Room for Love (10 page)

Brad is right: I don't need to meet that guy anymore, not at this point in my life. I am writing a story about how to meet the right kind of man, the kind who could potentially wind up my husband, not another hot young thing to drag into my bed. I march quickly up Avenue B and don't look back. Then I start running, toward home, fast and furious. I work up a sweat flying up the four flights of stairs to my apartment and grab a pad of Post-its once inside the door. I peel one off and write:

No guys under 30.

NO ARIES.

I stick it to my fridge door.

Proud of myself, I throw on sweats and get to work sanding a bench I found on the sidewalk the other day. I'm painting it tangerine and pasting a photo collage on top, thinking it will make an unusual coffee table. It's only when I've smoothed out the first leg that I realize that my apartment is a horror story. The fourteen outfits that Alicia tried on before settling on whatever she wore for her date with the actor are strewn all over the living room floor, my blanket lies in a heap in the doorway to my bedroom—guess Princess took a nap?—and the boxes of books stacked from floor to ceiling behind the couch fill me with renewed irritation. The temperature has dropped again, so I get up and try to shut the stupid broken window, but give up as always. I stomp into the bathroom, where it looks like bad guys have turned the place upside down searching for clues. In the kitchen, half a can of tomato soup sits congealing in a pot on the stove. Dirty dishes clog the sink. I make a mental note to strangle my sister as I toss the gelatinous red mess down the drain and put Beethoven on the stereo, hoping some sonata therapy will cool my anger.

After lighting a candle, I return to my project, slowly sanding, and breathing in the unmistakable scent of Votivo red currant. My apartment has good energy, despite my sister's Tasmanian devilish cleaning habits. Courtney's sage-smudging worked. The memory of her puttering from corner to corner shaking smoke at my walls makes me chuckle. She'd shake shake shake while telling me to think about what I want to invite into my life (love, peace, a coat rack) and what I want to purge from it (loneliness, fear, the stench of sage). Sometimes her methods strike me as mad, but they actually seem to work. The apartment feels cleansed and peaceful. We did make space for abundance, self-discipline, and a healthy relationship to enter my life. Once the bench is prepped for a first coat of paint, I trash the dust I've created and make my way to bed, doing my best to ignore the disorder around me. But when Alicia stumbles in and crawls under the covers at three
A.M
., giggly and reeking of scotch, I kick her.

5

Recently divorced 40-year-old man seeks a nice young woman to share roomy UES 2 bd. The room is large. I'm a nice guy, easy to live with. Give me a chance! What have you got to lose? My name's Stanley.

Over the weekend, psyched about beginning my research in earnest, I send Alicia off to brunch and plant myself at my desk, which is tucked into a little nook of my living room with a window to my right. I live on a quiet block, but it is one of the first warm days of the year and I'm easily distracted by kids playing in the garden I can see below and pigeons' springtime mating coos. I force myself to stay glued to my chair—except for one break when I allow myself to paint my new coffee table—and spend the day scouring Craig's List.

My only experience with computer dating was a quick trip through one of the more popular sites after a friend of a friend went out with an average of two guys a day for six months and eventually met her husband. I figured what the hell, bookmarked a few cuties, and developed a crush on a guy named BabarBoy from Brooklyn. As big a crush as you can develop for a flattering headshot and a series of pithy yet sincere answers to some banal questions. The second time I checked the site, BabarBoy had mysteriously vanished from that particular cyberzone. I figured that's the kind of luck I have with online dating and never went back. When everyone was first in their Friendster and then MySpace phase, I went out on five disastrous dates with guys who had seemed perfectly normal in their profiles, and carried on a passionate six-week correspondence with a writer on a retreat in Locarno. I was in a frenzy over possibly meeting The Guy until he returned to New York and we had coffee, and I learned he had bad skin, bad table manners, and no personality off the page. I was so embarrassed by the whole affair, I ran home and deleted every word of our gushing cyber-romance.

Looking for love in the real estate section, though, makes me feel the way big-time computer daters must feel: like the possibilities are endless if only you put in the time and chalk up the numbers. I have the funny impression of shopping for a boyfriend, feeling these men out the way you might finger plums at a farm stand: metaphorically admiring their purple sheen, squeezing them to test their firmness, sniffing for sweetness, eventually buying and taking a bite—or not. I decide I should have rules of conduct, so I write them down, excited to put words on a page.

Rule #1: During the initial phone conversation with a potential “roommate,” tell him immediately that I'm not necessarily looking for an apartment. I'm just seeing what's out there, because my current living situation is precarious and I might have to move fast. Nothing is definite—yet. This provides an escape route since clearly I'm not really moving in with the guy. Clever Courtney did this during her test calls the other night, and it worked remarkably well, leaving no one feeling dumped or duped.

The biggest hurdle with this whole project is my complete inability to tell a lie. I don't know if it's a belief in the beauty of truth or fear of being caught, but regardless, anything more than a little white lie (“My breakup with Jake was mutual”; “I'll be there in thirty seconds, just walking out the door”; “I'm almost done with my Matt Dillon piece, Steve, just doing final tweaks”) sets my voice wavering, my cheeks burning in shame. I realize pretty quickly that this scheme will require me to overcome this phobia. I have to pretend I'm not sitting in a beautiful new apartment in the East Village chatting on the brand-new portable phone I just plugged into my brand-new, flawlessly painted eggshell-white wall, but that I really want to move into the spare room in some guy's charming duplex in Chelsea. After the first few awkward calls and some initial guilt pangs, I come to an important decision: It's time to swallow my scruples and commit myself to going on a Man Hunt (the cheesy
Flashdance
song has been playing in my head for days). Which means becoming an expert at telling untruths, and fast.

“I should find out if I have to move by next week,” I say to Clarence, a thirty-three-year-old guy who works in marketing and has an alluring South African accent. “Can I come look at the place this afternoon, just in case?”

He lives only a few blocks away, so I tell him I'll be there in half an hour and rip open my closet.

Rule #2: Wear something cute. Sexy is essential. Whether or not the guy knows I'm trolling for eligible bachelors, I am, so looking good is key. I'm not much of a makeup person, but for apartment visits, I wear lipstick, mascara, a spritz of the Tiffany perfume my mom gave me for Christmas (she'd be happy to know she's contributing to my quest for both a suitable mate and a higher income bracket). When I walk through that door, the guy has to think,
Wow, I hope she doesn't want to live here, because I want to marry this woman, and it wouldn't really be appropriate to stick the mother of my children in the spare bedroom.

When Clarence opens the front door to his apartment, I know I've chosen the right outfit. His jaw drops and he literally stutters, “H-h-hello,” and proceeds to address my chest instead of my face as he forms the words, “Come in. Please. Yeah, come on in, um, Jacquie.” I say a silent,
Woo-hoo!
and make a mental note to go with sheer clothing whenever possible.

Now, Clarence is a good-looking guy. He's got that hip East Village thing going on. Beige cords hanging off his hips. Sweater he's been wearing since college, judging from the threadbare state of the elbows. Greasy bedhead I find inexplicably attractive. And, as I mentioned, he has an accent that could send you straight to heaven. But Clarence's apartment is not a place where human beings should be allowed to enter, let alone live. Inert in the doorway, my eyes scan the place: There's lots of brown. Shabby beige futon. Shit-colored armchair with foam popping through ripped vinyl. Faux wood paneling on the walls. Piles of junk—crumpled newspapers, toppled paint buckets, empty beer bottles, broken Styrofoam, forgotten milk cartons, orange peels so hard they could be sold as guitar picks, a G.I. Joe doll, an unwashed cereal bowl with a trail of ants marching through it—on every grimy surface. It's
Animal House
the morning after the toga party, except here there's a shower in the kitchen, a stall the size of a coffin right there next to the spaghetti sauce–splattered fridge, with a once-clear, now grim, waterstained curtain hanging over the side facing me, duct tape running along the rim of the base, and a bottle of Head & Shoulders perched precariously on one moldy wall. I can't believe he pays $2,400 for this pit. That's New York City in the twenty-first century. I don't have much time to take it all in, though, as my senses are instantly scrambled by the stench: garbage, baked garbage, bags of rotting eggs, takeout, coffee grinds, bong refuse, festering for days, if not weeks. It smells like the streets of New York on garbage day, mid-August. If it's not a smell you're familiar with, be thankful. It's what I imagine that dead body, on, like, day four, smells like. It hits my nostrils like a fist, and I wonder if there's vermin hanging out in his trash.

In Clarence's case, there's no need for Rule #3: Scrutinize the guy's bathroom, kitchen, and bookshelves ASAP. I won't bother with Clarence's. Mess can be dealt with, wardrobe can be upgraded, fashion faux pas tossed while he's asleep, but a guy who doesn't mind inhaling filth all day is a guy who doesn't mind inhaling filth all day. This time I don't poke around to see if his plants are dead or alive (or if he has any). I don't check out the photos of his mom, dad, and college buddies, or notice a whole wall devoted to some big-breasted redhead. On this particular visit, I don't get the chance to peek into the cupboards or glean the invaluable insight into a man's taste, intellect, and psyche that one can glean from a glance at his library.

I reluctantly cross the threshold into his apartment, breathing very slowly through my mouth.

“Wanna sit down?” he asks, still addressing my chest.

“I don't have a lot of time,” I say, resisting the urge to pull my shirt up over my nose. “Can I see the room?”

Safely settled in the empty box this guy wants me to move into, where the odor is a bit less pungent, I relax. “So, this is it?” I say, glancing around. “There's nothing in it!”

“Yeah, my roommate left fast, took it all.” He looks down at his feet. “You know, the guitarist from the Strokes lives downstairs.”

“Neat,” I say, assuming the apartment downstairs is a smidge larger, cleaner, more fragrant. “You like the Strokes?”

“Oh, yeah. It's cool that we have so many cool people living in the neighborhood.”

“I agree,” I say, wandering out of the bedroom and into the mildew-infested bathroom, just a toilet stall with a rusty medicine cabinet on one wall, a cracked sink, on its edge a thumbnail-size sliver of soap the color of dishwater—Irish Spring, I presume—with blackened grooves running through it, and a shaky, particleboard cabinet on the floor, I imagine full of cleaning products and condoms.

“What did you say you do again?” Clarence asks, making conversation.

“I'm a writer and editor at a film magazine,
Flicks.
”

“That sounds so cool,” he says, his eyes lighting up. “I wish I liked my job better. God, you have an amazing smile.”

“Thanks. Thanks so much,” I say. “Look, Clarence, I kind of have to go. I'll call you?”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” he says, leading me back to the door.

I hold on to the wall outside of his building for support and fill my lungs with deep, nourishing breaths of fresh, clean New York City exhaust before hurrying back to my place. On my way home, I spot the cute hardware-store boy and his girlfriend walking Buster through the park. They're holding hands and strolling silently, no need for words I guess after all these years. I experience a sharp pang of envy.

When I reach my place, Alicia is IMing friends on my computer and gabbing loudly on the phone at the same time.

“So, he stands up and starts showing me judo moves,” she's telling a friend, “you know, standing behind me, positioning my arms and hips, and I was like, he's really cute! Then he goes, ‘Do you want some wine?' and I was like, ‘I could use a glass.' I couldn't believe how cozy we were getting so fast—”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” I explode in the middle of her darling house-hunting tale.

“Okay, okay,” she says, jumping out of my chair. “My sister's home. Can I call you back?” She hangs up. “I'm just here for a minute. I'm sorry! I'm going to look at an apartment and going to the gym. I'll be out of your way in, like, half an hour. I'm gonna take a really short nap. I got no sleep last night, that guy was too cute, I had to drink, I…”

“Alicia, I can't deal with this anymore.” I look around. There's a pile of laundry on the floor, random items of clothing sprawled on my kitchen counter, a bowl of tuna that's turning brown, an open mayonnaise jar. “Look at this shit!”

Something dislodges in my brain and I start picking up magazines, bras, tank tops and throwing them for emphasis, shoving the stuff on the counter. “This is my apartment! Of course I let you stay here because you're my sister, but honestly, show some respect. I can't live this way! I need it to be neat so I can think straight! You don't pick up your shit, you sit there IMing all day, what the hell are you doing with yourself? You can't just sit around doing nothing.”