All_BS: What are YOU saying?
I think hard before I answer.
Repeat: I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s why I’m asking you.
All_BS: Yes. That is why you’re asking me.
25
In the middle of June, I get a call from Alice. I haven’t spoken to her since the last time I stayed with her, but when I answer the phone, she starts burbling away like we chat every day.
“So I checked on the map, and you’re in Eastern Washington, right?” she asks after she’s caught me up on things I don’t really care about. “Between Spokane and Yakima?”
There are hundreds of miles between Spokane and Yakima. I love how people consider it flyover. But I don’t correct her. “More or less.”
“Cool! I’m working as a counselor at Mountain Bound. I’ll be outside of Missoula, and I’m pretty sure I-90 goes through your neck of the woods.”
“It’s not far from here.”
“Perfect! It’s, like, seven hours from Eugene to Spokane, or wherever you are. A good one-day drive. And then I can make it to Missoula the next day.”
It takes me a second to understand what she’s talking about. “You want to stay with me?”
“If that’s all right,” she says.
We almost never have guests. Even Meg only slept here a handful of times. I’m already trying to figure out how to explain Alice to Tricia. Where to put her. Tricia and Raymond still seem to be together, judging by the number of nights she hasn’t been home. Maybe she’ll stay at his place that night, though if I request that, it’s a surefire way to make sure it doesn’t happen.
“When are you coming?”
“Day after tomorrow. Give me your address.”
And so I don’t have a choice. That night, I casually tell Tricia that someone is staying over.
“Your boyfriend?” she accuses.
“There is no boyfriend,” I say. Then I think of Ben and then I get mad at myself for thinking of Ben and then I justify thinking of Ben because he was the object of her interrogation the last time this subject came up.
“Then who is it you’re talking on the computer with?”
“I’m not talking to anyone. I can’t, because we don’t have Internet access.”
“Ha! But you want it. And now you’re blushing. You’re hiding something.”
This time, she’s right. But not about a boyfriend. All_BS and I recently moved our conversation off the message boards and onto an anonymous communication software, and now we “talk” frequently. Our conversations, however, are frustratingly limited by library hours.
They are also frustratingly not about suicide. At least not specifically. We speak in generalities, and sometimes I forget who I’m chatting with. Last week, I mentioned that I had a cold coming on, and he sent a recipe for a tea made of ginger and apple juice. When it worked, I made a crack about the irony of him curing my cold. “Nice to know someone cares,” I wrote. When he asked me what I meant by that, I started typing a message about Tricia, until I realized what I was doing and deleted it.
I had to be more careful, not answer his messages spontaneously, or I’d screw up. So now when I’m at the library, I save his messages to my Meg file and when I’m at home, I write my responses, sending them the next time I’m online. It’s a frustrating and clunky system, but the delay forces caution.