Room for Love (19 page)

On Craig's List, I type in my cell number and file an ad. In about thirty seconds I get a call from a woman named Serena who needs a place immediately. She broke up with her fiancé three days ago and has since been wincing as he slams doors, “accidentally” breaks her dishes, and talks loudly into the phone about what a bitch she is. She produces commercials for some hotshot director, travels constantly, and says she basically needs a place to sleep and store her belongings when she's in town. She doesn't mind that there are still boxes lying around and that I'll be leaving some of my stuff there. We make an appointment for her to come over after work to see the place.

“It's great,” Serena says, about six inches through the front door. “It's perfect.” The petite china doll of a girl with bleached blond hair and gray rings under her pale blue eyes looks so drained that I open a bottle of white wine, hand her a glass, and watch her disappear into my couch.

“I just wasn't ready,” she tells me. “I love Rory, but getting married terrifies me. We weren't going to do it right away, but I felt like I had to put the whole process on hold.”

“Had you started planning the wedding?”

“Not really. Every time we'd talk about it, I'd have a panic attack. I'm sure I'm classic therapy fodder. I'm in this great relationship and flip out as the marriage approaches, clearly because my dad died last year and I haven't really processed it yet. Rory stuck a card for some shrink up on the medicine cabinet this morning. Jerk.”

“I don't think you sound that unusual,” I tell her. “Marriage is a big deal.”

“Tell me about it,” she says, downing the rest of her wine. “I can't believe this is all happening. God, I didn't mean to tell you my life story. It's just been so hard. You know, I told him I thought we should wait awhile, maybe start talking about a wedding in a year or so, but Rory lost it. Really freaked me out, screaming and yelling, shoving stuff around. Then he went from apeshit to penitent and sat there crying for, like, four hours straight. I didn't think that was possible. When I brought all this up, I didn't think we'd break up, I just wanted to postpone the wedding date, but maybe it's better this way.”

After finishing off the bottle of wine, I trade a set of keys to my apartment for a month's mortgage and maintenance and a security deposit. I tell Serena I'll be stopping by every week or so for my mail, which doesn't bother her. She seems so despondent, I give her a hug and wish her luck over the next few days until she can come back with her things. I think I might have a panic attack of my own as I shut the door behind her. What the hell am I doing? What will I tell my parents? Am I really letting some woman I just met move into my beloved apartment? It wouldn't be the first time—I always sublet my place when I go out of town, it's the only way I can afford a vacation—but this time I'm not planning to return anytime soon. I've lived here barely four months, and I'm handing my beautiful home over to some girl who seems perfectly nice but who shouldn't be living here. I should. I walk through my apartment. It's as pretty and unfinished as ever: the bag of tiles still sitting on the kitchen floor next to the untouched buckets of paint, the pile of curtains I've been meaning to hang still in a heap, the little orange table I never turned into a masterpiece. There's still a towel duct-taped over my bedroom window and fourteen boxes of books piled against the living room wall.
There were so many ways I wanted to improve this place,
I think wistfully. I guess that's all on hold for now. I pull a suitcase out of my closet and begin to fill it.

By the time I move into Anthony's, I'm less freaked out. Alicia helps me pack and lug, bitching all the way. We're each hauling an enormous suitcase that's impossible to carry down my four flights of stairs, so we drag them. They thump as they hit each stair on the way down, and the
thump thump thump thump
gets all the dogs in the building barking and howling. My neighbors must be happy to see me go. As we're climbing into a cab on the corner of Eleventh and Avenue A, my phone rings. Of all people, it's Jake.

“Hey, stranger,” I say and tell the driver where to go.

“What up?” he asks.

“Funny you should ask. I actually…” Telling Jake makes my situation seem even more surreal. “I met somebody. I'm, um, moving in with him.”

“You high?”

“No, just moving in with this guy,” I say.

“He's moving in with you?” he asks.

“No, I'm moving in with him.”

“But you have the spankin' pad,” he says.

“It's complicated,” I say, feeling defensiveness rising out of my belly. “God, Jake, it's for the article. I'm moving in with a guy I met through the apartment thing. It's, you know, research.”

“Oh,” he says. “I guess you don't want to go to an art opening tonight then.”

“No,” I laugh. “I can't.”

“Well, I have a piece in this group show in Chelsea,” he says. “If you get a chance, check it out. I'll e-mail you the info.”

“Sounds great,” I say.

“You should come see the show,” Jake says. “It's kind of a cool group of people and I was thinking about you and you and me and stuff when I did the painting, you know? I don't know, you might dig it.”

“I'll definitely go when I have a chance,” I say.

“Where you moving?”

“Williamsburg.”

He laughs a Beavis and Butthead laugh. “You get sick of your dude, you know there's a place you can come hide.”

“Thanks for the offer,” I say and hang up. I watch the buildings of my neighborhood float by the cab window, feeling in my bones how much I will miss them. I see the cute café guy walking to work as we stop at a light and our eyes meet for a second. How strange that I will no longer flirt with that guy every day of my life. I look over at my sister, who's staring equally intently out her window. Beyond her I catch a glimpse of the Bible-studies lady rushing past the colorful fruit and flower stand fronting a crowded deli, clearly headed for my corner. She's wearing a navy skirt suit and black boots as always and holding an umbrella over her bundled head, even though it's seventy degrees with hazy sunshine, no chance of showers.

As we drive over the Williamsburg Bridge, the skyscrapers of Manhattan loom behind me like a guilty secret. I twist around in my seat and watch the city where I've lived for the last eight years recede into the distance. I've considered moving to Brooklyn before, to a cheaper, bigger space in one of the quaint, brownstone-lined regions you have to cross a bridge or tunnel to get to, but I was never quite able to tear myself away from the downtown bustle. I wondered if I would lose my drive and inspiration if I left the city. I wondered if the trip back and forth would become daunting and I would hole myself up in some cozy flat with spacious rooms and a shady stoop, spend my days lazing about reading the paper and watching
Friends
reruns and never go out again. But here I am, in the back of a cab that's transporting my clothes, computer, and beauty products into a dirty, practically treeless barrio on the Brooklyn side of the bridge. We pull up to Anthony's building, to the bland block of concrete that from the outside could be a warehouse—or a prison. I hand the cabdriver ten bucks and he helps me hoist my two monster suitcases and random plastic bags bursting with my belongings out of the trunk.

Anthony already gave me a key, so Alicia and I let ourselves in. He's sitting on the couch watching an old movie starring Bette Davis and looks up at us, startled. He's wearing old gray sweats with a white button-down shirt hanging out. He's as cute as I remembered, I notice with some relief. The place is still in a state of disarray, although he's straightened some of the piles.

“You're here,” he says, flipping off the tube and jumping up. He sounds pleased and smiles at both of us shyly. He has a dimple.

“You live in the ‘Burg, too?” he asks Alicia.

“Yup, on the gnarly side of the tracks,” she says.

“We should all hang out sometime, get brunch at Diner or something.”

“Sounds like a plan, man,” she says, throwing an approving glance my way before fleeing, probably for fear that I'll recruit her to help me unpack.

I feel as if I'm sleepwalking as Anthony shows me the cluttered room that's now mine, chattering along the way about his former roommate, a neuroscientist he'd known since college who didn't mind burrowing through years of accumulated junk to find his bed. My new home is about twelve by twelve with a big window. About half of the room is stuffed almost to the ceiling with books, boxes of tapes, another bike, a surfboard, a sled, Rollerblades, a skateboard, scuba equipment, a beer bong, an electric guitar. The section of the room housing the full-size bed is otherwise empty.

“I've started clearing some of the junk out,” he says. “But we've got our work cut out for us.” He puts the surfboard into the crowded hall closet as I move boxes of books into the living room, stacking them on top of the stacks. I almost bump into Anthony hauling a Nerf basketball hoop over his head. I back up to let him pass, blush and look away. Suddenly it hits me like a brick to my skull that I'm going to live in this small, cramped room in Brooklyn. I am going to have a roommate. I am going to have to take the subway to work every morning. I am doing all of this why? Is it really for the sake of the article? Or is it because of this guy?

“Hey, Anthony, do you want a cup of tea?” I ask him.

“What I want is a drink,” he says, making a move for the kitchen. After rummaging around for a minute, he shouts out, “Beer's not gonna cut it for a cleaning spree. Out of vodka, but I've got a bottle of Patron. Shots, anyone?”

“Who am I to say no to good tequila?” I shout back from inside the closet where I'm cramming an enormous stuffed elephant I found under the bed. Next thing I know we're doing shots, blaring Led Zeppelin, and playing strip Boggle. I guess having a masters in English has at least one advantage—I'm kicking his butt, which is covered in nothing but red boxers, while I remain relatively clothed. Knowing he's about to lose his last scrap of an outfit, he tells me he's “sick of this lame-ass game.”

“Were you really gonna make me tea?” he asks.

“Yeah, I was,” I say. “We'd be a lot soberer if I had.”

“I don't think I have any tea,” he says.

“I brought it with me. Moroccan mint tea, mint
green
tea, chamomile, lemon-ginger, apricot black tea, honey vanilla rooibos, Egyptian licorice tea, which is way better than it sounds, raspberry leaf tea for, uh, women's issues.”

“You're a regular tea store.”

“A tea junkie.”

“A tea-mophiliac.”

“That's retarded,” I say, cracking up.

“Did you call me retarded?” he asks, with a loopy smile on his face.

“Uh-huh,” I say, sucking on a slice of lime and closing my eyes 'cause it's so sour.

“Nobody calls me retarded in my own home. There's no way you can live with me now,” he says, looking very stern.

“Too late, bud,” I say and throw the lime rind at his face. It hits his right cheek. “You're stuck with me.”

“You are way too hot to be my roommate,” he says, getting up off the couch to play the air guitar in his underwear. I bob my head along with him and he picks up the lime rind that I threw at him and throws it back at me. It hits me on the forehead and I open my mouth widely as if offended by the nerve of him.

“Oh my God,” I say, jumping to my feet. “I have to sleep in that room! What are we thinking? We have to clean it!” I run into the room with such drunken gusto that I bang my forehead against the door and it starts throbbing with pain.

“Ow,” I say, putting my hand to my head and feeling really stupid.

“Are you all right?” Anthony asks, rushing into the dark where I'm sitting on my new bed, cradling my aching head. I nod as he pushes my hair out of my face to get a good look at my wound, sending a jolt of electricity right through me. I guess he felt it, too, because he looks suddenly discombobulated and very sweet. He kisses my forehead where I bumped it, pauses for a moment, and then kisses me very gently on the lips. It is both audacious and the most normal thing in the world. Getting hammered and making out with some hot guy I just met? This is what I do. I'm good at it. The fact that I've been trying to stop and the fact that Anthony is my new roommate are both inconsequential next to his extraordinary looks and soft lips. I am much too drunk to care and much too susceptible to cuteness to resist. Not to mention that this is the most perfect ending I could have imagined for my
Luscious
piece. It is completely natural and expected when Anthony pulls me on top of him and we spend the next ten minutes kissing each other, his messy spare bedroom spinning wildly around us as if it has never seen a kiss before. We are giddy, weightless, floating, as if pumped full of helium (and tequila), inches above the hard, bare mattress.

“I can't believe you're my roommate,” he says. We both laugh, softly at first, until we're clutching our stomachs like teenagers who just took our first hit of pot, tears streaming down our cheeks, gasping for breath. Finally he stands up and pulls me onto my feet.

On our way into his room, he turns to me and slurs, “Don't worry, no funny business.” We fool around for another hour, grinding away at each other in our underwear like virgins in naive agreement not to go all the way. It's only in the morning that Anthony dips into the pack of condoms tucked neatly into the drawer in his nightstand, purrs, and slowly makes his way out of his clothes and into mine. I almost stop him, telling myself I have no excuse anymore for moving so quickly. But then lust trumps reason, as usual, and I bury my face in a pillow and let him have his way with me. Afterward, we fall lazily back to sleep until ten, when I wake again with a shock. “Shit, I'm supposed to be at work!”