Five Things I Can't Live Without (3 page)

I
t was ironic that I should have seen myself with such terrifying clarity while opening a window, since it was the only window to which I had access. I lived in a two-bedroom apartment, and Fara had the plum room facing the lake, with windows that opened, while I had no view and a sealed porthole.

A lot of people across the bridge in San Francisco don’t know that Oakland has a lake. It’s fetid and it smells, but yes, we do. It looks great at night, actually, because it has lights strung around its perimeter and people can take gondola rides along its putrid surface. It’s kind of laughable, but sweet, like the peculiarities of so many fourth-tier metropolitan areas are. People jog around the lake, but not me. I’m afraid of West Nile virus from the bugs alighting on all that standing water. Also, I have a sensitive nose. And I’ve always hated exercise.

You must be thinking that I’m a real loser to have a roommate at almost thirty in Oakland. You’re thinking, in San Francisco, in New York, in Boston—
maybe
. But
Oakland
?

First of all, Oakland has its charms. I’ve heard it called the Brooklyn of the West (once, but I did hear that). And like the trendy parts of Brooklyn, the safe parts of Oakland are anything but cheap. It’s only a short commute into San Francisco, the mecca for nonprofit agencies where everyone is notoriously and grossly underpaid. Then there’s the large number of single people from twenty-seven to forty-three. I’m no sociologist, but it seems like people here marry late and divorce a lot, and all that recycling and starting over creates a demand for cheaper living arrangements.

So in conclusion, it is completely acceptable in the Bay Area to have a roommate at almost thirty, and beyond. The caveat is that when two people in their almost-thirties and beyond start dating, and both of them have roommates, they will either break up sooner because it’s just not worth it (especially for the woman—all those humiliating, postsex sneaks to the bathroom) or they will cohabitate sooner. That was what happened with Fara and her boyfriend. They’d been together four months, and now I was moving out.

It was a little humiliating, being dumped by Fara, like getting left by an alcoholic with perpetual body odor. The main problem with Fara as a roommate was that she was obsessed with the apartment and got subtly (and not so subtly) territorial about it. She’d lived there for four years, and I’d heard her say more than once, only half-jokingly, that she planned to be buried under the floorboards of the living room. If we had lived in a rent-controlled palace in New York, that joke wouldn’t be as weird.

In New York, it might not even be a joke. But it was an apartment on the lake in Oakland. I have my civic pride, but I do get those sorts of distinctions.

The other major problem was Fara’s personality, which I definitely wasn’t in the mood for that night. Even after quitting, I’d worked late, and by the time I got home, it was 7:30 pm and she had, as usual, commandeered the living room, this time for a reality TV party, or as she described it, “one of my famous reality TV parties.” She’s the kind of person who sends out e-mail invitations with phrases like “back by popular demand.”

I hated that I had come to hate her. She was essentially harmless, and at least two-thirds clueless, and she’d done some nice things for me in our year together. Besides, I had too little energy left after my long workdays to waste any of it hating her. And yet, when I came in and saw her there, in $200 jeans and the feather boa that she was not entirely sure was ironic, and her dumbest friends Christina and Tracy were braying with delight at something she had just said, I was too weak to fight it.

“Hi, Nora,” they chorused. Fara added a peppy “How was your day?”

I gave a halfhearted wave and exaggerated my exhausted gait as I headed for the kitchen. “I’m tired and starving,” I said, hoping that would be the extent of my interaction.

Never one to read a mood and let it stop her, Fara said, “Nora, you have to see this. You, of all people, will love it.”

“What is it?” I asked wearily.

“Just come and see.” Now that I was moving out, Fara kept trying to cement our dubious bond. She tended to think people were closer friends than they were, and she was making it clear that she wanted to keep me in her menagerie.

I resigned myself to humoring her, at least until I was done eating. “Let me start microwaving, and then I’ll be in,” I said. I opened the refrigerator and peered in, looking for last night’s takeout. I had a sinking feeling. There had been empty plates on the coffee table in the living room. I confirmed my hunch in the kitchen trash, then poked my head back into the living room. “You ate my takeout,” I said.

“You know you’re always free to eat mine,” Fara answered sweetly. But she meant that in a metaphorical sense, a small consolation when I was bone tired from work and she, of course, had no leftovers because if she had had her own leftovers to serve, she wouldn’t have eaten mine. Fara had a sort of perverted hippie mentality, which meant that she would give you anything she had, but also thought she was owed anything of yours. Our living together had been a clash of civilizations.

As you’d imagine, we’d had this particular takeout/leftover exchange before. I reminded myself, as I had so many times this past month, that soon I’d be out and this was a battle that I, blissfully, would never have to fight again. So I gritted my teeth, pulled open the freezer, and appraised its contents. Finally, out of spite, I selected Fara’s frozen vegetarian dinner and started the microwave.

“Hurry, Nora!” she called.

To avoid another battle, I joined them in the living room. On the TV screen were two teams of grown adults grunting while playing tug-of-war. The tussle between the Red Shirts and the Green Shirts appeared to be at a stalemate. “Why would I love this?”

“They’re all reality TV stars.” Fara looked at me expectantly.

“But I hate reality TV.”

“You like to think you hate reality TV. That’s who reality TV is for.”

Christina piped up. “I like the nice reality TV. Like those makeover shows. I tell you, I could just watch them flash ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos on the screen for hours.”

“Exactly,” Tracy said.

I wondered how late they’d be staying. I noticed that Tracy was wearing her pajamas, and resented her for being more comfortable in my apartment than I was. Fara’s constant entertaining made me feel like a guest in my own apartment. I would have thought this was only in my head, but one day I actually received an e-mail inviting me to a party at my own apartment. Fara and I had words about that one, and while she initially seemed genuinely perplexed, she eventually offered what looked like a sincere apology. She’s not all bad, I guess.

Fara eyed me. “You look fucked twice over.”

“Thanks.” I shot her an irritated look.

She corrected her tone to one of concern. “I mean, are you okay?”

“I’m more or less fine.” I figured I should mention losing my job, mostly so that in case Dan or someone else let it slip, I wouldn’t have to deal with her wounded outrage at not having been told. Not that I’d lost my job. I could go back in there tomorrow and tell Maggie I wanted to stay, that I would spend more quality time with the animals like she’d suggested, and it’d be like time travel. “I quit my job.”

“Why? Did something happen?” Fara was sitting on the floor, her back against the couch, and she patted one of the cushions encouragingly. It was the seat next to Goliath, the cat she’d gotten from the animal rescue.

Goliath never ceased to horrify me. When Fara chose Goliath, he weighed thirty-four pounds. He was the fattest cat the shelter had ever seen. Now, it’s one thing to love a cat that has gained some weight, but it’s quite another to pick out a morbidly obese cat and declare him yours. Fara seemed to think Goliath was some sort of miracle showpiece cat. To paint a picture, Goliath was so fat that he couldn’t sit down normally. He had worked out a system of sitting that was either excruciating or hilarious to watch, depending on your perspective. You could see the wheels turning for Goliath once he fixed his eyes on the cushion because being that fat, he needed to think a couple of moves ahead. For Goliath, sitting involved careful positioning, followed by a backward free fall. It made me think of a corporate retreat I’d attended a couple of jobs back, where we were mandated to fall backward into the waiting arms of our coworkers to prove we were one big, trustworthy family. Thankfully, Goliath was not my coworker.

“Nothing happened. I just quit,” I said.

Before Fara had a chance to respond, I left to retrieve my food. Steeling myself, I returned to the living room and sat on the floor. Four humans sitting on the floor, one fat cat on a couch.
Eat. Eat like it’s an Olympic sport.

“You know what that was, don’t you?” Fara said.

“Yes,” I said, to shut her up. I hadn’t even understood the question.

“You had an epiphany,” she said knowingly. “Everyone seems to be having them lately. Lots of breakups, lots of job changes—”

“And one sex change,” Christina cut in. “Hand to God. I can’t tell you who it is. Though I guess you’ll know someday.”

“It’s a really long process,” Fara added. “You have to see a therapist first to prove that you’re sane before they’ll even start you on the hormones.”

I wanted to finish my food so I could get out of that room, but my throat wouldn’t cooperate. It seemed to have closed up on me. The enormity of what I had done had been held at bay by the day’s busyness, and now the ramifications were washing over me. I’d been living hand to mouth. If I spent nothing between now and the first of next month, I could pay rent to Dan, but then what? How would I pay my credit card bill? Make my car payment?

“Fara, when I moved in here, did I pay a security deposit? Or the last month’s rent?” I asked hopefully.

Fara thought for a moment, then shook her head. “You were a little strapped so we decided you’d just pay the first month’s rent.”

“Oh.”

Definitely not the answer I wanted, though it was a key reason I’d ended up living with Fara. She could be magnanimous when she saw someone in need. Once when I was quivering with a 1:00
am
fever, she went out to the twenty-four-hour convenience store to get me juice. My gratitude for her willingness to dodge crack whores while wearing her pajamas was slightly tempered when she said, “I know I can be a pain sometimes, but the good thing about me is that I’ll always be the first to get you juice.”

“Nora, do you think you could put in a good word for me at your work?” Tracy inquired, eyes bright. “I love animals.”

Fara’s eyes lit up, too. “Oh, Tracy would be great at your job!”

This was how it was done in the nonprofit world. You’re underpaid and you’re overworked and you have to know someone to get the privilege. Tracy probably would be great at my job. I’d always considered myself underemployed—I had to, just to preserve a little dignity—but I decided that Tracy’s fitness was the true mark of just how underemployed I was. There would be no reversal. I was moving forward without a net.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Dan stared at me incredulously. “Tell me you’re kidding me.”

Needless to say, it wasn’t the reaction I’d hoped for. During the drive to Dan’s apartment (soon to be our apartment), I had reassured myself of the rightness, the inevitability even, of that day’s decision. By the time I arrived, I was certain that Dan and I would spend the night toasting my—our—new life.

“I’m not kidding.” I returned the stare, somewhat sulkily.

“It’s not like I don’t get it. There are days I don’t like my job, either. But you’ve got to have a backup plan, right?”

“You don’t
have
to.”

He had assumed the physical posture of exasperation: legs stretched way out in front of the couch, head tilted far back and upward, hand raking through his hair.

“I thought you’d support me in this,” I said.

He jerked his head upright. “Support you?”

The way he said the word “support”—I suddenly got it. He was afraid I was moving in with him to be a kept woman. In our time together, we’d developed certain unexamined routines, and one of them (probably derived from him making more than double my sala

ry) was that I picked up the check for weekend brunches and he picked up the check for everything else. Maybe he thought that was my idea of a split, and that I planned to move in, cover a utility bill, and let him handle the rest. And I realized anew that six months is not a lot of time.

“
Emotional
support.” I inwardly groaned at the clarification.

A flash of relief crossed his face. “But you don’t seem to need emotional support. You bounced in here and announced you’re jobless like it’s a good thing.”

“Because it is a good thing.”

“Sweetie,” he said softly, looking into my eyes with great affection, “it’s not a good thing.”

At that, I found myself stomping around the living room like the child he seemed to think I was. “You don’t get to decide that! You”—I pointed at him—”are fine with being on the ten-year plan for your dream. And that’s fine
for you
. I’m ready to go to the next level now.
I
am ready to kick my dream into overdrive.”

“Your dream of being a writer,” he said, without inflection.

“Yes.”