My living room was only slightly better, which is like saying a dumpster fire is slightly better than a house fire.
The couch was soaked.
The rug was a biohazard.
My TV was fine, because the universe wasn’t completely without mercy, but the stand it sat on was warped and leaning at an angle that suggested imminent collapse.
The kitchen was damp, not destroyed; but it was damp enough that everything felt wrong, like the room was sweating.
And Princess Consuela, my baby, my angel, my tiny naked queen, was on top of the refrigerator, pressed against the ceiling, her huge ears pinned back and her eyes so wide she looked like a furless gremlin mid-transformation. She was producing a sound I’d never heard from her before, a continuous, warbling scream that was part banshee, part car alarm, part vampire-meets-sunlight.
“Baby doll,” I said, reaching for her. “Baby doll, it’s okay. Daddy’s here—”
She hissed at me with such force that I felt the breeze.
Okay. Fine. That was fair.
A maintenance guy in rubber boots was pulling soaked drywall off the bedroom wall. He looked at me, looked at the screaming cat, and said, “That thing’s yours?”
“She’s having a moment.”
“She’s been having a moment for forty-five minutes.”
“She’s thorough.”
Terri appeared behind me with her clipboard. “Mr. Kwon, I need to discuss the remediation timeline.”
“Remediation timeline” was a phrase that sounded official and competent and like someone had a plan. What it actually meant, as Terri explained while Princess Consuela provided a soundtrack of unrelenting vocal anguish, was this:
Benji would be dislodged for six to eight weeks, minimum.
My apartment was uninhabitable. The drywall needed to be replaced, the flooring needed to be pulled up, and there was a mold risk that required professional assessment. My renter’s insurance would cover temporary housing, and the building would assist with logistics.
Oh, and they were very sorry for the inconvenience.
Inconvenience.
My life was a puddle, and Terri was calling it an inconvenience.
“Six to eight WEEKS,” I said.
“Minimum,” Terri said, which felt unnecessary but also honest. I couldn’t decide if I respected or hated her for it.
“And what exactly am I supposed to do in the meantime? I have a cat, Terri. I have ahairlesscat. Do you know how many hotels accept hairless cats? I’ll tell you: none. I checked once when I was going to a wedding in Orlando and every hotel within mybudget treated Princess Consuela like she was a biohazard. One receptionist asked if she was ‘a medical situation.’ Amedical situation, Terri.”
Terri, to her credit, did not flinch.
Terri had clearly survived worse than me.
“The building is working on placement options for all displaced tenants,” she said with the practiced calm of someone reading from a script she’d already delivered forty times that day. “We’re reaching out to unaffected units in the building to see if anyone is willing to temporarily house a neighbor. There are financial incentives involved for any tenant who participates.”
“Financial incentives.”
“I can’t discuss the specifics, but it’s a generous offer. We’ll be in touch within twenty-four hours once we’ve identified potential matches.”
Matches.
Like this was a dating app.
