Following My Toes (7 page)

I knew such thoughts were like a high-protein diet – instantly gratifying yet ultimately dangerous to your heart. I wanted to believe that even if Peter came back, I wouldn’t accept him. After all, there was the whole Lacey issue. But I was scared I would never love another man as much as I had loved him.

I was desperate, and in more ways than one.

For desperate was also the perfect word to describe how I felt as I called the names on my roommate referral list.

“Hello, is this Sky?”

A raspy voice answered. “Yeah, this is Sky.”

“Um, hi, my name is Faith. I got your number from roommate referrals?”

She waited a good five seconds before she responded, “Oh, yeah, hi.”

“Hi. So are you still looking for a roommate?”

“Yeah, I’m still looking. I haven’t had any luck so far in finding someone good. It’s amazing how many freaks there are out there.”

“Oh yeah? That’s too bad. Well, you’re the first person I’ve called, so I haven’t had that experience yet....”

“Uh huh. Look, I have three questions I always ask the people who want to move in with me. The way you answer will determine whether or not you’re okay. Are you ready?”

“Um, sure.”

“Great. Question number one. Do you believe that wild animals have souls? If your answer is yes, does that mean that killing them is murder? Make sure you answer honestly.”

“Isn’t that actually two questions?”

“Just answer.” she demanded.

“Sure,” I said. “I don’t know. My sister Margaret does, she works for Green Peace, and refuses to eat meat.”

“Yeah? That would help me out a lot if it was your sister who wanted to move in. Seeing as how it’s you, we’ll move on. Question number two...”

“Wait,” I said. “I can expand on question number one. I only need a second to think it through.”

But Sky had no time. “Question number two. Which of the following is the cutest:

a. puppies,

b. kittens,

c. bunnies,

d. babies,

e. turtles.”

“Um, it depends. I’ve seen some ugly babies and some cute turtles, you know? But that doesn’t mean that turtles are cuter than babies in most cases. It’s hard to say.”

Sky let out an exasperated sigh. “But generally. Obviously there are exceptions to any rule, but I need to know which you would prefer in most situations.”

I gulped. I felt like I was on a game show, and a million dollars was at stake. “Okay. Kittens then.” “Great. Final question. Have you ever been or would you ever consider being in a threesome?”

I wasn’t sure I heard her right. “When you say threesome, do you mean, like in bed?”

“No, I mean as in ‘The Three Musketeers’ type threesome.”

“Look,” I replied. “I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me, but I don’t think that this is going to work.”

“Fine!” she yelled. “You’re just like all the rest of them!” and with that she hung up on me.

I told myself it was no big deal. She was only the first person I talked to. There were bound to be some weirdos out there, and it was up to me to weed them out. The next person on the list was a guy. I admit, the idea of moving in with a man I didn’t know seemed too much like the premise of the bad Lifetime suspense movie, but I called anyway.

I called, and he picked up on the first ring. “Thithith Thteve,” he said.

“I’m sorry. Is this Steve Robbins?”

“Yup!” He said. “Thithith Thteve.”

Oops. His lisp was so pronounced that I hadn’t been able to under-stand him at first, and I was worried I had already insulted him.

“Oh, hi Steve. My name is Faith, and I’m calling because I got your name from roommate referrals. I understand you’re looking for someone to share your apartment?”

“Yup. How thoon can you move in?”

“Oh. Um, don’t you want to ask me some questions first? Find out what kind of person I am before you let me be your roommate?”

“Thure. Leth thee. Are you a therial killer?”

“ Ha ha. No, I’m not a serial killer.”

“Do you abuth drugth?”

“No, I don’t do drugs, unless you count caffeine and ibuprofen.”

“Will you theal my thuff?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Will you theal my thuff.” (Pause. I still couldn’t understand him, and had no idea what to say.) “Will you theal my thuff? Will you theal my thuff?”

“Oh!” I finally got it. “No. I won’t steal your stuff.”

“Great,” he said. “How thoon can you move in?”

I would like to believe that his lisp had nothing to do with it, that I was turned off simply because he didn’t get to know me before he asked me to move in. I can’t say for sure. However, there was no way in hell I was moving in with this guy.

“I’m sorry Steve. There are several more people I was going to call. Why don’t I get back to you?”

“Thure,” he said. “Juth let me know.”

The third person I called was Micheala, and at first she seemed halfway normal. She said she had had several inquiries already about her place, and she was meeting in person with each one. This seemed like a nice contrast to Steve, so I agreed to meet her at a coffee shop the next evening.

When I walked in she was already there, drinking a large latte and entering something into her palm pilot. I recognized her by the description she had given me on the phone: extremely thin, with black hair wound tightly into a bun. She was a ballet dancer, and every inch of her looked the part. She had even dressed in a pink cardigan and a thin black wrap-around skirt. Everything about her was impeccable, from the way she drank her latte without letting a drop rest on her chin or mouth, to her French manicured nails. I introduced myself and sat down.

“Faith,” she said, “it is so nice to meet you.” She spoke slowly, accentuating her vowels and clipping her consonants so that she nearly adopted a British accent. “Let me explain my process. I have a few questions I am going to ask you, and I am going to record your answers in purple. You will notice,” she held up a notebook with writing in multiple colors scrawled across its pages, “that I have already interviewed several people. Each person was assigned a different color, that way I could keep track of who said what fairly simply.” She clicked her multi-colored pen so it was writing in purple ink, and added my name to the bottom of a list on the first page of her notebook. She spoke as she wrote. “Faith equals purple.” She then looked up, sure to make careful and steady eye contact with me. “After I am done interviewing you, I hope you will have some questions for me, which I promise to answer sincerely.

“Now, there are a couple more people I need to interview after you. I plan to be done with interviews by the end of the week, on Friday. Saturday I will need to step away from the whole process, so I intend not to think about it, but rather take a break. Sunday I will look through my notes, and decide who I will be calling for a second interview. I plan to have second interviews done by Wednesday. Since my expectation is that I will only give two to three people second interviews, I expect I will have come to a final decision by the end of next week. Any questions?”

Yeah. Why was it easier to get a job with the
Minneapolis
school system than it was to become Micheala’s roommate? However, seeing as how she was still the most normal person I had spoken to so far, I shook my head no so we could proceed with the interview.

“Would you object to a rotating cleaning schedule?”

“Oh, no, not at all.” I was starving, so I took a bite of the scone I had ordered. Naturally, a bunch of crumbs escaped and fell down the front of my blouse. Micheala’s eyes narrowed, and I immediately brushed them away. One crumb then flew (it was kind of breezy in there) and landed on Micheala’s pink sweater. “Sorry,” I said, as she brushed it away. I put down my scone. “Anyway, my college room-mate and I had a cleaning schedule. That way we knew stuff would get done. I’m not too good at remembering to clean, but if there’s a sign up, I’ll do it.”

She nodded. “Um hmm.” Her long fingers reached into the port-folio that rested on the table, and she pulled out an elaborate chart.

“Here is a sample of what I was thinking. It divides the duties into categories: bathroom, kitchen, living room, hallway, and then into subcategories: refrigerator, tiles, carpet, closets, toilet, curtains, heating vents, woodwork, and knick-knacks. It goes without saying that we would each be responsible for our own bedrooms. But the other duties would rotate, according to the schedule.” She pointed to the chart’s key. “Assume you are roommate B, and I’m roommate A. Every category that is in green you would do on Saturdays, and every subcategory that is in blue you would do on Mondays, Wednesdays, and every other Friday.”

“That’s a lot of cleaning.” I said. I wanted to ask why she got to be roommate “A,” but thought better of it.

“I’m going to be very upfront with you Faith; I am a neat and orderly person. I am also creative, but I need order before my creativity can thrive. If you want to move in, you need to be okay with that.”

I had been living with Carolyn and Charles for nearly two weeks now, and as great as they were, the apartment was small, the walls were thin, and we all needed privacy. So I replied, “I understand.”

She asked me dozens of questions, ranging from my family history to the type of poster art I preferred. I wanted to like her, but as the interview progressed I didn’t need for my skin to hurt to know this was a bad match. By the end of the meeting I knew I didn’t want to get picked by her, so I admit I was looking at my watch and shifting in my seat quite a bit.

“Um,” she said. “Is there something wrong? I’m detecting a hostile undertone from you.”

I had been there for over an hour, answering her questions. But I took the easy way out, and lied. “No, no hostile undertone. I’m just late for something. Sorry; I have to go and color coordinate my sock drawer.” I never heard from her after that.

And on it went. It seemed that each person I spoke to was weirder than the last.

“Why don’t you get a place by yourself?” Carolyn wanted to know.

“I don’t even have a job yet. Nobody is going to rent to me without proof of income.” Besides, rent was so much more expensive here in
Minneapolis
than it was in
Duluth
. I was already losing a lot of money with the move; I couldn’t see committing to my own apartment until I was sure that I actually had a future here.

Finally, after several more days of staying with Charles and Caro-lyn, I got a hold of Missy. After a brief phone conversation where we exchanged basic information about ourselves, she invited me to come see her place, which was not far from Charles and Carolyn’s.

Her building was a medium-sized brownstone that housed about twenty units. It was on the same block as an organic coffee shop called “Cafe Panoply,” and a new-age bookstore and incense shop called “Crystal Clear.”

I knocked on the door to her apartment, and was pleased when a normal looking person answered. Missy was of average height, with brown hair and dark coloring. She made the most of her neither remarkably large nor small fi gure by wearing light khaki pants cinched in at the waist with tapered legs, and a tan blouse tucked in. She smiled, and her tone was friendly.

“Hi, you must be Faith. Come in.” Her apartment was neat, and although her decor reminded me of a hotel room (lots of cornflower blue, with embroidered pillows and paintings of country scenes) it wasn’t awful by any means. The carpeting was wall-to-wall beige, covering a huge living room with big windows that let in lots of light.

“This is a great place.” I said, looking around. Actually, it was generic enough to not be distasteful. Everything that was necessary was provided, with the kitchen off to the side and two bedrooms down the hall. Plus, it was in a great area; Charles and Carolyn would be close by.

“How long have you been looking for someone to move in?” I asked

“Actually, I just started. I wasn’t expecting to need a new room-mate, but my best friend and I had a falling out....” her voice trailed off, and she looked kind of sad.

“I understand. My best friend and I recently had a falling out too.”

She smiled, and said in a perky voice, “Great! So we have some-thing in common.” She started towards the hall. “Let me show you the bedrooms.” We got to the smaller of the two first, which was empty. “This would be your room.”

“Terrific,” I said. It was rectangular in shape, with one window and a closet that took up most of one of the longer walls.

“It’s not huge,” said Missy, “but if you don’t have a lot of stuff, it should be fi ne.”

“Oh sure,” I replied. “Most of what I have would fit in here.”

“Well, it’s not like you would be confined to this room. You’re more than welcome to use the rest of the apartment as well.” She continued on down the hall until she reached the other bedroom. “And this is my room.”

Her bedroom contrasted with the rest of the apartment. It was actually decorated in a distinct way. The walls were painted red (later she said that she gotten permission from the landlord to do that), and decorated with three framed black and white posters of people kissing. At least one looked familiar. It was of a sailor grabbing his girl right after WWII had ended.