The apartment had wall-to-wall navy blue carpeting, and even though I had flip-flops on, I could just tell that it was moist. The kitchen was the size of an airplane bathroom, practically, and the bedroom had no windows. The place had high ceilings—that was the only nice thing about it, in my opinion.
Jeremiah and I had spent the whole day looking at apartments near our school. So far we’d seen three. This place was the worst by far.
“I like the carpet,” Jeremiah said appreciatively. “It’s nice to wake up in the morning and put your feet down on carpet.”
I glanced toward the open door, where the landlord was waiting for us. He looked around my dad’s age. He had a long white ponytail, a mustache, and a tattoo of a topless mermaid on his forearm. He caught me looking at the tattoo and grinned at me. I gave him a weak smile in return.
Then I walked back into the bedroom and motioned for Jeremiah to follow me. “It smells like cigarette smoke in here,” I whispered. “It’s, like, absorbed in the carpet.”
“Febreeze it, baby.”
“You Febreeze it. By yourself. I’m not living here.”
“What’s the problem? This place is practically on campus, it’s so close. And there’s outdoor space—we can grill. Think of all the parties we’ll have. Come on, Belly.”
“Come on nothing. Let’s go back to the first place we looked at. That place had central air-conditioning.” Above us, I could feel rather than hear the bass from someone’s stereo pumping.
Jeremiah jammed his hands into his pockets. “That place was all old people and families. This place is for people our age. College kids like us.”
I looked back at the landlord. He was looking at his cell phone, pretending not to listen to our conversation.
Lowering my voice, I said, “This place is basically a frat house. If I wanted to live in a frat house, I would bunk with you back at fraternity row.”
He rolled his eyes. Loudly, he said, “I guess we’re not taking the apartment.” To the landlord, he shrugged, like whaddyagonnado. Like they were in on it together, just a couple of guys, partners.
“Thank you for showing us the apartment,” I said.
“No problemo,” the guy said, lighting a cigarette.
As we stepped out of the apartment, I shot Jeremiah a dirty look. He mouthed, What, in a bewildered way. I just shook my head.
“It’s getting late,” Jeremiah said in the car. “Let’s just pick a place. I want to get this over with already.”
“Okay, fine,” I said, turning up the AC. “Then I pick the first place.”
“Fine,” he said.
“Fine,” I said back.
We went back to the first apartment complex to fill out paperwork. We went straight to the management office. The building manager’s name was Carolyn. She was tall and red haired and she wore a printed wrap dress. Her perfume smelled like Susannah’s. I took this as a definite good omen.
“So your parents aren’t renting the apartment for you?” Carolyn asked. “Most students have their parents sign the lease.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Jeremiah beat me to it.
“No, we’re doing this on our own,” he said. “We’re engaged.”
Surprise registered on her face, and I saw her glance ever so briefly at my stomach. “Oh!” she said. “Well, congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Jeremiah said.
I said nothing. Inside, I was thinking how sick I was of everybody thinking I was pregnant just because we were getting married.
“We’ll need to do a credit check, and then I can process your application,” Carolyn said. “If everything checks out, the apartment is yours.”
“If you’ve been late on a few credit-card bills, will that, um, negatively impact a person’s credit?” Jeremiah asked, leaning forward.
I could feel my eyes widen. “What are you talking about?” I whispered. “Your dad pays your credit card.”
“Yeah, I know, but I started one freshman year too. To build my credit,” he added, giving Carolyn a winning smile.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said, but her smile had faded. “Isabel, how’s your credit?”
“Um, good, I think. My dad put me down on his credit card, but I never use it,” I said.
“Hmm. Okay, how about any department-store cards?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“We definitely have first and last month’s rent,” Jeremiah put in. “And we have the security deposit, too. So it’s all good.”
“Great,” Carolyn said, and she stood up from her chair. “I’m going to process this today, and I’ll let you guys know within the next couple of days.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.
Jeremiah and I walked out of the building and to the parking lot. When we were standing outside the car, I said, “I really hope we get that apartment.”
“If we don’t, I’m sure we can get one of the other ones. I doubt Gary would even do a credit check on us.”
“Who’s Gary?”
Jeremiah went around to the driver’s side and unlocked the door. “That guy from the last apartment we saw.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure Gary would still do a credit check.”
“Doubt it,” Jere said. “Gary was cool.”
“Gary probably has a meth lab in the basement,” I said, and this time Jeremiah rolled his eyes.
I continued. “If we lived in that apartment, we would probably wake up in the middle of the night in an ice bath without our kidneys.”
“Belly, he rents apartments to lots of students. A guy from my soccer team lived there all last year, and he’s fine. Still has both kidneys and everything.”
We looked at each other from across the car, on opposite sides. Jere said, “Why are we still talking about this? You got your way, remember?”
He didn’t finish the sentence the way I knew he wanted to—You got your way, like you always do.
“We don’t know if I got my way or not.”
I didn’t finish the sentence the way I wanted to—We don’t know if I got my way or not, because of your bad credit.
I jerked the passenger door open and got in.
I got the call later that week. We didn’t get the apartment. I didn’t know if it was because of Jere’s bad credit or my lack of credit, but who really cared. The point was, we didn’t get it.
