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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Why be fatalistic, though?"

Sarah was laying on Alex's mattress, staring up at the barren ceiling. It wasn't comfortable, feeling like a rigid block of foam compared to her own. She could feel a notch beneath her lower back; Alex probably cut it out himself for his tail. Not somewhere she wanted to spend her Saturday, but she needed to get out of her apartment. It didn't really matter where she went.

Her apartment hunt wasn't going well. She had options - including one she was scheduled to visit later - but they were limited. The good ones all seemed to vanish before she had an opportunity to see them.

"I'm not being fatalistic," she said. "It's more, I'm trying to be honest with this. It sucks now, it's probably gonna suck more, and I don't know how I'm going to take care of it."

"Well, you could always ask your friend Sean. He always seems to know everything."

"Alex. Don't start."

He was leaning against the kitchen counter, half of his attention pointed out the window. There was an idle crane outside, a few blocks away.

"I mean, it sounds like he pays attention to this stuff. And you're more like him anyway, he'd be better at helping."

"I don't think I want help right now. Think I just want to vent."

"Okay, vent." He came over and sat on the edge of the bed.

Sarah sighed, not positive where to begin. "I dunno. I guess it's just too sudden. Like, one day Deborah's retiring, the next I'm getting evicted. I mean, maybe I'd be okay with it if I saw it coming, but... Like, the folks like Carl, they're getting really fucked over. If I'm having this much trouble finding something, how the hell is he going to get by?" She knew she was exaggerating her situation.

"You'll find something," Alex said. "Might be a little smaller than what you've got, may have to go out to Milwaukee or something, but I mean, it's out there."

"Yeah, I guess. It's just..."

"You want something like what you have now."

"I want what I have now."

"Well, that's not an option, apparently."

Sarah sighed, continuing to stare blankly upwards. She didn't like to vent. She liked to solve problems, whether by her own work or by organizing others. She accomplished things that way.

The whole visit was a stalling tactic. She knew it. It would give her something to do other than obsessing about finding a new place. The fact that she could get a hit of nostalgia for an old relationship seemed like a nice bonus.

Alex dropped himself on the mattress next to her, his tail fitting neatly into the groove. "Well, you know what you have to do."

"I know, I know. I have to find an apartment, I have to actually get there before they keep vanishing..."

"Right."

"And I have to just hope, I guess."

"And let yourself accept that this is going on. You're not going to escape this."

Another sigh. "I know."

"And it's not going to be perfect."

The reminder seemed to bother her more than anything else. "That doesn't mean I have to settle for something crappy."

"No, but you said it yourself. You're only going to be satisfied with what you have now."

Sarah nodded, frustrated. Alex figured her out pretty well over the years, better than she had figured him out. Some days, he could make a valid argument for knowing her better than she knew herself.

"I know. It just sucks." Her voice was weakening from defeat.

"Yeah, it does. Sucks for all of us." He started staring up at the ceiling as well. "Apparently Ravi had to leave the building a few weeks ago. Said he was moving back with his folks, but someone apparently saw him sleeping in his car out towards 82nd."

"Shit." Sarah hadn't met Ravi, but she couldn't imagine living out of her car.

"Yeah. It's getting to be pretty hard for anyone who isn't rich. Story of the world, huh."

"I thought you said I was rich."

"Well," he said dryly, "are you struggling, or just moping?"

"You don't have to be so blunt about it." She tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice. She didn't want to be annoyed with Alex; they were too good, too old of friends.

"I'm just saying. If you need to vent, vent. I'm always here to listen. Just, have some perspective is all. I know it's really hard and annoying and all that, but it's not the end of the world. You'll get through this just fine."

"Yeah, I guess."

"I mean, you always talk about rabbit's luck. How you always manage to land on your feet."

"Been a long time since I've been tossed like this, though."

He hopped up to his feet. "Well, now you get to practice your landings."

Sarah watched him wander back to the kitchen counter. He started putting away dishes that were left to dry, his tail wagging slightly. Despite the persistent hum of pipes, she swore she could hear him whistling.

"Hey. Alex. Serious question."

"Yeah?"

"How the fuck are you so cheerful?"

He burst out laughing, bending over, almost dropping the glass he had in his paw.

"I'm serious! You were just lecturing me about how everything sucks, your friends are living in cars, and now you're fucking whistling. I don't get it."

Alex gave himself a moment to regain his composure. "I don't know. Guess it just doesn't do me any good to dwell on it so much. Like, if I was doing the sort of stuff Darien does, then yeah I'd think about how shitty everything is. It'd be good fuel." He gestured towards his corner of canvases and half-finished works. "But with my whole thing, it's like, I'll get home, let myself be angry, throw some paint around, and then just make something from that. Just let the anger be on there, then I don't have to hold onto it."

She looked at his paintings. Many of them were clearly half-finished, their splashes of color unblended and haphazard. Maroon and black splashes showed up repeatedly, seeming to flow across neighboring canvases. Several of them looked like they could be deemed complete, despite their blurry detail. They all felt sinister.

"Seems to work pretty well," she said.

"Thanks." He exchanged the blank canvas on his easel for a half-painted one. "But then people look at them, and they're like 'there's such raw anger and emotion, must be this dark and mysterious artist.'"

Sarah laughed at the suggestion.

"Exactly! Like, they're expecting this dark and brooding figure, and then they get this weird otter, and they're just like 'what's wrong with you?' Like, yeah, I act cheerful, I put all the bullshit over there."

"Wish I could do that. Just throw the anger somewhere else."

"You have something to be angry about, though. It's fair."

She grimaced. "Well, no, not really. I mean, Michelle and I have been getting at each other lately, I just can't seem to leave it at the office. And the whole thing Monday? I was pissed before I even got home. All the way home, I was just ready to bite someone."

"Hey, some people are into that."

She gave him a bitter stare. "I mean, I've been unhappy plenty of times, but it's been forever since I've been straight-up pissed. Forgot how to manage it."

"I hope the venting helps, at least. Like I said, I'm here to listen."

Sarah nodded. "And if the painting isn't enough, I'll listen too."

"I'll be fine."

Sarah winced slightly. She knew even as she said it that it'd be hard for her to just listen. She always felt compelled to do something. He deserved to have his problems solved, she figured, and eventually she'd find a way to solve them.

Not now, though. Right now, she had her own problems to solve.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Sarah pulled onto a Laurelhurst side street, one lined with trees and surrounded by even more of them. The neighborhood felt like it had been carved out of a grove, the one clearing of a forest taken over by civilization.

She was off to see an apartment. It wasn't on Craigslist or anywhere else she looked; it came to her through one of Kate's coworkers. The backchannels seemed to be her best hope of finding anything.

The complex was a short horseshoe of townhouses, the opening facing the street to let traffic in. The building looked relatively new - 50s or 60s perhaps, certainly newer than the turn-of-the-century places in her old neighborhood. Nothing about it was flashy or ultra-modern. It showed the scuffs and dents of age, no different than the freestanding houses that surrounded it.

Despite those scuffs, the facades were clean and robust. The trees and grass that sat on the outside of the horseshoe were tightly manicured and well kept. There weren't even any weeds. She would have a yard if she lived here, but judging by the consistency and the openness, she wouldn't have to take care of it.

"Have to say, you take good care of the place," she said.

"Well, thank you. We pride ourselves on a first impression."

Sarah had only met Greg moments ago, so she had to do a rapid assessment. He was a red fox, probably mid-40s. He wore a plain button-down shirt, fresh sneakers, and jeans as crisp as if they were dress slacks. He obviously wasn't the one caring for the lawn.

As he walked, his tail hung loosely, his ears perked straight up. It was a gait of approachability; signs of eagerness, no signs of aggression. It was something Sarah remembered from a sales class in college. Gradually, as the salesman needs to assert control, the ears move forward, the tail up and lightly swaying, the stance subtly leaning forward. Ready to pounce. Her professor claimed the tail was the most important part.

Maybe that was why there weren't many rabbits in sales.

"So," he started as he unlocked the door, "this is our standard one-bedroom unit. It's a little thinner than the two-bedrooms that we have, of course." He gestured around the living room, at the stairway almost touching the front door, at the kitchen towards the back. "Has all the usuals you'd expect. Kitchen has fresh cabinets, good angle for the sunlight..."

Greg wandered around the place, rattling off his well-rehearsed speech. He hardly seemed interested in whether or not Sarah was following or even paying attention. Perhaps he was going along for the sheer joy of it.

"It's just you moving in? No kids, no boyfriend?" he asked as he started up the narrow stairs.

Sarah was still examining the kitchen, and even though there was nobody else with them, she paused to make sure he was talking to her.

"Yep, just me."

She went back to examining. The cabinets didn't seem like anything noteworthy.

"Well, should be plenty of space to stretch your legs, then."

"Feels like it."

She did her best to make a mental note of everything that seemed interesting: the shade offered by the trees, the geometry of the rooms, the evidence of a heating system, the cable and electrical outlets. The she made a mental note to bring an actual notepad next time. She had forgotten how many details went into a home.

"How are the neighbors?" Sarah asked, walking up the stairs behind Greg.

"Pretty quiet."

Sarah heard something in his tone that made her suspicious. "What kind of residents are we talking about? Lot of families, lot of students?"

"Not many students," he said.

"Alright. Families?"

Greg's ears fell back slightly as they entered the empty bedroom. "There are a couple families. Mostly new families, want to take advantage of the schools and the park right there." He pointed across the street; the park was a block away, but Sarah got the idea. "So, every two bedroom home is taken up by one of them."

"Can't really blame them. Guess that means a lot of little kids, though."

As if on cue, she heard a young coyote howling and crying nearby. It sounded as if it came from the other side of the wall.

Greg laughed nervously and shuffled his weight around. "Yeah, there are a couple, obviously. But, you know, it's not all that bad. Just part of apartment life, really. I'm sure you have kids and kits making noise where you are now."

Sarah gave it a brief thought. "I don't know. I didn't really think about it, but either my neighbors don't have kids or I just never hear them."

"Well, you're in Alphabet, right? So that's not too surprising. Doesn't have the best of schools. This is definitely a better area if you're going to have kids."

The schools weren't a selling point. Sarah wasn't planning to have kids anytime soon. "Anyway. Andrea said this was six hundred and... eighty square feet, was it?"

"Yep, six eighty. Pretty good size, though of course, it's split two floors. Still, good for the price, certainly."

Sarah nodded. He was telling the truth there. "Better than what I'm facing now. Utilities?"

"There, cable and internet, that's on you."

"Typical."

"Electric goes through PGE, everything else we roll up. Usually adds about fifty or sixty to the rent."

A little more complicated than Sarah was used to, but nothing impossible. "Alright. And she said this was available October 1st?"

Greg inhaled, his ears leaning slightly forward. Salesman time. "Well, this one was spoken for on Thursday, so this is gone I'm afraid. But we do have one on the north side, exact same layout, exact same price, that one's available November 15th. You can get in early on that."

Sarah's ears started pointing backward. She noticed her paw clenched tight. "I was told there was one available next month."

"Well, that would've been this one. When did she say it was still available?"

"I called early yesterday." Her voice was flat, almost condescending.

"Oh, huh. I don't think I had the signed agreement filed until noon. Might be why she still thought it was available. Were you really hoping to move in that soon?"

"Yeah. It's... I really want to get moving soon."

"Well, I mean, it's a pretty busy market these days, you gotta hop on what you can!" He flashed a cheesy grin. "There is that one in mid-November, you can claim that now and be set."

"Can't do that."

"It's not that far off. Just, what, two months? Less than."

"I'm not gonna have a home in two months," she said with a faint growl. "I have to get out of there by Halloween or I'm fucked."

Greg released his salesman pose. "Well, I'm sorry. I know you had your heart set on this one."

She didn't. It was just okay, not much more. She probably wouldn't mind living there - quiet, right off Burnside, right by a park - and the occasional screaming infant wouldn't be the worst thing to deal with. But she couldn't stand the run-around she was getting.

"Well, I mean, I was told yesterday this place would still be available. And you knew since Thursday that it wasn't. And... look. We're wasting our time."

"I'm sorry."

Sarah stammered. "I talked with Andrea yesterday, and you knew this wasn't available then. If you had just told her, we wouldn't be bothering. So, thank you for the tour, I'm not interested."

With that, she walked back to her car, unescorted. She glanced at the townhouses as she passed them, their scuffs and scars seeming to stand out even more. For as perfect as the lawn was, the parking lot looked almost dilapidated, as if the weeds had been pushed over there instead.

She got into her car and slammed the door, harder than usual, hard enough for her to notice. "Fucking idiot," she mumbled to herself as she started the car.