The Sea of Tranquility Read Online Free PDF Page B

pull out everything that needs a signature so Margot can sign it before she goes to work. Before I can get it all unpacked, my phone vibrates, and I have to stop to dig it out. I don’t bother keeping it accessible. It’s not like I need it that often. It can only be one of two people. My mother or Margot. No one else uses the number; not even my dad anymore.
    I only keep the phone for the most necessary of communication‌—‌texts, mostly one-way, from them to me. When I have to, I’ll use it to let Margot know where I am or if I’m going to be late. That was part of the deal for me staying here. It’s understood that that’s all the information I’ll part with. No How was your day ? No Did you make any friends ? No Have you looked for a therapist yet? Just basic logistical facts. Talking has never been the issue. Communication is the issue.
    The message is from Margot. Went to grab take-out for your first day. Back in a few. I’m still trying to get used to eating at four o’clock. Margot works the night shift, which means we eat dinner early so she can shower and get to work. Then again, apparently lunch here is at ten forty-five in the morning, so I guess it all works out.
    I kick off the torture devices and change into running clothes so I can go after the early bird special. I’d go now, but it’s hot and I make sure never to be outside at this time of day when the sun has a way of stalking me, searing memories into my skin. I won’t even go out to check the mail if I don’t have to. My phone vibrates again. I look at the screen. Mom. Hope your first day was good. Love you. M. I put the phone back on the table. She doesn’t expect a reply.
    Margot gets back with all manner of Chinese food. We won’t need to cook for a week. That’s a good thing, because I can’t cook real food to save my life and I get the feeling, from the drawer full of take-out menus, that Margot can’t either. I’ve been here for five days and I don’t think the kitchen’s been used once. At least meals aren’t awkward with Margot. She has no problem talking enough for both of us. Whatever I fail to bring to the conversation, she dutifully makes up for. I’m not even sure she needs me sitting here.
    After less than a week, I know who she’s dated for the past three years and who she’s dating now. I know all of her workplace gossip, even though I have no idea who any of the people she mentions are. I’m sure Andrea would not appreciate the fact that Margot is telling me about her financial problems and Eric would not want me know that his girlfriend cheated on him and Kelly would be appalled to learn that I am aware of her bipolar disorder and every medication she takes for it. But the more Margot talks, the less awkward it is that I don’t, and I prefer conversations about people I don’t care about. The times she brings up my family are worse, because I don’t want to think about them, and I can’t tell her to shut the hell up.
    After we eat, she rushes to shower off a day’s worth of sweat and suntan oil and I pack up container after container of leftovers and wait for the sun to fade so I can run.
    I never even make it out the front door because the sky turns black before sunset and opens up in torrential rain. I don’t mind running in rain but this is even a bit much for me. It’s too difficult to see and impossible to hear anything through this kind of downpour. When I look out the sliding glass door at the back of the house, it seems like it might be raining horizontally, and even I’m not desperate enough to go out in this kind of lightning. I kick off my sneakers and sit and then stand and then sit and then stand again. My brain is on the spin-cycle right now.
    I have no treadmill here so I do jumping jacks in place until I get bored, switch to alternating sets of chest presses and mountain climbers, move on to weighted squats and lunges and then do as many push-ups as I can before my arms give out and I