Tiki and Ed M

I stayed with Tiki in her apartment as soon as I aged out of my last foster home. She helped me find my first job and save enough money to move out of her place and into my own, smaller, apartment in the same building.

It was supposed to happen by summer, I turned 18 in the spring, but it was already turning into fall and even though I felt like I was working hard at my job and making sales, I hadn’t moved out.

Then she met Ed M, now her husband. She didn’t tell me anything about him at first. She just said her job had her traveling and she would only be in the apartment a couple days a week at most.

So that meant I had her place to myself. I had never really lived alone before. I tried to make friends but it didn’t work out like it has more recently. They may not be quality friends now but I have a lot of them.

Having somewhere to invite people to come should’ve made it easier, but I didn’t know how to approach people yet. I’d follow someone that seemed interesting around, to get to know them better. A lot of people just kind of walk around aimlessly, or go to stores and then go home.

I never worried about Tiki because I wouldn’t know what to do if something was wrong. There wouldn’t be anything for me to do. She was gone through all the holidays.

She came with Ed M to collect a few things. She’d called ahead and told me she wanted me to meet someone.

-Is this him? Ed M said, the first thing he said to me.

-Yeah, I said. I’m David.

-How’s your job going?

I never liked talking about work, even sales.

-He still isn’t making enough to move into his own place, Tiki said. That was true. I had a way of making money disappear.

-I like what you’ve done to the place, Ed M told me.

I’d rearranged it to put a lot of the furniture off to the side to have more of an open area, and so there wasn’t any place to hide.

-I don’t think Tiki likes it, I told him while she’d gone to her room. It was the one part of the apartment I didn’t go into.

-No, Ed M said. You’re going to have to move.

-Move?

-What you really need, he continued, is a job that offers room and board.

I just stared at him. Room and board. I didn’t know what meant.

He came up closer to me to whisper, even though Tiki was still in her room and had closed the door.

-You need friends, you need your own life, he whispered in my ear.

-Can you help? I asked him.

-As much as anyone, he said. 

I thought that was nice of him. 

He talked about money and about employment and about connections to the world around you and the way things move. 

Tiki told me I had to move because they were getting married and she was getting rid of this apartment. It was never clear to me who paid for it. I don't think it was her. Maybe. 

Ed M said I could stay with them. Room and board. 

He had a bottling factory he said I could work at. Bottle myself up. 

-So you gotta protect yourself, Tiki explained when I quit after a few days. Your well being. You gotta say, listen. I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do. 

Ed M said I could stay anyway. There were things I could do at the house, especially when Tiki wasn't there, which was more often. 

I'd run errands for him and fetch things around the house like an extension of him. Eventually I squirreled enough away, set aside enough, to move out.

Ed M didn't stop me. He was really nice.

But that’s not true.

Tiki didn’t meet her husband for years after I moved out from her place. It was a different story.

I know I can't do that that many times before it's cheap. Maybe it already is. 

No take backs., right?

It's a real story but it's about someone else who wasn't actually my (not real) sister but might as well have been because I liked her in a way she couldn't like me but her husband liked me and he was nice. But it couldn't last. 

Clare C. Someone else's story. 

I don't like to be alone too long. There's always going to be someone and I rather know who it is and who they could be.

So maybe I'll move in with Tiki. But my friends couldn't visit. Maybe they would try anyway. 

It's time for a meeting.