Know Not Why: A Novel (30 page)

Then I
read
said message from Mitch. And
what it says is, ‘Ambers sleepin on me.’

Well. Fuck, fuck, fuckin’ fuckity fuck,
why
.

But maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe it’s perfectly
innocent – like Amber developed some shiny new narcolepsy while she
was out on a brisk morning stroll (in this totally plausible
scenario, Amber is a secret brisk morning stroller), and Mitch just
happened to be there to get conked out on. That’s a thing, right?
That’s totally possible. I’m pretty sure I saw that episode of
House.

So I keep my cool, and I text back, ‘Where are
you?’

La dee da. I wait. I glance around. I look at
Arthur, who’s got his eyes obstinately squeezed shut.

My phone buzzes again.

“Really quite irritating,” mumbles Arthur.

“Sorry, sorry,” I reply distractedly. Mitch’s
message: ‘My room.’

Oh, shit. That’s it. I’m out of here. I have to
get down there and—and – and—

And
what
? Fight Mitch for Amber’s honor?
I can’t do that! He’s Mitchy! The Mitchman! We’re bros! Bros before
hos. I can’t break that ancient creed. Plagues with locusts would
befall me.

But
Amber
. Jesus. I am struck by this
sudden, frighteningly intense brotherly desire to pummel any swine
who’d dare touch her.

Well, this is just inconvenient.

I gotta get over there. Right away. And – I
dunno. Stop them? Turn back time? Fill them with shame for doing
something so unholy? Something. I gotta do something. I think the
last one sounds good.

I put my pants on. Sure, I almost fall over in
the process – Mitch! Amber! MitchandAmber, Biblically,
all the
way
ly – but I persevere. I start scouting around for my good
buddy shirt, and discover that it’s lying a foot or so from
Arthur’s head.

“What’re you doing?” Arthur asks, still
sleepy-toned.

Oh, Artie. How little you can comprehend the
depravity. “My best friends
did it
.”

“What?” he groans, opening his eyes.

“Amber. Mitch. They did it. They got their sexy
on. Beast, two backs, the whole deal. And now she is sleeping on
him, and I gotta go and—and—” And
what
? “I gotta just –
deal. With this.”

“All right,” Arthur says slowly, squinting up at
me.

“Sorry,” I add, upon the realization that me
taking off the instant he wakes up maybe isn’t the most ideal of
mornings after. “Love ‘em and leave ‘em. Kind of my deal.”

“Mmm. Adorable.”

“That I am.” I squat down on the floor to kiss
him. “Thanks for noticing.”

“It’s a bit of a chore,” he says with perfect
seriousness, “but someone has to, I suppose.”

+

I happen to like Mitch’s apartment. It’s got a
kind of admirable purity. Which is to say: it is, on every level,
absolutely friggin’ disgusting. Every square inch of it is a shrine
to the deepest pitfalls of slovenly man-being. Once, on a search
for a clean cup, I found dirty socks in the dishwasher. And this
wasn’t simple messiness; no, there was logic there. Mitch figured
that since he didn’t have a washing machine and he really needed
some clean socks, not to mention some clean dishes – well, two
birds. One stone.

They were still dirty ‘cause he forgot to
actually run the dishwasher.

He eats Cheetos for breakfast. He has
Transformers sheets. He buys new underwear instead of doing
laundry. The dishwasher thing was an uncommon instance of domestic
initiative. Mitchell is a parentless man (in a moved-out way, not a
Dickens orphan way), and he never wastes an opportunity to reap the
benefits.

It’s nasty, but it’s kinda badass too.

Amber’s been there a handful of times to watch
movies and stuff. She’s always a graceful little lady, but in the
presence of such squalor, she gets goddamn queenly. She always sits
up really straight on the couch with her legs crossed, like she’s
trying to touch as little of the surrounding filth as possible.
Then she exclaims disgustedly about it all the way home.

The fact that she’s not only come here
voluntarily, but ventured into Mitch’s
bedroom
—

Oh, Jesus Christ, it’s so bad.

And her car’s in the driveway. Either it’s true,
or the Mitchman went to some seriously great lengths to sell this
prank.

Considering he couldn’t even follow through with
the dishwasher thing …

I ring the doorbell, not really sure whether
there’s any point to doing it. Mitch can’t be
too
busy with
Amber, right? He did take the time to text me. So obviously they’re
not too wrapped up in – stuff – Oh, God,
stuff
, Mitch and
Amber and stuff—

The door swings open, and I feel a powerful
surge of relief. Ha! He’s out of the bedroom. Maybe I’ll tie him to
something so he can’t go back—

But it’s not Mitch. It’s his roommate, Rudy, a
guy whose life motto so decrees that just because it’s ten in the
morning, that doesn’t mean it’s not time for beer pong. Thankfully,
it’s only like seven right now, so that’s not a concern quite yet.
(A few shame-drenched instances were enough to prove that I’m not
made of the stuff of beer pong champions.) Rudy’s about a foot
taller than me, heavyset, very bearded, and, at the present moment,
wearing nothing but boxers. Oh, my ceaseless luck.

“Heyyyy hey heyyy, Howie!” He lets out a booming
laugh and claps me on the shoulder. I don’t fall over. It’s a hard
enough slap that my not falling over seems notable. Respect,
bitches.

“Morning, Rudy,” I reply as pleasantly as I can.
As soon as I step inside, my eyes land on Mitch’s bedroom door.
It’s shut. “How’s it goin’?”

“Oh, ya know, ya know.” Rudy tends to say the
same stuff over and over again. It is, I suppose, easier than
having to think up a bunch of new words. “This is Ashley.”

I look over to see a sleepy-looking blonde in a
tight t-shirt and panties sauntering into the room.

“Er. Hi, Ashley.”

“Hey,” she drawls, not bothering to look at me,
as she comes over and slips her arms around Rudy. She starts
massaging his awkwardly, tremendously bare chest. It’s something I
feel like I shouldn’t be witnessing.

“You lookin’ for Mitchy?” Rudy asks, tearing his
eyes away from his lady friend.

“Yes indeed.”

“Dude’s still in his room, but hey, I don’t know
if I’d go a-knockin’, you know what I mean. He’s got a chick in
there.”

Hearing Amber referred to as a chick –
a
chick
– threatens to boil my blood.

“It’s that chick you guys are friends with,
actually. The pissed off one!” He chortles. “Maybe she’s a little
less pissed off now, since she got a little
EeEE-ErrR-EEEE-ERRRR
!” As if this squeaky, abstract sexonym
isn’t enough, he also includes a helpful hand gesture.
Adorable.

“Wow, that’s great, bud. Listen, I really gotta
… get in there.”

“Why? You late for your threesome?” Rudy bursts
into booming laughter at his own irresistible wit, and Ashley joins
in with a vacant, honking sound just a smidge less ladylike than a
donkey bray.

“Yeah, actually,” I say. “You called that one,
Rudes.”

“Ha ha ha,” Rudy chuckles to himself.
“Threesome. That’s sick.”

No doubt one of the greatest minds of our time.
Nay – all time.

I navigate my way across the living room. At one
point, I step in a bowl of Fruit Loops, but I trek bravely on. When
I reach Mitch’s door, I take a moment to prepare myself for the
horrors that await me on the other side. Then I knock.

“Howie?”

“Yeah, man,” I say. I sound nervous. It’s
allowed. I
am
fucking nervous.

“Uh. Come in?” Such hesitancy.

Oh, shit, they’re naked, aren’t they?

I fight back the urge to squeeze my eyes shut,
and I push the door open.

It’s horrendous! It’s appalling! It’s—

… not actually so bad.

Sure, they’re on Mitch’s bed, but they’re
clothed.

Thank you, Jesus. We should hang out more.

Not only that, but they just don’t look very …
snuggly. Amber is fast asleep, her head burrowed into Mitch’s
shoulder. She’s got one arm draped across his chest, but it doesn’t
seem, like, deliberate, or amorous. She hasn’t been taking lessons
from Ashley in chest-fondling.

Mitch is perhaps the most reassuring sight of
all. He’s sitting up really straight – like, somebody put a
leather-bound tome on his head, because this guy’s posture is ace.
He looks almost frozen, like Amber’s a bomb instead of an Amber and
she’ll burst into Ambereens (a little-known smithereen-variant) if
he moves a muscle. He’s staring down at her like he’s not really
sure what to do.

At the sound of me walking in, he looks up.

“SHHH,” he whispers. It is perhaps the most
exaggerated and ineffectual of all whispers. “SHE’S SLEEPING.”

He very carefully points at Amber.

“Yeah,” I say, just a shade quieter than my
normal voice. “I noticed.”

“DUDE.” Oh, this whisper. This whisper needs to
be knighted for hilariousness. “SHE’S
SLEEPING
.”

“She can sleep through anything,” I inform him.
“You could push her off the bed and she’d probably, like, turn over
and yawn.”

Mitch frowns. “OH.”

He stares thoughtfully down at Amber again.

“Well,” he concludes, disposing of Sir Hilarious
Whisper, “it’s okay. This isn’t that bad.”

“How long have you been sitting like this?”

“Uh.” He glances around the room before finally
fixating on the dresser. The drawers are all open, barfing out
random articles of clothing. “Alarm clock’s in the second drawer
down, I think. Unless I moved it to the bathroom—”

“It’s like seven.”

“Oh.” Mitch ponders. “I dunno, like nine hours,
then.”

I stare at him. “Nine hours? You’ve been sitting
like that for nine hours?”

“I sorta fell asleep for awhile,” he says. “It
was totally cool, man.”

Uh. “Why the hell did you let Amber sleep on you
for nine hours?”

“Well, she was really bummed out.”

Ahh, welcome home, horrible sinking feeling of
guilt. Seriously, man, it’s been too long. You don’t call, you
don’t write—

“Oh yeah?” I ask, striving to seem casual.
“Why’s that?”

Mitch gives me a stern look. It’s so out of
place on him that my first impulse is to laugh. Except then I
realize just how dire a force it would take to drive Mitch to make
that
face, and all the funny evaporates. It leaves a lot of
dark, foreboding feelings.

“Okay,” I sigh. “Me.”

“Yeah,” Mitch agrees, frowning. “You left her
alone with Dennis and Emily!
Uncool
.”

“I had something to—” Okay, him going this long
without looking goofily happy, it’s just wrong. It’s freaking me
out so much I can’t even rock an excuse right. “What did she
say?”

“I dunno,” Mitch says, going suddenly cryptic.
“Stuff.”

“She told you about Dennis and Emily,” I
surmise.

“Well,” Mitch says, all reluctant, “yeah.”

“And …?” I press.

It’s quiet for a really long time. Amber sighs
faintly and buries her head a little deeper in Mitch’s
shoulder.

“I don’t think I can tell you, man,” Mitch says
at last.

That just seems weird. Incorrect. Mitch and
Amber have never exactly been a special twosome. They’re friends
because I’m friends with both of them. They don’t actually have
anything in common. Sure, they’ve been together sans me lots of
times in the past, but, like, not in a way where they were actual,
legit
friends
.

They’re not actual, legit friends, are they?

“She would have told me anyway,” I try to reason
with him. Surely he’ll see the light. He’s a little on the doofy
side, Mitchy, but he’s not
stupid
. “So you might as
well—”

“She couldn’t tell you, though,” Mitch points
out, still frowny. “’Cause you went off with Kristy.”

I groan. “Dude—”

“She talked to me about some stuff. And I
listened to her. And then she fell asleep on me. That’s pretty much
it, man.”

I look down at Amber. The fact that Mitch seems
to think he has to protect her from me, it doesn’t make me feel
bright and shiny with delight. She’s my best friend, for Christ’s
sake.

“How much does she hate me?” I ask.

“I dunno,” Mitch replies. “Like … seven?”

“Seven out of what?”

“Just seven.”

“Swell,” I grumble.

“You should talk to her yourself,” Mitch advises
sagely. “It sounds like you guys need to hug it out.”

“I guess,” I reply lamely. I can’t really muster
much enthusiasm, considering how fast I managed to backpedal on our
last hugging-out.

“It’s cool. I tried to stick up for you a
little. Said you weren’t that bad.”

It’s hard to imagine that did much. “Thanks,
buddy.”

“No problem. Hey, would you do something for
me?”

I attempt to reel my brain back out of the
Amber-hates-me abyss it’s threatening to fall into. “Yeah,
sure.”

“Could you find the pants I wore a couple days
ago?”

“Uh,” I say, and take in the sight of the
ghastly swamp of clothes surrounding me. I’m not sure whether I’ve
ever seen the floor.

“I left some Twizzlers in there,” he explains.
“I’m sort of starving, dude. I haven’t eaten for like
ever
.”

“Twizzlers for breakfast?” Oh, jeez. I’m a
mom.

“Yeah,” Mitch says, totally oblivious. “Listen,
I don’t think I can hold them, because that means I’d have to move
my arm, but if you could like feed them to me—”

I love the guy, but no. “Why don’t you just get
something from the kitchen?”

Mitch stares down at Amber like she’s made of
porcelain. “I don’t think I should—”

“Dude,” I say, “just set her down.”

“But she’s so
sleepy
,” Mitch protests.
He’s still looking at her. He says it the way you’d talk about,
like, an adorable kid, or a puppy.