The Roommate from Hell

"That's why she asked me about you. 'What kind of guy gives a girl a gift when he barely knows her?' And I said, well, Rob is awfully shy. He doesn't know how to just tell a girl how he feels. No doubt he meant well, no matter how awkward it was, is what I told her."

"Right."

"You're welcome, Rob."

Rob chuckled but didn't say anything more.

"Now how long have you had a crush on her?"

"On Carrie? I haven't. I mean, she's cute and she's really nice, but, you know..."

"Rebbie?"

"I'm afraid so."

"So if she and Mark break up, you think she'll go out with you next?"

"Doubt it, but I feel what I feel."

"Then you ought to tell Carrie how you don't feel, especially if you want your gloves back. She thinks you have a crush on her, Rob!"

"She's wrong. But I don't see the harm in her thinking so."

"Well, I think you should talk to her."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a strong believer in the truth."

Rob burst out laughing, and Jerrod picked up one of his wingtip shoes from the floor and threw it at him. It missed Rob but left a scuff on the John Lennon poster over his bed. Rather than lose his cool over that, Rob took the shoe and stuffed it down the crack between his bed and the wall.

"You give that back!" Jerrod said.

"You want it? Come and get it."

"Rob, if I have to go after that shoe myself when you're not around, you're not going to like what I'll do to your side of the room."

"So what else is new?" The floor was strewn with Jerrod's papers up to within about six inches of Rob's bed.

Seeing for once he wasn't going to get the best of Rob, Jerrod turned back to Plan A. "Anyway, I just don't want to see you get hurt over Carrie, all right? She's way out of your league, Rob."

"I know."

"Private girls' school in St. Paul, you know, and I heard she was third or fourth in her class. And she's pretty high up in our class here, too." Jerrod seethed with the newfound knowledge that she was likely one of the five people who had him stuck at #6 in class rankings. It could be worse: he doubted if Rob was even in the top 100.

"Yeah, I know," Rob said, still not looking up. "I'm not her type. Not sure if she's mine either."

"Like you've got a type, Rob. Anything in a bra, isn't it?"

"Well, I guess it's a plus if I've seen a woman in her bra," Rob said.

"Your friends just take their tops off for you, is that it? I don't think Carrie'll do that! She's much too conservative."

"Of course they don't." Rob finally set his book down, welcoming the first sign that the conversation might actually turn friendly. "I just -- well, seeing a woman in just her bra, even from behind, it feels so intimate, you know? So beautiful. So that's what your stupid comment brought to mind."

"Just so you don't think you've got a chance with Carrie," Jerrod said, delighted at what Rob had just revealed -- that was his in! "She and Amy were both in my meeting with Connie this afternoon, and you know, I think they both have the hots for me the way they were making eyes at me. Or maybe they're both ovulating."

Rob laughed again. "You sexist pig."

"Hey, I'm a bio major. I know how these things work."

Rob ignored Jerrod from then until he left for dinner an hour or so later, although that didn't stop Jerrod from periodically needling him. Fortunately, Jerrod got wrapped up in a long phone call that was still going on when the dining hall opened, and Rob was free to slip out without acknowledging Rob's wait-for-me waves.

On his way up the path to the dining hall, he thought of what Rebbie had said about his and Jerrod's reputation. It wasn't exactly a surprise, he supposed, given how loud some of their fights got. What was a surprise was that Rebbie had felt the need to ask about them, when he'd told her about the situation a time or two before. That, in turn, reminded him that he really needed to find another object of his affection, even if it was someone just as hopeless as Rebbie. Someone like Carrie, for example.

It wouldn't hurt to ask her out, Rob mused. If she said no, even if word got back to Jerrod, he'd be able to say he'd tried. And if she said yes?

That pie-in-the-sky hope had Rob grinning ear to ear as he stepped into the dining hall and found Rebbie and Mark waiting for him. "What are you so happy about?" Rebbie asked.

"Oh, I think I'm in love," Rob said, knowing Rebbie would be happy to hear it.

She was. "What a relief," she muttered under her breath as they watched Rob retreat to the corner of the foyer to hang up his coat.

"I wonder who he is." Mark said. Rebbie slugged him on the arm.

It took Rebbie's sternest warning, but Mark reverted to feminine pronouns as they spent dinner trying to pump Rob for information about his new crush. Mark demurred, wondering if they really couldn't guess it was the cute gal he'd helped out that very afternoon. "You'll find out who it is if it works out, I promise," he said.

"Is she here?" Mark asked, giving the whole wide room a good look. They were seated near the back of the hall and from his seat, he could see nearly everyone.

Rob, who was seated with his back to most of the room, turned around. He wasn't sure whether or not he'd say yes even if he did see Carrie, but in any event he didn't. He did, though. Make brief eye contact with Jerrod, who was sitting alone at a nearby table. With a triumphant grin he turned back to Mark and Rebbie. "I don't think so," he said, seeing no reason not to tell the truth.

Jerrod had been keeping an eye on Rob and his friends ever since he'd come in, and had been hoping he would go unnoticed. Next best thing, now he could harass Rob for looking at him funny. As he watched their table out of the corner of his eye, he was sure Rob snuck another look at them a moment later while laughing at something Mark had said -- probably a filthy joke, knowing those losers.

He couldn't help but think of high school, and all the many lunches he'd suffered through on his own. You'll find your tribe in college, they said, you'll meet others who appreciate you. They hadn't said anything about an idiot like Rob finding his tribe while he'd still be eating on his own, that was for sure!

At least Amy showed up before he'd gone too far down that rabbit hole. "Can you believe it about that award?" she asked him as she sat down across from him.

"I can about you and me," Jerrod sniffed. "But Carrie?"

"She's brilliant, Jerrod! You just don't know her very well. If she wins, I say, hey, she earned it."

"Not like I did."

Amy smirked. "Right, Jerrod, no one in the whole school deserves it half as much as you do."

"I'm glad someone recognizes that," Jerrod grumbled.

Amy laughed, then stopped as she realized he appeared to be serious. "Yeah, whatever, Jer. Oh! Did you hear, Professor Dundee thinks someone stole an exam from her cabinet?"

"No!" Jerrod's façade slipped for just a split-second, then he remembered that was an appropriate reaction anyway. "I mean, she thinks someone did? Not knows?"

"Well, she went to unlock her filing cabinet and it already was unlocked, and the key was missing. It was right after our meeting with her. She thinks it was probably some desperate freshman hiding in the science library, who could see the coast was clear when she went to the bathroom."

"Probably some entitled East Coast brat, just having to get the highest grade," Jarrod grumbled. "Hope he gets caught and expelled."

"That's what she thought, too," Amy said. "She called me in my room to ask if I'd seen anything, and she was all about how the first-years need to get over themselves. She was on the warpath! Did she call you too?"

"Undoubtedly," Jarrod said, casting a disdainful look at Rob's back, and Amy turned around to see whom he was looking at. "My lousy answering service strikes again."

"Come on, Jer," Amy said. "How many messages has Rob ever forgotten to give you?"

"None that I know of," Rob said. "But that doesn't mean it hasn't happened."

"Don't you think you should have some proof before you ask him not to even answer his own phone?" Amy asked.

"He told you that?!" Jerrod slammed his glass down on his tray, and ice and Coke sloshed out of it. "He had no right to tell anyone that."

"He's my friend, too, Jerrod. And he was upset about it. I'd be, too, if you want to know the truth."

"Well, first of all, it's not 'his own phone'." Jerrod said. "The use of it is half his, but it's my phone, and let's face it, I get a lot more calls than he does. I'm an important guy around here! I don't want him getting any of my messages wrong! But that was between me and him, and he had no right to tell you."

"Is that what's really bugging you, Jerrod?" Amy probed. "Or is it just that he let your true colors slip to someone else?"

"My true colors are always on display," Jerrod said. "I'm just a smart guy from the wrong side of the tracks. I've got a right to be proud of it. And I'm the most honest guy you're ever going to meet."

Amy smirked. "April fools isn't for a couple of weeks yet, Jerrod."

"Say, that's right, it is coming up, isn't it?" Jerrod gave Rob another look; the bastard was still laughing with Rebbie and Mark like three schoolchildren. "Thanks, Amy."

"For what?"

"Oh, you'll see."

By morning, Jerrod had his plan in place except for one puzzle piece. If Connie had called him and Amy about the stolen exam, she must have called Carrie as well. Naturally, Rob had denied forgetting any phone messages from Connie or anyone else, just as he had denied having spent dinner giving him nefarious looks, but Jerrod had no doubt he had forgotten and just resented being called on it. That was why Jerrod had made a point of needling and tormenting Rob after dinner until Rob had grabbed up his books and headed for the library. He'd also given Jerrod a shove into the doorjamb on the way out which had left bruises, but it was worth it for a few hours to himself.

But he hadn't yet figured out how to play the matter of Carrie having already heard about the stolen exam.

He had, at least, been able to track her easily enough. Since they were both on the bio student policy committee, he had marked down what he knew of her class schedule so he'd know when to schedule a meeting if he wanted to make sure she wouldn't be there to argue against his ideas -- just call the meeting for while she was in class -- and so he was able to trail her from when her political science class got out at ten o'clock. Seated inconspicuously on the lounge bench down the hall, he had no trouble spotting her as she stepped out, looking like a librarian as usual in a billowy skirt and with her hair up. Truth was, she was exactly Rob's type if the poor bastard didn't have such a low self-image...but that was Rob's problem.

As he got up and followed her down the crowded stairs at a safe distance, the last piece of the puzzle finally fell into place -- if she already knew Connie suspected an exam had been stolen, that just meant she'd be more susceptible to being fingered. Perfect. Jerrod's only lingering regret, as he stepped outside and spotted her heading for the student union, was that he would just have to let his guard down for one more person on campus. But if that was what it took to win Bio Student of the Year, so be it.

Especially if it put Rob in his place. And it would. How it would!

The next problem, he knew, would be catching Carrie on her own at the student union. A butterfly like her was never without friends for long. But that sort of thing had never stopped Jerrod before. He was frustrated, but not surprised, when he stepped into the student union to see Carrie chatting with a couple of friends he didn't know who were sitting at a booth by the grill. He took an inconspicuous spot just inside the door and waited for the right moment.

It came sooner than he'd expected. The two other girls got up -- he guessed to go to class -- and Carrie set her poli sci book down on the table and went to the grill to buy something. Jerrod had the folded paper out of his backpack before she got to the grill, and he slid it just far enough into her unguarded book to make it impossible to miss. Then he helped himself to a nearby table and opened his chemistry book, and pretended to be studying.

Carrie stepped past his table on her way back a moment later, with a cup of coffee. "Hi, Jerrod," she said.

"Hey, Carrie," he answered, grateful for the excuse to be looking right at her when she pulled the paper out of her book.

"What's this?" she asked, and Jerrod only just managed to keep his mouth shut for the long moment it took her to figure out what it was. "Oh my god!"

Jerrod jumped up and helped himself to a look at the exam. "Carrie, you did it?!"

"Did what?!" Carrie asked. "I don't know how this got here!"

"You heard from Connie, didn't you? Someone stole a copy of the exam?!"

"No!" Carrie said, and Jerrod was treated to the first time he'd ever seen her looking unhappy. "I haven't heard anything like that? I don't know how this got here."

So she was going to play dumb, Jerrod thought to himself -- that only made it all the easier for him. "You'd better not," he said. "You'll be expelled if you're caught with it."

"But I didn't steal it!"

"Is that what you told Connie? Oh, wait, she didn't call you." He couldn't resist: "I wonder why she didn't. She called Amy and me, you know. Maybe she already suspects you."

Carrie stuffed the paper into her book. "Jerrod, I didn't do it! I don't know where it came from!" Now those brown eyes that surely had Rob all twitterpated were showing real fear. "You're not gonna tell Professor Dundee, are you? I mean, it wasn't me!"

Jerrod looked at her with what he hoped came across as empathy. The poor thing did look genuinely terrified, and he wondered if maybe she really did have a thing for him. How tempting that was! But he wouldn't be deprived of his opportunity to put Rob in his place, and also make sure Carrie was too wound up to outscore him on that exam. No, he wanted her to be a nervous wreck for the next week, and then he wanted Rob thoroughly humiliated.

Carrie's voice was shaking. "I'm telling you, Jerrod, I'm innocent!"

"It doesn't look that way, does it?" Jerrod helped himself to a seat at her booth. Nothing like beating women at their own stupid, manipulative games, he thought as he nodded at her, as if giving permission to sit in her own seat, which in any event she did.

"Jerrod, please," Carrie said. "Someone else must've put it there."

"I don't know that," Jerrod said. "What I do know is I saw you pull it out of your book, and if Connie asks me again, well, I tell the truth, Carrie!"

"Jerrod, come on!" Carrie set her jaw and the vulnerability in her eyes vanished. "You want something, don't you? Don't think for one minute I'll sleep with you! I'd rather get kicked out of school!"

"Not with me, Carrie."

"What?!"

"What's the story with you and Rob?" Jerrod asked. "You know he's my roommate, don't you?"

"Rob who? Oh, the guy I borrowed the gloves from yesterday? No, I didn't know he was your roommate. I do know he's a really nice guy, so if you expect me to believe he's in on this, forget it!"

"He isn't." Jerrod had already thought of that; if she knew Rob at all, she would know he'd never play any games like this. "He's also not a very nice guy, you wouldn't say that if you knew what a monster he can be when no one's looking."

"If you treat him the way you're treating me right now, I don't blame him!"

"Carrie, my respect is the only thing keeping you in school right now," Jerrod reminded her. "You don't want to lose it."

Carrie took a deep breath. "Fine, what do I need to do to Rob?"

"Seduce him, pretend you like him, and then on April First, tell him it was all an April Fool's joke."

"What?! Jerrod, why on earth would you want to hurt your friend like that?!"

"He hasn't been my friend for months. Like I said, you don't know what he's like when no one's looking. He has no respect for my needs at all, and he can't take a joke to save his life. That's why I want this joke to be on him."

"And you'd get me kicked out of school if I don't do it." Carrie was seething, but that was just what Jerrod wanted to see. "You'd tell Professor Dundee I stole the exam."

"I'd only be telling her what I saw," Jerrod said. "Just being honest."

"You asshole."

"Honest asshole," Jerrod corrected. "After all, you're the only one of the three of us she didn't call, which means you're already the prime suspect. Now can I trust you on this?"

"What exactly do you want me to do?" Carrie sighed and blinked back tears.

"Good girl," Jerrod said. "Now then, Rob has a thing for seeing a woman in her bra, from the back. If you let him see you that way and let him think it's okay, the rest'll fall into place."

"How on earth am I supposed to arrange that?" Carrie demanded. "Walk around campus with no top?"

"No," Jerrod said. "Where do you live?"

"Cloverton Annex," Carrie said.

"An all-female floor!" Jerrod crowed. "Perfect, you don't expect a guy to just walk down the hall. Tonight at a little after eight o'clock, be in your room in your bra with the door open. I'll make sure Rob turns up to see you."

"How are you ever going to do that, without him knowing?"

Jerrod gathered up his backpack and stood up with a triumphant grin. "You don't know the art of getting people to do what you want, Carrie. Surprises me, since women are usually so manipulative, but you don't get it. Trust me, he'll be there."

"And I'm supposed to make him fall in love with me."

"I think he already does. He wouldn't shut up about how adorable you looked with his gloves yesterday, or how it melted his heart to help you."

"Well, it was sweet of him," Carrie said. "Not that you'd understand anything about that!"

"That's why the rest of your job is easy. Just string him along until April first, and then break his heart, and I won't tell a soul what you did."

"I didn't do anything!"

"I don't know that," Jerrod said. "And neither does Connie." He zipped up his coat and turned to go, topping everything off with a pat on her hand. "Cheers, Carrie. It's a good day."

If there was one thing Carrie Loranger had learned in her teenage-angst years, it was how to smile through hard times. Through her parents' messy divorce and her time on scholarship at boarding school where she'd stuck out like a sore thumb until she'd learned to pretend she was among the beautiful people through her miserable freshman year at an all-women's college back East, smiling through the pain was a skill she had long since perfected. Arriving two years earlier at this wonderfully unpretentious campus of unabashed misfits, she'd finally found she no longer needed to fake it.

Until today.

Who could have put the exam in her book?! Some resentful freshman with a chip on his shoulder about women in science, she guessed. But why her? What was to be gained by getting her in so much trouble? And why didn't Jerrod believe her? He'd always seemed an agreeable sort of guy before -- kind of nerdy, but they were everywhere here. Did he really believe she might actually be the culprit? It seemed so. Did he really just want her out of the way so he could get that stupid award?

I could have just offered to withdraw from the competition, she thought to herself, alone in her room in the Cloverton Annex as she gazed out the open window and watched the last embers of the exam paper burning in the bowl she'd borrowed from the dining hall, and wondered how on earth she'd landed in this mess. Then, as soon as she'd thought it, she felt like slapping herself across the face. "Stop that!" she said out loud, catching her own eye in the mirror. "Imagine what Mom would say if she heard you saying that!"