I Can Barely Take Care of Myself Read Online Free

parents’ room to use their phone. That was even worse because the line would get staticky once my mom picked up the downstairs extension to eavesdrop. I don’t know what she thought she was going to hear. When I was in high school, I had no idea what talking dirty was. The only earful my mom got wasoverhearing me nervously ask Adam the cute skateboarder, “Um, so, what’s your favorite Cure song?”
    During my senior year of college, I had lived in an off-campus apartment with two boys, Tim andDavid. It was like a reverse Three’s Company, except unlike Jack Tripper, I didn’t have to pretend to be gay in front of the landlord and I had no interest in seeing Tim or David naked. They were likebrothers to me. (I never had a brother, but I’m assuming it feels like having a male friend whom you don’t want to bone.) When I told my very Catholic mother that I’d found somewhere to live . . . and it was with two guys, she said no right away. Actually she said more than no. What she said was, “Jennifah, the boys will rape you.”
    I don’t think my mom quite understood the difference betweena rapist and a male roommate. It’s hard enough to share an apartment with a friend, because things can get pretty awkward if you owe him rent money. I can’t imagine how delicate a situation it would be in the kitchen the morning after your roommate has forced himself on you.
    Tim and David drove out to my parents’ house in the suburbs to meet them, so that my mom could put faces to her daughter’sfuture rapists’ names. Their goofy demeanor and general innocent vibe won her over. She agreed to cosign the lease and let me move in with the guys who were such sweethahts—and I’m happy to say they never sexually violated me.
    EVEN THOUGH I didn’t think I had to ask permission to sleep at Blake’s house now that I was a college graduate, it wasn’t really a one-on-one, eye-contact-filled conversationthat I wanted to have with my mom. I knew it would be awkward enough for her to see me leaving the house with an overnight bag. On my first night back, I finished unpacking and setting up my childhood bedroom to my liking and then turned right around to head into Boston to spend the night with Blake. I left a note on the kitchen table for my mom and dad— Staying at Blake’s tonight —and hopped inmy dad’s spare Oldsmobile.
    Blake and I were tangled up in his paisley sheets while Nag Champa incense burned in swirls around our heads, and my parents didn’t know where Blake lived and had no way of contacting me. I think cell phones existed in 1996 but nobody I knew had one yet—ifthey did, it was in the form of a car phone with a long cord connected to the cigarette lighter. My folks nevercrossed my mind once. Why would I go home for the night? I’m an adult in the city and there’s no need to drive home at two in the morning—and I have an irrational fear of getting in my car in the middle of the night and forgetting to check the backseat, only to be stuck on the road with a monster behind me, ready to strangle away. The next day, I walked in the front door and saw my mom sitting atthe kitchen table. It was unusual for her to still be in her bathrobe at noon. That was her physical signal for “I’m so upset that I can’t even get dressed.” My mom sat there and flipped the pages of her newspaper very quickly, staring at me instead of the articles. I got the same feeling I used to get in my stomach when I was a little kid and I was in trouble. (Not that as a kid I ever got in troublefor sneaking out to sleep with my stoner boyfriend, but you know what I mean.) My mom said, “You didn’t come home last night.” I said, “I left a note.” She said, “I know you did. Your father and I found it to be very bold.” I said, “I have a boyfriend!”
    And she said, “If you live under this roof, you live under my rules, and we do not allow sleeping over at a boyfriend’s. If you want to be atrash bag, then you