Fear gripped me as I closed my hand around that key.
“Is it safe here?” I asked naively.
“Of course it’s safe,” the woman laughed. “Just use your bean and don’t put your wallet or any fancy cameras under your pillow.”
I had a very bad feeling about spending the night in this place, but it was far too late at night and we’d had much too much of an emotionally draining day to go any further. Aaron walked me down the hall to where the doors to the separate locker rooms would take us to different wings of the building.
“Just lock everything up and get some sleep,” Aaron told me, running his hand over my hair. “Meet me back out in the front lobby in the morning and tomorrow night we’ll find some place better, I promise.”
“OK,” I agreed, wanting to be strong for his sake. I waved goodbye at him as he entered the men’s locker room, and I entered the women’s wing. The locker room had harsh florescent lighting and stank of bleach, which should have comforted me in that at least the place was clean, but it didn’t.
I found locker 41, which matched the number on my little silver key, and I changed into my pajamas as quickly as I could, not especially wanting to linger around in my undies in such a foreign place. I spent a few minutes trying to jam my entire suitcase into the locker, and then crammed my purse in on top of it, and locked the door carefully. Still not trusting that my belongings would be safe in the morning, I jiggled the locker handle a few times to convince myself that it was indeed, locked.
I tiptoed down the long hallway through the open doorway on the other side of the locker room, past all of the doors to the private double rooms. The dorm-style room was at the far end of the hall, and when I entered, even in the dark I could see that there were five bunk beds. The room was humid and smelled stale, like bad breath. Someone, I wasn’t sure who, was snoring. Someone else shifted and rolled and I heard the sound of plastic crinkling when I entered.
When my eyes grew accustomed to the dark I could finally determine which bed in the room was still unoccupied. There was only one, and it was a top bunk in the room’s center. I climbed up the small stepladder as quietly as I could to hoist myself on top of the mattress. And then I realized why I had heard plastic crinkling: the mattresses in this hostel were all covered in thick plastic sheets, the kind that parents put on little kids’ beds to protect the mattress from bedwetting.
Gross.
Even worse, there was no sheet over it. I had a vague memory of senior girls at Treadwell who had backpacked across Europe over the summer mentioning that it’s customary to bring your own sheets to hostels.
I hadn’t exactly been planning to sleep in a hostel earlier in the day when I had packed my suitcase. I had no sheets, and neither did Aaron. I sat upright on my bed for a few minutes, wondering what to do. I listened to the muffled breathing of the other female guests in the room. Climbing out of the bunk bed to go ask for sheets at the front desk was not an option, because I didn’t want to appear like a complete idiot to the hostel staff, and even more so I didn’t want to wake up any one else in the ladies’ dormitory room.
I took a deep breath and stretched out on the lumpy mattress, trying to minimize plastic noises. At least there was a very plain pillow, covered in some kind of scratchy white fabric. I’ll just sleep a few hours, I promised myself. I felt exposed and weird sleeping on a sheet-less bed with no blanket. I wondered what the other women in the room would think if they woke up before me and saw me like that, so pathetically unprepared.
I tried to focus on falling asleep. I could hear someone yelling outside in the street but couldn’t discern what they were saying. Didn’t people in New York ever go to sleep? I thought about my comfy bed back at Treadwell covered in my clean-smelling pink duvet, where my room was probably empty and abandoned in my absence. I thought about my parents, probably tucked away fast asleep in their giant sleigh bed, their huge balcony doors wide open, filling their bedroom with clean desert night air.
Then I felt the first itchy bite on my ankle. I sat upright and slapped my leg. Something, some things were viciously attacking me. I felt little bites on my feet and then on my legs and then on my arms and one on my stomach.
I scratched and swatted at my limbs for what felt like hours until I finally willed myself to just lie still and block out the bites. I fixed my eyes on the peeling paint on the ceiling and reached out to God with my thoughts. I diverted my fingers by reaching around my neck for my gold cross and focusing on touching that instead of on all of the itchy new welts that were forming on my limbs.
God, I could use some help, here. I mean, I know it was not very considerate or respectful for me to run away, but come on, you’ve got to admit that my parents are being idiots. I know you’re probably testing me, and you’ve got some important lesson in store for me, but I could do without these bugs stinging me. Seriously.
Seriously. This is not cool.
Maybe it was because the dormitory of the hostel was such a foreign environment and all I could hear was the irregular deep breathing of other girls; maybe it was because I was simply too exhausted to be truly aware of my senses. But I didn’t sense God’s presence when I waited for His response. I felt alone and it was terrifying.
In the morning I woke up, still tired, and discovered two little black bugs that looked like beetles on my left arm. I was covered in tiny red sores that itched like tarnation. As soon as I began scratching one of the bites on my calf, it began bleeding. I was so distracted by all of these bug bites that I had forgotten about the fact that I was in a room occupied by nine other female guests, almost all of whom had already gotten up for the day.
A tall woman dressed in jeans was folding up sheets at the bunk bed set next to the one on which I sat.
“They’re bed bugs,” she informed me in a thick Italian accent. “Disgusting. I am going to try to get my money back from this filthy hostel. Wash everything in your suitcase in very hot water before you check in anywhere else.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, stupefied.
I stood in my pajamas in the ladies’ locker room for a full five minutes working up the nerve to shower around all these European teenagers. To say that I was shy about having to strip down naked in front of girls I didn’t know and shower with them is the understatement of the century! The dorm rooms at Treadwell have private bathrooms, and even the locker rooms attached to the gym have private dressing stalls attached to the showers. I sat down on a bench and scratched at my bug bites as I tried to casually stall. There was no getting around it, though. Because of the bugs, I was going to have to shower. Waiting until Aaron and I found a new place to crash was not an option.
I waited until all but one girl, who was lingering in front of the sinks and mirrors for an infuriatingly long time, were busy with their own showers before I peeled off my pajamas, grabbed a threadbare towel from the stack, and stepped into the shower. I tried to stare down at my feet without looking around too much while I lathered up soap. It completely freaked me out to be surrounded by so many naked women, who were laughing and joking with their travel mates as if it was as natural as anything for them to be hanging out in the nude together.
After I dried off, I threw my pajamas in the trash bin without giving them another thought. No way could they go into my suitcase if there was a chance even one bug was still hiding in them.
Aaron – Eric – was waiting for me in the lobby with his coat on and suitcase ready to go, just like he’d said he would be the night before. I was so relieved to see him sitting there; my handsome brother, the stubble on his jaw sparkling in the morning sunlight streaming in from the window, that I almost threw my arms around him in an embarrassing display of emotion.
As we checked out of the hostel and turned our locker keys back in, I felt so tired that I was clumsy and dizzy. The feeling that God had somehow turned His back on me was something that I could simply not shake. I was listening intently for His voice, to try to figure out what it was He wanted me
to do in this situation, but I got the distinct feeling that He wasn’t saying anything meant for my ears that morning.
I resolved to listen for God’s word after we’d straightened out our living situation. I wanted to leave that hostel behind, and never, ever return.
Chapter 6
“As you can see, there’s a balcony that overlooks Second Avenue, and a Laundromat just two buildings down,” the realtor was telling us.
The realtor didn’t seem much older than Aaron, maybe in his early twenties. He had curly black hair, funky black-framed glasses, and carried a file folder containing a printed-out sheet of paper listing details about the apartment we were viewing. I had already forgotten his name, which he had told us when we met outside on the street. He was wearing a black leather jacket like a motocross star, although his pot belly suggested he wasn’t racing many motorcycles.
“It’s really nice,” Aaron admitted.
The apartment was a one-bedroom on a cool block in the East Village around the corner from a movie theater. After leaving the hostel in Morningside Heights, Aaron and I had gone to a coffee shop and rented time on a computer to review apartment listings on Craig’s List. We decided immediately that we’d have to share a one-bedroom apartment; the two-bedrooms, no matter what neighborhood we looked in, were insanely expensive. The monthly rents were so high, I could hardly believe it. Finally as it neared eleven in the morning, Aaron said we couldn’t afford to put off looking for an apartment until later in the day. We would run through our funds quickly staying at hostels every night, and we couldn’t risk being eaten alive by insects.
Getting in touch with real estate agents was a problem. They all wanted us to e-mail them with our phone number so that they could call us when it was convenient for them. So, our first task of the day had been to obtain a cell phone.
Our first venture into a phone store was harrowing. The salespeople were like vultures, and as soon as we realized we were going to have to provide a credit card to commit to a service plan, Aaron blanched and fumbled with his wallet. I seriously did not remember when I shopped for my first cell phone with Mama that this whole process had been so complicated. But then, of course it hadn't been; she had just put the whole thing on her Amex Black card and didn’t even look at how much it had cost.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I told the salesgirl, stepping in front Aaron to prevent him from giving her his VISA card. “Aren’t there any pre-paid mobile phones? I think that would work best for us.”
The sales girl was irked that we were going to be cheap about this, but led us reluctantly toward a display of less fancy phones that were available on a month-to-month plan.
“What are you doing?” I hissed at Aaron under my breath. “You can’t use that card for anything, it’s traceable!”
And worse than it being a way for our parents to track us down, it occurred to me that there was a possibility they had already cancelled the cards if Daddy had truly disowned Aaron. My imagination ran wild with possibilities of what might happen if we were trying to use cancelled credit cards, and jail was one of them. I made a mental note to cut up my brother’s credit cards – all of them – as soon as I could get my hands on a pair of scissors. My brother’s inability to ever say “no” to anyone was going to be our undoing.
We had bought a pre-paid mobile phone and paid for two months – the minimum - in cash, and Aaron bought each of us 30-day Metrocards for unlimited rides on the subway. My heart felt like it was sliding down to my intestines as he tapped the buttons on the screen in the subway station to order those Metrocards. That expense of two hundred dollars was committing us to another thirty days of living in this city, with the details of our existence still entirely up in the air.
We had used the mobile phone to call brokers, and the guy showing us the place on Eleventh Street had been the first to call us back. He claimed he had a whole bunch of great apartments to show us and I didn’t doubt him. This one was really cute. It was tiny, for sure, with a miniature oven (probably a third of the width of Anna’s oven in our kitchen at home) built into a little kitchenette area. A white microwave hung above the stovetop, and a brand new stainless steel fridge, no wider than two feet, was crammed into the only remaining space along that wall. There was a little half-wall separating the kitchen area from the living room, which had two big windows that overlooked Second Avenue and a brick fireplace that I was sad to learn no longer worked.
The bedroom was also tiny, probably no larger than ten feet by ten feet, but large enough to fit a full-sized bed and maybe a chest of drawers.
“You said you were from California?” the realtor asked Aaron, flipping through paper in his file folder looking for our information sheet.
“Yeah, Los Angeles,” Aaron murmured, looking around the apartment again as if in a dream state.
I wasn’t sure what Aaron was thinking, but I was sold. This apartment would be a squeeze for the two of us, but it would do. The rent was $2,600 and I figured we could buy a little couch, maybe a red one, and then get a kitten. We could have purple geraniums in window boxes in the sills of the windows that faced Second Avenue. I assumed that if we signed the lease that afternoon, we could move in that day and sleep on the floor. It would be uncomfortable, but no more uncomfortable than sleeping on a plastic-wrapped bed with a billion bed bugs.
“I love this place,” I announced, wanting to shake Aaron out of his reverie.
“Well, you’re the first to see it,” the realtor told us. “I’m sure it’ll be off the market by tonight. Units in this building are never available for long. If you want it, I would strongly suggest you fill out an application and leave me a good-faith deposit.”
“OK, I’ll fill out an application,” Aaron said, looking directly at me, uncertainty audible in his voice.
It sounded unbelievable to me that an apartment would be rented out the very same day it became available to rent. I suspected this realtor was just trying to rush us into signing, but what did I know about renting an apartment? If there was any truth to what he was cautioning, I didn’t want us to lose our shot at this cute place.
“Great,” the realtor said. “I’ll need five hundred dollars in cash to hold the apartment while the management company reviews your application. If you’re approved, they’ll require first month’s and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit of a thousand dollars. And my fee is twelve percent of the annual rent. We prefer cashier’s checks.”
My jaw dropped. I couldn’t even add up that much money in my head. The realtor was asking for over six thousand dollars!
“If everything works out, they’ll probably need a week to paint and fix a little pesky thing with the toilet,” the realtor continued, waving his hand in the direction of the tiny bathroom.
With a frown, Aaron handed the application back to the realtor.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m not prepared to spend this much money and we can’t wait a week.”
The realtor turned his nose up at Aaron haughtily. “Well, you’re new in town. Trust me; our fees are very typical of what you’ll find throughout Manhattan.”
He thrust his tacky, shiny business card at Aaron, who meekly accepted it.
“Call me when you’re ready to get serious,” the realtor said.
Back out on the street, I was both furious at no one in particular, and sad. Shame on me for getting ahead of myself and imagining us having an adorable life in a little apartment we couldn’t afford. We were no worse off now than we were when we first stepped inside the apartment building behind us, but I felt like we had lost something precious. We had only been shown how naïve we were by a crass broker who was annoyed that we had wasted his time with our ignorance.
“What are we going to do?” Aaron wondered aloud. “I don’t have six grand. And if landlords here only take cashiers’ checks, I’m going to have to open a new bank account under this name.”
He sat down on the cement stoop of another apartment building and put his head in
his hands hopelessly.
I sat down next to him, not sure what to say to make things all right. Daddy would know what to say; he always did, but obviously calling him for moral support was not an option. I took in a deep breath and looked patiently up and down the block. A young mom with long blond hair was pushing a baby in a stroller. A pizza delivery guy riding a bicycle without a helmet rolled to a stop in front of the building we had just exited to deliver lunch to someone lucky. A hip-looking guy with dreadlocks strode past, bopping his head in time to the music on his headphones.
“Aaron,” I said slowly, “all of these people must live somewhere. There must be ways to get apartments in this city without thousands and thousands of dollars.”
“Like, how?” he glowered.
“Like all these people!” I exclaimed, waving my arm around. “Everyone on this street lives in this city and surely they didn’t all pay more than six thousand dollars to move into their apartments. We just have to be smarter about this.”
“I don’t know how to be smarter, Gracie,” Aaron snapped.
Sometimes, when he was in a bad mood, Aaron could be exasperating.
“Sure you do,” I assured him. “Look at that pizza delivery guy. Where do you think he sleeps at night?”
Aaron half-rolled his eyes at me and then took a closer look at the delivery guy who was stepping out of the apartment building, sticking a wad of cash in the pocket of his jeans and then unlocking his bike.
“I don’t know,” Aaron muttered. “Queens? The Bronx?”
“Then we should look in Queens and the Bronx,” I said. “Do you think he lives alone? With roommates?”
Aaron was catching on. “Probably with roommates.”
“So, let’s go back online and see if we can find someone who already has an apartment and needs roommates,” I said, excited. “Then we won’t have to do a credit check or show any ID or anything like that.”
The Believer's Daugher - [A Treadwell Academy - 02] Page 8