As he looks it over, there’s enough of an awkward silence for me to wonder: Is he mad at me? Suddenly, I feel compelled to go back into how the cruise wasn’t my choice, I don’t even really want to go, I only agreed to it because I’m about five years behind on hanging out with my roommate, and so on and so forth. But instead, I just keep quiet. I know myself, and when I don’t have time to process the data and I’m put on the spot, I’ll just end up spewing things off that I don’t really mean. I remind myself: this is a harmless outing with my roommate, and he and I are just friends.

“Got it,” he says, folding up the check and putting it in the front pocket of his polo shirt. “Sorry again about not being able to come over last night. What did you want to talk about?”

Well, since he asked.

“I was trying to make a transfer from Decker’s life insurance policy to the fraternity’s PayPal for the donation. Long story short, turns out that ten grand went missing from that account and it really jarred me.”

“Did you find it?” he asks.

“No. At first I thought it was someone random who went through my trash and stole my identity, but then Casey suggested it could actually have been Debbie, and now I kind of agree with her. I mean, there was this one time she came over, and—”

“Never a dull moment, Charlotte,” he announces, hopping off the stool in my kitchen as his pager goes off. “I’ve got to get home and ready for work. Do you want me to take the urn? I figure you’re probably not going to want to lug it on the ship, and if you’re both gone, then who’s playing security guard?”

We both look at Leno, who is ripping the stuffing out of a toy I just bought him.

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” I say. “You don’t mind? Can you bring it back—”

“First thing in the morning. Yes.”

I put the urn in a Trader Joe’s reusable grocery tote and hand it over to Brian.

“You two have fun tonight,” he says before he goes to let himself out.

“Brian, wait,” I say. “Is everything good?”

“With?”

I go out on a limb: “Us?”

“Yo, Rosen. Our Uber is five minutes away. You need to get dressed,” Casey says, coming around the corner wearing red patent leather platform shoes, fishnet stockings, and a T-shirt as a dress as if she’s off to Coachella. She’s holding up a preselected outfit for me—a revealing minidress I forgot I even own.

At that, Brian flashes a soulless smile and makes a satirical saluting motion with his hand at his head before letting himself out.

Chapter 18

Confession: I didn’t wear the minidress. Assuming I would have been able to get it over my left thigh, it’s a dress that reveals a little more skin than I’m comfortable exposing to the type of people who voluntarily go on a singles cruise to Catalina Island. It was, however, a good reminder that one of these days I should focus less on paring down Decker’s things and more on making a donation pile of my own.