Chapter 12: Something Like Friends

Dawn

November 3

Dear Mary Anne,

Midterms have come and gone. We finally got all of our scores back and I was so relieved to see that not only did I pass everything, but I also did pretty well on most everything. Except physics, but who really cares about physics, anyways? It's not like anyone still uses physics.

And, by the way, you might want to call my dad because I think I'll be going to prison soon for murdering my evil, evil roommate…

I like to humor myself by thinking that I'm a calm, levelheaded, accepting person, but when I met Patrice for the first time, I felt like a five year old. I wanted to kick and scream and force the university to give me a new roommate. Instead, I gritted my teeth and got through that first day without any bloodshed.

Patrice Armsteade is definitely not the kind of person that I would willingly live with. Ever. She might look a bit like me (blonde hair, blue eyes, slender), but that's basically where our similarities end. I doubt I could find a person less like me if I searched the entire country.

Patrice comes from an old New England family, the first of whom she claims came here by way of the Mayflower. She has ties all over the East Coast and loves to brag about her uncle who is Dean of Admissions at Yale or her brother-in-law who is practicing medicine through Princeton University. She also likes to brag about how she was accepted into most of the Ivy League schools, but chose to come to UCLA because she wanted to make her own way in the world.

With her parents money, of course.

Which, as Mary Anne has told me over and over again, I shouldn't say anything about. After all, my parents (and my stepparents) are paying for everything except my veggie pizzas and the occasional new pair of shoes I buy. Still, though, it just seems like Mary Anne and I are lucky to have hard-working, generous parents. Patrice is just a spoiled brat.

She almost never says a word to me now, too. After the first day when I told her that I was a liberal environmentalist, she clammed right up. Bethany, the girl who lives next door to us, told me that Patrice comes from a very conservative family and that Patrice was concerned that my "tendencies to be a feminist hippy" were compromising the lifestyle that she had grown up in and believed very strongly in. Patrice was worried that I was going to corrupt her.

As soon as I heard that, I was infuriated. As far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with women saying and doing just as they please, no matter what those things are. I think it's old fashioned and, frankly, idiotic for men to try and control any aspect of a woman's life just because they think they're the "stronger" sex. Let them try to give birth and we'll see who the "stronger" sex really is.

Anyways, as I was putting the final touches on my letter to Mary Anne, who should walk into the room but feminism's enemy, my roommate. I carefully, and silently, folded up my letter and slid it into the envelope. Patrice dropped her books onto her bed quietly and pretended to straighten up her desk. It was already spotless.

I slid off my bed.

"I'm going to mail my letter," I told her coldly. Patrice looked up, pretending to look surprised. Her face went through a series of incredibly fast emotions before she nodded.

"Do whatever you want, Dawn." She sat down at her desk, her back facing me. "I'm going to work on a paper, so don't make any noise when you come back in."

Bitch! Evil devil bitch!

"Right."

I walked out of the room and shut the door behind me a little harder than was necessary. I imagined the surprised jump that Patrice gave when the door shut and smiled to myself. The girl had made me positively vindictive. I was going to need to do some yoga later to clean out all of the bad vibes.

"Dawn!"

I turned and grinned. Hurrying towards me was probably one of the cutest boys on campus. His name is Roger Donald and his game is looking fabulous of every minute of every day. Girls practically swooned when he smiled at them. Guys even looked blessed when he spoke to them.

Lucky me that I'm his best friend and the one girl who gets to spend the most time with him.

"Hey, Roger." He gave me one of his award winning smiles and I swooned a little bit inside. "What's going on?"

"Oh, not much. Just finished a paper for Stekzer's class." I groaned in sympathy. "It's done, at least."

"That man is going to be the death of my GPA," I declared.

"That man is going to be the death of me if my parents see any of the grades he's been giving me," Roger shot back. He nodded at the letter in my hands. "What's that?"

"A letter to my stepsister."

"The evil one?" he asked with a grin.

"The evilest one." I looked straight ahead again. "Speaking of families, you haven't RSVPed yet."

"Oh, right."

I swallowed. That wasn't a good phrase. "So, can you come to Thanksgiving at my dad's?"

"It's going to be weird," he said.

"Oh, come on, Roger. It's not like we're dating or anything. My dad won't give you the third degree or anything. You're my best friend, not my boyfriend."

Roger laughed. "You make a convincing argument."

"But, you're not coming."

He stopped walking and I halted, too. Roger grabbed one of my hands in his own and I smiled on reflex.

"Dawn, I want to come, but I don't know if I can get out of my own family's day of torture." He shrugged helplessly, then froze. I looked around.

"What?" I almost expected to see an elephant come stampeding towards us, the look of surprise on his face was so alarming.

"I've got the most perfect idea," he said.

"Roger Donald, I will walk away right now if you don't stop being so damn cryptic."

"Come to my house."

I shook my head. "I'm sorry, what?"

"For Thanksgiving. There's no way I can get out of going to my family's dinner, but I'm certain they'd let me invite someone."

"You're inviting me to your house for Thanksgiving?" I asked stupidly.

"I just said it, didn't I?"

"Yes." I thought quickly. Dad probably wouldn't mind. He had Jeff, after all, and after the food, the boys would only sit around watch football anyways. It wasn't like I would be missing anything. "If you're sure your family will be OK with it."

"I will call them the moment I get back to my room," he offered and squeezed my hand. "Come on, Dawn. It'll be fun."

"Well, all right. Let me check with my dad."

Roger brought me into a quick, tight hug. He kissed my cheek before pulling away and I giggled like a fifth grader. I turned bright red with embarrassment.

"This is going to be amazing, Dawn Shafer," he said, pointing at me as he walked away. "We are going to make this the best Thanksgiving ever!"

"I don't eat meat!" I responded, once more failing to use whatever brain cells I hadn't burned off with my last blush.

"We shall serve you tofu!" he declared and, with that, ran to catch up with a few of his guy friends that were further down the path. I pressed my hand against my cheek.

"Oh, Dawn," I murmured. "What have you gotten yourself into this time?"

12

"No, Dad, I told you. It's not that he doesn't want to meet you."

"You did invite him, right?" my dad asked. "And, he said no."

I groaned. Sometimes, my father could be the most annoying man on the face of the Earth. "Yes, Dad, but he couldn't get out of his family's meal."

"We were going to spend time together," my father complained.

"Only while we ate. You and Jeff always go and watch football afterwards."

"It's tradition, Sunshine."

The nickname. My father was pulling the big guns now.

"I'll see you the next day."

"You're spending the night at his house?"

Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

"Dad! He lives close to campus! I'm going back to my room after dinner!"

"Why aren't you coming back home instead?"

"It's an hour's drive!" I moaned. "I don't want to drive that late at night."

"How late are we talking?"

"Dad, I'm eighteen years old!" I snapped. "I'm not a baby anymore. I can make my own decisions."

"Dawn, I don't like that tone of voice."

"You're just angry because I want to spend time with a guy I like instead of with you!"

I almost dropped the phone in shock. Had I really just said that? Dad was still under the impression that Roger was my friend, only my friend. I could feel my face start to break into a sweat and felt my palms grow cold. My throat constricted and my vision blurred.

Not really, but it would've been an appropriate physical reaction, right?

"There's the honesty," Dad said. With a chuckle. I almost sighed in relief. "Why didn't you just say that you're interested in Roger?"

"Dad, you're confusing me."

"I'm confusing myself," he admitted. There was a sudden crash in the background and my father swore. "Daisy, get down! No! Bad girl!"

"What's she doing now?"

"She's trying to pull the curtains down from the living room windows," my dad said. "Dawn, I've got to call you back after I kill this creature."

"Animal cruelty!" I protested as I heard our cocker spaniel bark angrily at my father then heard the sound of little claws scampering away across the kitchen floor.

"We'll talk later," Dad said and hung up.

I shook my head. I really, really, really did not understand my family sometimes.

12

I didn't bother to knock as I entered my dorm room. I never did because Patrice never bothered to. It didn't matter anymore if we embarrassed one another by not knocking. It was revenge for so many untold wrongs between the two of us.

This time, however, I really wished I had behaved like an adult and knocked before I entered the room. Perhaps I wouldn't have caught my roommate like she was if I had.

She was sitting in the middle of the room, on my orange and red area rug, tears coursing down her cheeks. She looked up at me with an expression of fright, but didn't try to get to her feet. I shut the door quickly behind me, leaning my back against it so that I was still looking at her.

"What happened?" I ventured, almost hoping she would tell me it was none of my business. She shook her head and stared down at the ground. After a moment, she let out a sob and clapped her hands over her face. I squatted down in front of her. "Patrice?"

"It's my parents!" she moaned. My heart skipped. Jessi.

"Are they alive?" I asked fearfully. She looked up.

"Of course they are," she snuffled, looking annoyed. Seeing the horrified look on my face, her own softened. "They're getting divorced."

"Thank God," I moaned and sank down to sit in front of her.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "How can you say that?"

I held up my hands quickly, sensing danger in the outrage clearly coursing through her. "No, that's not what I meant. My friend Jessi just lost her parents in a car accident. That's what I thought had happened."

Patrice nodded and deflated. "Oh. Well, they're fine." She laughed bitterly. "Except for the fact that my father left my mother to be with some idiot blonde who is only about five years older than I am!"

I cringed. "Ew."

"You can say that again," she snuffled. I dug through my purse and pulled out some crumpled, but clean tissues. Patrice accepted them. "Thanks. I must look like a train wreck."

"Nah, not that bad." She shook her head. "More like the mascara attacked your face when you were trying to put it on this morning."

"Thanks," she said with a tiny laugh. It was something.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked her. Patrice looked up quickly, her eyes searching mine.

"You don't want to know."

"My parents were divorced years ago and it wasn't exactly a nice, clean divorce either," I told her. "They can't even live on the same side of the country."

"I didn't know your parents were divorced."

I nodded. "Yeah. It's been a long time, but it's still a crappy arrangement. I've got to fly back and forth all the time to see my mom and my stepfamily."

"My dad got his own apartment on the other side of town," she said softly.

"With the blonde bitch?"

I waited as Patrice chewed on her bottom lip. Maybe I had gone too far. Here I was, trying to comfort a girl that I didn't even like, and I managed to insult her at the same time.

She smiled.

"She has extensions," Patrice told me. I laughed.

"That's disgusting," I replied, immensely relieved.

Patrice and I sat on the floor for hours, talking about the nasty people my parents used to bring home, how she was going to have to cope with Bonnie (who was only 24 years old and had been her father's secretary), and a whole lot of other things. Finally, around eight o'clock, I rubbed my back.

"I'm so sore from sitting here like this," I said.

"Do you want to go get some pizza?" Patrice asked. "I made you miss dinner."

I nodded. "Sure, that would be nice."

Patrice got to her feet and extended a hand down to me. "Come on. I know a great place for onion and mushroom pizza."

"Fantabulous," I laughed. "That sounds delicious."