I’m thrilled. He feels comfortable taking me to his house, and it’s going to be a huge help to borrow his mattress.
We arrive at his place,and I have no idea what to expect.
It’s in an area of town that I’ve heard isn’t great, but I don’t really know much about it. And I’ve lived in up-and-coming areas in cities before.
It’s a multifamily property. He leads me up some external stairs to a door at the end, and the smoke alarm is screeching inside. He unlocks the door to reveal smoke is pouring out of the oven in a small corner kitchen, with no cook to be seen.
“Oh, Matty,” he says, rolling his eyes and laughing. “He always does this.”
“Matty!” he calls out in the direction of a very short hallway with a door at the end. “If you’re in there taking a shit, your pizza is about to be on fire! Don’t you hear that?”
A brown-haired guy of medium height stumbles out of the bathroom, his hair all messed up and his eyes groggy from sleep.
“Oh, hi,” he says, waving at me awkwardly while they both take care of the smoke alarm and a charred pizza.
“This is Matty!” Timmy says with excitement. “Matty, this is Margaux! She’s from New Zealand. She just got here yesterday!”
“Oh yeah. You mentioned,” he says, his voice monotone. Matty goes over to the couch, and flicks through some TV channels before landing on an action movie.
His behavior seems a little off, like he’s being friendly but also entrapped in his own little world. Like he doesn’t know how to make basic small talk. But that’s okay. I feel awkward being here, too.
Timmy gives me a grand tour of the apartment, which doesn’t take long, because it’s a tiny one-bedroom unit. There’s the main living room we entered into, with a small kitchen in the corner. Then there’s a bathroom. And one bedroom.
The first thing I notice about the bedroom is the two beds.
There’s a proper bed with a frame and everything on one side, presumably Matty’s. And then a pile of mattresses on the floor.
Side by side.
In the same room.
It seems weird, but I don’t want to be judgmental, so I stay quiet. Even though it looks like a setup right out ofCharlie and the Chocolate Factory.
But what do I know? It’s my nature to give the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this is totally normal here. The cost of living in this part of the city is super high, so maybe this is a common practice and everyone else lives like this, too.
18
UNCLAIMED BAGGAGE
Inotice a small, black wheeled suitcase sitting on Timmy’s bed, its presence oddly out of place in his and Matty’s cramped, shared bedroom.
“Why is this suitcase here? Going somewhere?” I ask, half-joking, half-curious.
He pauses, frowns slightly, and then just shrugs. “Oh, it’s my friend’s from when she visited. She left it here. I keep asking her to pick it up, but she won’t.”
“So, some girl stayed with you and her suitcase is on your bed? That seems… a bit weird.”
Timmy laughs it off, brushing away my concern with a flick of his hand. “Yeah, well, it’s the only place to really put it. This apartment is too small, you can see that. It’s no big deal.”
He gestures around, and to be fair, the apartment is cluttered—almost comically full of random things.
I’m actually surprised and impressed by the constant variety of items Timmy keeps pulling out of his jam-packed closet to show me.. Hats, clothing, random home decor items. He’s like one of those magicians that keeps pulling an endless string of brightly colored handkerchiefs out of his sleeve.
Still, something about the suitcase bothers me. Where did this friend of his sleep? How long did she stay? Why is her stuff still here? He shrugs it off, but I can’t shake the weird feeling creeping over me. I press my lips together, but don’t say anything more.
“She’s like my evil twin,” he says after a moment, grinning. “I call her ‘The Worst’, because if you turned me into a girl and magnified all my bad qualities, you’d get her.”
I don't really know what to say, so I keep quiet.