Page 10 of Roommating

I sit up straighter, wishing I too had heard about Adam. All I know so far is that he’s currently out of a job and that he likes to read.Fine, Gabe. I also know that he’s hot.

“And I caught you up. Now it’s your turn,” he says.

Marcia places her napkin on her plate. “After your grandfather died, I lived alone for several years, but I was lonely. I thought a roommate would be fun. Like a mini-Golden Girls, only in New York.”

“If you were Blanche, I’d rather not hear the stories,” Adam says.

I press a fist to my mouth.

Marcia rolls her lips. “What stories? The tales from all the timesI suggested going out, and Linda said no? She was sixty-eight going on a hundred. All she did was eat, shit, and sleep, and she was healthy as kale! She started almost every sentence with, ‘When you get to be our age,’ this happens and that happens.” She scoffs. “Speak for yourself. I’m not dead yet.” Marcia sighs dejectedly. “When the year was over, I told her that I didn’t want to renew her lease. Extra money is nice, but not if it comes with all that negativity. And then one morning, I was watching theTodayshow and saw the segment on multigenerational roommates.”

“We were watching it at the same time. Kismet.” I beam.

“Beshert.” Marcia smiles at me affectionately. “It gave me the idea to have a younger roommate this time. Someone to infuse more light in my life. And so I asked my neighbor to help me download the app.” She grins. “I’ve usedupload,download, andappin the same thirty minutes. What is happening to me?”

“You’re practically a woman in STEM,” I say.

Adam chokes on his drink.

I make an innocent face at him. “What?”

“Anyway, I completed my profile and heard from Sabrina within twenty-four hours.”

I take over from here. “My roommates partied constantly, but I didn’t want to do a complete one-eighty and live with someone like Linda. Marcia’s profile was so high-energy compared to the others I read.” I knew immedately she was “the one” and recall my heart fluttering as I shot off a response, praying no one had beaten me to it. “Most of the other ads were for people in their eighties or nineties. I wasn’t sure what Marcia would even want from me in exchange for the lower rent.”

“I wondered about that too. You seem incredibily independent,” Adam says.

“Because I am! My doctors encourage my active lifestyle, but they also caution me to listen to my body and not push it because of my high blood pressure and the fact that I’m on the dark side of seventy.” She blows out a breath. “Sabrina picks up the slack of the more physical activities and, more importantly in my opinion, helps me keep up in the digital era. She set me up with reminders to take my pills so I don’t need to stick notes to the refrigerator! And I’m up on pop culture thanks to her. We even listen to Taylor Rodrigo.”

Adam says, “I think you mean Taylor Swift. Or Olivia Rodrigo?”

Marcia raises her palms. “See?” She winks.

Adam narrows his eyes. “You were joking?”

“Give her some credit.” I chuckle.

“Like I told Linda: I’m seventy-two. I’m not dead.”

Adam snorts.

“I’m not the only one doing the educating.” I tell Adam how Marcia got me hooked on the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, and early Genesis. “She’s a wealth of information about classic rock.”

“Now I know where my good taste in music comes from. Dad’s karaoke go-to songs are ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and ‘Wannabe.’” Adam curls his lip.

“Spice Girls? That one’s so catchy.” I clear my throat and sing, “If you wanna be—”

“Please stop.” He shudders.

I whisper-sing the next line, only stopping when Adam sticks his fingers in his ears. I don’t know the rest of the lyrics anyway.

“Howisyour dad?” Marcia focuses on cutting the long spear of asparagus on her plate into tiny child-safe pieces in an obvious and failed attempt to pretend she’s not at all invested in the answer. It’s heartbreaking.

Adam refills his wine. “Still an uptight son of a bitch.”

“Did you just call me a bitch?” His grandmother raises an eyebrow, even as her lips twitch.

“Sorry!” He grimaces. “I didn’t mean it literally. But heisuptight. You disagree?”

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