Glass Houses

They made it back home with half an hour or so to spare, but as they turned the corner on Lot Street, where the Gothic bulk of the Glass House pretty much dwarfed all of the other, newer houses around it, Claire’s eyes went immediately to the blue SUV sitting at the curb. It looked familiar….

“Oh my God,” she said, and stopped dead in her tracks.

“Okay, stopping? Not a great idea. Come on, Claire, let’s—”

“That’s my parents’ car!” she said. “My parents are here! Oh my God!” She practically squealed that last part, and would have turned around and run away, but Shane grabbed her by the neck of her shirt and hauled her around.

“Better get it over with,” he said. “If they tracked you this far, they’re not going to drive off without saying hello.”

“Oh, man! Let go!” He did. She twitched her shirt down over her shoulders and glared at him, and he did an extravagant bow.

“You first,” he said. “I’m watching your back.”

She was, at least temporarily, more worried about her front.

When she cracked open the door to the house, she could hear Eve’s anxious voice. “I’m sure she’ll be here any time—she’s, you know, at class, and—”

“Young lady, my daughter is not in class. I’ve been to her classes. She hasn’t been to class the entire afternoon. Now, are you going to tell me where she is, or do I have to call the police?”

Dad sounded pissed. Claire swallowed hard, resisted the urge to back up and close the door and run away—mainly because Shane was right behind her, and he was finding this way too funny to let her escape—and walked down the hall toward the voices. Just Eve and Dad, so far. Where was—

“Claire!” She’d know that shriek of relief anywhere. Before she could say Hi, Mom, she was buried in a hug and a wave of L’Oréal perfume. The perfume stayed longer than the hug, which morphed into Claire’s being held at arm’s length and shaken like a rag doll. “Claire, what have you been doing? What are you doing here?”

“Mom—”

“We were so worried about you after that terrible accident, but Les couldn’t get off work until today—”

“It wasn’t that big a deal, Mom—”

“And we just had to come up and see you, but your room is empty in the dorm. You weren’t in classes—Claire, what’s happened to you? I can’t believe you’d do something like this!”

“Like what?” she asked, sighing. “Mom, would you quit shaking me? I’m getting dizzy.”

Mom let go and folded her arms. She wasn’t very tall—just a couple of inches over Claire’s height, even in midheeled shoes—and Dad, who was glowering at Shane in the background, was as tall and twice as broad. “Is it him?” Dad asked. “Did he get you into trouble?”

“Not me,” Shane said. “I’ve just got that kind of face.”

“Shut up!” Claire hissed. She could hear that he thought all this was funny. She didn’t. “Shane’s just a friend, Dad. Like Eve.”

“Eve?” Her parents looked at each other blankly. “You mean—” As one, they cast horrified glances at Eve, who was standing with her hands folded, trying to look as demure as it was possible to look while wearing an outfit that looked like something a Goth ballerina might wear—all black netting in the skirt and red satin up top. She smiled sweetly, but it was kind of spoiled by the red lipstick (had she borrowed Miranda’s?) and skull earrings.

Mom said faintly, “Claire, you used to have such nice friends. What happened to Elizabeth?”

“She went to Texas A&M, Mom.”

“That’s no reason not to still be friends.”

Mom logic. Claire decided that Shane had been right—there was no getting out of this one. She might as well jump into the pool; the sharks were circling no matter what she did. “Mom, Eve and Shane are two of my roommates. Here. In this house.”

Silence. Mom and Dad looked frozen. “Les?” Mom asked. “Did she say she was living here?”

“Young lady, you are not living here,” Dad said. “You live in the dorm.”

“I’m not. I’m living here, and that’s my decision.”

“That’s illegal! The rules said that you have to live on campus, Claire. You can’t just—”

Outside the windows, night was slipping up on them, stealthy and quick as an assassin. “I can,” Claire said. “I did. I’m not going back there.”

“Well, I’m not paying good money just to have you squat in some old wreck with a bunch of—” Dad was at a loss for words to describe how little he thought of Eve and Shane. “Friends! And are they even in school?”

“I’m currently between majors,” Shane offered.

“Shut up!” Claire was nearly in tears now.

“All right, that’s it. Get your things, Claire. You’re coming with us.”

All the amusement faded out of Shane’s face. “No, she isn’t,” he said. “Not at night. Sorry.”

Dad got red-faced and even more furious, and leveled a finger at her. “Is this why you’re here? Older boys? Living under the same roof?”

“Oh, Claire,” Mom sighed. “You’re too young for this. You—”

“Shane,” Shane supplied.

“Shane, I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice boy”—she didn’t sound especially convinced—“but you have to understand that Claire is a very special girl, and she’s very young.”

“She’s a kid!” Dad interrupted. “She’s sixteen! And if you took advantage of her—”

“Dad!” Claire thought her face might be just as red as his, for very different reasons. “Enough already! Shane’s my friend! Stop embarrassing me!”

“Embarrassing you? Claire, how do you think we feel?” Dad roared.

In the silence, Claire heard Michael say mildly, from the stairs, “I think maybe we’d all better sit down.”

They didn’t all sit down. Shane and Eve escaped to the kitchen, where Claire heard a clattering of pots and furious whispering; she was sitting uncomfortably on the couch between her parental bookends, looking mournfully at Michael, who was sitting in the armchair. He looked calm and collected, but then, he would. Mom, Dad, this is Michael, he’s a dead guy…. Yeah, that would really help.

“My name is Michael Glass,” he said, and extended his hand to Claire’s dad like an equal. Dad, surprised, took it and shook. “You’ve already met our other two roommates, Eve Rosser and Shane Collins. Sir, I know you’re concerned about Claire. You should be. She’s on her own for the first time, and she’s younger than most kids coming to college. I don’t blame you for being worried.”

Dad, defused, settled for looking stubborn. “And who the heck are you, Michael Glass?”

“I own this house,” he said. “I rent a room to your daughter.”

“How old are you?”

“A little over eighteen. So are Shane and Eve. We’ve known each other a long time, and to be honest, we didn’t really want to let another person into the house, but…” Michael shrugged. “We had an empty bedroom, and splitting costs four ways is better. I thought a long time about letting Claire stay here. We had house meetings about it.”

Claire blinked at him. He had? They did?

“My daughter’s a minor,” Dad said. “I’m not happy about this. Not at all.”

“Sir, I understand. I wasn’t too happy about it, either. Even having her here is a risk for us, you understand.” Michael didn’t have to go into it, Claire saw; her dad totally got it. “But she needed us, and we couldn’t turn her away.”

“You mean you couldn’t turn her money away,” Dad said, frowning. For answer, Michael got up, went to a