Page 7 of Run, Run, Roommates
“Shit,” I said.
We talked, and it became clear to me that she was a sweet young woman who didn’t know how to defend herself against jaded and overly practical New Yorkers. Just like my brother.
We switched to drinks instead of shots. She confessed that it was her name only on the lease, and her remaining roommate (and her creepy boyfriend) had refused to chip in to cover rent.
Oh you sweet summer child.
In a hushed whisper, she’d told me that a few months ago, she hadn’t washed her roommate’s dishes for four days, and she’d seen a rat in the kitchen before work that day. And a few weeks ago, the knob had mysteriously disappeared from the bathroom door.
She’d told me she’d been sleeping on a futon in the living room with a curtain for privacy. And she couldn’t afford better.
“You’d be better off sharing a room; at least you’d have a door,” I told her.
“Anything would be better than a place I can’t afford.”
At this point, I was tipsy, and this conversation had too many echoes of ones I’d had with my brother. I wasn’t going to be happy knowing Brin was out there without help. I wish someone had been there to look after my brother when he’d first come to the city.
“You should come stay with me until you find some place better,” I threw out.
Brin looked at me, her eyes bright. I probably shouldn’t be proposing this while we’d been drinking, but Brin was still working on the gin and tonic she’d ordered after those two shots . . . which, once I thought about it, had been two hours ago. I explained to her that my roommate had a new partner and he wasn’t around much. One late-night call and I’d gotten permission to let Brin stay in his bedroom.
“Wouldn’t it be weird to share an apartment with a woman?” she asked.
“Why?”
She thought about it. “I guess because there’s a potential for sex?”
A sizzle went through me, but I tamped it down. Brin did not need that, and I wouldn’t be yet another person to take advantage of her. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m bi, so any roommate I have could, hypothetically, be my type.”
“Oh,” she said. Was me being queer a deal breaker? She swallowed the last of her drink. “Okay, but I’m not a charity case. I’ll stay a week, tops.”
“How about if you haven’t found a place within a week, you start paying me rent?” That way she would be safe.
“Deal.” We shook on it. After we left the bar, we housed dollar pizza slices to soak up the booze, and I walked her home, helped her pack what we could carry, and moved her in, giving her my bed while I slept on the couch. The next day, Greg and I brought her futon back to my place while she was at work.
The same futon she sleeps on now in our room.
I definitely didn’t think that I would end up sharing a room with her, but when Brin started paying me rent, it was obvious she couldn’t afford much. And then the lease was up, and when my former roommate officially moved in with his partner, we started looking for a new place. We wasted a lot of time trying to find an apartment we could afford on Brin’s budget that wasn’t awful, and we were both getting discouraged.
I knew Bea from a networking event, and when she said she was looking for a roommate, I jumped on it even though it was a two-bedroom, suggesting that Brin share a room with me. I knew I could trust Bea as a roommate and it was a really safe, nice building.
It meant she had a safe place to stay with someone she trusted, and we worked out a rent that was cheap enough for her to afford without feeling like I was treating her like a charity case.
Now, Brin is my best friend. And when I’d seen that the SHiNY teams are made up of two people, I immediately thought of her.
This is just the type of thing she would love. I’ve lost track of the number of times we’ve had to stop to look at a window display or the times I’ve caught her gawking at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Last year, I could tell she wasn’t excited to go home for the holidays, and she isn’t even bothering to fly home this year.
Maybe this event is exactly what Brin needs.
Bea’s already asleep in her room, so Brin and I carefully tiptoe around our nighttime routines. We don’t do this often, having different work schedules, but I love moving around the room we share together.
Our room has a queen-sized bed on one side (mine) and a futon on the other (Brin’s). Her side of the bedroom has been lightly decorated for Christmas. Last year, Brin went to her parent’s for the holidays, so I had the whole place to myself.
I did not decorate, and neither did anyone else. What would have been the point? They were gone, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to celebrate the shittiest time of year.
This year, though, Brin is home. I’ve just come from William’s extravagant holiday party, one where the garland was real and the decor was expensive and color-coordinated. William had gone with a pearl-and-gold theme, and everything had glimmered and shone.
Here, Brin’s decorated on a budget that was probably one percent of William’s decor expenses, if that. Next to her bed is a fat red candle circled by fake garland, the leaves of which have been rubbed bare on one side, which Brin tactfully turned away from the door so only she can see it. In a nod to her Catholic upbringing, there’s a nativity scene on the corner of her dresser. Instead of camels, though, she’s got cheap plastic goats, her favorite animal. Around the window, snowflake lights twinkle in blue.
