch my porn.”

“
Wouldn’t dream of it.” As Jon says
this, he sits next to me against the wall and puts his arm around
my shoulder. “I have this,” he whispers tauntingly.

“
I
bet
you’ve had that–” My jaw drops at his assumption. No matter how
correct it is, it’s not something I want people talking
about.

Jon’s body becomes rigid, and I watch him closely
for his response. “All right, get out before you cross a line.”

“
Calm down,” Hollis says. “I’m just
messing with you.” Frederick keeps quiet, but pushes their other
roommate out into the hallway.

“
Nice to see you again,
Livvy.”

“
Thanks,” I smile at the nicer
roommate. There’s something about Hollis that I just don’t like. He
closes the door softly behind him. “Where’s your other
roommate?”

“
Shu had a death in the family, so
he went back to Miami for a funeral.”

I’m happy that we have some time to ourselves. “Lie
down,” I instruct him. “On your stomach. I’m giving you a
massage.”

“
You don’t have to do
that.”

“
I want to,” I tell him with a
frown. “I want to do something to make you feel a little
better.”

He kisses me on the cheek and then lies down as I
told him to, putting his head on his forearms. He playfully squirms
a little as I settle into position against his body. I push up his
t-shirt so my hands can touch his skin. Before I begin, I expose
his right shoulder blade and kiss the tattoo on the word
sleep
, and once again on the word
dream
. It had become a ritual for me, a
way to show him my reverence for him and for his devotion to
me.

I talk to him softly as I knead his muscles. “You
can’t leave school,” I start. “I know you love your brothers. I
know you feel responsible for them... but you’re not.”

“
There just aren’t many
options.”

“
I think you need to really talk to
your mom about her alcoholism, and about the responsibilities she
has as a parent. Her actions are selfish, Jon, but I don’t think
she’d want you to give up your future because of her past mistakes.
I don’t think that at all.”

“
I’ve tried.”

“
I’m sure you have. But don’t give
up on her... and for sure don’t give up on your dreams. Why don’t
you take tomorrow night to talk to your aunt and come up with a
game plan?”

“
That’s our night,” he says. “I
look forward to Wednesdays.”

“
Well, I’m here tonight instead.
And we have class to teach on Thursday, if you can make it. And if
you can’t, I’m sure I can manage on my own. Or maybe Mom could
help. Take some time for your family. It’s okay.”

Jon turns over on his back, but I maintain my stance
sitting on top of him. He takes my hands in his and tugs gently,
pulling me to lie against his body. I kiss him, then lay my head on
his shoulder as he wraps his arms around me. “I love you, Olivia. I
hate that we have to sacrifice our time together, but I really
appreciate you understanding.”

“
Sure,” I tell him. “And if you
need me, you know where to find me.”

“
I always need you,” he says,
nudging me gently with a subtle movement of his whole body. “Get my
mind off this. Tell me about Yale.”

At the moment, I can’t imagine being so far away
from Jon. “It was Yale,” I state evenly. “Really nothing special.
It was pretty, and the people were nice, but I don’t know that it’s
enough to make me want to go there, you know?”

“
No?”

“
I don’t know. Oh, but I did bring
you a souvenir,” I tell him, hopping up quickly to get my oversized
bag.

“
I’m not wearing a Yale hoodie to
Columbia,” he jokes.

“
You don’t have to wear anything,”
I retort, pulling out the envelope Manny had given me earlier
today.

“
Mmmm...” he says suggestively. “I
like the sound of that.” He makes a move to take his shirt off, but
I stop him by climbing back on top of him and assuming my previous
position of kneeling over his body. He laughs, putting his hands on
my thighs.

“
Here,” I say proudly, handing him
the picture. He takes it from me quickly, holding it in front of
his face, blocking me from seeing his expression.
“Well?”

He moves the photo aside, staring at me wide-eyed.
“God, Liv, it looks like
you
weren’t
wearing anything in this picture. Who took this?”

“
I’m wearing a sweater. I just
pulled it down over my shoulder.”

“
Who took it?” he whispers,
enunciating each word perfectly and slowly.

“
Manny, my tour guide.”

“
There’s no way this Manny is a
woman, huh?”

“
No,” I tell him, rolling my eyes.
“He’s a photography major.”

“
What, did he lure you into his
studio?” He continues without waiting for a response. “Sounds like
a burgeoning pervert. I thought New York had hit its quota of
sexual predator model scouts. Oh, but he’s in Connecticut,” he
corrects himself sarcastically.

“
Wow, stop criminalizing him,” I
tell him, taken aback by his response. I expected the picture to
cheer him up, but he seems put off by it. “He did this for
you
.”