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Posted by Paige on April 24th, 2005, 1:44 pm

We moved in together the spring semester of my junior year.

It was one of those things — typical for this relationship — that just kind of happened. My apartment situation had turned gradually more horrible that year. Check this out: Roommate #1. Starts dating a divorcee. He’s practically moved in with her, but get this — he manages to always “accidentally” walk into the living room or kitchen dressed in nothing but his Calvin Klein briefs. “Oh, Paige, I didn’t know you were home.” “Oh, Paige, I thought you were in bed already.” Yeah, sure ya did, ya perv.

Roommate #2. Bulimic. I’m pretty sure of that. The four of us—roommate #1, her pervy boyfriend, roommate #2 and me—would sometimes order a pizza or something, and she’d eat maybe half a slice, then excuse herself and go to the bathroom and run water in the sink on full blast. She was thin, too, although attractive in a brittle, snaps-in-two-in-a-stiff-breeze kind of way. And also one of those people who treats everyone around her like her personal therapist. I’d be studying, and she’d knock on my bedroom door and ask me something innocuous, like did I mind if she used some of my cream rinse or did I know where the remote was, and then once I was interrupted, she’d start talking to me about her problems. And whew, she had problems, too. She attracted weirdos like Polartec attracts cat hair. So one week, she’d be helping some co-ed who was pregnant, and another week she’d be playing taxi service for someone who’d wrecked his car, and then there’d be some crisis from home about that brother of hers and his drug thing.

Needless to say, this was stressing me out.

So I found out about this other apartment that was supposedly coming up available. A studio. I called my dad, and told him I really really need my own space, and I dunno. Maybe I called him more than once . . . I guess I must have, I’m sure I must have bugged him about it a bunch of times before he agreed to pay for it.

But anyway, I gave my notice to my roommates and they arranged for another student to have my room. So everything seemed to be falling into place.

Meanwhile Gil had this professor who rented out half of his house to students. And the student he was renting to got busted for writing term papers for hire, he dropped out of school or got kicked out or something, and left town. So all of a sudden this apartment is free, and Gil’s the lucky guy. So at the same time I was moving, Gil was getting this new place, and he was really excited, because it’s a half house, the upstairs is basically a studio, because this professor rents to art students. So he doesn’t care what they do upstairs. I mean, they can’t totally trash it. But they can paint or whatever and he doesn’t care. The walls were all murals. Well, some of them were mixed media. An eye theme, when Gil moved in. One wall was a mosaic of a darts target made of empty paper and plastic cups from the local bars, with a paper maché Eloise the Cow head sticking out of the bull’s eye. Guess you had to be there, lol. Another wall was painted with a spoof of the seal from a one dollar bill. Instead of saying “novus order seclorum”—new world order— underneath the pyramid, it said “novus order Ithaki.” New Ithaca order. The eye at the top was a cat’s eye. Pretty cool-looking, really. Gil’s buddy Jeremy had painted that one.

So that was Gil’s new digs.

And, as it turned out, my new digs, too. What happened was, the studio I thought I was getting fell through. Landlady decided not to rent it after all, for some reason. Or rent it to me, I’m not sure. So there I was, I couldn’t have my old room back—Roommate #2 had already promised it to one of her strays—I had nowhere to go, I was freaking, and of course Gil said I should stay with him for a couple of weeks while I get a place lined up.
And so that’s how we moved in together. Because once I got there, it just didn’t seem like a priority for me to look for a place of my own.

Don’t get me wrong. For awhile I kind of put a little effort into it. But pretty soon I didn’t even really go through the motions. And Gil never said anything one way or the other. He never said, “Paige, this was supposed to be temporary,” or “Paige, this is working out so well, there’s really no reason for you to look for your own place.”

. . . It’s funny now, having him back around. And I’m in the same situation, really. Because he is a good-looking guy. So of course other women are going to notice him. So what do I do? Assume he’s “my Gil” and work on outmaneuvering any other female who’s interested?

It would just be so much easier if I knew whether he thought that museum party last weekend was a “date.” I mean, it felt—when we were together—it felt like we were together. But he hasn’t called me since. If he wants me, how come he isn’t . . . I dunno. Outside my window right now, guitar in hand, limpid eyes cast longingly upward.

Phew. There has got to be something I can do to bring some closure to all this.