Roommates

The only good thing that had come out of the accident was that the rattling noise had gone away. Whatever Stan had done had apparently knocked something back into its place, and she had never appreciated silence more.

They’d stopped briefly in the dry, remote town of El Centro to assess the damage. “By the way,” Stan said as they pulled into the Carl’s Jr. parking lot. “I was just kidding about Justine. She’s not really psychic.”

If he thought confessing was going to put her in a better mood, he was wrong. She knew what he was up to. She’d done the same thing. For example, in high school she told her parents she got an A in math right before revealing that she’d also received her first speeding ticket. He was trying to make her feel so relieved that she wouldn’t care about the damage he’d done.

It was partly true. The Mustard Mobile had been in crappy shape to begin with, and it was hard to tell which scratches were new. However, it was missing a mirror on the passenger’s side, and the mirror on the driver’s side dangled by a thick black cord. One hubcap was gone, and the right corner of the front bumper showcased a dent the size of a small banana.

Guilt nipped at her conscience as she wondered how the poor Buzz Burger was faring. In the Carl’s Jr. parking lot she promised God if she ever made it big as a mystery writer, she’d send them an anonymous cash donation.

They didn’t spend a ton of time surveying the damage. She’d been nervous that if they stopped for too long someone might recognize them, and she was anxious to get to her new neighborhood in North Park. This time, she took over the wheel.

Her last month in Arizona had been filled with daydreams of packing a beach bag and walking to the coast to edit her novel and soak up sun. She’d bodysurf and throw crumbs to the seagulls while getting a tan that would attract a brilliant and sun-kissed surfing boyfriend. These fantasies, however, came to a screeching halt when she realized that the rent near the ocean was not designed for struggling writers.

When Stan gave her Justine Viccar’s phone number in North Park, she investigated her options inland. North Park was one of the oldest areas of San Diego, and centrally located. She recalled charming little Craftsman-style houses, swanky coffee shops, and hip record stores that specialized in selling hard-to-find music. It was a haven for starving artists and one of the only places in San Diego that still had affordable rent. So her fantasy had switched to hanging out at coffee shops and meeting a hot vegetarian poet.

As she exited the freeway her palms became as damp as a moist kitchen sponge, and she kind of hoped Justine wasn’t home to shake her hand. She followed Stan’s directions and turned the U-Move down a one-way street, careful not to sideswipe any cars parked next to the curb. She began to feel nervous when she trucked past houses with bars soldered to windows and barbed wire framing yards. Where were all the little vegan restaurants? The meditation centers and indie record stores? Pit bulls were chained to trees.

Furthermore, it suddenly occurred to her that they weren’t in North Park. Wasn’t North Park west of the freeway? They were heading east into City Heights, North Park’s closest neighbor and a regular feature on the eleven o’clock news for its drive-by shootings and liquor store stickups. Billboards in City Heights encouraged saying no to drugs and provided specific locations for free HIV testing. In City Heights, the neighbors held gang initiations instead of welcome-to-the-neighborhood parties.

“Go right here,” he said, oblivious. “By the way, Arnold Schwarzenegger visited the area recently to talk about reforming education. Right here at the city hall in this neighborhood. Right in City Heights.”

“Well it’s so close. I’m telling you. This whole area is on the rise. You just don’t know because you’ve been out of the loop for so long. It’s a cool place to live.”

Stan directed her to pull into a sagging apartment complex. Orange paint peeled from the walls like shredded cheddar cheese. Bars covered most of the windows, and a mildewed couch that was missing every single cushion sat on the neighbor’s dead lawn. A rusty staircase wrapped around the front of the three-story building, and a couple of limp palm trees lined the entrance. A sign reading “Casa de Paradiso” was posted in front of the building. The “a” in Casa hung upside down by an old nail. Elise had taken French in high school, but she knew enough Spanish to understand that Casa de Paradiso meant “House of Paradise.” She wondered if whoever had named the building couldn’t figure out the Spanish word for squalor.

She wished Stan would tell her this was all one big joke, like the séance thing. He was just screwing with her, and her real house was across town in the cute Spanish-style complex that she had been dreaming about. But he wasn’t kidding. Casa de Paradiso was going to be her new home.

Justine had mentioned that they each had their own parking space, but fitting The Mustard Mobile into her space only invited the opportunity for more disaster, so she parked next to the curb.

Carly sighed. “I wish I wasn’t locked into my lease for another year. Otherwise, it would be you, me, and Bella in our own little beach bungalow. I’m going to start looking for a new place for you tonight. You can’t stay here.”

Carly was perhaps the most reliable and efficient person she knew. She was the type of friend that Elise could call at three a.m. on a Tuesday night from a Mexican jail and ask for ten thousand dollars’ bail and a ride home. Not only would Carly cross the border, but she would probably show up with Gloria Allred and a tube of antibacterial hand lotion to kill all the germs from the jail. Not that Elise had ever been arrested. She just knew her best friend well, and was glad to be moving closer to her.

She found the key stashed under the mat. It was in a little white envelope with a note attached. This would be the last time they would ever stash keys under the mats again. For crying out loud, people don’t leave keys under mats in City Heights.

Hi Elise!

Sorry I couldn’t be here to help you get settled. I wish I didn’t have to work, but I can’t wait to meet you later. Help yourself to anything.

Justine

God only knew what lay inside. At this point anything was possible. The blinds were drawn when she entered. Even though it was three o’clock in the afternoon, it appeared to be past dark. As she searched for a light switch, she inhaled the scent of stale cigarette smoke—the kind of smoke that seeps into the curtains and makes the wallpaper turn the same shade of yellow featured in “before” pictures for teeth whitening ads. She’d never lived with a smoker and hadn’t even thought to ask if Justine smoked when they’d spoken on the phone.

“I know,” Carly said. “But I’m sure you can set some regulations. She has to understand. Being a smoker myself, I know that we smokers have to be the accommodating ones.”

She really began to consider staying with Carly until she flicked on a light switch. Illuminating the apartment cast a new light on Elise’s disappointment. Not only was the furniture nice, but the entire inside of their apartment looked renovated. Faux marble countertops in the kitchen. New beige carpet. Crown molding. Bella’s nose was practically glued to the carpet as she immediately began to sniff out her new surroundings.

She noticed two pairs of shoes by the front door, both very fashionable. A pointy pair of black heels, and a funky pair of retro-looking sneakers, brown with tan stripes on the sides.

That was an understatement. The Spanish tiled floors in the kitchen shined like brand-new copper pennies. There wasn’t a speck of dust or clutter to be found. Elise never knew what to do with old phone bills or scrap pieces of paper and ended up leaving them in little stacks next to her desk. She’d never thought it was possible to live a clutter-free life.

She felt like a miner who had just stumbled upon the mother lode when she noticed pictures on the wall. “Look,” she whispered. “Pictures. We can see what she looks like!”

Except for one tiny photo of her family, all of the pictures on the wall were what appeared to be Justine with her boyfriend. She was much prettier than Elise had imagined. Long auburn hair hung past her shoulders, and her pale skin looked as if it had never met with sunburn. Her green eyes were framed beneath two well-sculpted and dramatically arched eyebrows.

“I know. How many pictures of them do you think there are?” Elise’s voice was practically inaudible. Why they were whispering neither one knew.

A couple of photos featured Jimmy alone. In one, he was playing his guitar in front of a stage full of people, his Rod Stewart haircut hanging over his ears and resting on his neck. There was another picture of him standing next to a Thanksgiving turkey looking as if he didn’t belong in the tie he was wearing. After assessing all the photos, the girls continued to inspect every room.

A small bar separated the kitchen and living room, which meant that she could watch TV while cooking a meal. There was no flaky goop or crust gathered around the dispenser on the hand soap pump. Sure, Elise was clean. But her soap dispensers tended to resemble a runny nose.

Furthermore, Justine had seemed welcome to sharing her place with Elise’s dog. But Elise knew how often Bella shed coarse little black and white dog hair. In fact, Elise had dozens covering the tank top and shorts she was wearing. What if Justine hated Bella?

Her worries were squashed when she noticed the tiny laundry room attached to the kitchen. This was the most exciting aspect of moving in with Justine. No more hoarding quarters and digging in the trenches of couch cushions in search of spare change. Her days of hauling heavy laundry baskets and a good book to the Laundromat were over. Having a washer and dryer made her temporarily forget that her new neighbors probably sold drugs out of their condo.

Small signs of Justine were revealed in the laundry room. A wool sweater laid flat on the dryer, size small. A pair of hoop earrings apparently fished out of a pocket and set on top of the washer. Her attention was distracted when she noticed Stan rummaging through the fridge.

“I’m hungry, too. But Mom and Dad are going to be here in a little while, and we’re all going out to dinner.” It was time to give Stan something to do. “Why don’t we start unloading?”

Outside, the scent of orange blossoms wafted through the path that led back to the truck, and she hadn’t realized how much she missed that fragrance. The sweet scent of the blossoming white flowers was California’s perfume in spring and early summer.

Stan placed the TV on her dresser before screwing the cable cord into the wall. Once plugged in, he hit the Power button. “I think you only get local stations.” He scanned the channels, stopping occasionally to watch something.

They peeked inside her closet and discovered that two of the shelves had come loose and looked as if they might fall from the wall if she placed anything on top of them. “I can fix those,” Stan said, running his hands over the wood.

“Of course.” He patted her on the back. “I brought some of my tools with me, so I’ll tighten those. Then you’ll have much more space in there for your stuff.”

Despite his jackass tendencies, he really could be nice when someone needed a favor. She knew he would fix them, even it meant staying until midnight. She remembered the time she had driven to San Diego two Christmases ago, and her car had broken down near Gila Bend. She was going to call for a tow truck and stay the night in a run-down motel in the truck stop town until someone could pick her up the next morning. However, Stan wouldn’t hear of it. He ditched the Coldplay concert he had tickets to and drove five hours to pick her up so she didn’t have to stay overnight in the middle of nowhere by herself.

She decided to leave several boxes unpacked, and instead stacked them in her closet. She was getting ready to put her sheets on her mattress when she heard Carly’s voice.

She had already peeked inside. She’d stolen a quick glance before an eerie feeling that Justine could enter at any moment sent her racing back to her half of the apartment. She knew what they were doing was wrong. Her conscience told her they were trespassing. However, she was also dying to see what Carly had found. Whatever it was would reveal something about the real Justine. Of course, her imagination immediately assumed it was something sexual or raunchy. She took a step forward, Bella at her heels.

She looked around and noticed that the two bedrooms were exactly alike, spacious, and each with its own bathroom. Elise was amazed that someone had actually figured out a way to prevent that bumpy layer of sedimentation that forms at the end of the toothpaste tube. Maybe if Elise squeezed her paste the same way it wouldn’t look like a science project.

It suddenly occurred to her what kind of pressure it was going to be living with Justine Viccars. Elise was going to have to be as clean as a Windex commercial if she didn’t want to be branded the slob. With her old roommates she was considered pretty clean, but with Justine she could be coined a disaster. No more leaving the occasional coffee mug in the sink or brushing crumbs onto the floor instead of sponging them off the counter. She was going to have to start making her bed every day.

Carly pointed to a wall next to Justine’s bed. Elise looked at an eight-by-ten photo of Justine and Jimmy. Her arms were thrown over his neck, and he was holding her piggyback style. They were both laughing, and the wind blew Justine’s long hair away from her face. They looked like they were posing for a breath mint ad. For a moment Elise wondered why Carly had dragged her into Justine’s bedroom to show her this. They already knew Justine had a lot of pictures of her boyfriend. She had even spotted a few more in the kitchen. Then she looked at the picture hanging beneath it. The photos were exactly the same.

It was strange, but she had to pee, and visions of Justine popping up behind them while they discussed her bizarre choice in wall décor made her nervous. “Maybe she just really likes the picture.” She could hear Stan using his electric screwdriver in her bedroom. “I don’t know. Let’s get out of here.”

The fine hair on the back of her neck sprang to life when she heard what sounded like the rough turn of a door handle. She listened to a swoosh of air enter the apartment as the front door opened. Holy shit, she was home, and they were in her room. She yanked Carly by the elbow back into the living room. “We were just trying to figure out whose room is whose,” Elise said.

“Come give me a hug, Slugger,” her dad said. Still tingling from surprise, she fell into her father’s bearlike embrace. She could smell his spicy aftershave as he planted a kiss on her forehead.

“Slugger! Slugger! Slugger!” He shouted so loud that she wondered if the neighbors might complain on the first day. And she really didn’t want everyone to know the nickname her father had given her when she gave Stan a black eye after he ripped her Ken doll’s head off when she was eight. She was twenty-seven years old now.

Her father was wearing khaki shorts with a golf shirt tucked in. An outfit her mother undoubtedly picked out. If it were up to him, he’d be sporting penny loafers with no socks and the University of Arizona sweatsuit Elise had given him her freshman year of college. His fashion sense was as savvy as a two-year-old.

The shorts and shirt her mother had selected did a good job covering his basketball-sized tummy. Her mother, however, had failed to find him a decent pair of shoes. Hal Sawyer had the kind of toes that made little kids run from swimming pools when he got in. They were an unnatural shade of yellow and as gnarled and exotic looking as something from Lord of the Rings.

Marge looked around the apartment the same way she had looked around Elise’s bedroom in seventh grade after she had plastered her walls with posters of Billy Idol. “Stan set this up?” her mother asked.

“What is wrong with him?” Marge wanted to know. Elise had actually been questioning her own judgment. She should’ve never trusted his suggestion. The atmosphere in his own apartment was similar to a camping trip. However, Stan had tons of friends, most of whom were fun-loving, good people. So she was still counting on Justine to be cool.

A mixture of skepticism and disgust covered her mother’s face. “Well, at least it’s clean in here.” She released a cough, which to an untrained ear may have sounded real, but Elise knew better. “I don’t know how you’re going to be able to handle it.”

“You know, Elise, when your father and I were driving into this area, we were very concerned. Just remember this isn’t like Del Mar or Tucson. Just a couple of blocks over we saw a homeless man pushing a shopping cart and digging through someone’s trash. Didn’t we, Hal?”

Elise had no clue where the pepper spray was. He’d given it to her years ago, and to tell the truth, she’d been scared of the canister, afraid if she held it the wrong way, or if she placed it in an awkward angle in her purse, it was going to accidentally dislodge and go off in her face. “I don’t know where the spray is. But I think that flashlight is still in my glove box.” The batteries were probably dead by now, but she kept that to herself. “I’m not staying here long. Believe me, it’s just temporary.”

While her mother’s face lit with joy, Elise wanted to ask, Why not just become a confirmed spinster? She didn’t want to discuss the issue any further. “Let me show you my room. It’s huge, and Justine had the carpets cleaned for me.”

Her mother looked around the room. “Well, at least you’ll have your own private space. Maybe you can just keep to your room and block out that smoke.” She looked at Stan, who was still bent over the desk, his brows furrowed in concentration. “Hello, Stan. How was the ride over in the U-Move?”

“Uh, that’s too bad.” Her father had returned to the living room, seized the remote control, and was in a world of his own as he watched a Padres game. He wouldn’t have cared if Stan had driven the U-Move through a police station. “Dammit!” he shouted as someone struck out.

“Stan is,” Elise said. Since he had recklessly decided to take his chances and rip through the drive-through like a raving maniac, he was going to be responsible for returning the U-Move and explaining the damage. Money owed was coming out of his pocket.

They spent another hour organizing Elise’s room while her father watched a baseball game from the edge of the couch, shouting obscenities at the pitcher. Chances were Trevor Hoffman, star pitcher for the Padres, couldn’t hear Hal Sawyer, but all the neighboring streets in City Heights could.

When they were finished unloading, Elise looked around. Compared to Justine’s nicely organized pale greens and creams, Elise’s room looked like an explosion of color from Thrift City. She’d always liked warm, bright colors, and her red sheets and comforter were mismatched and covered with patches of gold and pink. She hung a few pictures, just to make herself comfortable. A large oil print of a dramatically green cactus with huge yellow cactus flowers that she’d purchased in Arizona. Her ex-boyfriend, whom she’d dated all through college, was an artist and had painted her a watercolor of Bella lying on her plaid dog bed.

She’d hung the framed cover of the only mystery book she’d published, Double Deceit. The book was about twin sisters who each blamed the other for a string of murders in their neighborhood.

Elise wondered if Justine would think she was a cold loner for having so few photographs on her wall. She had one of Carly and her in Italy the summer after they graduated from college. Her other framed photo was of her nephew, Jeffrey. The picture had been taken a year earlier as he sat with a birthday crown perched on his blond head waiting to blow out his first candle. Jeffrey was her older sister’s son. Thank God Melissa had stepped up to the plate and produced a child by the time she was thirty. It took some of the pressure off Elise to get married and have grandkids. No one expected anything from Stan.

“That’s a good idea,” Marge said. “Why don’t we just eat pizza here while Elise gets settled?” She reached for her purse. “Here’s my credit card. Go ahead and order.”

Elise was hungry, too, but she didn’t want her family commandeering her apartment before she had even met Justine. “Maybe we should go out. I’d kind of like to explore the area.” She looked at Stan. “I thought you said there was a good Mexican food restaurant around here.”

Ignoring her, he pressed the phone against his ear. “One pepperoni pizza. And another with half green peppers and olives. And a large cheese. And can you bring a six-pack of Coke with that?”

A half an hour later a weathered-looking pizza man arrived holding several boxes and a six-pack of soda. Marge immediately began pulling Justine’s plates from the cupboard. “Everyone come grab a piece,” she called.

Knowing Crystal Klingsburg, she probably had everything planned before Melissa was even pregnant, or married, for that matter. She was Melissa’s best friend in the whole world and had been responsible for every shower, bachelorette party, and celebration in her adult life. It was a good thing she was so gung ho about event planning, because if it had been left to Elise, her sister’s bridal shower probably would’ve consisted of a six-foot sub and a case of Two Buck Chuck. Elise had never been a big planner and frankly thought showers and other such events were kind of boring. At least her sister was having a female child. Girl baby clothes were absolutely precious, and watching her open her gifts would be cute.

“Come look at this,” her mother said, pulling her digital camera from her purse. She carried the thing with her everywhere, and no matter who you were, if you started a conversation with Marge Sawyer, you’d end up being exposed to the most recent pictures of Jeffrey. “These were taken last weekend,” she said as she began scrolling through several pictures of Jeffrey standing next to a goat. “We went to the petting zoo. And you should’ve seen him. He wasn’t afraid of any of the animals. There were all these kids crying, and he just ran right up to the goats and fed them, just like he’d had goats his whole life!”

“She’s here!” her mother whispered excitedly. Open pizza boxes and piles of crumbs covered the countertops. She quickly brushed her hands over the crumbs, letting them scatter over the tiles where they were less noticeable.

She looked like the pictures, but much smaller. Elise was small, too, but she felt large next to Justine. Her new roommate had a tiny boyish figure with square shoulders and a washboard stomach. She wore khaki cargo Capri pants and a black tank top with rhinestones on it. As she turned toward Elise and Carly, she flicked a tongue ring in her mouth.

“You, too. I’m glad you made it.” She glanced at Stan. “You guys look nothing alike.” It was true. Except for their big blue eyes, they looked different. Both of Elise’s siblings took after their father. However, Elise resembled Marjorie’s side of the family, the Bradford square nose and heart-shaped lips.

“This must be Bella,” Justine said. She reached down and rubbed Bella underneath her chin. “I’m so excited that you have a dog. I’ve wanted a pet ever since I moved to San Diego. I miss my parents’ golden retriever in Nebraska.”

As Elise introduced her to the rest of her guests, she noticed that no one in her family had taken off their shoes and had been wandering all over the apartment.

“And we see you have a boyfriend? A musician?” Her mother beamed. It was really time for them to go. Elise could feel a CIA inquisition coming on.

This type of questioning continued until her mother knew which hospital Justine was born in, that her father was a contractor, and which brand of cleaning supplies she liked best. She even busted out the digital camera. The whole time Elise stood at the sink, scrubbing their dirty plates.

Carly had long since yawned, called it a night, and headed home. Eventually her parents said their good-byes, too. Stan was the last to leave. He stayed a little longer, helping carry her empty boxes to the Dumpster behind the apartment complex. She suspected he might actually be worried about her walking to the Dumpster alone. However, he would never admit this, being that he was the one who had arranged for her to live here.

“I’m so sorry,” Elise said after she had closed the door behind him. “I’m sure you weren’t expecting an onslaught of questions from my parents when I moved in.”

“Oh, that’s okay. My parents are the same exact way, only my mother would be stuffing you full of food the whole time she interrogated you.” She flicked her tongue ring. “So, do you need help with anything? Let’s see your room.”

Elise tossed her head back and laughed, but really inside she just felt irritated. Being called a celebrity only made her remember just how broke she was. If she were indeed famous, there was no way in hell she’d be sharing an apartment in City Heights for five hundred dollars a month. Instead, she’d be dividing time between her beachfront property in Kauai and a five-bedroom house in La Jolla. “I wouldn’t really say I’m famous.”

“I wish I could make money doing something like that, working out of the house. Jimmy has a great job, too. He can sleep in and work whenever he wants.”

Justine thought for a moment. Depending on the angle in which she arched her eyebrows, she could either look playful or evil. She looked a little of both. “So is your book scary?”

“Another mystery. This one is about a woman who gets framed for murdering the elderly woman she takes care of. It’s called Cold as Ice, and I write about the same detective as my first one. Her name is Ashley Trent.”

Elise quickly showered, then changed into her favorite pair of sweats and a tank top. When she returned to the living room, Justine was waiting on the couch. Her acrylic nails looked long on her little hands as she lit a cigarette. Even though she didn’t plan on staying long, she wondered how on earth she was going to endure the smoking.

She sat on the love seat and reached for the glass of wine that Justine had poured for her. The television was on, but neither one paid attention as they chatted. Justine explained that she worked at a small coffee shop in North Park that her uncle owned. “It gets really boring in there during the day when it’s slow, and I have to work a lot of doubles so I can afford rent.” She petted Bella while she spoke. “It sucks, because I don’t get to spend as much time with Jimmy as I’d like on the weekends. But sometimes he’ll just come sit with me at the coffee shop all day.”

Soon, Elise found that the conversation had turned to her love life, or lack thereof. “I had a boyfriend all through college,” she explained. “Everything was great between Tim and me. The only problem was that he had a serious case of altar phobia.”

“He was afraid of meeting me at the altar. I dated him for four years, and he kept saying he wasn’t sure about marriage. Breaking up with him was like losing my best friend, but I had to do it. I couldn’t put in another four years waiting for him to grow up. I’m not getting any younger.”

Elise was about to ask more about Jimmy’s friends when she remembered that she’d left some boxes of stationery and photo albums in the bug. If it were any other neighborhood, she’d leave them in there until morning. However, she lived in the ghetto now. “I need to get some boxes out of my car.”

“I’ll help you. By the way, I meant to tell you that we have a storage area above our parking places. I’ll give you the key, and you can put whatever you want inside.”

“Yo. Justine!” A boy of about seventeen came running toward them. He wore a wife beater tank top, blue pants that hung so low they would’ve exposed his butt cheeks if it hadn’t been for his white boxers. A heavy gold chain hung from his neck. Skinny as a rail, he was only a few inches taller than she. He was out of breath when he reached them. “Is this your new roommate?”

“Yeah, hey check this out. I been rhymin’ about you guys.” He began to move his head back and forth. “That’s right y’all. Glorious D’s in the house,” he said as if a huge audience awaited his performance. “Now let me holla about our hood. I gotcha back cuz we all good. Bustin’ around wit yo boxes. Lookin real fine, cuz you two’s foxes. Trickin’ out yo pad. It might get loud around here. So dontcha get mad.” He stopped. “Uh, that’s all I got right now.”

Applause came from several open windows on the second level of the building, and Glorious D’s arms shot up like two little antennas. “Thanks y’all. I see you around,” he said before slapping Justine’s hand with a high five and heading back to his pad.

“He makes up raps all the time,” Justine said. She seemed irritated, but Elise loved it. Having Glorious D as a neighbor would provide loads of entertainment, and as far as being interesting, he kicked ass over the yuppie couple and two small children she’d lived next door to in Tucson.

They each carried a box back to the house. Without removing her shoes, Justine went straight for the answering machine. She pressed the button and stared at the machine as if she were waiting for something critical. They’d only been outside for about ten minutes.

Justine punched in numbers on the phone while Elise carried the boxes to her room. When she returned, Justine still hovered over the answering machine. Once again, the electronic lady told them in so many words that they were total loners for the evening.

Elise decided to get ready for bed. While she was brushing her teeth, she was certain she heard the electronic lady saying there were no new messages for the third time that night.