Whattaya Think?
It was only a matter of time before I was gone all night again, drinking with Larry at old-person bars, listening to him sing on stage, wondering why I’d ever left the man.
Still, the thought of the Pitcairn Hotel nauseated me. I loved my job, and I was newly saved. I wasn’t sure what I was doing with Larry; I just knew I didn’t want to go backwards.
But I struggled to get myself to work on time after long nights of heavy drinking. I slept on the bus to work, mightily hungover, and I only worked three nights a week. For the rest of each week, I was fighting with my parents (in my head) about my lifestyle.
In real life, my parents had gone silent.
One night as I hopped onto the motorcycle, Larry announced, “I found us an apartment!”
“I don’t want to live in an apartment,” I said.
“Well let’s take a look,” he said. “If you don’t like it, we won’t get it.”
Larry knew that the key to getting me back was to prime me with liquor and get me away from my parents – not necessarily in that order. So we stopped and had a few beers at Barry’s before going to the apartment which was, of course, in Pitcairn.
The apartment was on Second Street, meaning it was between Main Street and Third Street. Things were simple in Pitcairn. Main Street was flat along the river, and the street numbers went up with the mountain.
We were low on the mountain; we could walk to Barry’s in ten minutes.
Alleys ran between the streets, and this particular apartment had a detached garage in the alley. Larry was thrilled about this since, if he was staying another winter, he wanted somewhere to store his motorcycle.
I was more interested in the apartment itself, which was half a house – not just a dingy room. Our half of the house would be upstairs; an older woman lived downstairs. Everything was completely separate, and we would never see her.
The landlord unlocked the door on the side of the house and let us in. We walked up some stairs into the living room, which was three times the size of the Pitcairn Hotel room. Through one doorway off the living room sat an equally enormous kitchen and through the other was a sizable bedroom.
Larry was barely looking at the place; he was looking at me. “Whattaya think?” he asked.
“It’s huge!” I said. It was at least as big as Larry’s house in Florida.
“We have our own attic, too,” Larry said, opening a door. Up another set of stairs was a giant empty room with a dormer from which I could see the houses below us.
“This is really cool,” I said. “Can I have this room?”
“You can have whatever you want, Baby.”
Larry smiled.
We walked back downstairs to where the landlord was waiting.
“Can I get a dog?” I asked both of them.
Wondering if this was a dealbreaker, Larry looked hopefully at the landlord.
“No dogs,” said the landlord. “Non-negotiable.”
“I really, really want a dog,” I begged.
“Sorry,” said the landlord. “A cat would probably be okay.”
I remembered that darling kitten who’d crawled up my arm in Ohio – a kitten who was then too young for me to take home.
“I like cats,” I said.
And that was that.
I took my childhood bed and my college suitcase and I moved back in with Larry.
