Fall, 1978
All of her friends had expected her to move into the Tuileries or one of the other nearby apartment complexes. Two years of living with roommates had left her unwilling to put up with another woman's quirks at such close distance. Whether it was Lauren's partying and disorderliness or Nancy's nebulizer, racks of gefilte fish or archaic musical tastes, Linda thought that, at the start of her junior year, she might be happiest on her own.
She could only afford two hundred dollars a month at the most. The apartments she liked were a smidge higher than that: two hundred twenty-five or higher. She knew that when she factored in the utilities she would have to pay, she would end up eating oatmeal sandwiches. Lauren snickered "All you're going to find are mobile homes. Where you freeze in the winter and boil in the summer."
Still, Linda looked at a few of them. One seemed large enough, and nice inside with soft new carpet and crisp, snappy looking paneling. Yet only fifteen feet separated each trailer. On top of that, beer can laden garbage cluttered the trash cans on both sides. It was a bright August afternoon when she looked at the trailer, and everything was quiet. She shuddered to think what a Saturday night might be like, mid-semester.
"Just get a friggin' apartment," Lauren said. "Before you end up living in a tent when the semester starts."
Was there one that had regular walls instead of cinder block? That didn't feel like a crypt in the middle of catacombs? On a Sunday morning, she checked the local area newspaper, wondering what they would have over the campus newspaper and student center pegboard.
Many of the listings in her price range said "No students, please." She was about to give up when a listing caught her eye: "Cottage: $195, utilities included." Further down in the text, along with the phone number to call, one line read "Older, working female preferred."
A classy-sounding older man's voice answered when she called. Linda told him she was interested in the cottage and he gave her directions. As she took them down, she realized she would be heading past the south end of campus. In two years at Little Egyptian, she'd only ventured that way a handful of times, to house parties amid the farmland down there. When she drove Myrtle to the address given by the man answering the phone, she maneuvered down winding roads with tall oaks shrouding them. It would be quiet, she told herself. It would be private, also, most likely.