If We Were Villains: A Novel

The following morning I returned gradually to consciousness, floating on the surface of sleep, eyes still closed. Something fluttered against my shoulder and I remembered: James. Unlike the few nights I’d spent lying next to Meredith at Hallsworth House, I was instantly, acutely aware of him.

I opened one eye, unsure if I should move but reluctant to risk waking him. He’d rolled toward me sometime in the night, and his head was tucked against my shoulder, breath racing down my arm every time he exhaled. The strange sudden thought that I didn’t want to move struck me, with the surprising lucidity of a sunbeam slanting right in my eyes. His warm drowsy weight in the bed beside me felt natural, comfortable, comme il faut. I lay impossibly still, wondered what I was waiting for, and slowly fell asleep again.

I didn’t sleep long or deeply enough to dream. What seemed like seconds later I was awake, dimly conscious of hushed voices nearby. The whispers took shape, crescendoed until a giggle escaped and was sharply stifled. I pushed myself halfway up; James stirred beside me but didn’t wake completely. I blinked furiously and, when I could see in the stark morning light, glared at my sisters. They were both in their pajamas, crowded together in the doorway. Leah tucked her bottom lip behind her teeth and continued giggling silently. Caroline leaned on the doorjamb, leering at me, her skinny legs poking out of her huge Ohio State sweatshirt like a pair of chopsticks.

“Both of you get out,” I said.

Leah dissolved into audible laughter. James opened his eyes, squinted up at me, and followed my glare to the door. “Good morning?” he said.

Caroline: “Who’s your boyfriend, Oliver?”

Me: “Fuck off, Caroline.”

James: “I’m James. Lovely to meet you both.”

Leah found this hilarious.

Caroline: “Are you going to come out to Mom and Dad?”

Me: “Seriously, get out of my room.”

Caroline (to James): “What do you see in him?”

James: “Don’t tease. Oliver’s hooking up with the hottest girl in our year.”

Caroline: “The redhead?”

James: “The same.”

A pause.

Caroline: “Bullshit.”

Leah: “No way. I thought she was with Richard!”

Caroline: “Yeah, what happened to him?”

Me: “Nothing happened to him, okay? Both of you out.”

I kicked the blanket back, slid off the bed, and shooed them into the hall. Leah goggled at me like she’d never seen me before. “Oliver,” she said, in a bad stage whisper. “Oliver, are you and Meredith really—”

“Knock it off, I’m not going to talk about it.”

I nudged her toward the stairs and she reluctantly started down, but Caroline lingered at the top to say, “Mom wants to know if you and your boyfriend will be joining us for breakfast.”

“Why don’t you eat it instead?”

Her smile soured, turned to a scowl. I immediately regretted the remark but didn’t apologize. She muttered something that sounded like “asshole,” and went quietly down the stairs. I trudged back into my room. James was out of bed and digging through his bag.

“So those are your sisters,” he said. If he was at all embarrassed, he didn’t let on.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I never had siblings.”

“Well, don’t waste a lot of time wishing you did.” I glanced toward the door, considering for the first time how hazardous it was to have him in the house. I didn’t care much what my family thought of James, but I cared what he thought of them. Compared to my father, my sisters were harmless. “Do you want breakfast?”

“I wouldn’t say no. I’d like to meet the rest of your family.”

“I take no responsibility for anything they say to you.”

“Are you not coming down?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I will in just a minute. Think you can find your way?”

He put his head through the collar of a clean blue sweater. “I’ll manage.”

When he left the room, I quickly pulled on a new T-shirt and the same sweatpants from the previous night. I took my bookmark from Theatre of Envy and tucked it in my pocket. On the landing I listened for voices from downstairs. By the sound of it, Leah was bombarding James with questions about California. My mother could hardly get a word in edgewise, but when she did she somehow managed to sound polite, puzzled, and slightly suspicious all at the same time. Relieved that my father seemed to have left the house already, I snuck down the hall to his office, slipped inside, and shut the door. It was a small, ugly room, where a mammoth computer monitor sat humming on the desk like a prehistoric beast in hibernation. I picked up the phone, pinned it under my ear, and fished the bookmark out of my pocket again. After the Thanksgiving dinner debacle, I’d considered defecting to Manhattan for the weekend. It was a reckless plan, but the prospect of Meredith and an empty penthouse—regardless of what happened there—was vastly more appealing than spending another three days closeted in my high school bedroom, hiding from my parents and Caroline. But then James appeared on the porch, like some kind of divine interference.

The telephone rang loudly in my ear. I squeezed the handset a little too hard, half hoping she wouldn’t pick up.

“Hello?”

Maybe it was the distance or the quality of the call, but she sounded woozy, disoriented, like she’d just woken up. That one low note of her voice made an ember flare in the pit of my stomach. I glanced toward the door to make sure it was closed.

“Meredith, hi. It’s m—Oliver,” I said. “Listen, James showed up on my porch last night. I had no idea he was coming, but I can’t just leave him here. I don’t think New York is going to happen.”

There was a short, shallow silence before she said, “Of course.”