The Pilot Episode of Desperate Roommates

November 9th, 2009

In the neighborhood I moved to my second year out of college, a sublet was easier to find than a studio apartment. I sat in a diner booth and circled classifieds in the “room for rent” column of The Ann Arbor News, called each number and was able to line up four apartments in one afternoon. All of which were in walking distance to the ad agency where I’d begin work in one week. I still had to drive three states away to get my furniture and drive it back in a U-Haul. That didn’t leave much wiggle room to set up a new life before my first day of work. It was imperative that one of these four apartments panned out.

I stood on the porch of the first apartment listening to the hollow sound of heels on Pergo getting louder as they came closer. I could tell before the bronze Victorian doorknob turned and the door swung open that we were not a match. I couldn’t live with someone who marched in heels inside the home. Homes are supposed to be quiet safe havens. People treat each other as gently as they walk. This woman would march all over me. I had to flee but she met my eyes through the paned glass. It was too late to run and hide.

A brunette with a square jaw and a dominant nose opened the door and said in a deep voice, “You must be Aaaammmyyyy,” as if she would be my guardian, now that I was orphaned. She thrust forward her hand to shake mine and, without apology, stabbed me with a fingernail. I retracted from the handshake and nursed the cut on my knuckle. I had to nip this in the bud. Maybe I could redial the numbers I circled in the ads and see if I could line up more choices.

Before she invited me in to check out the apartment, I said, “Amy? No. I’m Lisa. I’m here to pick up Jennifer? Jennifer O’Brian? Am I at the wrong door?”

She stepped back two clunks on the Pergo and said, “Oh. There aren’t any Jennifers here. What address are you looking for?” She reached out her hand again to take a look at the notepaper on which I’d jotted the four apartment addresses. To avoid getting stabbed again, or caught in a lie, I quickly pointed my notepaper hand down the street and said, “I think I need to go down one more block. Sorry to disturb you!” I looked at my watch and scurried down the steps, as if I needed to make up lost time getting to Jennifer.

That was a close call, but now I had to figure out how I would go unnoticed at 3:00 when I was scheduled to see the fourth apartment, that happened to be located directly across the street. It had an inviting handmade “Room for Rent” sign in the bottom corner of the first floor window that was nearly lost behind window boxes overflowing with red, orange and yellow nasturtiums. While nasturtiums can thrive on neglect, these were clearly not ignored. I was tempted to knock on the door early and blow off the second apartment. But for all I knew the place could smell like cats and what if I blew off my other options only to live with the smell of cat piss across from the marching Pergo lady with killer fingernails. She might try to cut me again.

Hopefully, it would never come to that and the second apartment would also have flower boxes overflowing with healthy, welcoming plants, and carpet.

Almost. The second apartment had plants, all right. It looked like it was constructed with ivy instead of brick. The only opening was an arched doorway through which I was expecting a hobbit to step out and greet me. Though even the windows were covered in gnarly vines, heavy curtains were drawn, as if the tenants were allergic to light.

The woman who showed me around did not identify herself as either the owner or one of the tenants. But I knew she lived there because both she and the place smelled like leather and cigarettes. Only I couldn’t locate the source of either, among the dirty tweed sofas and sagging stuffed chairs that lined the room and extended into a dining room that was converted into a meeting room, complete with metal folding chairs stacked up against the wall under a poster of a kitten, dangling from a window screen. The caption underneath said, “Hang in there.”

There was a giant coffee maker in the corner, plugged into the only outlet. Next to it, three stacks of Styrofoam cups and stirrers. What went on here, AA meetings? Bible studies? The room for rent was directly over the meeting room. I could see the coffee maker and cups through the dusty vent in the floor next to the only spot my bed would fit. I needed to know what hushed or loud voices would be wafting up through that vent in the evenings, and maybe late into the night. I didn’t ask. This apartment was off the list at the threshold.

Three young women, college students perhaps, greeted me at the door of the third apartment. I stepped into the foyer, after we introduced ourselves, aware of my fake smile as I scanned the futon, TV trays and the particleboard bookshelf in the front room. I was curious about how the roommates knew each other, especially after they giggled together and paused together. Their attitude was part of a system, a pact, and it was clear to me that I would have to fish for clues from each of them individually when the others were out of ear shot. I had to find out before I took the sublet. It was down to this one and the one across the street from the marching Pergo lady with killer fingernails.

So I tried asking another way, how long have you known each other?

It was obvious that they hadn’t rehearsed their answer to the question because they said at once, “Since college.” “Since high school.” “Since we started dancing.”

I ignored the giggling, looked at my piece of paper, at the last address on the list and said, “I’ll get back with you.”

The door closed behind me and the girls giggled and shouted at each other between fits of laughter, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! That was so funny!”

I walked up to the door of the Victorian with the flower boxes full of nasturtiums, pleading, “Please be the one. Please be the one. Please be the one.” A woman in Levi cut-offs, about my age, with a bouncy apricot poodle opened the door. “I hope you like dogs,” she said, as the poodle shoved its nose into my hand to be pet.

“I love dogs,” I said. “Especially poodles. They don’t shed and they’re smart.”

“Oh, thank God!” she said. “I just split up with my girlfriend. She said ‘it was me or the dog’. I had the dog first. So I kept the dog and kicked out the bi…. Oh! And what does she do!? She rents the apartment across the street. Just to piss me off.”

As she says, “just to piss me off,” she waves and sneers over my shoulder to someone. I turn around in time to see the marching Pergo lady ducking from behind lace curtains.

“Come in!” she said. “Come check the place out. I’m Jennifer. Jennifer O’Ryan.” She held out two hands and squeezed my two hands. Neither one jabbed me.

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