When I get back to Mikey’s apartment, there’s a CD leaning against the screen door, with an envelope taped to the front. Mike is written in flowing purple ink, with the e drifting off into a series of pert purple flowers. I don’t have time to really think about what it means, so I leave it by the door. I write a note to Mikey with my new address.
It doesn’t take long to repack my stuff. I wrap the dishes from the shelter in the plaid blanket I snagged from the fence and wedge them into Louisa’s suitcase, throw my clothes into my backpack. I find some rope and lug everything outside, strap Louisa’s suitcase to the back of the yellow bicycle, and hoist my backpack onto my shoulders.
Opera pours from the windows of the front house. I stop for a second, listening, and wonder if I should say goodbye to Ariel, or thank her, or something, but I don’t. I use the garden gate to leave and I don’t look back. It’s just another thing I’ve never learned how to do: say goodbye.
It’s a slow, hard ride to the white building. The suitcase keeps shifting behind me on the bicycle and I struggle to keep my balance and keep pedaling. I’m a little worried about leaving my bike outside, even locked up, but I do it, hoping for the best.
I drag everything I own up the rickety stairs and stop. Wiping sweat off my face, I stand at the doorway to the room for a solid five minutes, waiting for someone to let me in, when I realize I can let myself in. Because I have a key. I look down at it, cool and silver, in my hands.
When I flick the light switch in the room, nothing happens. I can see in the shadows that there’s no bulb in the light fixture, only an empty, dark hole. I drag my backpack and Louisa’s suitcase into the room and shut the door, sliding the chain lock into place.
I pull the cord on the standing lamp; nothing. When I unscrew the bulb, I see the stain of blowout. The kitchen area is only a few steps away from the door. The tiny bulb above the sink there works, though I have to stand on my tiptoes to reach the string, which turns out to be a dirty shoestring.
The sunlight is fading. From the street comes the dull and insistent whee-hoo, whee-hoo of cars hitting the driveway bell of the drive-through liquor store.
I’ve finished my bread and the jar of peanut butter and just have one bruised peach left from the Dumpster at the co-op. My stomach rumbles, but I don’t want to go anywhere else tonight. Yellow light streams through the window from the streetlamp outside. I cup my hands and drink musty water from the kitchen tap, thinking about what to do. I decide Leonard is my best bet.
I unlock the door and ease it open. The hallway is empty. I can smell cigarette smoke. There are three doors on my side and three across the hall, with the door to the bathroom at the end of the hall. That door is closed, though I can hear some grunting. I shut my door and head down the stairs quickly, grateful that the hall light works.
At Leonard’s, he hands me a hammer and nail. I offer a quarter for a spare lightbulb, and he accepts it, grinning. In the room, I screw in the lightbulb.
I pound the nail into the wall and hang the glittery skull cross from Ariel’s house above the tub.
I push the green chair in front of the door, make sure the door is latched, then lie on the floor, my head on my backpack. I count to myself: I had nine hundred and thirty-three dollars of the Ellis-and-me money. I paid Leonard a total of five hundred and ninety-five dollars for rent and security, so I have three hundred and thirty-eight dollars left. It was scary and sad to hand over so much money at once, to have to let go what she and I had dreamed about.
But I do have a room of my own, at last. I’m not in an alley, or an underpass, or a leaky, cold van, or a red room in a horrifying house. I’m here.
I don’t feel sad. For just now, I don’t feel scared. I feel, for right now, well, kind of triumphant.
I hug myself, listening to all the life outside this grimy room, the shouts from the street, muffled voices from the other rooms, televisions, crackling radios, the blare of a siren several blocks away, thinking, My room. My room.
