Need a Roommate? (Yulia)

[Feivel Silverstein]

Feivel made sure to keep his phone on after putting up fliers around town. He knew he could use craigslist to find someone, but he'd rather check with people who went to places he went to regularly.

After all, anyone who liked Anne's Apple Pie at the diner was someone he could probably get along with.

Roommate Wanted

Two bedroom apartment in nice, quiet building. Seeking a friendly, clean roommate who doesn't mind watching sports or irregular hours. Call Feivel at : 555-2843

[Yulia Sokolov]

Yulia sat at the counter of the diner, looking at nothing in particular. Her fingers were curled around the handle of her coffee cup, which was resting on the table. Her head was propped up by one hand, elbow on the table, and trying to stop herself from nodding off. She could not take it anymore, she absolutely could not.

Lia had moved into a two family home, and it had been the biggest mistake that she could remember making to date. Between the constant fighting from next door, the blasting sound of endless tracks of dubstep she couldn’t tell apart, and a landlord who took six weeks to fix something that broke again almost immediately afterwards she was done. The only problem now was that she was stuck with six more months left on her lease, six more months she just couldn’t do.

She turned her head to look for the waitress to get a top off on the coffee and spotted the flyer. She looked at it, bleary eyed, and saw her solution. Having a roommate would mean that she would not have to dip into her savings to afford another place to live. Plus, solitude was no fun.

Lia pulled her cellphone out of her pocket and dialed the number.

[Feivel Silverstein]

Feivel wasn't entirely confident his roommate search would go perfectly, mostly because he'd be unsure about calling a random number on a flier. Also, he was almost thirty and was capable of paying for his apartment himself. He felt like he shouldn't want a roommate so bad, but it was just...lonely on his own. He'd moved into a bigger place, but he still missed having his brother crashing on the couch.

Not that he would ever tell Gideon that.

When his phone rang, Feivel stopped typing. He'd been working on his column for the next week's edition of the newspaper, but it would probably not be finished until the hour before deadline anyway, as he'd have to update the stats in it.

He picked up the phone and when he didn't recognize the number, grinned. Maybe it would work out. "Hello? This is Feivel Silverstein."

[Yulia Sokolov]

Yulia’s fingers drummed against the back of her phone as she waited to see if someone would pick up. Mentally she started to rehearse a message in case she got an answering machine, but she was cut short on that. The ring was cut short and a man answered. She looked at the poster, the names matched up.

“Hello, my name is Yulia Sokolov. I saw your flier for a roommate. If the room hasn’t been taken already I’d be interested.” She paused for a moment, trying to think of what else she needed to say.

“I don’t know if there is… uh… a procedure for this or something. I mean, you can ask me whatever questions you’d like.” She thought about offering her background check before remembering that, thanks to the Russian military, it was essentially a blank page. She appreciated the gesture, but also appreciated that their actions might have been a little overeager to look normal.

[Feivel Silverstein]

The accent seemed familiar, but Pilot Ridge was a pretty diverse place, thanks to Hammel. (And Yulia had introduced herself as Lia when they'd met earlier that year, so the name didn't tip him off either.) Feivel turned and muted the TV he had on before replying. "Yes, the room is still available. I only put up the ad for it the other day."

"You can come and see it sometime this week if you'd like. It's a little outside of downtown, and it's a nice building. Splitting rent and utilities would be about $550 each month. There's pretty good parking and.... do you have any questions?" It had been a long time since he'd searched for a roommate. His last one was Gideon, who'd come to him because he was broke.

[Yulia Sokolov]

Yulia grinned when she heard the room was indeed still available. Clearly she had been lucky and managed to call about it first. More than anything else at this moment she felt relieved. She now had a possible solution to what was currently her biggest problem. If she could just fix that living situation everything would be fantastic.

“Great, great, that sounds great.” And it did. The number he gave her was totally manageable. “I work at a school, so from about seven until three I’m busy during the week, but other than that I could stop by to take a look anytime. When would be good for you?” She mulled over everything in her head. If she could get this done relatively soon then she might be able to sublet her place now, but it might be too cruel to do that to someone else.

[Feivel Silverstein]

"I work at the local newspaper, so I'm free on Thursday afternoons, because we come out in the morning. Is four good for you?" He never expected anyone who didn't work there to actually know when the paper came out. Most people either didn't know it existed or picked it up at some point during the week at the grocery store.

There was one more thing he knew he had to mention. Pilot Ridge was a very welcoming town, but he didn't want how he looked to be a nasty surprise. "And before you come, you should know that I'm meta. I have wings."

She could decide how to react to that.

[Yulia Sokolov]

“That sounds good. I’ll see you then.” She had a good feeling about this, or maybe it was more just related to the possibility of escape. Either way she had taken the first step towards finding a solution, even if this apartment didn’t turn out to be it. It was like taking the first running step down a hill.

“Oh.” Lia was momentarily thrown. It wasn’t the idea of a roommate with a wingspan that did it, but simply his blatant willingness to throw the fact that he was a meta out there. She supposed that she really should not be surprised, given that it would be very obvious once she saw him face to face, why bother waiting. Then again, she had been raised in a different world and with a different ability. She knew, though she was unwilling to admit it, that what she could do was a part of her reluctance to speak about things. She was never sure how someone might react the truth of what she could do, and feared the worst of it.

“That’s fine, I don’t mind that. I’ve met people with wing before.” She’d seen one or two in Pilot Ridge, like that guy at the diner, whose name now that she tried she could not remember. “Plus, I work at Hammel, I’m a meta as well.”

[Feivel Silverstein]

Feivel was used to all kinds of reactions to his wings. Other sport reporters tended to snicker, little girls run up to him and ask questions, and almost everyone just stared. He couldn't avoid it, so if it was something that would make Yulia uncomfortable, it was better if she backed out now.

"Oh!" There was a greater concentration of metas in Pilot Ridge because of the school, so he'd met more metas there than anywhere else he'd lived. And if she was a teacher at Hammel, then there shouldn't be a problem. "I went there, if you can't guess. What do you teach?"

[Yulia Sokolov]

There was an advantage to working at Hammel beyond a fair salary and health benefits. It was something that almost all of the metas here had in common. If they had not gone there, they worked there, and sometimes it was both. It was easy to see why it was such a strong bonding agent among all of them. It was a safe place, it was a home.

“I don’t teach, I am a trainer. I don’t think that I’d do all that well sitting in a classroom all day.” She loved her job at the school, and she could imagine working anywhere else. But then again it wasn’t exactly the kind of job that there were regular openings for all over the country.

[Feivel Silverstein]

Suddenly, something clicked in Feivel's head. The accent, her being a trainer... Fives had met her before, he was sure. "Um, I'm sorry if this sounds weird, but are you the Lia I met a few months ago in the diner? My wings are blue, butterfly-like wings."

If she was the woman he remembered, he was pretty sure they'd get along. They'd had a nice chat while eating, and it had seemed like she really didn't care about being seen around him in public.

[Yulia Sokolov]

Lia nodded when it clicked that they had run into each other before. After a moment she realized that she was on the phone and that nodding was not an answer. “Yes, yes I am. I’m there now, actually. That should have clicked when you told me that you worked for the newspaper.” Newspaper and wings more than just newspaper, as it couldn’t have been just a coincidence.

“So, I’ll see you Thursday at four. I just need the address.” She dug in her jacket pocket as she said this, finding a pen there. She shrugged her shoulder up so she could use it to hold the phone against her ear so she could write the information down on her hand for the time being.

[Feivel Silverstein]

Feivel rattled off the address, grinning from ear to ear. Lia had a steady job, so he assumed he wouldn't be harassing her for her share of the rent each month. She seemed reasonable, and he wouldn't mind living with another meta. (Plus, maybe she could help stop English teachers at the school from sending young wannabe writers to him as interns. He could help some of them, but he hated having to tell them that he wasn't interested in printing their opinion pieces until he knew they could write straight news.)

Now the only thing left was admitting that he watched the trashy reality show his brother was featured on every week, without fail.

(Wrap, and continue with their meeting?)