or how to manage her money, but she was grateful for what Mother Gregoria had given her. Without it, she knew her situation would have been even more desperate.
She walked past it the first time, missing the small sign. It was a tired old brownstone with a chipping facade, and all the sign said was ROOMS FOR RENT in a dust-streaked window. Nothing about the place looked very inviting. And when she walked into the downstairs hall, it was clean but shabby and smelled of cooking. It was as far removed as anything could be from the stark, immaculate precision and order of St. Matthew's convent.
“Yes?” A woman with a heavy accent poked her head into the dark hallway when she heard Gabriella's footsteps. She had watched her come in, from her window, and wondered what she wanted. “What do you want?”
“I… ah… are there rooms to rent? I saw the sign… and the ad in the paper.”
“There might be.” Gabriella recognized the accent as Czechoslovak or Polish. She still remembered the accents of the people who had come to her parents’ parties, although this woman was very different. And she was looking Gabriella over. She didn't want any druggies or prostitutes, and Gabriella looked younger than she was. The woman didn't want any runaways or trouble with the police either. She ran a respectable house, and she liked old people a lot better. They got their social security checks and they paid their rent, and they didn't make a lot of noise, or give her a lot of trouble, except if they got sick, or died. She didn't want people cooking in their rooms either, and young people were always doing things they shouldn't. Smoking, eating, drinking, cooking in their rooms, bringing people in at all hours, making too much noise. They never followed the rules, or held down proper jobs. And the landlady didn't want any headaches.
“Do you have a job?” the mistress of the boarding-house asked, looking worried. Without a job, Gabriella couldn't pay her rent, and that would be a problem.
“No… not yet…” Gabriella said apologetically. “I'm looking for one.” She didn't want to lie to her and pretend she had one.
“Yeah, well, come back when you get one.” This was no rich girl with a trust fund, or parents on Park Avenue who were going to pay her rent for her. But then again, if she had been, she wouldn't have been there. “Where you from?” Gabriella could see the landlady was suspicious of her, and she didn't really blame her.
Gabriella hesitated for an instant, wondering how she could explain the fact that she didn't have a job and had nowhere to live. It sounded, even to her, as though she'd just gotten out of jail, and she could see that the woman wasn't impressed with her. And the ugly black dress with the stains down the front didn't exactly improve her image. “I'm from Boston,” she settled on, thinking of the father she'd been unable to find that day, “I just moved here.” The woman nodded. It was a believable story.
“What kind of work do you do?”
“Anything I can get,” she said honestly. “I'm going to start looking tomorrow.”
“There's a lot of restaurants on Second Avenue, and all the German ones on Eighty-sixth Street. You might find something there.” She felt sorry for her. Gabriella looked tired and pale, and the landlady thought she didn't look healthy. But she didn't look like a druggie. She seemed very clean, and very proper. Mrs. Boslicki finally relented. “I got a small room on the top floor, if you want to take a look. Nothing fancy. You share a bathroom with three others.”
“How much is it?” Gabriella looked worried as she thought of her small budget.
“Three hundred a month, no food included. And you can't do no cooking. No hot plates, no double burners, no crock pots. You go out for dinner, or you bring home a sandwich or a pizza.”
It didn't look like a problem. Gabriella looked like she'd never eaten. She was rail thin, and her eyes were so huge in her thin face, it made the landlady think she was starving. “You want to see it?”
“Thank you, I'd like that.” She was extremely polite and well spoken, and Mrs. Boslicki liked that. She didn't want any smart-aleck kids in her house. She had been renting rooms for twenty years, ever since her husband died, and she'd never had any hippies either.