This Is Where We Live - By Janelle Brown Page 0,39

head imperceptibly; no, we can’t do this. Claudia looked down at her lap, trying to imagine Jeremy and Lucy sitting side by side at the breakfast table, battling for the TV remote, waiting in line for the shower. He was right: Inconceivable. She reluctantly nodded in agreement. We’ll post another ad, maybe put up flyers on the community bulletin board by the school, she thought.

“Lucy, we really appreciate—” she began, but Lucy was still talking.

“ …. although really it’s not very likely that we’ll find the time. I’m actually on the night shift at the hospital. Did I mention that? No? Well, I work seven P.M. to seven A.M., and we’re on six-day shifts, so I’ll probably be leaving the house about the time you get home from work and I’ll get back when you’re leaving. It’ll be like I don’t even live here.” She jutted out a moist lower lip and twisted it wryly.

Claudia and Jeremy looked at each other as they took in this promising new piece of information. They held a mute conversation with their twitching eyebrows. She’ll never be here; we can’t do better than an invisible roommate, Claudia said to Jeremy with one raised brow. Yes, but she’s not like us at all, Jeremy retorted with a double blink. We have no choice, we need to pick someone and she’s not so bad, considering, Claudia blinked back. Finally, Jeremy rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, and sighed.

“We want eight hundred, plus shared utilities,” he said. “And first and last month’s rent as a deposit. Could you handle that?”

Lucy pursed her lips. “Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that,” she said. “If I can have the other bedroom, the bigger one with the view, I’ll pay a thousand.”

A long silence passed over the room. Claudia crab-walked her hand across the pebbled leather surface of the couch and located Jeremy’s. She wormed her fingers under his, rubbed the thick guitar callus on the pad of his thumb. His hand swallowed hers, gripping it hard, a desperate sea anemone in a dying tide pool. We’ll survive this, Claudia tried to tell him with her palm. We love each other. People have survived much, much worse. All this is only temporary.

“How soon can you move in?” she said.

Jeremy

Jeremy,

Four years. Really, it seems longer. Isn’t it curious how as time passes memory begins to smear and blur and becomes somehow less about fact or event and more about visceral impression, like a vaguely accelerated pulse or a dark twist in the back of the throat? You are to me a stomachache, the thought of you evokes a pang in my upper intestine. I should paint that.

I heard Jillian died. So very sorry. I liked her.

I’m in Paris doing an installation right now (what an odd city, really—the French, and their strange anal fixation!), but will arrive in Los Angeles in October. I’m glad you’ll see me when I’m in town. I think it will be restorative, truly. What have you made of your life? I can barely imagine what living in LA is like—are you really happy out there? I could hardly stand so much sunshine.

I hold no grudges—tell me everything.

aoki

Aoki—

So I’m a stomachache, huh? Not like, an itchy feeling under your armpit or a burning sensation in your left nasal passage? I’m a little bit offended to be such a pedestrian ailment.

Honestly, though, it’s good to hear you’re still tripping the light fantastic. I would expect no less. Here’s the rundown of my world: I’m in a new band (with Daniel, remember him?). We’re just finishing off our first album—I think you’d like it. Claudia is great; her film came out this summer and now she’s teaching. This dismal economy’s taking its toll, but overall, things are great.

And as for LA—well, I was born here, don’t forget, so it’s home turf. Rain is overrated anyway.

Thanks for the nice words about Jillian. I still miss her.

Take care, Jeremy

Jeremy—

So, was that e-mail supposed to be a kind of virtual spanking (and by that I mean not the good kind)?? Obviously things ended rather badly between us, and I also know you weren’t ever a big written-word sort of man, but really, I’ve gotten more thoughtful e-mails from my senile great-uncle Hiroyuki back in the old country. Everything’s “great.” Could you be slightly more specific? I’m not asking you to tear your soul out and send it to me in a box wrapped with silk ribbons, but I wouldn’t object