The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters with the Human Race (20 page)

“Oh, gosh,” I’d say. “I shouldn’t.”

Wayne tried to include me on a number of occasions, but I always declined. These declined invitations appeared always to offend Tomas. One day, two months into their relationship, Wayne, as usual, invited me to join them. I, as usual, said thank you but no thank you. Tomas, as usual, rolled his eyes. But then in an unprecedented manner, he wanted to discuss the issue further. He asked, “So, like, what
do
you do for your body?”

I thought it rude to use so hostile a tone in response to so selfless an act. My first impulse was to give Tomas a piece of my mind, but the blatant rudeness had thrown me off guard. I’d been holding a bag of beef jerky at the time, and instead of any verbal retort, I brandished the jerky in his face.

“
That’s
your defense?” he said. “That you clutch a bag of jerky like a blankie?”

“It’s good for me.”

“It’s not, actually. The nitrates and sodium trigger water retention and, over time, can cause obesity and diabetes.”

“Well, congrats,” I said, “on knowing stuff about beef jerky. For your job.”

“Yes, well,” he said. “My career
is
going awesome at the moment.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. “If we all taught gym class, then we all could have awesome careers.”

It is scary to speak
so
directly to someone
so
attractive. I have this fear these types can use their beauty to … I don’t know … like,
melt
my lesser face.

Tomas glared, although, in truth, he did not melt my lesser face.

“I am an
actor
and a
dancer
,” said Tomas. “
That
is my career.”

“It’s not,” I said. “Maybe it will be at some stage, but for now, it is your hobby. Gym instruction’s your career.”

“What-
ever
,” he said. “Like you’re one to judge.
You
work at Banana Republic.”

“True,” I said. “But I also have a hobby. I’m also working on a show.”

“What show?” he asked.

“A show I wrote,” I said. “It’s called
Mole Woman
.”

Tomas’s eyes lit up. They danced with the evil unique to those with zero body fat.

“Do you even know what a mole person
is
?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“Someone who lives in a subway tunnel,” he said.

“I
know
,” I said. Although, in fact, I had not known. Despite the blow, I carried on. “Anyway, I’m reappropriating the term.”

“To mean …?”

“A struggling artist.”

“Who mooches off her friend?”

I stared back blankly. I collected my thoughts. I said, “Excuse me, but
I
am not mooching off my friend.
I
am cleaning so
I
can stay in the apartment.”

“How impressive,” he said.

“It is,” I said, “compared to you. I clean so I can stay in the apartment. You have sex so you can stay in the apartment.”

Tomas gasped. He said, “
You’re
calling
me
a hooker?”

“No,” I said. “You are calling you a hooker. I’m just pointing out the facts.”

I
was
just pointing out the facts. However, there was one I had omitted and it was the whole entire point: Wayne and Tomas, as a couple, looked
bizarre
. Tomas looked every inch the high-end hooker, whereas Wayne, as previously discussed, looked like a human-sized pear. He had asymmetrical eyes to boot, and a nose you could hang your hat on. And sure, it was possible that Tomas was
the kind of guy who cared about what was on the inside. It was also possible that
Mole Woman
was bound for a Broadway debut. Wayne was (1) a human-sized pear with (2) a fabulous apartment. And I knew—the
world
knew!—which one of those two things had kept Tomas around.

I wanted to say as much, but Wayne had been standing between Tomas and me throughout our fight, staring at the floor.

I turned toward the refrigerator, opened the door, and took out my cheese bread.

“Oh.
Classic
,” said Tomas. “Your friend, Wayne, is using her cheese bread to escape. Wow. I’m so, like,
totally
surprised.”

Wayne, still, said nothing. I chewed some cheese bread. I swallowed the cheese bread. I turned back toward Tomas.

“I hate you,” I said. And, with that, I walked away. I went inside my closet.

It felt exciting to tell someone I hated him. But that excitement was quickly undercut with a fear of being asked to leave. And fear can unhinge you a bit.

I grabbed my phone and called my mom.

“Hi, Mom,” I said.

“Hi,” she said.

“I was wondering if I could have some money,” I said.

“What?” She laughed. “ ‘Some money’? Ha! No. You cannot have ‘some money.’ ” A pause. “Unless, of course, you’re sick.” A pause. “Sara, are you sick?”

“No,” I said.

“Then why would you ask for ‘some money’?”

“Because Wayne’s boyfriend moved in. He’s here all the time.”

“And?” she said.

“And,”
I said, “I think it could be good for me, creatively, if I could live in my own place.”

“Good for you.”

“Yes.”

“Creatively.”

“Yes.”

I could hear my mother breathe.

“Well, good chat,” she said, and then hung up the phone.

I considered other options.

I had a little money of my own saved up from my job at Banana Republic, but I crunched the numbers and realized it was nowhere near enough to help me afford my own place. All I could afford was another apartment with another roommate. It was not what I wanted. What I wanted was to live alone or, barring that, I wanted Tomas to slip during one of his spin classes and rupture his anus on his bike seat.

But dreams do not always come true. Tomas was too steady on a spin bike. I was too poor to afford my own place.

I sat in my closet feeling despondent. I stared at my “desk”-lamp for a while. I got bored and chose to do a little writing. I wrote a scene in
Mole Woman
in which she, the Mole Woman, is discovered at Banana Republic and asked to star in a movie for which she receives a comprehensive makeover.

As I wrote, I dreamed that Wayne would come knocking on the closet door.

“Sara,” he’d say, “I am here for three reasons. One, I need to apologize for the way Tomas has treated you. Two, I’ve broken up with him because of it. Three, I need to know what you are working on. Please. May I read aloud an excerpt?” and then he’d read aloud an excerpt.

“ ‘Art is the battle of YOUR LIFE! Fight for what you believe. BE A BADASS, AND TAKE! NO! PRISONERS!’ Oh my God. Did you write this?”

And I would say, “I did.”

And he would say, “Sara:
It’s
amazing. Sara:
You’re
amazing.”

SEVERAL HOURS LATER
, Wayne did, in fact, come knocking on the closet door.

“Come in,” I said, and repositioned myself so that Wayne could see my script.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

“Sure,” I answered.

“Outside of the closet?” he asked.

“Is Tomas here?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Then sure,” I said, and came outside.

“So,” he said.

“So,” I said.

“So,”
he said. “You were just, like, psychotically rude to my boyfriend.”

“Because,”
I said, “your boyfriend was psychotically rude to me first.”

“Tomas was not rude,” he said, “Tomas
is
not rude. Tomas is direct. I think it’s refreshing.”

“Refreshing?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered. “I think it’s a brave way to live.”

Over the course of two months, it had never once occurred to me that Wayne thought of Tomas as anything other than a horrible human he liked having sex with. True, he’d never said as much. True, they never spent any time apart. Perhaps, then, I should’ve been clued in to the fact that Wayne might actually like Tomas, might actually care about him in a more substantial way. But I was not. I had written the inseparability off as the sustained intoxication that came with looking
at
Tomas and knowing, soon, you’d
have
Tomas. I could not believe that in a coherent moment in which one gentleman was separated from the
pheromones of the other, Wayne would describe Tomas as “brave” or “refreshing.” Wayne used those words, and it felt like looking at an old friend from across a wide distance. The details were fuzzy, but the outline was clear.

“I should probably move out,” I said.

“I’ve been thinking that’d be best,” Wayne said, “and so I went on Craigslist. I’ve got a few options picked out.”

Wayne and I riffled through the Craigslist options until I found a suitable place in Park Slope. If you know this section of Brooklyn, if you’re familiar with its manicured flower boxes and local food–fed Caucasians, the fact of my doing so might surprise you. Under normal circumstances, Park Slope is outside the price range of the average Banana Republic employee. But then, it wouldn’t be a normal circumstance, living in the basement of a deranged diabetic.

WE HADN’T BEEN
on Craigslist long when I saw the Park Slope option in my price range. Its ad read: “I am renting my extra bedroom. It has its own bathroom. I have diabetes. Good price for location. —Jan.”

I thought it was odd to mention diabetes in an
apartment posting. But Wayne, eager as he was for me to leave, did not.

“Really?” he’d said. “I think it’d be weird
not
to.”

When I called the number listed, a woman answered who sounded very angry.

“THIS IS JAN!” she screamed. “WHO IS
THIS
?”

“Hi. I’m Sara,” I answered. “I’m calling about the apartment.”

“ARE YOU A FREAK?” Jan asked.

An occasion jumped to mind wherein my nipple was tweaked to the point of bleeding. I hadn’t enjoyed it.

“No,” I said. “I’m not a freak.”

“Good,” said Jan. “ ’Cause I got diabetes. I’m looking for a nice girl.”

“Well,” I said, “that’s pretty much me in a nutshell.”

I went to see the apartment later that afternoon, and when I did, I was greeted by a frail woman in her mid-sixties, crowned with a mop of graying, disorganized hair. But the apartment.
Oh
, the apartment. It was the home of my dreams, of
all
our dreams: a Cosby-esque, two-story brownstone complete with back deck and vaulted ceilings. The living room featured a bay window alongside a series of ornate sconces, and in the kitchen—the separate sit-down kitchen—a Restoration Hardware Farmhouse Collection table. The bedroom itself, the one I hoped to rent, was huge. It could have fit ten air mattresses, and came complete with its own private bathroom.

It was the Caesars Palace to my shack of a previous abode. More to the point, it was magnificent enough to make up for the presence of another roommate. And not just any other roommate: Diabetic Jan. She could’ve answered the door with a loaded gun and shouted, “Forget my diabetes! How’s about Russian roulette?!” and still: I would have begged to live there.

I assumed Park Slope had a higher happiness standard than the East Village. I based this assumption on the fact that Park Slope was, quite simply, a prettier place to be. The East Village had some good blocks; Park Slope had all good blocks. There were more trees, more cute coffee shops. Fewer frat boys at the bars, fewer heroin addicts in the parks. If I lived in Park Slope, I would live near a beautiful corner market. I would go there every morning to buy organic produce, and I would cook it in Jan’s gorgeous, sit-down kitchen every night. In time, I’d start to run. Prospect Park was nearby, and its proximity would inspire me. I’d be on the Park Slope diet of outdoor running and organic produce, and I’d become altogether more fabulous than I’d been on my East Village diet of jerky and rage.

I was therefore lucky that Jan liked me as much as I liked Jan’s apartment. She offered it to me on the basis of my hair.

“I like it,” Jan had said. “It’s funny like a wig.”

And I accepted the offer despite the nagging sense that being offered an apartment on the basis of one’s hair
does
tend to indicate that one is gaining an unstable landlord. Jan’s instability was something I thought I could handle, however, and that is because I thought real estate could buy happiness. Jan may have been a far cry from my gal-pal roommate fantasy, but you know what? So was everyone else. At least Jan had a bay window and an expensive kitchen table. At least Jan was not Tomas.

We shook hands and signed a few papers. We settled on a move-in date.

I was excited by the prospect of my new apartment. At the same time, though, I felt a minor apprehension. I blamed this apprehension on three unanswered questions:

Why does Jan mention her diabetes all the time?

How did someone so seemingly bizarre afford such a nice kitchen table?

Why did Jan pick a new tenant on the basis of said tenant’s hair?

Asking these questions is fun, but getting the answers is less so. But that’s what roommatehood is all about, right? You think, What the fuck is
your
problem? and then get your answer.

I didn’t know much about diabetes at the time other than that it sometimes involved orange juice. I thought it was like rheumatoid arthritis insofar as it severely limited movement. And that was because Jan presented it that way. And
that
was how I wound up washing her back. I washed it nine times in the nine months that we lived together. The first time she asked, the request had followed a string of others, and I’d been thrown too off guard to tell her no. I’d been asked to roast a chicken, snake a toilet, and fix her television set.