A guy and a girl share a studio apartment.
I'd been apartment hunting in a half-hearted way for a couple of weeks without any luck. So now I had to go at it more seriously. I took the afternoon off and looked at five places. The last one was only a studio, but it was in a pretty good location, just three blocks from work. A girl had come to see it too, and the manager showed it to both of us at the same time.
What can you say about a studio apartment? It had a bathroom, a kitchenette, a living/bedroom. Nothing special about it except its location. He wanted twelve hundred a month. That was considerably more than I wanted to pay. Same for the girl.
We walked out together. She looked like she was going to cry.
"I know how you feel," I said. "This was my fifth place today."
She snuffled, trying to hold back her tears. "I've been looking for a month." She looked dejected, on the verge of utter defeat.
All of a sudden I was just tired of things always going wrong. I wanted, just for once, for things to go right. "Can you go six?" I asked.
She just looked at me.
"We could go back up there and get this place right now."
She still didn't say anything.
"Here's the way I see it," I said, in a burst of manic frustration. "This place isn't perfect. We can go on with our searching. Maybe we'll find something better, maybe we won't. This place is pretty small for two people. It's not worth what he's asking. But it's got a roof. It's in a decent location. It's available. We'll probably end up having to get roommates anyway. Why not you and me? We can go back up there and get this place right now. Get all this searching and uncertainty over and done with."
She just looked at me for the longest time. "It's a studio," she said, finally.
I was already beginning to lose steam. "I know. It's suboptimal. It probably doesn't make any sense."
"I don't even know you."
"I know. Like I said. Suboptimal."
"Are you serious though?"
I didn't really know if I was serious or not. I was mostly just venting. Was it something to actually consider?
"Let me see your hand," she said.
She took my palm and studied it intently, like it was a bus schedule and she wanted to be sure she would get where she needed to go. It felt slightly weird that she was touching me. But, at the same time, I felt a zing dance up my spine.
She let go of my hand and looked me in the eyes." Look," she said, "I'm kind of desperate. Are you serious or not?"
"Come on. You don't want to do something dumb out of desperation."
"Maybe I haven't got much choice."
"It can't be that bad."
"I've got to move out of the place I'm at."
"Can't you stay with someone for a while while you keep on looking?"
"That's what I'm doing now. I've way overstayed my welcome."
"Like you said, we don't even know each other."
"You need a place, I need a place. We're in the same boat."
"People don't just meet on the street and move in together."
"It was your idea. I bet it happens all the time."
I couldn't believe that we were seriously talking about it. "What did you see when you looked at my palm?" My spine hadn't stopped tingling.
"Nothing bad."
"And that's good enough for you?"
"Look. It's like you said. We can go back up there and get this place right now. I'm willing to trust you. What do you say?"
So we went back up and told the manager. He asked if we were a couple. We told him we were. We gave him the first and last month's rent and signed the lease. He gave us the keys.
---
It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that I got things finished up at my old place. There hadn't been any way to get in touch with the girl. We hadn't exchanged phone numbers. I couldn't remember her name. Megan? Something like that. I wasn't even sure I'd recognize her if I passed her on the street. Brownish hair. Kind of plain.
Christ, what had I been thinking? I'm a pushover for crying girls. I go all knight-in-shining-armor. Now we were going to be living together! In a one-room studio apartment! With my name on a six-month lease!
What was all that crying about, anyway? Why was she so desperate to get out of her old place? And what about that palm reading business? Did I really want to be living with someone who had so easily thrown in her lot with a complete stranger? Did the fact that we told the manager that we were a couple somehow make us one in her mind? Would it have killed me to go out to dinner with her, or even just out for coffee, to get to know her just a tiny bit before signing my name on a six month lease? What in the world had I been thinking?
I knocked on the door of the apartment. No answer. I let myself in.
There were some jeans and blouses hanging in the closet, a couple of boxes on the shelf. A few jars and bottles on the bathroom counter. The living/bedroom was bare except for a thin yoga mat with a blanket and a pillow that lay in one corner like an unassuming beggar. You could still see the cleaning pattern on the carpet. She'd moved in, but with such a small footprint that you could barely tell.
It took me a few trips to haul up my stuff. The last item was my futon---just the mattress, queen size, no frame. It folds up into three sections, and I'm just able to manhandle it up and down stairs by myself. I put it in the opposite corner of the room from her little mat. It gave at least the impression of there being some furniture in the place.
I'd brought a few groceries. There was already some fruit and cheese in the fridge, a lonely box of tea in the cupboard, a couple pots and pans in the cabinet. I put my stuff along side. It was getting toward six. I sauteed some onions with turmeric and threw in some eggplant and tomatoes. I figured that would be OK whether she was vegetarian or not.
I was just fluffing the rice when there was a click in the lock. She came in. She had her hair tied back. I probably wouldn't have recognized her. She was startled to see me. She'd gotten used to being there alone.
"Hi," I said.
"Hi," she said. She'd probably forgotten what I looked like too.
"I would have called to let you know I was coming, but I didn't have your number."
"It's all right. Um, just a minute. I've really got to . . ."