The holidays were officially over. The Christmas decorations at work and all around the stores and streets have been taken down and everyone was moving with a duller energy typical of any other winter day. I had also taken down my mini Christmas tree and the strings of lights around my apartment window. I remembered that it had only been two months ago when David and I had put everything up, in early celebration of our first Christmas in our new place.
How things have changed in a mere sixty days.
With all of the Christmas decorations in a 30” x 30” moving box (miraculously, with the tree included), I shoved it over to the corner of the spare bedroom, which was still largely unfurnished. It was supposed to have been David’s home office since he usually brought a lot of work home. All that was left in there now was a small shelf that had originally belonged to me. David had taken everything else with him after our breakup.
Our breakup had felt like a divorce. After having been together for seven years and living together for almost a year, our lives were so intertwined amongst our family, friends and even personal belongings, that our breakup had felt like tearing off limbs in the separation process. It definitely tore off pieces of our hearts, along with our mutual trust. At least, it did on my part.
I dusted off my hands, closed the door to the spare bedroom and evaluated the rest of my apartment. David had taken the black glass-top coffee table, the matching dining table set, and a large mahogany bookcase. I was left with our charcoal loveseat, a small hallway shelf and our TV stand – minus the TV. David had taken that too. All that was left on the TV stand was my Playstation 3, along with a few games, and some DVDs and CDs.
I walked over to the window and peeked out through my blinds. It was grey outside, the thick clouds preventing the evening sun from penetrating through. The Italian restaurant across the street was already starting to receive early dinner patrons, dining leisurely before spending what was most likely their Saturday night out on the town.
I had also kept the floor lamp in our “divorce”, which I now turned on. It lit my small two-bedroom apartment with a cozy warm glow, making it feel less empty than it was. Now that I was officially single, I spent most of my weekends at home. The past few weekends alone had entailed me cleaning up the place, packing up any residual things of David’s and dealing with the legal paperwork of changing the apartment’s ownership to my name, mortgage and all. Some of the paper copies were still on the kitchen counter. I hadn’t had the emotional energy to put that away yet. At the top of the pile was a thick brown envelope from the law firm – in it, I knew, were the final copies of the signed papers, stating my ownership of this apartment.
I sighed inwardly, knowing that I should be putting that all away safely somewhere. I walked over, picking up the brown envelope – still unopened, and put in it in my purse, where I decided would drop it into my safety deposit box at the bank tomorrow. My eyes glanced toward the paper pile again, noting the small sheet of scrap paper that now sat at the top. I picked it up, reading the numbers scrawled on it in my handwriting:
Monthly Budget
Salary minus deductions: $2217
Mortgage payment: $1470
Maintenance fees: $260
Telephone: $32
Cable & Internet: $75
Utilities: $82
Cell Phone Bill: $65
Typical Groceries: $180
Balance Remaining: $53 I remembered this to be the balance sheet that I had written over a month ago, after the initial shock of the breakup with David was over. I had panicked then about whether or not I could afford to keep the apartment. I had figured at the time that without David, I could probably cancel our landline and reduce our cable and internet bill usage. Even utilities would be slightly less since I wouldn’t be using as much electricity as the two of us combined, especially now that his home office was gone. I put the scrap of paper down and looked at my credit card bills which were sitting on top of my counter.
“Now’s as good a time as ever,” I muttered to myself. “Might as well deal with all the bad stuff in one shot.”
I opened my Visa bill and peeked at my balance: $305.86.
“Not bad,” I told myself. I moved onto my Mastercard bill. And gasped.
Balance: $979.36
“Crap!” I yelled. What the heck did I buy this month? My eyes scrolled down the itemized list of stores. I mentally rehashed what I bought at each location. Dinner, luxury bath soap, blue sweater, lunch, coffee, china tea set, jeans on sale, matching top, dinner again, new vacuum cleaner, groceries, nail polish…
“Oh right,” I groaned. “I was Christmas shopping all last month.”
I sat down on my sofa and looked around my empty apartment. “And I still have all this stuff to buy!” I groaned to myself. What was I going to do?
I picked up my cell phone and texted my best friend Madison. “Going to be broke on a single income. Save me,” I typed.
“Hey, u get paid more than I do,” she texted back a couple of minutes later.
“I’m stuck, with D gone,” I replied. My phone bleeped again.
“Wanna talk over brunch tomorrow?”
“Yes. Where and when?”
“Call ya tmrw ;)”
I put my phone down and breathed a sigh of relief. My dear Madison would know what to do.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I met with Madison on Sunday morning at a quiet place called Arm’s Reach in North Vancouver. She had to visit her parents and was in that area anyway. I hadn’t been in North Vancouver in a while, so I didn’t mind making the Seabus trip across the Burrard Inlet. Madison picked me up from the Seabus terminal and drove us to Arm’s Reach, where we sat by the window seat. The morning sun was out in full force and we could feel its welcome heat on our paled winter faces.
By now, Madison’s summer freckles had lightened on her porcelain skin, and the sunlight made her almond-shaped light brown eyes appear even lighter. Her light brown hair shimmered with the tiniest hint of strawberry blonde. I smiled at the friend I’ve known since elementary school. There were times that Madison didn’t even look half Chinese. Sometimes I had to remember that she was, even though I’ve known her forever.
I ordered my usual (and my favourite): Eggs Benedict. I decided that getting a bit of comfort food would be good today.
Waiting for our orders, Madison and I juggled with my options after I told her that I might be facing a fifty-three dollar balance at the end of each month. I didn’t even want to tell her how bad my credit card bills looked.
“Could you get a roommate?”
“Like who? Some stranger? That would be difficult.” I shook my head. “Unless you’d want to be my roommate?” I looked at her with my best puppy-dog-eyes expression.
“Aw, Ellie. Don’t do that to me. You know my piddly salary. I wouldn’t be able to afford sharing your rent downtown. Rooming with my cousin on the east side is hard enough, even with the family discount.”
I stared out at the beautiful view of Deep Cove, allowing my thoughts to drift out with the flowing waves of Burrard Inlet.
“Is there any way that you could spend less? Don’t go out so much?”
I looked at Madison. “That would be no fun. My job requires de-stressing.”
She evaluated me for a bit before responding. “Yeah, you’re right. You’re quite the active gal. Asking you to stay home all day is like asking your cat to ignore catnip.”
I laughed. “C’mon! I’m not that severe. Mo is addicted to catnip like a heroin addict. Unlike him, I have some self control.”
“Is that with the video games or the eating out that you’re talking about?” Madison replied, with a twinkle in her eye.
I slumped my shoulders and squinted my eyes at her in mock evil, acknowledging her point. “Both,” I retorted. “I’m a girl with many interests, okay?”
Madison smiled sweetly. “I know. That’s why we’re friends.”
Our server arrived with our food, and I whole-heartedly immersed myself in my Eggs Benedict, allowing the taste of the special house Hollandaise sauce to distract me from my troubles.
“Could your parents help you?”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t want to ask…I am an adult. I should really try to be independent. They already helped with some of the down payment, which I promised I’d pay back one day. I couldn’t ask them for more. In fact, I should be paying them a monthly family allowance, if I was a good Chinese daughter.” I chewed hard on my hash brown. “Which I’m apparently not,” I added ruefully.
“I understand.” She sighed. “Well then that settles it,” she said, taking a large bite out of her grilled chicken sandwich. “Like it or not, you’re going to have to get yourself a roommate.”
I swallowed my hash brown with a large gulp of water, seeing the pragmatic expression on Madison’s face and knowing deep down that she was right.
I sighed. First my mom, and now my best friend.
Why were people always right?!
- To Be Continued -
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