Free Room for Love by Andrea Meyer Page A

one hand and wipes sleep from his crinkly blue eyes with the other.
    â€œHello, Graham?”
    â€œMmmm.”
    â€œSorry to wake you.”
    â€œNever mind, I should have been up ages ago. Thanks for reminding me.”
    â€œMy name’s Jacquie. I’m calling about the room.”
    â€œPity, my sweet, I rented it last night.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œNo sadness, please, Jacquie, not this early in the morning. You haven’t even seen the place. Chin up, love, you might have hated it.”
    â€œBut it’s supposed to be beautiful and sunny and loaded with new appliances.”
    â€œAll lies.”
    â€œAh, just luring pretty young things down to your lair?”
    â€œShe’s a smart one.”
    My groin reacts on cue to flattery in an English accent. I’m so easy. I envision the two of us, Graham (played by Hugh Grant), wearing a gray Cambridge sweatshirt with a hood, sitting across from me at my corner café reading the Arts & Leisure section of the Times, blowing me a kiss when our eyes meet.
    â€œYou wouldn’t believe how many of them came down here dolled up and ready to bed me if only I’d had the audacity to ask,” he says.
    â€œBut you didn’t, of course, because you’re a gentleman.”
    â€œYou’d better believe it, baby.”
    â€œWhat kind of movies do you make?”
    â€œI’m editing my second documentary right now, about an incredible blues musician I met on the subway. He used to be quite famous, really, but he’s been homeless and battling schizophrenia for the last eight years. Still plays in the subway, a tremendous talent. It’s, shall we say, a labor of love.”
    â€œHow does a documentary filmmaker afford to live in a forty-five-hundred-dollar loft in SoHo, pray tell?”
    â€œThat’s very personal, isn’t it, missy?”
    â€œIndependently wealthy, are we?”
    â€œLook at the time. I’d better begin my day!”
    â€œAll right, I promise, no more impertinent questions.”
    Steve walks into the office chattering loudly on his cell phone. He waves at me. I wave the pile of text back at him.
    â€œI have to go to, too, Graham. Good luck with your new roommate.”
    â€œAnd you, Jacquie. I hope you find yourself a marvelous flat.”
    I hang up with my heart banging against my rib cage and run out into the hallway again, an instant replay of my earlier explosion. I laugh out loud, amazed at this thing that I’ve discovered. I want to kiss my sister, and I wonder what excuse I can invent to call Graham back and try to get him to ask me out. He sounds like a scoundrel, but all the good ones are, aren’t they? Then again, there must be hundreds of Grahams out there. This is New York City, after all. The number of eligible bachelors looking for roommates has to be limitless. I should have come up with this plan ages ago. I almost shriek for joy, but this time I control myself. Okay, so I’ll have to be a sneak and a snake for a couple of weeks, but look on the bright side: What if I actually do meet someone I like in the process? Now that would make a good story.
    â€œWhere the hell is Jacquie?” I hear Steve shout from the other room.
    â€œHere, Steve! Here I am,” I say, running back into the office, where he’s rifling through a pile of text looking for the Cate Blanchett piece that he hasn’t read yet. I grab it off my desk and hand it to him before positioning myself in front of my computer again. I glance at the time on my screen, smiling so hard that my face feels like it might break, and realize that I haven’t thought about Jake in over half an hour.
    â€œFuck Jake,” I say, feeling like Graham has completely cured me of him.
    fuck jake, says the Instant Message I get at that very instant from my sister. I love how she can read my mind.
    Precisely what I was thinking, I write back. You’ll be happy to hear we broke up.
    you