Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt (29 page)

A young woman who looked to be in her late twenties answered Summer’s knock and introduced herself as Julianne. “You’re just in time for dinner,” she said, beckoning them inside. She wore her straight brown hair short, her bangs pulled to the side by a small, white plastic barrette. Her two roommates, Maricela and Shane, called out greetings from the galley kitchen, where Maricela was stirring something fragrant and spicy in a large stock pot while Shane set the table with mismatched plates and glassware.

“Set two more places,” Julianne sang out, hooking her arms through her guests’ and escorting them into the living room. “Have a seat.”

“Thanks,” Jeremy said, and sat down on a futon with a blue denim cover. Summer was tired of sitting and stood instead, taking in her surroundings. The apartment had one large common area with half walls separating the living room, kitchen, and dining area, and at opposite ends of the room were two doors that likely led to bedrooms. Since Summer would be on her own, she wouldn’t need a place as large as this one. She hoped they wouldn’t think it rude if she asked how much they paid in rent.

Over a delicious Moroccan vegetable stew—Summer’s friend must have warned them about her preferences—the three roommates offered Summer an animated overview of grad school life, Hyde Park’s restaurants and shops, and the wonderful cultural amenities to be found in Chicago. “Most museums and theaters offer student discounts in the unlikely event you find some free time,” said Shane with an ironic grin. “They’re still expensive for anyone subsisting on a graduate student stipend, though.”

“Once you move in, we’ll show you around Hyde Park,” Julianne promised. “We know all the best happy hours within walking distance. You can buy one drink and fill up on tapas.”

“Don’t forget bookstores,” said Maricela, adding in a confidential tone, “Seminary Co-op. Best academic bookstore ever.”

“I’ve heard of it,” said Summer. “My mom sent along a shopping list.”

The subject shifted to Summer’s housing options, and she soon realized that she should have begun her search much earlier. Sensing her dismay, Julianne assured her not to worry. “Someone’s always looking for a new roommate or someone to sublet,” she said. “Take a walk around campus tomorrow and check the kiosks for posted flyers. Don’t bother with newspapers. Most students aren’t willing to pay for an ad anyway.”

“You can always stay with us for a while, if you’re desperate,” said Shane, and his roommates chimed in their assent.

Despite her fatigue from the long drive, Summer was too excited to sleep. Maricela opened a bottle of wine and they stayed up late, talking about politics, music, books—the conversation flew and darted from one topic to another and back. When they finally bade one another good night, Summer lay down upon the futon while Jeremy flopped, exhausted, onto the air mattress Shane had set up on the living room floor.

“I think I’m going to like it here,” said Summer, still feeling Jeremy’s goodnight kiss on her lips. He mumbled a sleepy reply, and soon the rhythm of his breathing told her he had fallen asleep.

In the morning, Summer and Jeremy studied a campus map over a breakfast of bagels and coffee. Before heading out to the Div School, Julianne highlighted blocks and street corners where they were most likely to find decent apartments. “Take their paperwork with you and think it over,” she advised. “Don’t feel pressured into signing a lease until you’ve had a chance to see what’s out there.”

Forewarned, Summer and Jeremy set out. Summer was just as eager to see the campus as she was to find a place to live. The leafy quads were verdant with late summer foliage, an oasis of green in the midst of the city. Gargoyles glared down from the rooftops at a few students tossing Frisbees back and forth or listening to iPods on shaded benches. “They’re thinking, ‘Get back to work, slackers,’” Jeremy said, and Summer laughed.

When they came to the Social Sciences Research Building on 59th Street, Summer tested the doors and, given that it was a Saturday morning in August, she was not surprised to find them locked. “Pity,” she remarked. “I was hoping to look around the history department, maybe meet some professors or other grad students.”

“You’ll get your chance at orientation. Hey, look.” Jeremy indicated a kiosk at the intersection of two sidewalks on the other side of the quad, a stocky maypole of fluttering leaflets. Just as Julianne had promised, the posted flyers included advertisements for available sublets and requests for roommates. The bottom edges of the pages were cut into a fringe of contact information, and on most of them, at least half of the paper rectangles had been torn off.

“I don’t know if we should bother with the ones that so many other people have already looked into,” Summer said uncertainly. “Surely someone must have taken those by now.”

Just in case, they weeded out the listings that exceeded Summer’s budget, divided the remaining numbers, and settled down on the grass with their cell phones. An hour later, they had a list of four likely prospects, which were fortunately close enough to campus for them to visit on foot. The first two were habitable but expensive, the third reeked of cabbage and had unidentifiable garbage in the stairwell, and the fourth seemed tolerable except that it was in a basement, with bar-covered slits for windows high against the ceiling and peeling paint on the walls.

“Lead-based, I’ll bet,” Jeremy said in an undertone, eyeing the paint chips suspiciously as the landlord showed them around. In the kitchen, Summer tested the stovetop and found only one functioning burner.

“Best of all,” the landlord declared triumphantly, “no cockroaches! The mice eat them all.”

“Well, that’s just swell, honey,” Jeremy said to Summer in a perfect parody of a suburban husband from a 1950s sitcom. “You’ve always wanted pets.”

The landlord thrust a sheaf of documents at them. “This place will go fast. I’m showing it to three other students this afternoon. I can’t hold it for you unless you sign and put down a deposit.”

“We’ll let you know,” said Summer, taking Jeremy’s arm and nearly dragging him to the door. “Unbelievable. What if I can’t find anything in Hyde Park? I don’t want to have to worry about transportation. I should have checked Craigslist ahead of time. We could have had pages of places to see.”

“Do mice really eat roaches?” Jeremy inquired as they hurried up the basement steps. “Because maybe spiders are taking care of the roaches.”

Summer shuddered. “I really don’t need to know.”

Outside, she propelled him down the block until they came to another kiosk, but most of the postings were identical to those they had found on the main quad. “Maybe I don’t have to find my own place,” she said, fingering some of the flyers. “I could answer some of these requests for roommates instead.”

Jeremy looked pained. “Do you really want a roommate, though?”

“Why not? I could end up with someone like Julianne and those guys. It might be fun.”

“Yes, but—” Jeremy ran a hand through his unruly curls, a habit she knew meant he was carefully choosing the words that would follow. “You didn’t even like living with me. Three people in a small apartment is already crowded. Wouldn’t that be a little…awkward when I come to visit?”

Summer grinned. “I’m sure we can be discreet.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Jeremy. “It would be easier if you didn’t have roommates that I would have to worry about inconveniencing. Even houseguests as charming as I am can wear out a welcome.”

“How often were you planning to visit?”

He shrugged. “As often as I can, of course. Since I’m ABD and have a car, it’ll be easier for me to visit you than the other way around.”

“Jeremy—” Summer did not know quite what to say. “I don’t want you to fall behind on your dissertation because you’re driving back and forth to Chicago every weekend.”

“I wasn’t thinking every weekend. Maybe once a month.”

Even that was more than Summer had expected. “I won’t hold you to that, but okay, let’s not give up on apartments just yet.” She searched the nearest kiosk with renewed resolve. The postings were several layers deep, and as she took down an announcement for a concert that had occurred the week before, she found a flyer advertising a one-bedroom garden apartment near 58th and Blackstone for five hundred dollars a month.

“Either the location sucks or that price is missing a digit,” said Jeremy.

Summer quickly checked the map. “Fifty-eighth and Blackstone is right here in Hyde Park.”

“Then that price definitely has a typo.”

Summer convinced him that it was still worth checking out, so they made their way back toward campus, turned east on 58th, and followed Blackstone south until they reached their destination: a four-story red-brick building with a small garden in front and a narrow driveway running through the alley along the north side of the building.

“If the apartment looks as good as the building it’s in…” Summer shook her head, unable to believe her good fortune. “How could a place this perfect still be available?”

“It probably isn’t, unless there’s something seriously wrong with it,” Jeremy warned as Summer pulled open the glass door to the front enclosure, spotted an intercom, and scanned the names for the correct buzzer. There was no button for the first floor, oddly enough, and the contact name on the flyer belonged to the fourth-floor resident. The landlord, she guessed, and pressed the button.

After a lengthy pause, the intercom crackled. “Yes?”

“Hi. Is this Dr. Mayer?”

“Yes, ’tis.”

The man sounded elderly and British, but maybe that was just the static from the old speaker, which looked to be original to the building. “I saw your flyer and I was wondering if the first-floor apartment is still available?”

“It’s occupied at the moment but it will be free at the end of the month.”

“Perfect timing,” Summer said. “Do you mind if I take a look around?”

“I’ll be down shortly,” Dr. Mayer said, and the intercom went silent.

Jeremy had followed her into the glass enclosure, about the size of two telephone booths. “Summer,” he said, “if something seems too good to be true—”

“I know.” She heard slow footsteps descending wooden stairs on the other side of the front door, along with a solid thumping sound she couldn’t place. Then the door opened and a stout man who looked to be in his sixties joined them outside, wheezing slightly and supporting himself on two canes.

“I’m Summer Sullivan,” she introduced herself. “I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

“Not at all.” Dr. Mayer offered his hand and a pleasant, red-faced smile. “I rang the current occupant, but he didn’t answer, so he must be on campus. He won’t mind if we pop in.” He gestured with one of his canes, indicating that Summer and Jeremy should precede him outside. “Your entrance is on the other side, down the alley.”

As they made their slow progress around the building, Dr. Mayer explained that the building had three flats, with one condo on each floor starting with the second story. Most of the first floor was a large storage area for the upstairs residents, with one long corridor linking the garages at the rear of the building to the side entry. “Which is your only entry,” he remarked, unlocking a single door that opened into a tiny foyer. To the left was a tight, narrow staircase, with only four steps up to the first landing. Pointing with his right cane, Dr. Mayer noted a door directly opposite the entrance, which led to the storage area and corridor, and to a door on the right, the apartment. “Originally this was the super’s residence,” he said, finding the appropriate key from among many on a large ring and unlocking the door. “My wife and I bought it many years ago, and as a bit of university service, we keep the rent down so that a student might afford it.” Just as Summer and Jeremy were about to follow Dr. Mayer into the apartment, he stopped short, blocking the doorway. “You are affiliated with the university, I presume?”

“I’m entering the graduate program in history this quarter,” Summer said.

“Very good.” Dr. Mayer beckoned them inside, into a surprisingly spacious kitchen with linoleum and appliances that looked as if they had not been updated in decades. “I’m a professor at the Pritzker School of Medicine and a cardiologist at the university hospital. Usually I offer the apartment to a medical student first, but I suppose a young lady from the humanities will do. Those bars on the outside of the windows are very secure, my dear, very secure, but you should always lock your door nonetheless.”

“Of course,” Summer replied, ignoring Jeremy’s pointed look. As far as her safety was concerned, he seemed to have found an ally in Dr. Mayer.

The apartment ran half the length of the building, with the kitchen doorway opening into a living room. On the opposite side of the room, a small hallway led past a full bath and ended at the bedroom door. The place was functional, with worn hardwood floors and pipes along the ceiling, painted radiators, and an ancient tub. The current occupant was from overseas and would probably sell Summer his furniture for a reasonable price, since he would not want to take it with him. The rent included all utilities, except for cable, as only the upper stories were wired for it.

“Speaking of the rent,” said Jeremy, “is this place seriously five hundred dollars a month?”

“My wife and I don’t believe in gouging students.” Dr. Mayer briefly indicated the direction of and distance to the nearest coin laundry, bank, and grocery store, then turned a beatific smile on Summer and Jeremy. “Shall I run upstairs for a copy of the lease? You’ll need time to read it over and think on it; it won’t do to have you sign anything this moment. If you do decide to take the flat, I’ll need to collect some financial information, you understand, but we shan’t worry about that today.”

“I’d appreciate the lease, thanks,” said Summer, quickly adding, “take your time.”

They followed Dr. Mayer to the foyer, then went outside to wait in the alley while he returned upstairs for the lease. “I hope he understood there’s no rush,” Summer said. “When he said ‘run upstairs,’ I had this horrible vision of him tripping over a cane and breaking his neck.”

Jeremy braced his foot against the red-brick building and yanked on each set of bars in turn. “No one’s getting in through these windows,” he said. “I think you should take it.”