Room for Love

by Andrea Meyer

  “Reality TV really is the wave of the future,” he says. “It’s documentary for the masses. Beyond the dating and top-model muck at the bottom of the barrel, you know, like you were talking about, I think it will become a serious art form, as long as it remains truthful. I mean, what is more powerful than the truth? Where it crosses a line into exploitation is where it’s no longer truthful.”

  Jesus Christ, I think, how many times can one person use the word truth in one conversation?

  “Hey, do you want to stay for dinner?” Anthony asks suddenly, hopping up from the couch. “We could order in, Thai, burritos.”

  “Sure,” I say, and the doorbell rings.

  “What the hell?” Anthony says, walking toward the buzzer.

  “It’s Brit,” a female voice says over the intercom.

  “Oh man, I completely forgot someone else is coming to see the room,” Anthony says. “Don’t go, okay? We’ll order some food when she leaves.”

  Anthony runs out the front door to let her in and a minute later returns with a very tall, thin blonde with creamy skin.

  “Hi,” I say, standing up.

  “Jacquie, this is Brit. She’s looking at the room.” I bet she is, I think, meeting her big, gray eyes, which are staring at me with a look that says, “You’re attractive in that big-boobed, bohemian smart-girl kind of way, but no match for my Scandinavian perfection.” Or maybe I’m being paranoid. She brushes her choppy bangs out of her lovely face and crosses the room to shake my hand. It’s a weak handshake and she looks demurely down afterward, as if ashamed of interrupting whatever was going on between Anthony and me before she got there. She looks like she might in fact be the sweetest girl in the world, which could be worse.

  “All right, let’s do it,” Anthony says and leads Brit into his spare bedroom, which I have yet to see. I sit back down on the couch and look around the place. I notice dirty dishes on the kitchen counter. In the next room, Anthony and his new best friend are giggling, while I sit alone on the couch gnawing on my thumbnail. I snap my rubber band and savor its sting.

  When they come back into the room, Brit is smiling smugly. She looks directly at me and blushes. I wonder if she grabbed his crotch in the bedroom or something to ensure her chances of landing the room—or the guy. Come to think of it, Anthony has a smug smirk on his face, too.

  “This is the kitchen,” he says with a sweeping arm gesture. “Your basic, um, Williamsburg kitchen.” He reaches up to tug on a chain hanging from the kitchen ceiling that turns on a peeling, red light fixture and accidentally bumps Brit’s chin with his elbow. She moans in sex-kittenish fashion and puts her thin, pale hand to her face.

  “I’m so sorry,” Anthony says tenderly, taking her face in his hands. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, fine, really,” she says, in a voice that suggests she comes from Norway, Sweden, one of those countries that produces a disproportionate number of sickeningly beautiful women. But she doesn’t sound fine. She sounds to me like she’s begging for comfort from the guy who’s supposed to be my new boyfriend.

  “Anthony,” she chirps as they pull reluctantly away from each other. “I really am very interested in the room.”

  Something snaps as I sit there on Anthony’s well-worn couch watching my handsome would-be boyfriend and his exotic supermodel-slash-potential-paramour standing so cozily close to each other not ten feet away. My mind is flooded with images of Anthony and Brit kissing in a field before a kindly old minister surrounded by masses of loved ones as strains of Mendelssohn erupt into the fresh country air. I imagine the two of them, breathtaking in designer casual wear, pushing newborn twin boys in a stroller down Bedford Avenue. I imagine Brit, golden hair flowing down her shapely back, straddling Anthony on this very couch, sweat glistening on her flawlessly tanned, heart-shaped behind, which is moving rhythmically above him. In my mind, Anthony gazes up into Brit’s cloudy eyes, mesmerized by her throaty, Swedish-accented moans. As her thrusts pick up speed and his groans grow more passionate, my own fantasies lie whimpering near death in a dank corner somewhere. I almost shout, “No!”

  And then it hits me. I know exactly what I have to do to stop this deafening fantasy from becoming reality. I know how to save my article, to create the perfect ending, to keep my romantic daydreams alive.

  I push myself up off the couch and turn boldly to face them.

  “You know what, Anthony? I think I actually will take the room,” I hear myself say. My gut says, What the hell are you doing, Jacquie? Shouldn’t you think this through?

  But Anthony is so wonderful, I just can’t have some Scandinavian Bond girl named Brit moving into his apartment.

  A genuine, warm grin appears on his face, and Anthony turns away from Brit’s beautiful blondness to say, “That is so great, Jacquie. I am really excited.” He walks out from under the kitchen lamp and back into the living room and, without looking back at Brit, says, “Sorry, but she was here first, after all.”

  As Brit meekly gathers her purse and smiles angelically at us before slipping out the door, Anthony grins and bounds across the rug toward me, like a bouncing baby bulldog himself, and, unexpectedly, gives me a hug so strong that I’m afraid he might crack one of my ribs.

  8

  * * *

  Beautiful, good-size 1BR in the East Village. I have to vacate unexpectedly and need to find a subletter ASAP. It’s on a great block, full of light and air, has an awesome kitchen with stainless appliances, washer/dryer, cable TV, DSL, amazing shower, fully furnished with great, eclectic stuff, everything you can dream of in a home. I love my apartment. Whoever gets this place scores!!! Call Jacquie

  * * *

  “You did what?” Courtney shouts so loudly that I have to pull my cell phone away from my ear. I’m on the sidewalk in front of my office, late for work, but I have a feeling I shouldn’t take this particular conversation inside.

  “I don’t know what came over me,” I say, knowing very well how insane it must sound. It even sounds insane to me, and I’m the one doing it. But it also feels right, and that’s the part I’m having a hard time conveying to Courtney.

  “I’m concerned about you, Jacquie. Let’s take a moment to think about this,” she says. “You can’t just move in with some guy when you just bought your own apartment.”

  “I know, I know it’s a little weird,” I say. I stop pacing at the front door of the building and close my eyes and run my hand over my face, as if washing it in sunshine, and start pacing again. “Sure, I was a bit reckless. But this is exactly what my story needs. It wasn’t coming together.”

  “Jacquie, you weren’t really looking for an apartment, remember?” she says. “You were just faking it. You have an apartment. That’s why your interviewing other people who really did end up with their roommate.”

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t finding the right ending for my piece,” I say.

  “You’re a writer,” Court says. “You’ll figure it out.”

  “Well, you know, I haven’t been able to so far, and then this came up and it made sense.”

  “I just think you’re taking it too far,” she says. “The lying, the deception. Think about this guy.”

  “Well, that’s the thing, Court, he’s kind of amazing,” I finally confess. “We had a real connection. I feel like something could happen with us and now maybe it will. Imagine what a great ending that would be for the story!”

  “What ending? That you totally lie to this guy you like and move into his apartment, even though you have your own, just to see if you can seduce him?”

  “Court, you’re being a little melodramatic. Why couldn’t something happen organically between us?” I stop pacing and say, “Let’s imagine he winds up being the love of my life, that he’s the guy I’m going to have babies with—would it really be so bad then?”

  Courtney doesn’t answer for a second. I pet a passing beagle on the head. When his owner, a stout woman in a lemon-yellow sweat suit, pulls him away, he stands
up on his hind legs and reaches out to me as if begging me to save him from his miserable existence.

  “Court, are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here, I’m just thinking,” she says. “Jacquie, this is bad. If this does lead to something, you’re lying to him, which is not a good way to start a relationship. And how do you even know if you like the guy?”

  “He’s awesome, Courtney. He’s a producer-director-doc guy. We know a million people just like him, only less gorgeous and smart and sweet. He lives in a great loft. He has goodness in his eyes. He has a friggin’ bulldog!”

  “Okay, all good things. I am glad he has a job,” she says. “But even if he is the man of your life, you’re still moving in with him and you have your own place. It’s absurd. What are you going to do with your apartment?”

  “I’ll get Alicia to move in.”

  “Okay,” she says, in a tone that suggests a vague suspicion that perhaps I’ve retained a modicum of my sanity.

  “So, it will almost be like I still have my own place. I’ll just be sleeping at his, but eventually I’ll explain everything to him and we’ll figure it out.”

  “Then why don’t you just tell him now?”

  “I wanted to the other day, but chickened out. I have a bad feeling about it. I think he’ll freak out that I lied to him in the first place, well, not really lied but withheld the truth. He has this thing about the truth, you know, honesty,” I tell her. “And I need to at least move in and live there for a while before I mess things up, I mean for the sake of the story. But God, Court, wouldn’t it be amazing if we got together, you know, like Sam and Charlie? It would be like destiny or something.”

  “No, it wouldn’t, Jacquie. You’re manufacturing this.”

  “You know what, Courtney? Not all of us were lucky enough to meet Mister Perfect when we were nineteen fucking years old. Most of us have to put up with Mister Wrong drooling on us or dumping us and still hope that someday something will work out, and once in a while that might mean taking a stupid, ridiculous risk. I like this guy, I did what I did, and I don’t want to have to defend myself to you,” I tell her, raising my voice quite a lot. People walking past stare at me and I glare back. “Please don’t ruin this for me, okay? I have to go to work.”

  I hang up and walk huffily into the building, dialing Jeremy’s number as I go.

  “I am thrilled for you, gorgeous,” he says breathily when I tell him the news, with Napoleon yapping enthusiastically in the background. “It’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

  I arrive in the office feeling reassured. When I got home from Anthony’s, I stayed up fretting for most of the night, picking at my hair, decimating my cuticles (a habit I gave up after college graduation, or so I thought), zapping my poor, inflamed wrist. I kept wondering if I was doing the wrong thing and then wondering if there is such thing as the wrong thing or the right thing, for that matter, and if my dishonesty in this case would automatically classify this as the wrong thing. But what if it’s for the sake of my art? My career? What if it’s for the sake of love? Does that make a difference? I lay awake, my eyes stinging, my head aching, for hours, but then woke this morning feeling optimistic. I even decided that maybe moving in with Anthony was exactly what I needed. I’m doing what my article proposes: getting into someone’s home as a means to find love, peeking behind the closet doors, seeing what my romantic prospect looks like first thing in the morning before he puts on his polite, public face, getting a megadose of him and figuring out if he is somebody with whom I could share my life. And, most important, the experience will lend legitimacy to my article.

  Everyone in the office seems a little lethargic. Sam is gazing at wedding gowns online. She did what I’m doing: moved in with a guy and then got to know him as intimately and intensively as you do when you live with someone. They built a strong foundation for their relationship because they got the chance to hang out beyond the awkward realm of dating, kicking around in pajamas, eating cereal, flossing their teeth. I guess the difference is that she actually needed a place to live, but that’s negligible.

  “Hey, you guys,” I say, plunking myself down at my desk. Chester grunts. There’s an enormous pile of mail on my desk. I start opening envelopes and trashing most of their contents while sending Alicia an Instant Message.

  Hey, don’t suppose you want to move into my place? I write.

  u made me get out, she responds.

  Well, I’d actually want you to live there without me. I met this guy Anthony through the apartment story, he’s really cute, big loft in Williamsburg. I’m thinking of crashing at his place for a while. I need someone to pay my rent.

  crashing at his place?

  Fine, moving in with him.

  When she doesn’t immediately respond, I add, He’s INCREDIBLE and he thought I was looking for a room and I’M DOING IT FOR THE STORY, WHICH IS REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT TO ME AND I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU ALL THINK! IT’S JUST WHAT I’M DOING.

  chill, she writes. ur loca. glad u met a dude but can’t afford ur rent, mine is cheap.

  I hadn’t thought about that. I’d offer to kick in, except that rent at Anthony’s will be almost as much as my mortgage. There’s no way I can afford both.

  It’s not that expensive, I write. Come on, you love my apartment.

  can’t, no cash, no job, my place is cool, come see it. later

  My mind races hard and fast until it arrives at the most obvious destination: Craig’s List. I laugh out loud at the irony and Sam glares at me for disturbing her sacred bridal-gown research. I have a thought and jot it down: “When he opened the door to his pleasantly cluttered Brooklyn apartment and looked down at me with piercing blue eyes, the first thought that popped into my mind was, ‘I love you.’” I’m aware as I write it that it sounds corny, but it’s true—and very Luscious—and I am relieved that the end of my piece is in sight. When I got home last night, before I started flipping out, I started writing notes for the perfect happy ending to my story. I saw a handful of apartments, met a lot of frogs, and then came face-to-face with a prince in an expansive, if disorderly, loft in Brooklyn that I am now going to call home—and at some point (before my piece hits the stands), if anything does happen between Anthony and me (and I will do my damnedest to ensure that it does), I will fall to my knees, confess to his highness that in fact I entered his kingdom under false pretenses and I will kiss his knuckles and beg him to pardon me and love me anyway. I know my editor, Clancy, is going to be ecstatic.

  On Craig’s List, I type in my cell number and file an ad. In about thirty seconds I get a call from a woman named Serena who needs a place immediately. She broke up with her fiancé three days ago and has since been wincing as he slams doors, “accidentally” breaks her dishes, and talks loudly into the phone about what a bitch she is. She produces commercials for some hotshot director, travels constantly, and says she basically needs a place to sleep and store her belongings when she’s in town. She doesn’t mind that there are still boxes lying around and that I’ll be leaving some of my stuff there. We make an appointment for her to come over after work to see the place.

  “It’s great,” Serena says, about six inches through the front door. “It’s perfect.” The petite china doll of a girl with bleached blond hair and gray rings under her pale blue eyes looks so drained that I open a bottle of white wine, hand her a glass, and watch her disappear into my couch.

  “I just wasn’t ready,” she tells me. “I love Rory, but getting married terrifies me. We weren’t going to do it right away, but I felt like I had to put the whole process on hold.”

  “Had you started planning the wedding?”

  “Not really. Every time we’d talk about it, I’d have a panic attack. I’m sure I’m classic therapy fodder. I’m in this great relationship and flip out as the marriage approaches, clearly because my dad died last year and I haven’t really processed it yet. Rory stuck a card for some shrink up on the medicine cabinet this morning. Jer
k.”

  “I don’t think you sound that unusual,” I tell her. “Marriage is a big deal.”

  “Tell me about it,” she says, downing the rest of her wine. “I can’t believe this is all happening. God, I didn’t mean to tell you my life story. It’s just been so hard. You know, I told him I thought we should wait awhile, maybe start talking about a wedding in a year or so, but Rory lost it. Really freaked me out, screaming and yelling, shoving stuff around. Then he went from apeshit to penitent and sat there crying for, like, four hours straight. I didn’t think that was possible. When I brought all this up, I didn’t think we’d break up, I just wanted to postpone the wedding date, but maybe it’s better this way.”

  After finishing off the bottle of wine, I trade a set of keys to my apartment for a month’s mortgage and maintenance and a security deposit. I tell Serena I’ll be stopping by every week or so for my mail, which doesn’t bother her. She seems so despondent, I give her a hug and wish her luck over the next few days until she can come back with her things. I think I might have a panic attack of my own as I shut the door behind her. What the hell am I doing? What will I tell my parents? Am I really letting some woman I just met move into my beloved apartment? It wouldn’t be the first time—I always sublet my place when I go out of town, it’s the only way I can afford a vacation—but this time I’m not planning to return anytime soon. I’ve lived here barely four months, and I’m handing my beautiful home over to some girl who seems perfectly nice but who shouldn’t be living here. I should. I walk through my apartment. It’s as pretty and unfinished as ever: the bag of tiles still sitting on the kitchen floor next to the untouched buckets of paint, the pile of curtains I’ve been meaning to hang still in a heap, the little orange table I never turned into a masterpiece. There’s still a towel duct-taped over my bedroom window and fourteen boxes of books piled against the living room wall. There were so many ways I wanted to improve this place, I think wistfully. I guess that’s all on hold for now. I pull a suitcase out of my closet and begin to fill it.