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“I’ll be making logos and things like that for businesses, but really… Sorry, what’s your name?”
He’s an older man with a shock of white hair. When he smiles at me in the rearview, I can tell he’s touched by me asking for his name.
“Roger, miss.”
“In reality, Roger, I’ll be making hundreds of cups of tea, I expect.”
“Do you Americans know how to make tea?”
I chuckle. “I hope the learning curve isn’t too steep.”
He winks. “You’ll learn.”
I try to keep my good spirits up when we reach the house. It’s on a residential street, the road in a terrible state with potholes and cracked pavement. Several of the homes have intimidating fronts, one with boarded-up windows.
“Let me help you with the bags,” Roger says.
A few minutes later, I’m standing outside the front door under a small porch cover that protects me from the rain. I take a slow, deep breath, reminding myself that I’ve already spoken with the landlord, a woman called Janine. She was friendly and upbeat on the phone—no need to freak out.
I’m about to knock when the door opens inwards. A tall, lean woman stares down at me. Her gray hair is tied in a tight ponytail, and she’s got a flinty look in her eyes like she’s angry at me for being here.
“Uh, Janine?” I ask.
“Hmm,” she nods, nowhere near as friendly as she was on the phone and via messenger. “And you must be Amelia.”
“The one and only.”
Oh, God. I cringe so hard the second the words are out of my mouth.
The one and only. Why would I say that?
“Did you forget about the upfront fee you owe?” Janine says. “There are costs associated with you being here.”
Her voice is shriller in person, high-pitched, and cutting.
“I paid it,” I protest.
She tilts her head and purses her lips as if she thinks I’m lying. “I think you’ll find you haven’t.”
I grit my teeth, almost snapping at her. We could at least have this conversation in the warm.
“Let me check.”
Taking out my phone, I navigate to my banking app. With flight mode off, a text has come through from Mom.
Remember, you’re there for romance, not work!
I’d smile at all the laughing and winking emojis included if it wasn’t for the landlord from hell staring at me.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say. “There must have been a glitch or something. It hasn’t gone through, but it saved the payment request. I’ll put it through now.”
Janine doesn’t look convinced as she taps her foot on the floor, but when her phone makes an alert noise, she checks it and nods briefly.
“Sorry about that,” she says, not sounding very sorry at all. “Let me show you to your room. You won’t see much of the other tenants. Everybody here works insane hours.”
“I’ll be out a lot, too,” I say, feeling the need to defend myself even if I shouldn’t.
The inside is surprisingly okay. The carpets and rugs are faded, but everything smells clean. The wallpaper is chipped, but there’s no dampness and nothing outright wrong with it. My room is a box at the front of the property, overlooking the street, with a small radiator in one corner. The bed is single, and the mattress looks like a wafer, with fresh sheets and covers folded on top of it.
