The only thing I hated about my job as a consultant was the travelling. I liked consulting because it gave me the opportunity to work in different work-environments and different problems to solve and it also gave me the opportunity to work with different kinds of people. Nothing was permanent and I loved the fact that my brain was constantly being exercised to overcome varied problems. But travelling every week to the client was like a bad side effect of consulting that I had to live with. I intensely disliked the travelling. I sometimes wished someone would invent one of those Star-Trek thingies that Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock used (in the original series) to reach their destination in seconds.
I had been flying from Los Angeles to my client's office in San Francisco every week on Monday and then returning back to LA on Friday. Really, I had no reason to go back to an empty apartment in LA. But then staying back at the Hotel would mean extra cost to the company because of the added three-night weekend stay and the cost of a flight ticket was much cheaper than that. The project manager would never approve my expenses if I stayed back. And so I had to fly back to LA every Friday whether I wanted to or not.
I was at work one day and things had eased up a bit in terms of work. I had some time on my hands and so I thought I might check up on some old colleagues and see how they were doing. One natural outcome of consulting is that you work at so many places with so many people over time, that you have a lot of ex-colleagues. Not every one of them is someone you would like to keep in touch with, but a lot of them are. So I usually add them onto my Yahoo messenger list since it is so much easier to keep in touch that way. So anyway, I saw that Angela was online and I just sent her a quick instant message saying "Hi."
"Hi Jay. Long time since I have heard from you," she replied.
Angela was a colleague from an old client I had worked for last year. I had spent about eighteen months at that client's office, which was just a few blocks down the road from my current client's office. Angela was probably in her late 40s. She was about 5'8" tall and had an average build. Not slim, but not too heavy either. She had blonde hair, which may have started to show a few strands of grey at the sides, although it was difficult to make out since her hair was very blonde. She had been divorced for many years and she lived in her house with her cat. I knew that she liked me because she had told me many times that she wished I would join their company and not leave at all after my consulting assignment was over. There were a bunch of other occasions where either her actions or words or eyes gave away the fact that she liked me a lot. But I had always thought of it as nothing more than liking a friend. I liked her too. She was a nice person and it was a plus that she was easy on the eyes too, in spite of the fact that she was about 15-20 years older than me.
So anyway I asked Angela through IM how she was doing.
She replied, "Not bad. But we are all going to be losing our jobs soon."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, they are laying off almost our entire department as a part of cost-cutting. The work our department did is being transferred to our branch in Malaysia."
"Oh no, sorry to hear that," I said. I was not sure what to say in a situation like this, where I could only offer sympathy.
"Well, such is life. Capitalism is good sometimes and sometimes not so good. Depends on when and who you talk to."
"I agree. But are you already looking for a job? Is there any way I can help," I asked although I was not sure in what way I could help.
"Oh yes, I have already started applying for jobs, but I won't leave before my last day here otherwise I won't get my severance package. Severance is 6 months pay and I can't afford to not have it."
"Oh, that's good. You are lucky that the severance is good. Some companies hardly offer a severance package."
"Yes," she said, "but the economy is bad and I don't know if I will find a job soon. The only thing I am worried about is my mortgage. If I don't get a job soon, my severance will all be devoured by the mortgage and some other bills that I have to settle. I will no longer have the safety net of having time on my side to find a job."
"Oh," I said once again not sure what to say.
"Well, I did think about renting out one of the rooms in my house so that it could help pay part of the mortgage. But somehow the idea of a stranger living with me seems unsafe and awkward."
As soon as I heard that, a light switched on in my head. If I rented her place, not only would I be able to cut down costs for the project but I would also be able to help her out. There was no way her rent would be more than the cost of staying 4 nights at a Marriott. Also I could stay back on the weekends if I liked and not have to deal with the mandatory travel. But I still would have to check with the project manager as to what company policies were with respect to renting a place as opposed to staying at a hotel. But to me, it seemed like a no-brainer because the costs to the project would be significantly less.
"Angela, just a hypothetical question - Would you be comfortable in renting out your room to me?" I asked. I added the hypothetical part since I was not a 100% sure if the project manager would allow it and I did not want to get her hopes high.
"Sure. I would rent it out to you in a heartbeat. That would be wonderful."
"Ok, I'll tell you what. I am going to ask my project manager if this is OK and I will get back to you."
"Thank you so much for offering this," she said.
"Oh, I am not doing this just for you. I have a selfish motive too. I am sick of travelling. If this is approved, it is going to help both of us."
The next day, the project manager approved it. In fact he was delighted that my lodging expenses would be cut down by a thousand dollars each month. The added cost of travelling would also be cut down since I was not going to fly as much as before.
I called Angela that same afternoon and told her the news. She was very happy to hear about it and she could barely control her excitement.
"So when are you moving in?" she asked.
"Today is a Wednesday and I have the hotel booked till Friday. How about Friday evening?"
"Sounds wonderful. I can't wait to have you as a roommate," she said like a bubbly school-girl.
I checked out of the hotel on Friday and moved into her home that evening right after work. Her house was a 3 bedroom duplex. The guest bedroom where I had moved into was on the lower floor. Another bedroom, also on the lower floor had been converted into a study/office. I also noticed a few light dumbbells lying there when she was giving me the tour of the house. Her bedroom (the master bedroom) was on the upper floor and it opened into a large balcony. The neighbourhood was a quiet one with large oak trees lining the roads.
Since it was already quite late, we had just gotten a quick dinner from a fast food place. "We need to celebrate," said I. She looked up questioningly.
I continued, "We were not able to have a good proper dinner, at least let's have some wine to celebrate my first night here. I will go to the grocery store and get some wine."
"Oh, I have some wine. But it is not the pricey kind. Hope that is ok," she said.
I replied, "oh yes, anything will do. I am not really a wine connoisseur. In fact I don't even drink wine that often. I just thought we should celebrate."
"OK, I will be back in a minute."
She walked towards a cabinet in the kitchen and I watched her hips sway as she walked away. She had a light green blouse on and a calf-length flowery skirt. The skirt flowed over her rounded hips and I could see her cheeks undulating underneath the skirt as she walked. I have always been an ass-man and although I love a woman's boobs, it is always a woman's ass that turns me on the most. There is something about the curve of a woman's waist to her hips that has always aroused my primal instincts.
Soon Angela re-surfaced with a bottle and two glasses. She poured it into the glasses and handed over one to me. We clinked our glasses together and I raised a toast, "To our friendship." She smiled and repeated, "To our friendship" and we both drank from our glasses.
We settled down on the couch and she put on the TV. The TV was on but we were not paying too much attention to it. We were soon talking about old colleagues from the office, this and that and a whole bunch of everything and nothing. That was what I liked about Angela. We had gotten along famously right since I had met her. Never was there a moment of awkwardness between us. Tonight was no exception either.
We had already finished off a few glasses of wine. I was starting to feel a bit tipsy and I am sure Angela must have been too. She was giggling a lot more than usual. I poured some more wine into our glasses and I raised my glass saying, "This one is for our first night as roommates."
"Now, now. Don't be too optimistic. We are housemates, not roommates. You sleep in your room and I sleep in mine," she said and giggled. The wine had got her tongue loose.
She is flirting with me, I thought.
"Well, I am glad you clarified that, otherwise I would have slept in the master bedroom tonight," I said and winked at her and she giggled some more.