Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly, Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why It Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me? (27 page)

“I did. This compulsion may be symptomatic, but I’m not sure of what.”

“Regardless, I’d probably rather discuss my feeelings.”

“All right, I’ve got one. Debate merits of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism philosophy with Anna Nicole Smith or continue to look for a new apartment?”

We’re supposed to leave in the next few minutes to go see yet another broker, but we haven’t worked up the will to leave the house. This process is not only taking forever, but it’s getting increasingly frustrating. A couple of days ago we saw a place with mauve kitchen appliances, including a mauve Sub-Zero fridge, mauve granite, mauve vanities, and a mauve toilet, sink, and tub.
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The whole joint was lousy with faux-Tiffany glasswork and track lighting and we couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I mentioned to the broker this apartment would be the perfect place for Michael Milken to whip off his suspenders and listen to Oingo Boingo on his reel-to-reel, talking on his boot-sized cellular phone, before heading out to a fern bar to drink gin with Patrick Bateman and Gordon Gekko. Then I laughed myself into an asthma attack. In a completely unrelated story, that broker called us yesterday to say she was leaving the country for an undetermined amount of time and was sorry she couldn’t work with us anymore.

Today, we’re starting over with
yet another
broker (our seventh or eighth—they’ve all blurred together) and we’re having a difficult time mustering the enthusiasm to see the latest in a string of $24,000/year crack dens.

“Ha!” I laugh. “Can you imagine it? Anna Nicole would be all, ‘
Me and Sugar Pie wholeheartedly disagree with the notion the ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. And, um, TRIMSPA, baby!’
But yes, I would rather have this conversation with her than look at another goddamned place. How about you? Would you rather go now or pick shards of glass out of the dogs once they finally fly through the window to disembowel Winky?”

“Ooh, good one. But once they kill the squirrel and go to the vet, that’s it, the situation’s over. I’m going to say ‘glass’ because the apartment hunt has no tangible end in sight.”

“I agree. Okay, then, would you rather go on another appointment or spend the night at the Superdome?” Fletch gives me a disgusted look. “Too soon?” I ask.

“Yeah. Way too soon.”

“Oh, sorry. Well, would you rather ride around in the back of yet another broker’s filthy Ford or listen to any sort of music that compares and contrasts the finer qualities of your milkshake?”

“The shake. Definitely the shake.”

“Hey, speaking of, you know what would be a cool song? If William Shakespeare came out with a new version of the Baja Boys’ ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’ He’d call it ‘Who Hath Released the Hounds?’” I begin to sing.

“Who hath released the hounds? (woofwoofwoofwoof)

“Who hath released the hounds? (woofwoofwoofwoof)”

Fletch looks thoughtful for a moment. “You know, I’d probably rather look at apartments than hear that song ever again. So it’s decided. We’re going to honor our appointment. Grab your purse, we’ve got to go.”

We’re standing in front of a nondescript single-family house with a F
OR
S
ALE
sign in its tiny front yard. “Um, you know we’re looking for a rental, right?” I ask.

“Yes, yes, don’t worry,” Tina, our newest broker, replies. “They’ve got the house listed because it’s been on the rental market so long. No one wants it and if they don’t rent it right now, they’re going to have to sell it.”

“Ooh,
Loser House
! Encouraging! I love it already!” I snark.

“Honestly, I wasn’t even going to bring you guys, but we were going right by it and the keys have been in my ashtray for a while. Tell you what, we’ll take a quick peek and then I promise to take you somewhere better, okay?” the broker pleads. Apparently our reputation precedes us.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Loser House awaits.” Tina works the double locks and opens the elaborate Victorian front door into a hallway. The first thing we see is a set of stairs listing distinctly to the right.

“Ha!” I bark. “Loser House is on a slant. Niiice.”

But as we get past the front hallway, I notice the place has gorgeous new walnut hardwood floors. They’re a deep, rich brown, almost chocolate, with a light sheen. And then we walk through the living room with fully restored millwork and crown molding at least six inches wide. The smooth plaster walls are covered with what has to be a designer paint job. “Hey, this is—this is not so bad,” I say slowly.

“Yes, according to my notes, the past owner was an interior designer. I guess she gutted the house and restored everything she could, and replicated those bits she couldn’t. That’s why the stairs slant—they’re original—and so is the hand-tooled banister.”

Hmm.

We pass the first bathroom, about the size of a small coat closet. Everything has been made to scale and the counter is a four-inch-wide strip of mossy green and sparkly gray granite with a teeny metal soup bowl sink tucked in the corner. “Okay, this is kind of cute,” I admit.

We pass into the kitchen, which is no less than eighteen by fifteen feet, wainscoted with cream-colored bead board, and filled with GE Profile appliances, adjustable lighting, and forty-seven cabinets.

Forty. Seven.

Wow.

I wonder how many wineglasses I can store in here?

We go down to the basement, which runs the length of Loser House. There are glass block windows, a full-sized washer and dryer, and an entire workbench with built-in shelves, drawers, and cabinets, which would allow the man of the house to store his tools in style. Plus, there’s a little nook at the front of it where someone could have a place to set up the stupid old futon he refuses to get rid of and hang his horrible seventies lighted Schlitz sign and enough space in the back that whoever lived here could finally give up the family’s storage unit.

We leave the basement, cross through the gourmet kitchen, and climb the slanted stairs. They list to the right, but they’re sturdy, and up close I see the detail of the original lathed woodwork in the newel posts. The master bedroom is big enough for a king-sized bed and there’s a small dressing room to the side. All the brand-new, double-paned, flip-out windows are covered with expensive wooden blinds and they’re already adorned with expensive decorative iron rods, so the only window treatment needed would be curtains. The walls appear to be covered with caramel-colored suede, but when we touch it we see that it’s layers of paper, almost like torn grocery bags, giving it three-dimensional detail.

There’s a tiled bath off this bedroom with dual showerheads. I try the water pressure and it’s powerful enough to knock the polish off my nails. Down the hall is a second bedroom, done in shades of mint and yellow with the most perfect little mint-yellow bath off of it, housing an entire wall of the same cabinets found downstairs. I pretty much want to lick the whole room.

Fletch and I look at each other. This is
way
nicer than we expected, at a price we can afford, in a neighborhood that’s walking distance to Target. “So, like, did anyone die here?” I ask. At this point, death is not a deal breaker, I’m just curious.

“I find it interesting that’s your first question. But, no, no one died here,” Tina replies.

“Then what’s wrong with it?” Fletch wants to know.

“Nothing. It’s just not a good roommate house,” she explains. “Most of our clients are friends looking to share a place. We don’t get a lot of couples wanting to rent upscale apartments,
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so that’s why it’s been empty. I think this place just needs the right people.”

“And this is just a house—there’s no condo or block association we’d have to deal with?” I ask. “No one’s going to pass capricious rules about my dogs not whizzing in the yard?”

“Not a chance.”

“Oh, wait,” Fletch says. “Yard—is there a yard?” The blinds were drawn in the kitchen and we didn’t even look out back.

We walk down the stairs and through the glorious kitchen. But when we open the door, we don’t go directly into a yard. First, we have to pass through a charming little den with a brick wall, vaulted ceilings, and built-in shelves.

And there it is.

Through the wraparound windows we see a yard, a glorious, magnificent,
don’t ever have to walk the dogs again in inclement weather
yard. We spill out the door and onto its beautifully cemented flagstone patio. Empty flower beds are bricked off and the whole thing’s surrounded by a new wooden fence that’s six feet tall. There’s a section at the end already covered in pea gravel, which would make an ideal potty spot. The only access to the street is through the private garage, so I could allow the dogs to stay out there as long as they wanted and never worry about their safety. I look back at the doorway, imagining myself on a cold winter morning, holding coffee, watching through broad panes of glass as two joyous dogs kick up snow in their wake. They’ll think they died and went to doggie heaven.

In unison, Fletch and I blurt, “We’ll take it!”

We go back to Tina’s office, sign the lease, write a check, and are instantly given our new set of keys to (Definitely Not) Loser House.

Well,
that
was easy.

For the past few weeks, we’ve done nothing but box up smaller items and run them over to our new place. Prior to that, between temping, tramping through every open apartment in this city, dealing with condo complex foolishness, and trying to soothe the dogs, who know something’s up and lose their minds every time we step out the door, I haven’t had a minute of free time in the past month.

Our movers are coming this afternoon and everything I need to do here is done. The next few hours are the only ones I’ll have to relax for a couple of weeks, as we’ll be busy unpacking and cleaning. I plan on enjoying every minute of them by lounging around in front of
Fox News
while sipping Costco’s spectacularly good Ethiopian-blend coffee.
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