My name’s Karen Cartwright, and
I’ll be your narrator for chapters 5.
I went home with Eric Grey last
night. Or rather, I took him home. We
had fun.
He was still hanging
around the apartment this morning when Annie came back with Cullen. I haven't made my mind up about Cullen yet. I think Annie really likes him, but he seems so
stuffy and old before his time. And I thought sending Annie those books was
creepy, especially after she said their date didn’t go very well. It made me
wonder what his motives really are.
You can’t tell Annie, though –
she asks for your opinion and then she gets upset with you if it doesn’t line
up with hers, so you have to just let her get on with things.
I know some
people will think I am a terrible friend for letting her just go off with him
last night, especially as she was so drunk. I don’t think I could stand how bad she’d make me feel if I’d
stopped her, and she is an adult. But I feel guilty about it this morning, what if something had happened to her?
Annie’s never had a boyfriend –
she’s always been so fixated on this idea of a romantic hero coming along that
she’ll never give someone like Jose or Phil a chance. Both of them are kind,
handsome, hard-working men from good families. Dependable, you know.
But that’s not her thing – even
though she’s never even really dated she thinks she likes a ‘bad boy’ type.
Let me tell you, those 'romantic', tortured souls, you know, the ones that need saving from themselves?
They are NO fun to date. It’s hard work. They require constant reassurance, and
you have to tip-toe around them, wondering when they’re late home if they are
in bed with another girl or dead in a ditch. It’s exhausting.
But she comes in with Cullen,
and she looks all rosy and happy. Cullen actually goes to shake my hand and says, ‘Miss Cartwright,’ in that very odd way he
has. It’s like he learned human behaviour from an English period drama.
‘Her name’s Karen,’ says Eric. ‘Hi
Annie,’
‘Hi Eric,’ she says, blushing.
‘Eric, we better go,’ says
Cullen. I get the impression he thinks his time is more important than everyone
else’s.
‘Sure, I’m ready,’ says Eric.
He pulls me towards him and gives me a long, wet kiss. It’s not his fault, but
I know Annie will be judging me for it, because she judges me for everything I
do. I know she does, because she’s no good at hiding it.
‘Laters, baby,’ Eric says when
he’s taken his tongue out of my mouth. He says it in this Bill & Ted surfer
dude voice, which makes me laugh. Cullen has a moment with Annie where he
strokes her face and hair, and to me it looks like he’s sizing her up for a spot
in the basement hotel. She’s going to check in, but she’s never going to leave. I shouldn't have said that, I don't know Cullen.
You probably want to know why I’m
friends with someone like Annie. I’ll try and explain, and hear me out. When we
first started at WSU, we clicked – I thought, this girl is smart, and cool and
fun. So when my parents bought me the apartment here, and Annie needed
somewhere to stay, I offered her a room. She’d only need to help with the bills
and food, no rent.
The first year or so was OK;
she paid the bills on time, re-stocked the fridge and all that stuff. But she’s
slovenly. I’m always cleaning up after her. It got so bad, I was going to ask
her to move out. I also couldn’t handle her constant irrational moods, snapping
at me over the smallest things, all these perceived slights. Then I worried
what would happen to her if I asked her to move out. Her folks aren’t local,
and apart from Jose, she’s really got no other friends.
I don’t feel sorry for her, that’s not it. I guess I just remember
the good stuff, and kind of put all the bad stuff in a box under the bed marked
‘shit Annie does that annoys the fuck out of me’ and try to forget about it.
When I decided I was going to move to
Seattle after graduating, I thought that would kind of draw a line under the
friendship. Then Annie said she was
going to move to Seattle and asked if she could stay with me until she’d got
herself sorted. My family already have an apartment there. I felt bad saying no
– Annie has such a chip on her shoulder about people with money. It’s like, it’s
useful to her when she wants it to be, but then she can use it as a stick to
beat you with the rest of the time.
Maybe I’m weak, but I ended up
saying yes, she could move in until she’d found a job and got her own place.
After Cullen and Eric leave, I
ask Annie if anything happened last night. She says it didn’t, then asks me if I slept
with Eric last night. I say yes, but don’t go into detail. She seems pissed
about that, for some reason, but then Annie is often inexplicably pissed off. She then she tells me that Cullen took her to his suite at the Heathman,
and she woke up not really remembering too much about the night before, but she knows that Cullen didn’t take advantage of
her. She seems to think this makes him some sort of gentleman.
I’m like, wait, what? So, you
passed out, he undressed you and put you into bed, and you think that’s OK because
he didn’t rape you while you were unconscious? But at the same time, you’re pissed that nothing happened? This is
why I don’t get Annie. But she’s really excited because they have another date
this evening. She asks me if I’ll help her with a make-over and if she can
borrow a dress.
I don’t know why she’s asking
about borrowing something to wear, she normally just helps herself. But she
seems so happy, I don’t want to spoil it. I do the makeover and lend her my plum-coloured dress and she goes off to work (and her date) like a happy little lamb.
