Waltz of Her Life

The room contained no desks or bookcases. To Linda it looked like the glamorous bachelorette pads girls lived in on television sitcoms, not an off-campus apartment for Midwestern college students. She shook her head. "Man, you weren't kidding," she said. "This is really swank. But where are you going to study? There are no desks here, and none downstairs from what I could see."

"Duh," Lauren said. "You think I'm going to ruin this apartment with one of those cheap desks like they have at the dorms? That's what the library and the student center are for."

Linda nodded. "I guess that could work."

Lauren's eyes widened as she made her next dramatic point. "And best of all, no more disgusting, greasy, tasteless cafeteria food. Last night we had lasagna."

It was one of Linda's favorite meals. "I hate you!"

For the rest of that afternoon they watched Romeo and Juliet on the big television and got acquainted with Shelley, who was a junior, majoring in Pre-med. During the summer she'd worked as an emergency room clerk and she traded hospital horror stories with Linda. When the movie ended Linda decided to call it an afternoon and return to Bartholomew hall, lest her new roommate think she was being snobby.

The dorm seemed depressingly Spartan as she entered the front door.

Lauren and her friends would be living high with exquisite furniture and two bathrooms while she and Nancy and their suitemates would have to share a small, closet style bathroom. Sometime during the semester, one or both elevators were bound to break down, forcing her to walk up and down nine floors. And there would be at least one late night fire drill, causing them to evacuate the building and stand out in the freezing cold in the courtyard in their pajamas and bathrobes. But she'd made her choice.

Back at her dorm room, Linda knocked, waited for a response, which did not come, then tried the key. She saw Nancy lying down, with both the desk lamp and her nebulizer turned on, creating a mist of steam on her side of the room. As Linda entered the room, Nancy sat up. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "The disenfectant they use here has given me a migraine."

Nancy had wallpapered most of the room with movie posters such as "Gone With The Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," "The Big Sleep," and "The African Queen." An extra wire shelf had been set up, wedged between the two desks in front of the window. It contained jars of a purplish substance that Linda discovered was borscht. Linda also saw jaws with what looked like wet, wadded up tissue or toilet paper (Gefilte fish), cans of sardines and anchovies, a few jars of vitamin supplements, and two medication bottles.