Nick
The list with almost everything on it
Thursday
December 28, 2006

To be honest, I didn’t really know what I was getting with Nooshin the roommate. Okay, I’ll be more honest — I was fucking clueless. Last roomie I had was freshman year at Iowa State and he was an inveterate slob. Bryce, his name was. Thanks to him I used to find skidmarked tighty whities on the floor, crushed beer cans in the dirty laundry, and used condoms everywhere. No wonder a neat freak like me has avoided entanglements ever since, even if they’re just of the mundane domestic variety. But Nooshin got under my skin, into my head, through my ribcage. I figured I could make something work with her, find an equitable division of labor, even if she was a slob too.

What I didn’t foresee is that she’d just take over the household. First she arranged the kitchen and tried to clean the uncleanable bathroom. Then she progressed to the laundry and everything associated with meals — food prep and cooking and washing the dirty dishes. Now she’s wearing a rut in the road between here and Wal-Mart, surprising me with a list of our domestic needs and the cost breakdown required to pay for them.

I stand in the unfinished doorway between living room and kitchen, staring at the neat columns running down the page. Meanwhile Nooshin sits at the kitchen table, her ad hoc office for digitizing the Korea Textile maquiladora archive. She’s tap-tap-tapping away on her laptop with the orange PROPERTY OF UCLA sticker. “I’ve been setting up house every year for five years,” she smiles breezily, as if that explains everything. And maybe it does.

The very first item on the list — beds, twin (2).

“Beds,” I say.

“Beds,” she echoes.

“Okay. I agree with you there.” And so does my back. Our sleeping bag lifestyle is killing my spinal column. There’s a helluva difference between sleeping on dirt in a tent and sleeping on concrete in a house. “But I can’t get a twin. I need a double. I’m so used to that goddamn futon.” I permit myself a sigh of mourning for my stolen futon, a hand-me-down from my sister Wendy. Almost a family heirloom.

“Double-sized for you, then. I’m cool with a twin.” Nooshin laughs into her lap, a wistful sound. “It’s probably going to be a long time before I sleep in a double bed again.”

I’m not touching that one. Instead I ask, “Boxsprings or no boxsprings?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“What?”

“Nick, we are not sleeping on just plain mattresses.” To emphasize her resistance, she brushes back the veil of her bangs, pinning them behind her ears. Her eyes remind me of twin cups of cappucino, dark and steaming, until the right orb ruins the effect by drifting toward the sink. “Is that your idea of an upgrade? Moving up from a sleeping bag to a mattress on the floor?”

“Look, I’m just throwing it out there. We’d save — ”

“You know what? Go ahead, save yourself 50 bucks or whatever. I’m getting a boxspring.” Nooshin nods sharply, snapping her bangs back into place, and resumes typing.

I look back down at the list, where my gaze snags on the next item. “Tupperware? I brought a bunch of tupperware.”

“The ones you brought are just the little kind, for leftovers. We need the bigger kinds that can hold packages and even boxes. Like, for cereal and pasta and sugar and…” She glances around at the kitchen cabinets, voice trailing off, overwhelmed. “Well, for everything, really.”

“Tupperware containers for everything? Why do we need tupperware containers for everything?”

“Duh. Because there isn’t enough room in the fridge to protect everything from the mice.”

I’m a farmboy with zero tolerance for rodents. “Forget the tupperware. Mousetraps and rat poison, that’s what we need.”

Nooshin pushes back from the table and walks over to a cabinet, producing a box of graham crackers shredded open at the bottom. Crumbs dribble out of the box when she holds it up. “See? If stuff like this was in a tupperware container the mice couldn’t even smell it, let alone chew through to it.”

A compelling demonstration, but I only give her the satisfaction of a shrug. A little ways down the list I stop again. “Water purifier?”

“Just for our drinking water. It must be cheaper than bottled water.”

For a while there’s nothing but the sound of her fingernails on the laptop keys.

“Throw rugs?” I ask in dismay. “Posters?”

“Now you’re in the non-essential part of the list. See the heading? I think we should decorate a little. Make this place feel more like a home. Don’t you?”

My response is a derisive snort. Then — “Hey! You put a wine rack on here.”

Nooshin’s tone is becoming increasingly defensive. “I know, I know. We don’t really need one. We can just leave the bottles on the floor.” The wine bottles look like dusty artillery shells lined up against the kitchen floorboards — or where the floorboards would be, if this house had any. “I just thought it would be nice to — ”

“No, I like it. I think a wine rack is a great idea.” I tack on a reassuring grin to emphasize that I’m not being sarcastic. I’ve always wanted to be the kind of guy who has a wine rack.

She notices that I’m folding my arms across my chest, the list dangling from a hand. Her face turns hopeful and hopeless at the same time. “So? What do you think? I know the list is kinda long, but…” She tries to lighten the mood, forcing a grin. “Anything I missed?”

“Actually, yeah. No mirrors.” I’m watching her thoughtfully, focused on the way she always wears her hair down, an inky wall against the world — hiding that crooked wandering eye, but also her steep cheekbones, sharp tapering jawline, lips fuller than the rest of her. Hiding her beauty.

Nooshin breaks my scrutiny by looking away. Downward, really. Toward the bare concrete floor. “I don’t need a mirror. I already know what I look like,” she says in a voice that makes something crack and heave inside me, because she doesn’t really know. She doesn’t know at all.