I couldn't believe how hot it was. I've always felt strongly that Memorial Day weekend is supposed to be a pleasantly warm kickoff to the summer, but this year - and frankly the last several - have been sweltering. These days it's less "lounge outside for a barbecue" than "get to the water or stay inside." I can't imagine standing next to a grill in this.
Still, at least I was off work and into the start of a long weekend. My roommates had managed to get themselves a hotel room near the beach, so I'd have the apartment to myself for a quiet, relaxing break.
I was waiting at the bus stop when I got a phone call from Erin, one of my roommates.
"Oh! Ben! Hey," she said after I picked up, sounding a little frantic. That wasn't really unusual for Erin, but calling someone on the phone was.
"What's up?" I'm only half paying attention, mostly focused on scanning the street for my bus. Sometimes I walk home from work - it takes about an hour - but there's no way I'm doing it in this heat.
"Remember when I said Victoria might come stay with us sometimes to get away from my parents?" she asked. Victoria was Erin's younger sister, who had graduated from college two weeks ago but hadn't found a job yet - a situation her parents were not exactly chill about.
"Uhh yeah," I said, watching a different bus go by and imagining I could feel a breath of air conditioning wafting off of it.
"So my mom has been really badgering her and she just can't take it anymore. She's on a Megabus headed to us now."
"Wait, what?"
"I know, it's not ideal, but she can't stay with them for a long weekend where they don't have to go to work and just focus on her all day long," Erin apologized.
"Does she know you and Jack are out of town?" Erin, Jack, and I had been friends in college, although they were a year behind me. They'd started dating six months after we all moved in together and this weekend was their first big romantic getaway.
"Yeah, but I figured you two can just hang out, or not, and she can sleep in my room since it doesn't get used that much."
I took a beat to think, my eyes still watching the wrong buses whiz by, sweating in the early summer heat. Victoria was basically a friendly acquaintance; we'd never hung out alone, and I always got the sense she didn't really know how to interact with me, like she thought of me as her sister's unusually older friend since I was four years older than her. On top of that, while Victoria was smart and had a sense of humor, it was pretty biting and could turn nasty quickly. Not the type of person I'd planned on spending my relaxing weekend navigating around.
"She really just needs somewhere to hide out. She won't bother you at all." Apparently I'd been thinking too long, and now Erin was trying to convince me.
"I mean it's fine," I said. "It is what it is. You two have fun at the beach."
Erin gave an audible sigh of relief. "Thanks Ben. You have a good weekend too."
"Bye." I hung up. I don't know what bad thing I'd done to deserve this, but it was another fifteen minutes before my bus came. Naturally it was packed, and someone onboard said the previous bus had overheated a mile up the road.
After standing for a few stops, a seat opened up that I could squeeze into. The middle-aged guy I sat next to looked me up and down before reaching into his bag. He'd clearly been taking in my sweaty condition, because he handed me a bottle of water.
"Thanks," I say, quickly draining the bottle.
"No worries," the guy smiles. "I try carrying some around on days like this to give to people who need them, and you clearly needed one. And now that's less weight for me to carry."
"I appreciate it," I say. I hadn't noticed, but I was feeling kind of woozy all of a sudden. I figured it was probably the heat, and my body was just starting to process being able to sit down in air conditioning. Pretty quickly I found I could barely keep my eyes open. Since I couldn't miss my stop with it being the last one on this route, I decided to give into it and go to sleep.
The bus driver's voice on the intercom announcing the last stop brought me out of the deepest sleep I'd ever had on a city bus. There were only three or four people still on it, and none on my bench. I was still feeling pretty groggy as I stumbled off the bus; luckily it was only a three-block walk home. By the time I got there I was sweaty and tired, and I fell right into bed still wearing my work clothes.
I woke to the sound of the apartment buzzer. I was definitely less groggy than when I'd awoken on the bus, but it still took me a moment to remind myself what was going on. I'd been asleep for two hours, and the sky outside had that deep blue summer dusk hue. I went out to the living room and pushed the intercom to stop the buzzer.
"Are you going to let me up?" Victoria sounded concerned and annoyed at the same time.
"Yeah, come on up," I said flatly, still waking up and still sort of annoyed at the situation. I pushed the button to let her in and stood around waiting to open my apartment door for her. I just really did not need a long weekend of Victoria being sarcastic at me in my space when I was doing her a favor, especially when this heat wave was going to mean neither of us would want to go outside much.
After two minutes, there was a knock at the door, and I opened it to see Victoria standing there. She was a bit shorter than average - I'd guess around five feet and five inches - and had brown hair that went past her shoulders. She wore large trendy glasses over her brown eyes, and almost always seemed to have a skeptical look on her face. But the thing that had always made me feel a little weird about Victoria - my friend's younger sister, six years younger than I was and whom I'd met when she was starting college - was that she had really big boobs. They were just small enough that she didn't actually look freaky or disproportionate, but only just. I'm sure they'd give her back pain or attract unwanted attention or any of the other problems big-boobed women face, but those weren't my problem. My problem was that every time she started showing a little skin - or, God forbid, cleavage - around her chest, I felt like I couldn't take my eyes off her and also like a huge creep for feeling that way. Really, her being clothed wasn't much better, since shirts and sweaters seemed to hug her curves like a wetsuit.
"Are you gonna let me in?" she said, her eyebrow raised and that skeptical smirk still on her face.
"Oh yeah, come in," I replied. She hauled her large duffel bag in with an effort that shows it was clearly heavy, probably much heavier than it needed to be to stay in my apartment for a few days.
As I closed the door, Victoria looked up from where she was dragging the bag. "Do you think you could help me carry this to the room?" she said, her face switching into a look so sincere it was hard to remember the smirk she'd had earlier.
"Sure, I can help." I picked up the bag and started walking back to Erin's room. This was what the whole weekend would be like, probably: Victoria would make reasonable requests that led to me being pushed around and not being able to properly relax all weekend. I felt like I was always on edge with her because I never knew if I was going to get the friendly, funny Victoria or the clever mean girl Victoria. If that long Megabus ride had put her in a bad mood, I was in for a rough evening.
I heaved the bag up on the bed and turned around to leave the room, only to discover that Victoria had apparently been following close behind me. We were now standing face to face just a little too close for normal conversation.
She took a deep breath, almost like a gasp, and looked down, almost like she was feeling shy. With her head still tilted down, she looked up at my face.
"Thanks for letting me stay here, Ben," she said softly. "I really appreciate it." And with that, she closed the distance between us and hugged me.
