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“Not anymore?”
“Not anymore.”
“Where are you living these days?”
My parents’ basement, temporarily.That’s not the kind of thing a thirty-one-year-old woman wants to admit aloud, so I lift my chin. “Er… that remains to be seen. I’m looking for a place to rent, short term. Know of anything?”
“In town?”
“Yeah.”
“Not off the top of my head, but you could check the classifieds.”
“Thanks, Maria. Maybe I’ll do that. Are we good here?”
I hate apartment searches.Online, in newspapers, word-of-mouth, or otherwise, it’s never fun.
“Any luck?” the bartender asks as he places my second glass of wine down in front of me.
I don’t know this guy. His suspenders make me suspicious.
Why wear suspenders?
Is it a style statement?
Did he have trouble finding a belt?
Am I supposed to tip him more because of his vintage attire?
So instead of answering him honestly—no, I have not had any luck and I’m starting to doubt every decision I’ve ever made leading up to this exact moment—I tap the pen on the newspaper. “Um, not really. But I’ll find something.”
“Housing’s tight around here.”
What is that supposed to mean? Tight, as in street-slang for good? As in close-packed apartments? As in difficult to get into?
“Yeah,” I mutter.
“Studio’s gonna be impossible to find. Same with a one-bedroom. But there are big houses around where people get together, three, four people, and split the rent. You know those big, dinosaur Victorians? A bunch of them are three- and four-bedroom rentals now.”
“Great.”
“You know what you could do? Put a flyer up at the post office,” he says. “I see ’em up there sometimes, people looking for roomies.”
I sip my wine. “Good idea.”
That’d be great.I’m Maddison Bradshaw. Thirty-one. Huge failure. Looking for other lost souls who will borrow my toothpaste and annoy me by leaving dirty dishes in the sink.
He wanders off, and I drag my pen under a printed ad for a two-bedroom cabin way, way outside of town, with “great views and rustic charm.”
Rustic charm probably means the place is all old appliances and chipped paint. I’m also wondering about the plumbing. Just how “rustic” is this place? Are we talking old-toilet rustic, or outhouse rustic?
Not that it matters, really.
The upfront cost of moving into this place is about three times what I have in the bank right now. Working at a bookstore in LA while writing my screenplay paid my bills—most of the time, not always—and that was about it. When you add my credit card debt to the calculations, I have exactly negative eighteen hundred dollars to put down as a security deposit.
What landlord in his or her right mind would agree to that?
I blow out a sigh and reach for my wineglass. As I bring it to my lips, I catch sight of a familiar face stepping through the door.
