Read Online Blooming All Over by Judith Arnold - Free Book Online Page B

sleeping pill—and making nice with Adam’s girlfriend’s flaky parents. Tash’s father kept ranting aboutthe puny wages Cornell paid its maintenance staff, and her mother—whose legs were as hairy as Tash’s, and probably Tash’s father’s, too—seemed to believe chlamydia was the biggest problem on college campuses today.
    Maybe it was. Susie hadn’t spent serious time on a college campus in four years, and when she’d been at Bennington, the biggest problem on campus had probably been a three-way tie: discovering that the library had only one edition of the book you absolutely needed for a research paper and it had been checked out by someone who’d taken it home over winter break and neglected to bring it back; discovering that the guy you were madly in love with was boinking your roommate; and discovering that the food service had run out of brownies before you’d arrived at the dining hall and you were stuck eating oatmeal-raisin cookies for dessert. Chlamydia wouldn’t have even made the Top Ten.
    “No, it’s true,” Tash’s mother had insisted. “Chlamydia has flooded the nation’s college campuses.” Grandma Ida’s hearing had sharpened in time for her to hear this comment. Fortunately, she seemed to think chlamydia was some sort of seafood chowder.
    Susie had survived the commencement festivities. She’d helped Adam pack his junk—and most of it truly was junk—into the van, and she’d won him as her companion for the drive home, leaving Grandma Ida to ride home in Joffe’s brother’s Toyota. She’d helped Adam unload his junk at their mother’s apartment, and then she’d driven downtown and dropped the van off at Truck-a-Buck. The clerk insisted that there were more dark red splatters on the driver’s-side door than there had been when Susie and Julia had picked up the van Friday morning. Susie had argued that she hadn’t addedany new splatters while the van had been in her possession, and in any case, what difference did it make? The clerk agreed with her that another splatter more or less made no difference at all, and he’d accepted the van without tacking on any extra charges.
    From Truck-a-Buck, Susie had taken the subway to her apartment. Both Caitlin and Anna had been home, devouring take-out Chinese and bickering over whether Peter Jennings was sexy. Anna thought he looked like someone’s uncle, and uncles by definition weren’t sexy. Caitlin thought he was worth sleeping with, although she pretty much felt that way about anyone with a penis.
    There had been enough leftover lo mein for Susie to turn into a meal for herself. Ignoring the Peter Jennings debate, she’d checked her e-mails. Nothing from Casey.
    Well, she hadn’t really expected an e-mail from him, had she? He never sent her e-mails. When he wanted to contact her he phoned, and she’d had her cell phone with her the entire time she’d been in Ithaca, so if he’d punched in her number he would have reached her.
    And said what? Susie, I love you so much I don’t want you moving in with me, or My question Thursday night was merely one small step in a long journey, so if we don’t take that step, no big deal, or Ha, ha, just kidding!
    “Tommy!” Sondra shouted through her open office door, snapping Susie back into the present. Yes, Tommy rhymed with pastrami , for what that was worth.
    Simultaneously, from the open door next to Sondra’s office, Dierdre Morrissey called out, “Balmy.” Dierdre had been Susie’s father’s right-hand woman when he’d been alive. She still worked at Bloom’s, only now she’dexpanded her duties to serve as everybody’s right-hand woman.
    “Swami,” Julia called through her open door.
    “Economy,” Myron the accountant called through his.
    A normal person might have wondered at the communication system of the Bloom’s third-floor offices. Everyone kept his or her door open and bellowed back and forth. No one ever used phones to talk to colleagues. They just