I returned home from watching my roommate's band at a club one Saturday night to discover I had locked myself out of my house. My roommate in the band had gone home with a groupie and wouldn't be back for some time. With our other roommate gone home for the holidays, my prospects of getting into the house tonight was slimming fast. It was winter, ice and snow on the ground, and I was cold having walked home from the bar. I rounded to the side of the house looking for an unlocked window or door but I was shit out of luck. It was then I heard music coming from a house where a door had opened and closed with a thud. I looked across the street to see people around my age leaving a brownstone three houses down. It was the house of The Girls; five or six females in their 20's sharing a house. Over the months, I've seen them walk or bike by individually or in pairs, or stagger past my house in a girly pod after a late night of clubbing. Maybe one of them would take mercy on me.
I knocked on their door. One of the girls, the tall one with long brown hair, answered with a bottle of beer in her hand. I'd seen her before on her morning commute dressed conservatively in suits, and lately in boots and a big overcoat, but tonight she was wearing a tight t-shirt with "Howdy Hater!" emblazoned over big tits I never knew she had.
"Hi," she said, smiling.
"Hi."
"I'm sorry, I don't know you. Who invited you?"
"No one. I'm your neighbor," I said, pointing at my house three houses down across the street.
Her hands flew to her open mouth. "Oh my God, is the music too loud? I am sooo sorry. Please don't call the cops."
No," I said, chuckling. "No, I, uh locked myself out of my house. I saw you were having a party and thought maybe I could bother you for a butter knife so I can jimmy open a window."
She looked relieved. "Yeah, sure, come on in."
She pushed through the crowd collected in the hall to the kitchen, where she dug out a knife from her drawer.
"Come on," she said. "Let's break into your house."
With her beer in hand, and no coat, she walked with me to my house, the freezing cold air seemingly not affecting her.
"I'm Andy by the way."
"Lisa. Nice to meet you," she said shaking my hand.
I worked at the kitchen window as she swigged at her beer and watched. It was the least secure window in the house but because we'd been broken into, we'd been extra secure and the window wouldn't budge.
"Why don't you come back to the party and wait for your roommate there."
The last option was to hang out with the cabbies at an all-night diner and nurse a cup of coffee until dawn. And though I had a girlfriend, Lisa was cute, the party was cool and I wanted to meet the other girls.
"Okay," I said.
We walked back to the party where she immediately handed me a beer, took me around the three story house, where one by one, she introduced me to her roommates; Diane, the blonde, Vivian, the curvy one who wears vintage 1950's clothes, Bonnie, the petite girl with pixie cut auburn hair and bright blue eyes, and Nicole, the long legged café au lait girl with wild curly hair. Each one of them scrutinized me with critical eyes as Lisa introduced me as 'our neighbor, Andy.' They each approved with a smile. They were all pleasantly drunk. So was I. I was in.
"Come on," Lisa said, taking my hand. "Let's go to my room."
She took me upstairs and opened the last door on the right. Candles were burning in the quiet girly room where a queen size bed took up much of the space. She shut the door behind us and plopped down on her bed. Music thumped under her floor boards and the sound of people murmuring and sporadic laughter seeped through the walls. "Now we can talk. Take off your coat, get comfortable. Want to get high?"
"Sure," I said, shrugging off my coat before sitting next to her.
She pulled out a box from under her bed, pulled out a pipe, stuffed it with a little weed, lit it, and took a drag before passing it to me. I took a hit.
"This is good shit," I said.
"Yeah, I don't share this with everyone," she said, taking back the pipe.
"I'm glad you find me worthy."
Her room was so warm and cozy. She stoked up the pipe, her cheeks pulled in from sucking and she sputtered as she handed it to me for another toke. I coughed and handed it back. She put the pipe away and looked at me with a relaxed smile and half closed eyes.
She asked, "Anyone ever tell you that you look like Liam Hemsworth?"