Read In Your Room for Free Online Page A

be the only thing he’ll eat. And don’t worry if you hate cats or anything—he’s totally harmless. I don’t know his real name so I just call him Cheese (not that original, I know) and he seems to respond, but I guess he’d respond to anything if it meant he got his chin scratched (and a piece of cheese). He’ll probably leave eventually if you close the window, but I can’t promise, since I always let him in. Hope that helps!
    Molly

5
    The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
    —Carl Jung
    “So how do you know the people who live here?” Molly hadn’t been curious enough to ask the question until she woke up to Charlie’s e-mail. It was weird knowing for certain that he was staying in her room, among the things that mattered most to her. Now that she was sure, she had to find out
something
about him.
    “I went to graduate school with Lisa,” Ron explained, adjusting the rearview mirror. They were on their way into town, Molly in search of a decent cup of coffee, and Ron on a grocery run while Laura unpacked. “Her partner’s name is Sally and they have three kids. I think Charlie’s around your age, and the girls must be at least ten by now.”
    Interesting
, she thought.
Charlie has two moms.
“Do you see them a lot?”
    “Usually just Lisa at conferences. I haven’t seen Sally and the kids since the last time I was here, which was probably four or five years ago now.”
    So it was a dead end. Ron couldn’t know much about Charlie, since ithad been so long. And he probably wouldn’t be able to tell her anything she hadn’t already discerned from his bedroom.
    “Why don’t I drop you off to get your coffee and meet you back here in an hour?” he said, pulling over to the curb.
    “Are you sure?” she asked, suddenly worried that she’d made her discomfort around him too obvious.
    “You’ll have a much better time here than looking for frozen peas in aisle five. There are a bunch of shops and cafés down that way,” he said, pointing to a street that was blocked off to traffic. “It’s Boulder’s famous Pearl Street Mall.”
    “Oh. Okay, thanks,” Molly said, getting out of the car. “I guess I’ll see you in an hour.”
    Molly glanced around the mall. There was already quite a bit of activity on its brick-covered pedestrian walkway, even though it wasn’t yet eleven on a Sunday morning. Street performers were arriving to reserve their turf, and restaurants were setting up their outdoor tables.
    A hundred feet down the block, Molly spotted a coffee shop, with a sign that read BUBBA’S on the awning. She could also smell the distinct espresso aroma from the sidewalk and started to get her fix the moment she walked through the door.
    The café had a cool, mellow vibe, with overstuffed lounge chairs, communal wood tables, and a magazine rack. It seemed like the kind of place where people hung out for hours late into the night, which maybe explained why it was empty at present.
    Molly approached the counter to place her order, finding it abandoned too. She looked around, spotting a large message board with various announcements and fliers tacked on, and walked over to check it out. Much of it was covered with postings about rooms for rent, with a handfulof massage therapists offering their services. Molly wondered what kind of person would choose their roommate in such a random way, or worse, allow some stranger from the lost-and-found of advertising into their house to rub smelly lotions into their skin. Gross.
    Almost three-quarters of the way through the board, Molly read a posting that actually seemed interesting: “Salesperson needed for Second Time Around secondhand clothing store. 178 Pearl Street. Ask for Penelope.”
    Without thinking, Molly ripped the flier off the wall and stuffed it in her jeans pocket. Certain that she had broken the cardinal rule of public postings, she looked around to