Diana Peterfreund - Rites of Spring (Break)

I trailed the sickeningly sweet couple into the wood-paneled common room, dropped my coat on the couch, and followed after it. Josh took the recliner on the other side of the coffee table, and Lydia perched on its arm, resting her hand on the back so as to be in easy finger-twirling distance of her boyfriend’s hair.

Do I sound bitter? I don’t mean to. But here are the things you need to know about Lydia:

1)She’s been my best friend and roommate for years, and we’ve seen each other through everything—I mean everything —from highly inappropriate relationships with T.A.s (not mine!) to regrettable anonymous one-night stands (guilty as charged).

2)Up until this past fall, her love life was every bit as disastrous and strewn with little pieces of ventricle and aorta as mine. Then she met Josh, a man whose own romantic history left much to be desired, and they both fell hard.

3)Ever since, she’s been engaging in the type of coupley behavior we used to scoff at: hair-twirling, lap-sitting, “honey-bunny-ing,” and other nonsense.

4)Once, during exam period in December, I even caught her laundering his boxer shorts.

I love the girl, but she needs to remember that this is New Haven, not Stepford. As they cuddled, I put my feet up on the coffee table and toed off my sneakers. Josh cast them a pointed glance.

“Perhaps a change of footwear for the time being?” he said. “No point making it worse.”

I sighed and looked at Lydia with imploring eyes. “Josh says I can’t wear my sneakers.”

Lydia traced her fingertip around his ear. “Since when do you get fashion advice from Josh?”

“Since now. Can I borrow your fabulous brown boots?”

“No, because they are fabulous and I want them to stay that way at least until Easter. The slush outside will ruin the finish in a day and a half.” She looked from me to Josh and back again. “Is this one of your new rules? No metal, no sulfur, and now…no sneakers?”

“Could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” Josh replied with a smug smile.

This was par for the course in our suite since the big reveal in November. Lydia teased Josh and me mercilessly because she knew we were in Rose & Grave, and we, for her amusement, played the parts of obnoxious, secretive society types. At times, Josh even affected an accent he said was James Spader–esque but I insisted was a lot closer to adenoidal.

On the whole, however, I considered myself pretty lucky that Lydia had picked Josh as my roommate-in-law. I had friends whose inter-suite romantic trauma had been so intense, they’d actually made their bunkmate choose: either the suite, or the significant other.

“Speaking of Easter,” Lydia said, tiring of the game a little early tonight. “We need to finalize those plane flights before the prices go through the roof.”

“Flights?” I asked.

Lydia looked a little guilty. “Yeah. Josh and I are going to Barcelona for Spring Break.”

Some might be surprised to learn that the look of betrayal on my face was not directed at my roommate and best friend, with whom I had spent my last three Spring Breaks. I’d told her back in the fall semester that I’d be occupied.

But Josh was supposed to be occupied right along with me.

“But…” I began, then broke off. What could I say? Oh, Lydia, don’t be silly. Of course Josh isn’t going with you, his loving girlfriend, on a romantic getaway to Europe to consume gazpacho and rioja and dance to guitars on streets covered in bougainvillea and orange blossoms. He’s got to go hang out in an undisclosed and possibly underground location with the Diggers, none of whom is giving him sex or rioja, and discuss those secret world domination plots of ours. Sounds fun, huh?

“Wow,” I said at last. “How exciting.”

Apparently, Lydia wasn’t entirely convinced by my ecstatic tone. “Well, you said you couldn’t—”

Yeah, but I didn’t realize how much the idea of my best friend jaunting off to Spain with her lovah was going to hurt. All of a sudden, I felt very hot inside my turtleneck sweater. I wanted bougainvillea and orange blossoms. I wanted rioja and gazpacho. I wanted to know why the hell Josh was ditching the Diggers. Wasn’t he supposed to place us above all others?

“What, I’m not enough for you, Lydia?” Josh cut in before I could grill him. “I thought this was supposed to be a romantic getaway you were dragging me on.”

“With all the museum trips you have planned?” Lydia rolled her eyes. “Guernico is not romantic.”

“It’s Guernic a, and that’s in Madrid, so don’t worry about it.” Josh pulled her onto his lap. “You’re thinking of Gaudi, whose art we will be seeing a lot of, and whom you shall learn to love, my sweet. La Sagrada Familia. Colegio Teresiano. Palau Güell… ” He began to nuzzle her neck.

Hint taken. Plus, if possible, I was even less interested than Lydia in a lecture about Spanish art, so I chose that moment to adjourn to my room. No sooner had the door shut behind me than I heard Lydia hiss in a whisper to Josh, “Don’t do that in front of Amy.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” She hesitated. “I feel bad. She hasn’t had a boyfriend in a while…”

Oh, no. I sank into my desk chair. They weren’t going to be one of those couples who liked to gossip about a single friend’s lack of love life behind her back, were they? Of course, Josh knew exactly how long it had been since I had a date—he’d even warned me against my short-lived affair with George last semester. But still, it rankled. Especially if they were going to talk behind my back within earshot .

“She’s got bad luck with men,” Lydia continued.

“I beg to differ,” said Josh. True. A lot of women I knew would think I’d been very lucky indeed to snag George, even for a little while. I rolled closer to the door to listen in.

“Don’t you know any nice guys for her?” Lydia was asking. “We could double date.”

“Look,” Josh said, a note of annoyance creeping into his voice, “it’s not my responsibility to play Cupid for my—er—girlfriend’s roommate.”

“She’s not just your girlfriend’s roommate, though, is she?” Lydia cajoled.

“This conversation is officially over.”

Hey! No! It was just getting good! Why didn’t Josh want to set me up with anyone? Didn’t he think I was cute enough for any of his friends? Or did he have another problem with me? Was it my, um, experience with George? I was ready to burst back out and ask him what he meant, when Lydia spoke again.

“No need to get bent out of shape. I can understand your concern. She does have a tendency to self-sabotage all of her relationships. Like last year, she was seeing this great guy—”

“Brandon.”

“Right, of course you know.”

And he had made several vows to the effect that he wasn’t supposed to let anyone know that he knew! Josh! Man, I had him so bad. The fines I’d level on him at the next meeting—he’d better hope flights to Barcelona weren’t pricey!

“Anyway, you should have seen them together. They were so perfect. But of course she botched it up,” Lydia added. “Oh, that reminds me.” She shouted, “Amy!”

I waited a few seconds before opening the door, so they wouldn’t realize I had been right behind it. “Yes?”

“Brandon called.”

I blinked. I hadn’t known what Lydia wanted with me, but a phone message from my ex-boyfriend and ex-friend-with-benefits (if not ex-friend, full stop) was not at all what I’d expected. Brandon never called. In fact, the last time I’d spoken to him at any length, he had said the ball was in my court as far as future contact went.