“Well, any tenant would need a closet, so we’d build one, and we’d paint the place and have the kitchen appliances checked. We’d have it professionally cleaned, windows and all. It’s nowhere near fully furnished, so I’ll knock a hundred a month off what I was going to ask. Say, four hundred dollars a month, and that includes all utilities. There’d be no way to separate out heat and water and electricity for this floor, anyhow.”
Almost five thousand a year. Out of thirty thousand. A seventh. Not more than she should pay for living space, according to all the budgeting books she’d read. And here, by herself, presumably she would be able to keep all her own paycheck. She wouldn’t need a car to get to work. Chances were, she wouldn’t need one at all. That would be a savings!
“You’ll have air-conditioning,” he said, enticingly. “You’ll use our Dumpster down in the alley for your trash, and there’s a garbage disposal in the kitchen sink.”
She wandered into the kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards, then went into the bathroom. No frills. White-tiled walls, tub and shower, vanity, toilet, plus a two-foot-by-three-foot corner space with nothing in it where one would expect a linen closet. She returned to the main room, separating the slats of the blinds to look down on the traffic. Not much. The side street was quiet, though cars went by regularly down at the corner. The building across the street was only two stories high, and she could look across its roof to a golden dome. “Is that the Capitol?”
“We’re only a few blocks from the Mall,” he said, lifting the shade to peer in the same direction. “I’d forgotten you can see the Capitol from here. I haven’t actually been up here in two years.”
“Dog,” she said, almost desperately, waiting for the knife to fall. Surely it couldn’t all be right, just like this, right off the bat? Surely it couldn’t be possible. If it had been possible, someone would have done it, right? “I have a dog.”
“Sure, bring the dog. You’ll be even safer with adog. I hope it’s a big one. What’s his name?”
“Sasquatch. He’s a kind of Briard mix. Black and brown, with medium long hair that hangs over his eyes, with a big, deep bark.”
“Sounds good.”
“He’s used to a yard, but …”
“Actually, you can let him run on the roofs. They’re different levels, but they’re connected by stairs, and there’s even a kind of arbor up there that the artist put in. They’re both flat gravel roofs with a parapet around the edges, and the elevator goes up there because that’s where the air conditioners are. You’d have to poop scoop, of course, but . . .”
“May I see?”
They went up to look at the roof, as described, flat except for occasional vent pipes and the housing for the elevator and air-conditioning equipment. Between the housing for the air conditioner and the stacks from the kitchen and bathroom was the “arbor” Simon had spoken of, a rustic pergola at the top of wooden steps leading to the lower roof, with a huge pot at one side.
“The guy had vines planted in the pot. Some kind of ivy, I think. There’s a condensation pan to one side of the air conditioner, and he siphoned water from the pan into the pot, and the vines grew up over the top for shade. Nobody kept the tubes clean after he left, so they stopped up and the vines died. He had patio furniture up here, too. With an umbrella.”
In size, the roof was the equivalent of a small yard, which was all Sasquatch had at home.
“If you’ll build a closet back in that far corner and pay to install a washer-dryer, I’ll take it,” she said. “If it isn’t dependent upon my working for you.”
He frowned. “Are you thinking of working for someone else?”
She shook her head. “No. But if you decide I’m not good enough, I don’t want to be out on the street.”
“How about ninety days’ notice from either party,” he said. “Though I don’t think we’ll need to worry about that.”