Roommate Wanted

When he saw the small “Roommate Wanted” ad tucked in like a footnote on the classified page of the local paper, Desya had the oddest sense that he’d just been given a sign. The morning had begun like any other, with the smell of hot oatmeal cooking on the stove and coffee percolating in the pot, the patter and chatter of Katenka and Sasha’s reign of tiny terror that could be heard from any room of the house, the sun filtering in through his bedroom window and casting strange patterns as it refracted from the frost formed in the night. The rest of the house was in motion, but Desya’s room remained fixed in place, and sometimes he thought that if he didn’t leave his room, that hour would stretch on indefinitely. But that was just a fleeting idea, and then he would turn the knob and step out into the world that lay beyond, a world that he didn’t quite seem to have a place in. He was always the last to rise, the last to dress, and the last to come down to breakfast. By the time he descended the stairs, his stepfather had gone out the door, leaving an empty red mug that was still warm to the touch and the morning paper half-open on the table. His mother would be busy rounding the girls up for the trip to school, consumed by the task of straightening hair ribbons and tying shoelaces and keeping Katenka from taking Sasha’s bear. Desya would get a cup of coffee (his mug was green) and sit down at his stepfather’s empty seat and skim the paper, the pads of his fingers tracing over the newsprint line by line and leaving faint smudges.

But this morning, unlike any other, he found this ad.

That Saturday, while his little sisters went out to play with the next-door neighbors and his mother went to her weekly needlework association meeting (which, as far as he could tell, was an excuse to sit around and gossip with the other ladies in town), Desya got into his little old grey beater car and drove out to the edge of town, taking the lone winding road into the woods. They had a break from the snow today, but little swirls of dancing flakes flew up like mist from under his wheels. It was only twenty minutes, he knew, because his eyes strayed to the pale green numbers on his dashboard more than once; but it felt like an eternity, in that odd timeless way that the solitude of his room seemed to confer, and at times he began to wonder if he was lost despite the fact that there were no wrong turns for him to take. It was almost like he’d gone someplace he hadn’t meant to go.

But then he rounded a bend in the road, his tires making a soft wet crunch as they kicked up slush, and he got his first look at the house through the trees.

He liked the look of it. The roof was gabled, the sides wood-paneled, and he could see a railed deck on the second floor. It was big, bigger than he’d expected, and he wondered a little that the two rooms that had been offered were within the limitations of his thinly-spread pocket. What was the owner like? Why had he decided to lease out the rooms? Abstract impressions and questions flitted through Desya’s head as he parked the car and stepped out into the front yard of what he hoped was his new home, his boots leaving an easy-to-follow trail of footprints in the undisturbed snow, all the way to the front porch. Ringing the bell, he stuck his hands in the pockets of his wool coat to keep them warm, hanging back a little from the door and waiting for an answer.