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My favorite camera, a beautiful Retinette built in an era that made film cameras unbreakable, goes right back in my backpack, and the backpack goes on a hook on the bedroom door. I assess the clothes, give up, stuff them all on the floor of the wardrobe, and wedge the door shut with some of my shoes.That’ll do for at least the first semester.
I take stock of the room. I need pillows, mostly. Good sheets. Maybe some posters, to cover the walls. Fairy lights, because I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to have those in college.
I wrinkle my nose.And some scented candles, or a diffuser or something. I can smell those nasty corridor shoes from behind the door.
I pull out my phone and check my bank account. With my deposit and first two months of rent paid, plus the plane tickets, and a trip to the airport sandwich place that was absolutely not necessary at all, the money that’s left isn’t going to stretch for all of what I want. I can start with some pillows and bed sheets, and alsomaybesome food.
I need a job,I think miserably. I’d made an informal clientele for wedding and party photography at home that had been pretty lucrative, but home was now hundreds of miles away and this was a town full of students that didn’t have the money to spend on photography they didn’t need.
I should probably find a store that sells what I need before they all shut for the evening, but I’m parched and my water bottle is long since empty. I take the risk: I unlock my bedroom door and go further down the corridor to the apartment kitchen.
It’sfilthy. If I didn’t think three guys lived here before, I definitely do now. There’s already a mound of dirty dishes, despite the semester only startingtomorrow. Therewas definitely some sort of party here recently because there are empty bottles on every available surface and the floor tiles are sticky. There are also shoes in here. One of them, a giant sneaker that’s drippingwater, is on the breakfast bar, next to some Band-Aids that Ireallyhope aren’t used. No sign of food, but a ton of protein powder, gumming up the surfaces and half-empty in giant plastic tubs. Seth looks like he goes to the gym, but he surely can’t be using all of this himself. Are there more weird jocks in this house? Are they all weird jocks?
The microwave looks like its seen better days, like maybe Vietnam, but the oven looks weirdly clean as if it hasn’t been used. Behind the protein powder-infused breakfast bar, there’s an expensive-looking couch with some worrying stains on it, and a giant television on the wall that, like the oven, looks beautifully and suspiciously clean. Leaning against the television on the wall is some kind of kayak. I try not to think about the kayak and the damage it could do, and may already be doing, to a TV that expensive. Beyond that, there’s the balcony, where Seth had yelled at me to welcome me home.
The sink has some sort of grey matter in it. I decide I’d rather die of dehydration.
As I walk back down the corridor, tripping over shoes as I go, Seth’s opening bedroom door sends me darting for my own, closing it behind me just in time. I can hear a woman laughing, Seth hushing her, and a whispered discussion that’s slightly too quiet to make out. I hear the front door open, then close. Then I hear Seth’s door close.
I take out my phone and scroll my texts until two minutes pass, and then I quietly open my door, step out into the corridor, and lock the bedroom door behind me. My keys jangle in my hand and I quickly close them into a fist to silence them, but the damage is done. Seth’s bedroom door opens and I straighten up while forcing on a neutral smile.
“Gymnastics team,” Seth says proudly, jerking his thumb behind him to the front door. His sneer is making me nauseous. “Rea-a-a-lly flexible.”
In this moment, two parts of me have a fight in my head. One part of me, the bit I got from mom, wants to drag him by the ear to the kitchen and make him clean the floor with his tongue until he learns how to talk to and about women. The other part, the peacemaker part, wants to laugh awkwardly and pelt it for the door, just like my dad at all social functions that last longer than an hour.
Unfortunately, themepart, that traitorousRachelpart, doesn’t make a decision between them, and so I stand there staring at him until he blinks, rolls his eyes theatrically, and goes back in his room. I realize after the fact that, in the twenty minutes since I entered the apartment, Seth had once again taken his shirt off.
I can’t leave the place fast enough.
Shopping for bed sheets and pillows isn’t what I wanted to be doing just an hour after I got to Aurora, but I’m getting the feeling that the apartment isn’t going to feel like home anytime soon. I’ll need to find ways of avoiding these guys. Even if the other two roommates aren’t as asshole-ish as Seth, they’re still contributing to a kitchen that’s growing new life forms.
My phone rings and I tuck it between my ear and my shoulder while I sort through various pillows at the store for the cheapest option.
“Rachey, you promised to call when you got there.”
“Hey Mom. I got here, by the way.”
“How was the taxi from the airport? You checked on GPS that they weren’t taking you the long way round and ripping you off?”
The taxi from the airport had been an hour and a half, and I had only had 15% battery left that I wasn’t going to waste fact-checking a nice old man in a Buick.Come to think of it, what am I on?I put a random pillow in my cart and check the screen. 4%.At least this’ll be a quick conversation.
“He didn’t, Mom, itsfine.”
“And your new friends, are they okay?”
“New friends?”
“The girls you’re living with!”
Okay, so. Mom would have flipped if she had heard her little girl would be living in an apartment with three men. If she knew, I would have to barricade the door to prevent her dragging me home.
“They’re fine, Mom,”I lie.“They’re notfriendswith me yet, it’s only been a few hours.”
“Give them time, Rachey.”
“Rachel, Mom,Rachel, I’m not five.”
“No, you’re not,” Mom muses sadly. “All grown up, eighteen years old.”
