Lauren

17

The sun rose and everything fell. This was the lie my roommate, Melanie, told me when I saw our junk lying all over our apartment. While visiting my family for the weekend, Melanie texted me that it was time to get our lives together. Apparently, our current lifestyle of watching Big Brother while downing a family sized bag of Doritos wasn’t “together” enough for her. She would clean the apartment and pick up some books while I was responsible for picking up groceries and getting the bathroom sink fixed. Melanie convinced me that cleaning up our act was necessary if we wanted a half-way decent roommate. She persuaded me that we needed a third roommate because it would cut the rent, although I knew the real reason Melanie wanted another roommate is because she loved being around people. Melanie without people was like a dragon without fire; useless and sad.
“Really?” I asked as I dropped the grocery bag onto the kitchen counter. “Everything fell because the sun rose? You can do better than that. What about a mad dish maniac rifled through our cabinets looking for a favorite coffee mug, or how about a bunch of teenagers went on a rampage in search of a Frappuccino?”
Mel stuck to her story. “All the clothes were put away. All the dishes were clean and in the cabinet, and then this morning, before you came back, all of our stuff just fell down, like me after a night of drinking.”
“They forgot to tell us at Dracula’s Closet that the clothes are possessed,” I said. “But that doesn’t explain the dishes all over the floor.”
“Hey, I picked up some books,” Mel changed the topic as she walked into her bedroom and emerged holding a stack of books.
“Do you really think that having books in the apartment will attract a decent roommate? I thought that’s what free Wi-Fi was for. Ok, let’s see what you’ve got here,” I said grabbing her stack of books. “Post-Partum Depression for Dummies, Baby Boy Names, and Surprise Child.”
“Hey, that’s all they had,” Melanie said. “They are surprisingly interesting, even for those who are yet to be impregnated.”
“I bet this’ll get us a roommate, a pregnant roommate. Just what we need. A mouth who will eat all our food.” I responded dramatically.
“But at least they won’t drink all of our booze. Or the people applying to be our new roommate will assume that one of us is pregnant and they’ll come prepared to wait on us for a few months.”
“You’re insane.” Her plan impressed me. I liked that Mel came up with unusual ideas. Sometimes they worked, more often they didn’t, but it made things interesting.
“We need to get the bathroom sink fixed,” Mel reminded me suggesting that the “we” was really me. As she started clearing space on the coffee table for her pregnancy books, I picked up my phone and called Alex or should I say, “Mr. Alexander Pastel Ascot the Eighty-Seventh.” This was a nickname Mel and I bestowed upon him because it had a regal air about it, and it sounded better than the alternatives. There was Our Al Pal (sounded a little creepy) and Alexander the Alligator (too juvenile). But we knew that it had to be said in a foreign accent to get the full effect. Alex didn’t mind it though. I actually believe that he secretly enjoyed the attention.
“Hello,” squeaked an unfamiliar female voice through the receiver of my phone. Alex messes with us all the time. Lucky for him I was feeling extra playful today.
In my best French accent, “Eez zis Alexandair ze feline?” Okay, so maybe I wasn’t as sharp as I thought.
“Um, do you mean Alex?” The female voice inquired as if she were trying to help a foreigner find the nearest McDonalds. Shoot. This wasn’t Alex.
“Sorry about that,” I apologized, “I was calling to speak with Alex Murray. My sink’s broken and I was hoping that he could take a look at it.”
“Are we talking about the same Alex Murray? Yeah,” she continued. “He stepped out to get his mail. I can send him up when he comes back. I’m his sister, Olivia. I only answered the phone because the ID on the phone read “Evil Sink” and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to talk to an evil sink.”
“Oh, that sounds about right. Thanks for giving my message to him though.”
“Of course, bye, Evil Sink.”
I hung up.
“He’ll be up soon.” I said.
“Great, in the meantime we can discuss the origin of the name Ethan.” Melanie said as she looked at the Baby Boy Name book.
“That might be a discussion for later. But be sure to put that at the top of your ice breaker list.”
“Sometimes I don’t even think you’re interested in what I have to say. Next you won’t want to discuss how to make our apartment more Feng Shui.”
“I just think that our new roommate might want some input.” I said as I walked out of the apartment with a bag full of garbage. Not much left to do. As long as all the junk is cleared out of the living area, then we’ll be done. Baby steps.
“Hey Alex.” I said as he exited the elevator. He turned toward me.
“My sister told me a psycho with a French accent called and asked for a cat. Was that you?” he asked.
“And why am I on your phone as ‘Evil Sink’? I’ve got feelings, ya know.”
“Don’t be mad,” Alex offered. “I just put in the first thing I think of that reminds me of the way I met the person.”
“But evil? Really?”
“Not you. You’re sink was evil. Alright lead me to my victim. To the sink,” he commanded with a dramatic wave of his arm. We entered the apartment to the sight of Melanie running into my bedroom with a tall pile of clothes.
“You’re trying to sneak your mess into my room.” I yelled.
“No I’m not,” Melanie yelled as she dumped her pile in my room.
“See what I have to put up with?” I looked at Alex. He shrugged.
“A man needs to confront these things alone.” Alex said. I rolled my left eye, that’s right, only one eye…it’s a talent I’ve had since I was a kid (a real crowd pleaser at the talent show).
Alex stared at me disgusted and confused, “Stop it. That’s gross,” he said as he walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do,” I heard him say through the closed door.
“Our hero,” I said sarcastically. “When is the first candidate supposed to arrive for her interview?” I asked Melanie.
“Any minute now. And by the way, it’s Tim from college.
“I heard he went downhill after college,” I mentioned.
“He seemed normal when I ran into him at the gym.”
“What were you doing at a gym?”
“I was buying my favorite cookie dough flavored Oreos from the vending machine,” Melanie added matter-of-factly.
“So did you talk to Tim for all of two minutes? I’m serious. He got weird. Tim got into intercepting alien transmissions through his sunglasses. And he might have done just a tad of acid,” I said.
“Are you serious? Stop him from coming. Tell him we moved. Tell him that you’re allergic to his sunglasses.”
Alex emerged from the bathroom. “Ladies,” Alex announced. “I grant you bathroom privileges. I conquered your sink. It now works. Also you guys hung out with a weird group in college.”
“We just thought Tim was an astronomy nerd.” I said.
“What are we going to do? Tim’ll be here any minute now.” Mel said stressed.
“Just don’t answer the door.” Alex added.
“That’ll set him off. Let’s answer the door and act like everything’s normal and just not call him back.” Melanie proposed.
There was a knock at the door. Melanie looked scared.
“Alex, you have to answer the door.” I said.
“Unless Tim is made of pipes and screws I don’t really see my skills applying here. My only other skill is playing clarinet. Thousands of dollars of clarinet lessons down the tubes. Defeating a sink doesn’t qualify me to take down a nut-job.” Alex responded.
“Come on. You can eat whatever you want from our fridge,” I offered.
“That and a case of beer.”
“Fine,” I said.
“But not the imported stuff,” Melanie quickly added.
The door handle started to turn from the outside. I looked at Melanie. As usual the door was unlocked.
“You guys don’t lock your door?” Alex said.
“We’ve never had a problem before.” Melanie said unapologetically.
Alex walked over to the door. Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.