First, she is a woman. Which I knew, of course, when she replied to my advertisement and I saw her name.
I have nothing against women, as you know. I have also come to understand through my review of the newspapers and magazines you have brought me that in the present era it is not unheard of for unmarried men and women to live together.
So: while a bit disconcerting, I am not overly concerned that she is a woman.
My primary concern is that she is a woman who may not be entirely normal.
And you ARE normal?
That is a fair point.
I thought so
I simply worry that this will not work if my new roommate is someone who thinks it appropriate to arrive to an appointment with disheveled hair and ragged, paint-splattered clothing.
I think itll be fine
Also, she smiles rather a lot, which I find somewhat
I don’t know
Distracting.
Distracting huh?
Distracting as in . . . the woman we met that one night in Paris, distracting?
You certainly have a lot of nerve bringing that up.
Sorry
Forget I said anything
Anyway I still think its fine.
No one else has replied to the ad right?
That is correct.
Because of you.
Because of the rent thing?
Yes. Because of the rent thing.
Okay yeah
I made a typo when I filled out the Craigslist form.
Sorry about that. Thats on me.
I am not so sure you are actually sorry. Either way, this cannot be put off any longer. I must have a roommate, and as soon as possible.
The more time passes, the more I realize how completely out of my element I am.
I need help. Badly.
I suppose she will do.
Even if she is odd.
Well think of it this way. If shes really THAT strange, you won’t be tempted to either eat OR fuck her right?
Why do I still speak to you?
I mean I made sure you were fed, right?
And set it up so your bills and HOA dues were paid on time
I also got u a cell phone
You owed me AT LEAST that much, given the circumstances.
You know on second thought it would probably be good for you if you DID fuck your new roommate
God knows its been long enough
I am blocking your number as soon as I work out how that is done.
Frederick wasn’t there to greet me when I moved in. Of course, I hadn’t expected him to be. We’d emailed a few times after I said I’d take the room, and he’d explained his nocturnal schedule was a seven-days-a-week thing. He’d be sleeping in his bedroom—not to be disturbed—when I arrived.
So it wasn’t a surprise when I rolled my suitcase through the front door and found myself alone in my new, weirdly dark, weirdly decorated living room. It was also freezing in there, like it had been when I’d first visited.
I rubbed at my arms, trying to warm them.
Sam was originally supposed to help me move in, but he wasn’t there, either. I suspected his last-minute need to visit an elderly great-aunt I’d never heard of before out in Skokie was his passive-aggressive way of saying he thought my moving in was a mistake.
To my extreme annoyance, he’d done a complete one-eighty on the whole moving into the two-hundred-dollar apartment thing once I told him Frederick was hot.
“Living with someone you think is hot never ends well,” he’d warned the night before. “You either end up sleeping with them—which is a huge mistake, nine times out of ten—or else you drive yourself nuts because you want to sleep with them.”
Sam and Scott had come over the night before to help me pack. There wasn’t much to do; I’d already dropped most big things off at the consignment shop. But I was feeling a little sad over saying goodbye to yet another apartment, and I was glad for the company.
Even if Sam had mostly used the opportunity to talk me out of moving in with Frederick.
“If they’re hot, you either sleep with them or you want to sleep with them, huh?” I stared at him. “You speak from experience?”
“No,” Sam had said quickly, looking over his shoulder to see if his husband was hearing this. I was pretty sure he was—Scott kept smiling to himself and shaking his head as he pretended to check his work email at the kitchen table—but he had a much better poker face than Sam. “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard.”
I’d scoffed. “Frederick’s hotness will be a complete nonissue. We have totally opposite schedules. I’ll barely see him.”
“What if his work schedule changes?” Sam had pressed. “What if he suddenly doesn’t have some mysterious job that keeps him out all night long? What if next month he starts working from home?”