I Lived Here Once

We had a stained glass window set into the front door.  On the day it snowed, I remember looking through rose colored glass to see my roommate’s ancient convertible car under an inch of snow.  I liked it when strangers saw me coming out of this charming door.

The door opened onto a narrow hallway.  To the left was the doorway to the front room, straight ahead was an opening into the family room, and against the right hand wall were the steps to the upper floors.  I can no longer remember exactly the layout, I couldn’t draw a floor plan from this distance of time.  I find myself wishing I’d taken a picture, so I could put it all back together, but there is never a reason to take a picture of  a poky front hallway, just wide enough for the door to clear the radiator. 

The front room we seldom used.  It had a bay window and everything in it was stark black and modern: the couch, bookshelves, desk.  Sometimes I wrote papers in this room.  It was chill and spare, a good place for disciplined writing.  A few steps down the hall was the family room, sumptuous, almost medieval in its decor.  It had deep red walls with two gold couches and piles of gold curtain on the one window, and two enormous gold-framed pictures.  It was tiny, but we four spent all our communal time in this room, and kept a space heater there in the fireplace.  The small t.v., for which I paid an exorbitant amount in use tax, was stuck in the built-in bookshelves, which we filled with DVDs we bought from the used bookshop in town.  Sometimes I would nap on the carpet, finding the barred sunlight shining through the windows, like a cat.

The other end of the room opened up onto the long, narrow kitchen.  I remember a small brick archway, an open oven hood, no microwave.  A small, dorm-sized fridge and enormous farmhouse style sink occupied the left wall.  We had a surprisingly large yard for the neighborhood, and the windows in the kitchen looked out on it.  It was lush and green, and always raining.  There was a hammock.  We had parties there, cook-outs.  At the end of the kitchen was a washing machine, no dryer, and then a small bathroom with a shower, the only shower.

When walking into the kitchen from the medieval family room, an immediate about face would present the doorway to the finished basement, with beautiful, enormous mahogany dining room furniture.  I spent hours one morning cleaning the green fuzz of mildew off each carved chair, every nook in the table detail.  We had to purchase a dehumidifier and empty it twice a day to keep the fuzz from returning.  We had a handful of dinner parties here, mostly for a roommate’s new boyfriend and his mother.  I remember once I made banoffee pie, a delicious banana and toffee confection, and Tracy made a roast.  The mother professed her delight at the menu, and the boyfriend barely spoke.

The stairs to the second floor opened onto another narrow hall.  The whole house was narrow and deep, like a lot of houses here in New Orleans.  Here, at the back of the house, was the main bathroom.  It had a deep bath and a sink, no shower.  The low window opened onto the roof of the first floor laundry and bath, and I used to sit there and read, if it wasn’t raining.  I could see into handfuls of back gardens all around me – handfuls of lives.  This was before I had a cell phone, or a toddler.  It seems deliciously, indulgently isolated to me now.  To be unreachable . . .

Next along the hall was my German roommate Eve’s room.  We saw The Piano together in the theatre once, and it was odd for me afterwards, thinking of her as German.  She was as delightful a person as you’d care to meet, and had to wear tight stockings at all times because of some sort of genetic trouble with deep vein thrombosis.  She hated having her picture taken, and always bought delightful little presents.

At the very front of the house was my room, the largest I have ever had as an adult, with two large closets.  I’d managed to find a duvet and duvet cover, double bed, dresser, and a few other odds and ends.  Three double beds would have fit into this room, side by side, with room to spare.  It was wonderful.  I cut pictures of blue things out of magazines and tacked them up.  My window looked out onto the street, and some summer days my American roommate and I would sit in my room in our bikinis, watching out the window for the clouds to roll away for just a few moments so we could sunbathe on the roof.

By my room was the last set of stairs, to the third floor attic room that my American roommate kept a haphazard, comfortable mess.  It was dimly lit, and quiet.  When the real estate agent who rented us the place took her up to see it, they were alone a few moments, and he asked her if she liked being tied up.  He was probably 50 years old, not very attractive.  She just blinked at him until I stumbled in, rescued her.  Memory is hazy, but I think she hung suncatchers in her dormered windows.  When I left, I gave her a dress of mine she liked to borrow.

I forget the number, but the house was on a street named Wellesbourne Grove.  It was minutes from school, minutes from the bars, and the market.  I don’t know why, but I was thinking of it today.