Morgan briskly walked up Van Ness attempting to wrap a scarf around her head as the wind sent a scathing chill down her spine. It was still too early for sunshine and the overcast sky was part and parcel of a San Francisco morning in June. She had spent the night with her boyfriend, Alex, on Bush Street, a large flat shared with three other guys. Morgan was fuming, wondering when Alex might consider getting his own apartment instead of living the same way he did in college. The guys were now in their thirties, had fairly good jobs in the tech field but still they seemed unable to take adulthood to the next stage. Alex had been promoted earlier in the year and received a good deal of money from the stock options he'd garnered from his first employer after graduating and being willing to work long hours to help a startup succeed. The business succeeded beyond what anyone expected so Alex had no financial worries at this time and could afford his own place despite San Francisco's notoriously high rent.
Morgan hated getting up in the night and having to see his friends, one always seemed to be sleeping on the couch even though they all had bedrooms. She hated even more running into one of them in the hallway on the way to the bathroom, so awkward. She also did not approve of the way the apartment was kept; dirty floors, grungy bathroom, dishes always in the sink and never any toilet paper or paper towels when you needed them. Morgan thought it some sort of delayed adolescence and chided Alex for it from time to time but he mostly ignored her or if she balked at coming over, made an attempt at housecleaning but the presence of his roommates, their friends, their girlfriends and odd people from out of town needing a place to crash made for an unruly, unpredictable atmosphere which Morgan found inhibiting.
She was a loner; this can be said about her uncritically. She lived alone because she was unsuccessful living with others; there were always problems and anyone who has ever lived with roommates knows what they are: who doesn't have the money for their share of the utilities, who never buys toilet paper, who plugged up the toilet, broke the dishwasher, overflowed the sink, who eats food not theirs, whose boyfriend eats food not his, who never cleans anything, who brought home a cat despite a no-pets agreement…Morgan becoming rigid with tension over these matters, knew she had to have her own place and at the time couldn't afford a real apartment so had to move into a residence hotel and forgo amenities like a kitchen. This was a small price to pay for peace she thought and subsisted on sandwiches and takeout except when Alex took her to dinner or she cooked for him at his place although the roommates always intruded on them, ate all the leftovers, often right off their plates. Morgan, who had looked forward to this little bit of domestic intimacy roiled inside but remained placid on the outside. They would then have to go to Alex's room to watch TV because the living room would soon be taken over by the guys and friends.
That Alex seemed satisfied with this arrangement bothered her though she tried not to let it. She would stay at his place two nights a week so she could cook and he would stay with her in her little room two night a week. When she said anything about getting a place of his own he just laughed at her and said he was fine with things as they were; said he saved a lot of dough by sharing Internet service, cable, gas and electric and the hoard of sporting equipment that had its own room in the flat. They had bikes, skis, skateboards, water boards, basketballs, baseball bats and gloves, footballs, scuba diving equipment, and for a time there was not one, but two scooters parked in the living room. All these men still playing with toys, Morgan thought. When will they grow up?
Alex knew Morgan was uncomfortable with the chaos at his place so he stayed at her place when invited but found her quarters too confining and in the end said he didn't see the point: she could more easily stay at his place because it was closer to both of their workplaces. Morgan had trouble explaining why she didn't find it all that inviting but Alex thought she was being cranky. He thought the need for privacy was a picky woman thing but never said he felt bored at her place. She wondered why he didn't prefer a clean bathroom with big towels and plenty of hot water, order and clean sheets.
At first he did: he commented on how nice it was to have quiet and be able to watch what he wanted on TV with no phones ringing or uninvited visitors, no unexpected troubles. He seemed to love her little room with the light from the bay window streaming in, her arm chair placed to look out on the tree-lined street with the old Gothic church pleasingly in view, her books neatly on the shelves she installed, her artwork, Chinese-style ink drawings of flowers and birds, hung so the light accentuated their charm. An old Persian rug on the floor gave the room an eclectic mood. She loved her little room but longed for more space to decorate the way she'd like, to make her home a haven, a refuge from the city that at times overwhelmed her. She was from the suburbs and though she recognized the banality of suburbs, couldn't wait to leave when she began classes at the Academy of Art, she longed for an orderly home with room to work on projects, to entertain and sit in the sun.
This was Morgan's big dream: a home of her own. She was hoping that it would be with Alex whom she had been going exclusively with for the past two years but whenever she brought up the idea he glazed over and changed the subject. She didn't understand what was holding him back.
Alex had no such dreams and secretly longed for the open road and no place to call home. He wanted to travel as much as possible, see foreign countries and stay loose. None of this he told Morgan in so many words. He wasn't a domestic type and could see no value in flower arrangements, complicated soap dispensers, espresso machines, pasta makers or sectional sofas. Morgan read decorating magazines vicariously and often showed Alex pictures of things she admired but he just briefly glanced at the pages, grunted and talked about how much money that would cost and how troubling in the end when you wanted to move. He said his parents bought a rather grand house, his mother decorated it at great time and expense and in the end his father left for a fishing trip to the Florida Keys and never returned. His mother just sat in her beautifully decorated rooms that no one wanted to live in for fear of knocking things over or upsetting some arrangement that had no specific meaning, was a puzzle of sorts, and Alex spent his time in the basement family room that she hadn't got around to fixing up yet. Each day he came home from school and found his mother with a crystal glass filled with wine, staring at her Barcelona chairs, her Aubusson carpets, her Japanese pottery, her gilded picture frames and lonely unused fireplace with the over-wrought oil portrait of herself over the mantle. Alex would sneak into the basement where his toys, stereo, computer and bikes were stored careful not to track in any mud or mess up the display in the foyer with his backpack and jacket. There he lived in a hovel-like room waiting to graduate from high school so he could leave for college. His father stayed in Florida, lived in a cabin with is new girlfriend, cooked fish on the beach and drove a vintage motorcycle. Alex could related to this lifestyle, did not blame his father and pitied his mother with her fresh paint, delicate porcelain and fluffy down comforters that did not comfort.
None of this he told Morgan; these were things not really active in his mind but he subconsciously retreated into his boy's world whenever Morgan brought out the decorating magazines and catalogs and started talking of drapery, paint colors and furniture styles. He'd heard it all before and it drove his father away. As far as he was concerned, he preferred dorm-style living as that was what saved his sanity after leaving home and starting college. His mother could not even stand a stray glass or plate left on the counter or in the sink. She would freak out over a pillow or cushion out of place; anything that jarred her sense of order in her precious rooms that no one lived in anymore. Alex knew he was an extraneous feature that did not fit in with the decor, or at least that is what he felt and more often stayed over at his friend Jake's house, whose parents lived in their home, had parties, joked, played games, ate popcorn in the living room with many and various pets running around freely. As Jake's mother said when Alex once apologized for dropping popcorn on the carpeting, "That's what vacuum cleaners are for dear, don't worry about that." Alex felt a loosening in his shoulders blades hearing that sentence, so gaily imparted, he thought. His mother would look at the offender and immediately get on her hands and knees searching for each stray kernel, Alex would feel a tightening in his solar plexus, retreat to his room in the basement, feeling a combination of exasperation then guilt for leaving his mother alone after she cooked his favorite dinner and rented a movie he'd been waiting to see. She was trying but she could not get past the symmetry of her beautifully appointed rooms. She was goaded by design and could no longer live in her own house.
All of this Alex could not exactly articulate to Morgan who had been after all, an art and design student but her earnest desire for a place of their own she could decorate gave him a bout of asthma and they'd had a few fights over his refusal to get a grownup lifestyle, preferably with her. They started spending less time at each other's place and were drifting apart though nothing was said.
One day Alex met a girl named Felicity who lived in her art studio, shared a bathroom down the hall with various eccentrics in the building and invited Alex for dinner eating on an old packing crate with a broken folding chair for him and a waste basket turned upside for her. Then they slept on a foldout mattress on the concrete floor under a dirty sheet and a drop-cloth. Alex was smitten and began seeing her regularly. She was more than happy to stay at his place and not only enjoyed the ruckus, but contributed to it with her large dog and a collection of Segways.
When Morgan found out there was someone else in Alex's life she took it stoically and bought new sheets for her bed with a matching duvet and shams. Somewhere she thought she would find a man who wanted what she wanted but was alone in her room for several more years, eventually marrying a guy named Griffin who appreciated all she had to offer domestically. They shopped for hours in Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, William Sonoma and all the antique stores south of Market for their new home. After a few years, and many trips to various furniture stores and outlets, Morgan deemed their home perfect and they settled into a routine, sharing the housework and polishing the silver and glassware together for fun. They gave excellent parties where everything matched and the table sparkled. After several more years, her husband announced that he might be gay, wanted to explore his options and they began divorce proceedings, fighting over the imitation Serves china, the copper pots, the custom bamboo shelving, the Eames chairs, the retro rugs, the small collection of antique teapots and the lease on the Victorian flat. When it was over, Morgan redecorated and decided she might prefer living alone and each night went to sleep dreaming of granite counter tops, cherry wood floors, stainless steel appliances and porcelain shower tiles.
Alex still lived in the same place although Felicity moved in and converted part of the dining room into her studio. They talked of marriage but never got around to it. Most of the old roommates had married and bought houses so Alex had a changing cast of characters moving in and out complete with all the correct sporting goods. He was growing a little impatient with his lifestyle but did not know how to change it. Felicity had no domestic instincts. Sometimes he thought of Morgan sentimentally; she had been a good sport about a lot of things. He heard that she was married and lived in a terrific place in lower Pacific Heights. He hoped she wasn't too uptight, like his mother, now remarried to a cooking instructor.
Morgan occasionally walked by the flat on Bush and also thought of Alex and the warm relationship they'd once had, wondered if he was happy, if he'd grown up, if he still smelled deliciously of apples and sandalwood but when she saw an old TV in front of the steps waiting for someone to pick it up, a broken set of ski poles, a pile of badly used canvases and various takeout containers in the garbage she shuddered. Walking briskly down Van Ness, wrapping her coat tightly around her she thought only of her neat and tidy rooms, aesthetically so pleasing, remembered her irritation with Alex and his friends and decided she had made the right choice after all despite the divorce. It would have never worked out with Alex, she thought but still felt something of a loss. Maybe what she really needed was a stylish new table for the foyer. This thought perked her up. Yes, she would have to start looking right away. Entering her flat, she wondered why she had never thought of it before. The space was positively barren. She got out her catalogs and spent the night in happy contemplation; furniture was her heart’s desire.
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