Per your request, I have attached photographs of two rooms that you would likely use with frequency should you move in. The first is of my spare bedroom as it is currently decorated. （You may, of course, change the decor however you wish should you decide to live here.） The second photograph is of the kitchen. （I thought I had included both photographs when I placed the advertisement on Craigslist. Perhaps I did it incorrectly?）
Yours in good health,
Frederick J. Fitzwilliam
After reading through Frederick’s email I clicked on the pictures he sent me, and . . .
Whoa.
Whoa.
Okay.
I didn’t know what this dude’s deal was, but he clearly did not live in the same socioeconomic sphere as me. It was also possible we didn’t live in the same century.
This kitchen wasn’t just different from every other kitchen in every other place I’d ever lived.
It looked like it belonged to an entirely different era.
Nothing in it looked like it had been made within the last fifty years. The fridge was oddly shaped, sort of oval at the top and much smaller than most fridges I’d ever seen. It wasn’t silver, or black, or cream—the only colors I’d ever associated with fridges—but rather a very unusual shade of powder blue.
It perfectly matched the oven beside it.
I vaguely remembered seeing appliances like these in an old colorized episode of I Love Lucy I saw when I was a kid. I got an odd, disoriented feeling when I tried to reconcile the idea that an ancient kitchen like this existed in a modern apartment.
So, I decided to stop trying and moved on to the picture of the bedroom. It was big, just like the Craigslist ad said. Somehow, it looked even more old-fashioned than the kitchen. The dresser was gorgeous, made of a dark wood I couldn’t identify, with ornate curlicue carvings along the top and on the handles. It looked like something you might find at an antique show. The large, floral, probably homemade quilt covering the bed did, too.
As for the bed itself, it was an honest-to-god four-poster bed complete with a lacy white canopy hanging above it. The mattress was thick and looked sumptuous and comfortable.
I thought of all the shitty, secondhand furniture in my soon-to-be-former apartment. If I moved in here I could dump it all at a consignment shop.
These pictures, and the emails, suggested that while Frederick might be a lot older than me, he probably wouldn’t steal all my stuff the day after I moved in.
I could handle an awkward roommate who was maybe in his seventies as long as he wasn’t going to rob or kill me.
Then again, you could only tell so much from tone in an email.
From: Cassie Greenberg [[email protected]]
To: Frederick J. Fitzwilliam [[email protected]]
Subject: Your apartment listing
Frederick,
Okay, those pictures are amazing. Your place looks great! I definitely want to see it, but I can’t come by in the evening tomorrow until around 8. Is that too late? Let me know, and thanks.—Cassie
His next reply came in less than a minute.
From: Frederick J. Fitzwilliam [[email protected]]
To: Cassie Greenberg [[email protected]]
Subject: Your apartment listing
Dear Miss Greenberg,
Eight o’clock tomorrow evening works perfectly with my schedule. I will make sure to tidy up so that all looks as it should when you arrive.
Yours in good health,
Frederick J. Fitzwilliam
* * *
Sam came by my apartment that evening with a bunch of moving boxes and two venti Starbucks coffees.
“Pull up a chair,” I deadpanned, gesturing to where my old secondhand La-Z-Boy used to be. I’d sold it on Facebook for thirty dollars the day before, which was about what it had been worth.
Sam smirked and gingerly spread a flattened moving box on the ground before sitting down on it cross-legged.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said.
“Thanks for bringing those over,” I said, nodding at the boxes. Even if I didn’t end up moving into Frederick’s fully furnished room, all I planned to bring with me from this place were my clothes, my art supplies, and my laptop. Just the essentials—but I still needed boxes to pack it up.
“It was no problem,” Sam said. He handed me the coffee I’d asked him for. He’d said he’d get me whatever I wanted, but I’d felt guilty about asking for the pricey rainbow-colored sugar bomb I actually wanted and just asked for a plain black coffee.
“I can’t wait to live someplace with Wi-Fi again,” I mused, taking a sip. I winced at the bitter taste. How could anyone actually enjoy drinking coffee black? It was something I asked myself every time I worked at Gossamer’s. “I miss Drag Race.”