Room for Love by Andrea Meyer Page A

Chelsea. After the first few awkward calls and some initial guilt pangs, I come to an important decision: It’s time to swallow my scruples and commit myself to going on a Man Hunt (the cheesy Flashdance song has been playing in my head for days). Which means becoming an expert at telling untruths, and fast.
    â€œI should find out if I have to move by next week,” I say to Clarence, a thirty-three-year-old guy who works in marketing and has an alluring South African accent. “Can I come look at the place this afternoon, just in case?”
    He lives only a few blocks away, so I tell him I’ll be there in half an hour and rip open my closet.
    Rule #2: Wear something cute. Sexy is essential. Whether or not the guy knows I’m trolling for eligible bachelors, I am, so looking good is key. I’m not much of a makeup person, but for apartment visits, I wear lipstick, mascara, a spritz of the Tiffany perfume my mom gave me for Christmas (she’d be happy to know she’s contributing to my quest for both a suitable mate and a higher income bracket). When I walk through that door, the guy has to think, Wow, I hope she doesn’t want to live here, because I want to marry this woman, and it wouldn’t really be appropriate to stick the mother of my children in the spare bedroom.
    When Clarence opens the front door to his apartment, I know I’ve chosen the right outfit. His jaw drops and he literally stutters, “H-h-hello,” and proceeds to address my chest instead of my face as he forms the words, “Come in. Please. Yeah, come on in, um, Jacquie.” I say a silent, Woo-hoo! and make a mental note to go with sheer clothing whenever possible.
    Now, Clarence is a good-looking guy. He’s got that hip East Village thing going on. Beige cords hanging off his hips. Sweater he’s been wearing since college, judging from the threadbare state of the elbows. Greasy bedhead I find inexplicably attractive. And, as I mentioned, he has an accent that could send you straight to heaven. But Clarence’s apartment is not a place where human beings should be allowed to enter, let alone live. Inert in the doorway, my eyes scan the place: There’s lots of brown. Shabby beige futon. Shit-colored armchair with foam popping through ripped vinyl. Faux wood paneling on the walls. Piles of junk—crumpled newspapers, toppled paint buckets, empty beer bottles, broken Styrofoam, forgotten milk cartons, orange peels so hard they could be sold as guitar picks, a G.I. Joe doll, an unwashed cereal bowl with a trail of ants marching through it—on every grimy surface. It’s Animal House the morning after the toga party, except here there’s a shower in the kitchen, a stall the size of a coffin right there next to the spaghetti sauce–splattered fridge, with a once-clear, now grim, waterstained curtain hanging over the side facing me, duct tape running along the rim of the base, and a bottle of Head & Shoulders perched precariously on one moldy wall. I can’t believe he pays $2,400 for this pit. That’s New York City in the twenty-first century. I don’t have much time to take it all in, though, as my senses are instantly scrambled by the stench: garbage, baked garbage, bags of rotting eggs, takeout, coffee grinds, bong refuse, festering for days, if not weeks. It smells like the streets of New York on garbage day, mid-August. If it’s not a smell you’re familiar with, be thankful. It’s what I imagine that dead body, on, like, day four, smells like. It hits my nostrils like a fist, and I wonder if there’s vermin hanging out in his trash.
    In Clarence’s case, there’s no need for Rule #3: Scrutinize the guy’s bathroom, kitchen, and bookshelves ASAP. I won’t bother with Clarence’s. Mess can be dealt with, wardrobe can be upgraded, fashion faux pas tossed while he’s asleep, but a guy who doesn’t mind inhaling filth all day