VACANCY

Monday, March 12th, 11:00 PM

12 hours.

12 hours to find a place or end up homeless. Life is good. Hostel money's gone, parents aren't sending reinforcements for another two weeks, and I can barely afford free breakfast. Online apartment hunting sucks on an empty stomach. It's not much better when I'm full.

The Internet on the 5th floor moves about as fast as dial-up.

My roommate's a seven-foot Italian and pretty much my only alternative to Craig's list. He's got his real estate license. I've asked for his help, but he hates speaking English outside of basic introductions. I wanna think he's cool. He'd be cooler if he shared his housing wisdom, but he won’t.

Whatever.

I'd beg, but it's probably better not to bother a sleeping giant.

My Craig's list options are down to an expensive piece of shit in east London or a crack den an hour outside the city.

I aimed for the nicer places at first—the cozy English cottage types that lonely old cat ladies live in. I sent out at least fifteen emails asking about a room "to let", but old ladies don't answer emails so there goes that.

The cute girl at the front desk downstairs said I could stay with her if all else fails. She doesn't mean it, but at least she's got a nice smile. She probably smiles like that at everyone. I can't bring myself to tell her that I'm gonna be homeless after check-out.

Street-student-swag isn't sexy.

I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do. My university didn't include a how-to-guide for scholarship kids too broke to afford student housing.

I thought I'd find something. Maybe I will.

12 hours left to get lucky.

C'mon London, love me a little.

Don't hit and quit me this early.

I wanna make this work for the long-term.

Here’s to hoping,

        -James

                                                        ***

Tuesday, March 13th, 3:00 AM

I can't sleep.

I probably should considering this is my last night in an actual bed. I've checked my email 65 times. My eyes hurt. Every time I refresh I get a little bit excited and then the heart shattering "no new mail" message pops up and ruins everything. I check it again anyway.

        1 New Message

Please God don’t let it be spam. It isn't. It's a fucking miracle.

        Subject: Room to Let

Dear Mr. Bradford,

        I hope my email finds you well. I recently received your request to let my spare room in my home. I'm happy to inform you that I'm able to accommodate you for the dates of your stay. My home is 20 minutes outside of central London by train. If this isn't an inconvenience to you, feel free to come by the house tomorrow morning with the rent and deposit.

        Best regards,

        -Martha Halcott

Martha is my new best friend. She's crazy to be up answering emails this late but maybe she's one of those cool British mod chicks from the 60's who doesn't realize that the 60's ended.

Maybe she’s young and hot.

Maybe she's a slightly more vintage MILF. Maybe she's like my grandma. I don't care.

A room is a room.

Tomorrow, I'll call my mom first thing and let her now how un-homeless and safe I am. Maybe I'll leave my number with the girl at the front desk too. A twenty-minute train ride definitely isn't too far to travel for a good time.

        Here’s to an awesome tomorrow,

        -James

                                                        ***

Tuesday, March 13th 8:00 AM

Martha's house is smaller than it looks in the pictures. Not small enough to complain about but definitely not American. The cab took twenty minutes to find her place, the last apartment on a narrow street barely big enough for the driver to get through.

Red-brick, white-roofed, lace-curtained—stereotypically quaint.

I figured her apartment would smell like Earl Grey and dead flowers. But it doesn't. Standing outside her red doorway in the rain, a sickly sweetness sneaks past my nostrils. Smells a lot like sadness, like a heavy must drowned in perfume to hide unpleasantness poisoning the air.

My grandma's place smelled a lot like this after grandpa died. She used to scrub their little one bedroom bungalow 'til it was spotless. Their house always smelled like lemons, like life. But when grandpa left her alone, the zest in the place died along with him.

Death steals the light out of people and the places they live. There isn't any light in this house, at least from the outside.

She opens the door and her hair catches my attention right as it catches the wind. It's faded blonde, but not dull enough to hide the remnants of a bad dye job. The frizziness scares me a little 'cause the strands whip around in the morning breeze like a witch’s would.

Her eyes don't have a color, maybe they were blue once, but the light shining in from outside makes them glow silver like her jewelry.

Her pillar earrings tug at her earlobes and a tarnished, black-orbed necklace rests in the center of her chest. The orb's almost invisible against her dark clothing—a frumpy dress covered by a white shawl.

She's eccentric. It takes me a second to take her in.

I swallow the way she unsettles me.

She studies me from behind her winged glasses, and squints like she's waiting for the world to come into focus.

        "Jon, is that you?" She says.

She stares at me, through me, like she's speaking to someone else.

        "No, ma'am, it's James. You emailed me last night."

        "Oh of course I did, welcome, welcome. Let me look at you, dearie."

Her weathered hands find their way around my shoulders and she squeezes me like a stuffed animal. I force a smile while she giggles to herself like a schoolgirl.

She's way too old to be giddy.

I hope she gets over it.

        "You're taller than you looked in your photo, more handsome too. Like my son," she says.

I don't care, but I nod like I do.

        "That's very nice of you, Mrs. Halcott. I always send a picture of myself to landlords so they know I'm a decent guy and not some crazy faker. The internet's a dangerous place, you know."

        "Very true, James, very true. I chose you because of your picture, you seemed like a very nice boy. There were others who inquired, but I think you're a better fit."

        "When do you want the rent? I have it with me," I say.

        "I’ll take it now. I know you said you only needed two weeks, but I hope you'll stay a while, James. The house will be happier with you here."

Her voice rattles in her throat like a broken record. It's harsher and more desperate than I'm comfortable with but beggars can't be choosers.

I hand her the rent. She pockets it. Room and board secure.

        "Can I come in? The weather’s a little colder than I'm used to back in California," I say.

She cracks a smile a little too sweetly and widens the door.

     "Of course, of course James, Come in. I've prepared breakfast if you're hungry. Maybe we'll discuss California over tea? I've always wanted to visit."

        "Sure."

I'm tired, but I don't say anything. I don't even like tea but she's the reason I have a roof over my head, so I smile and wheel my bags through the front door.

                                                        ***

She talks so much on the way upstairs that I hardly get a good look at the room. It's powder blue, with an unmade bed and a pair of dressers on opposite sides.

The superhero posters plastered on the walls still look new, like they've been taped and re-taped to stay standing. Not exactly a swag pad to bring hostel girl back to but it's enough for now.

Martha blabbers on about Jon and points at his pictures as we walk back down the hallway. I'm only half-listening. I'm too hungry to care. Nodding and one-word answers go a long way.

She says something about how I look like him.

I don't, at least I don't think I do.

Part of me hopes this isn't what happens to mothers after their sons leave them—they fall in love with their shadows.

                                                        ***

Her checkerboard kitchen is almost clean—minus the dusty everyday appliances. She doesn't look like she uses much else aside from the stove and the refrigerator. But today the kettle’s on.

She sits me down at her flower-print table and carries over a tray of tea and “cakes". When she said cakes, I expected a hearty American slice not a sugary piece of bread. I take a bite and swallow my ignorance—it’s delicious.

        "These are great, Mrs. Halcott. How do you make them?"

      "With love, dearie, with love. I used to make these for Jon when he still lived at home. He liked the teacakes almost as much as you do. Have another if you like."

She hands me a second, and I down it too fast to be polite about it. Her meals blow the hostel's crappy excuse for a free breakfast out of the water.

        "So what brings you to London all the way from sunny California?"

She watches me eat intently. It'd be endearing if she was family, but she's not. Strangers shouldn't stare like she does, but I try not to stress about it.

        "Year abroad. I'm pre-med back home but I needed a change of pace. My mom studied in London before she went to med school, she talked me into it."

        "Oh lovely, my Jon was going to be doctor."

        "What happened?"

Her hand shakes a little as she pours me a second cup of tea.

        “He fell in love with a girl, married too young, and gave up practicing medicine in Britain to follow his wife to India."

        "What does he do now?" I ask.

        "Whatever someone with an incomplete medical degree can do, I suppose. I'd like to think he's still studying. We don't speak too often these days, but I know he'll come round."

Loneliness lives and breathes in her. I see it sitting in the shadows of her face, sinking into her skin, festering. Fighting to be dealt with.

In two weeks, I'll have a new life, new friends, new classes, hopefully a new living situation, and new people to talk to whenever I want.

But Martha won't have anything but her faded pictures and her china doll cottage to keep her company.

At least I had a way out.

She lived in a world without exits.

        "More tea, dearie?"

She pours me another cup, this one darker than the last—stronger. So strong that its warmth hits my eyelids hard enough to force them shut.

I open my mouth to speak, to excuse myself from the table and drag myself to the upstairs bed, but my tongue swells up so fast the words get caught.

I fall back in my chair. My sweat runs cold, and my arms, legs, and body sink down towards the ground like gravity's pulling me by the puppet strings.

Everything's heavy, too heavy.

I'm drowning in words I can't speak.

I’m drowning in her loneliness, her smell, her too sweet smile.

I sink, suffocate, and stare up at her staring down at me with those colorless eyes, in her colorless world.

She speaks while I choke on her lies and love-laced poison.

        "You'll stay a while won't you, James? The house is happier with you here."

Everything’s heavy. Everything slows. Everything stops.

Everything.

                                                        ***

                                                        (Continued...)