InsaneJournal

Who: Valerie Frizzle and Carlos
What: Carlos is thinking about becoming Valerie’s roomie
When: Sunday Sept 8th
Where: Valerie’s apartment in Irvine
Rating: Low
Status: Complete




When Valerie purchased her condo she had gotten a two bedroom and made sure the two bedrooms were roughly the same size. She had intended to get a roommate over the years, but she just hadn’t found anyone who fit and she shoved her drum kit into the spare bedroom for the time being. So when Carlos posted that he needed a roommate she decided to take the plunge because he seemed like a nice guy from the couple posts he had made. Once he agreed to come see the place she quickly ran around the house and picked up the things that were lying around. She wasn’t messy by any means, but between school and student teaching she had a lot of papers all over the place.

Hopefully Carlos wouldn’t be intimidated by the luxury of the place because she wasn’t going to expect a lot of money from him. She could handle the rent of it alone, so she wasn’t in it to make her monthly payments or anything. But it was way nicer than he was probably expecting because she had surprised a few of her friends when they came to visit. As she picked up her last bundle of papers she heard her cell phone ringing and she rushed over to the table to answer it.

It was Carlos on the other end, calling to say he'd arrived. Or he was pretty sure he'd arrive and he was most likely downstairs so long as he'd gotten the address and location right. He was fairly polite on the phone.

He was a little excited, admittedly, and not only because this was the first return he'd gotten on his search for a roommate or a place to live. Okay, mostly because of that. Living out of a hotel wasn't exactly something he loved doing, it was expensive and he'd much rather be spending his time on things that weren't home searching.

And this woman, Valerie, she seemed nice, if not a little eclectic. Drums a night? He could get over that. It was just quirky enough where it might be closer to fun rather than weird or annoying.

Valerie decided to go downstairs to meet him in order to give him a proper tour of the complex. It was quite large and she didn’t want to get lost on his way to her complex. So, she informed him of that and shut her phone before going out into the hallway and down the stairs. She was only a few floors up from the street level and soon enough she was outside the glass doors that were locked. She regarded the man on the other side and smiled in relief; he looked quite normal (extremely nice hair) and she was quite pleased that he didn’t seem like the type to just sit around the apartment and stink.

She opened the door from the other side and stepped forward to greet him with her hand held out, “Hi! You must be Carlos, I’m Valerie. It’s so great to meet you. Come on in and follow me.”

Was his hair nice? He'd never noticed, not really.

He smiled, and it was the sort of smile that was charming only because he didn't quite realize that was what it was. "I'm definitely Carlos," he agreed, shaking her hand. "And you're definitely Valerie, so I guess I'm in the right place."

He followed her into the place, looking politely interested as he glanced around. "This seems like a nice area."

“Yeah, this place is quite nice. There’s a pool, a rooftop lounge type area, and some places for barbecues. Everyone basically leaves you alone except when you play your drums at night, evidently. But don’t worry, I don’t play constantly and my friend Mitch said I can start going over to his place because he wants to work on a song,” she knew she was probably starting to speak a little quickly and ramble, but she hoped Carlos didn’t mind too much.

Once they made it through the lobby area she walked over to the elevator and pushed the up button, “The bedrooms are basically equal so that’s quite nice and there’s two bathrooms.”

“Oh,” Carlos was pretty sure he’d only caught half of what she was going on about, but he nodded anyway; stepped into the elevator when the doors dinged open, and then stared at the little lights until they got to the floor they needed.

“That sounds basically perfect. I really don’t have a ton of stuff, so it’s not -- you know. Do you -- are you in a band?”

“No biggie, you can feel free to gather lots of stuff once you’ve settled down into a place. And I used to be in a band, but now I’m going to school to be a teacher,” she explained with a smile as the elevator rose to her floor. Once it reached the floor and the doors opened she lead the way to her apartment, “So, I can’t remember if you already explained or not, but what made you come all the way out here? The midwest is so far away.” Soon enough they reached her door and she unlocked it before stepping inside to hold the door open for him to enter.

So, enter he did. He looked around the place, and was clearly a little surprised by the amount of space to it. It was big, and he couldn't imagine it being cramped with two people.

The kitchen looked nice. The living room wasn't a mess. It was… good. He wondered if it wasn't a bit above his current pay grade.

"So -- uhm. What will you teach?" He was nearly worried to ask how much rent would be.

The thing that Carlos didn’t know was that Valerie fully intended to work with his budget because she honestly didn’t need his money to live off of. Having a roomie would be good for her because she tended to get bored when she was all by herself and Carlos seemed really nice.

She shut the door behind her once they were both inside and smiled at his question, “I want to be a general elementary school teacher. So, I’ll be covering basically all subjects but hopefully with 3rd grade and higher students. Alright, follow me and I can show you what can be your room.”

He was really nice. If not easily distracted. It would probably do him just as well to have a roommate, lest he get interested in all his Science and then forget to leave or eat for days on end. It was sort of a thing that he did.

“I do lab assistant work at the local college,” he said, although he hadn’t really been asked. Still, it was good to note he did work. Could pay rent. And he was a teacher too, in his own way.

He followed, found himself impressed at the size of the empty room. “Wow.”

“Oh yeah? What kind of field of science? I love science,” she admitted with a smile and a sparkle in her eye. It was her favorite subject. She would probably rank music and science at the top, but she wasn’t going to be a music teacher. Then there was his response to the room and she smiled happily, “Think it could work?”

"All kinds," Carlos said a little absently, as he wandered further into the room, and then into the closet which was also oddly large as far as closets went. "But -- uh. Chemistry is what I'm currently doing." He paused, poking his head out of the closet and smiling faintly. "I'd like it to work."

Valerie stayed outside the door and watched him with an amused smile. It was fun to watch and she was hoping that he would go for it. “Awesome. I enjoyed Chemistry as a kid. And what would be stopping you from making it work?” She was ready to let him know that it would be able to work because he seemed like he really enjoyed the place and she was already starting to enjoy the idea of having a roomie.

“Well,” Carlos looked a little timid here, but stuck to his gun, sticking his hands in his pockets and smiling a bit lopsidedly. “I’ve heard that rent is quite a bit substantially higher in this city than it is where I’m from. And this place is quite nice. It’s not that I don’t get a pay check, of course, just that ---er. Well.”

“So, here’s the catch to this place. I’ve pretty much got everything all paid off because I made a lot of money earlier in my life. So, if you would like to live here I can let you pay whatever you think is proper. If you want to pay the amount of rent you were paying back home that works as well. I just really would like having a roommate around and you seem really nice,” she explained it slowly, since she had a tendency to speak quickly, and hoped that he wouldn’t be offended by it and would agree to it. She wasn’t going to make him pay half of the full amount of rent since it was a little high. But, he was new to the city and she wanted to make sure he would have a place to live.

“Really?” Carlos, not offended at all (hey, he was used to people being very nice to him for no reason at all), only looked happy, eyebrows raised and smile bright. “I mean. That’d be -- really? I’d like that.” Cheaper rent was good -- and he’d make up for it by splitting everything else, too. It probably didn’t hurt that he was a good cook, either. He hoped.

“Really! It seems like a good idea and why make you run off and look at more apartments? I think we can work something nice out,” she commented with a happy look. It was great to hear that he was going to go along with the plan. He seemed like a great roommate and she was so pleased that she wouldn’t have to be alone in this big apartment, “How soon can you move in?”

He laughed at that, scratched the back of his neck almost awkwardly and then shrugged. “Well? How soon would you like me to? I only have what fit in my car, and it’s mostly still there, beside what I’ve got at my hotel…” And hotels? Expensive. Also not as enticing as they might have been other places. Pools were only ideal in the midwest. There was an ocean here.

“Whenever you want. I can help you out if you need me to. I just need to move the drums out and that shouldn’t be a big issue. I’ll put them in my room and eventually move them to Mitch’s if he’ll let me,” she was starting to ramble a little bit, but she was kind of excited about this. She hoped that she wasn’t bouncing up and down because she did that sometimes.

She sort of was, but he hardly minded. There was nothing wrong with excitement -- and even he was a little too. Excited, not bouncing. He didn’t bounce. He did smile again though. “How’s --uhm -- tomorrow? I can help with any rearranging you need, honest. I’m just really glad this is okay. Really.” Really really.

“Awesome! Just call me in the morning and let me know when you want to come over. Let me go call the landlord and we can get a lease worked out with your name on it. Oh man, this is going to be great!” She was definitely bouncing now as she leaned forward and gave him a spontaneous hug and then pulled back, “And don’t worry about rearranging. The drum kit is super easy to move. Alright, now I need to find my phone.” She didn’t give much of a warning as she turned and ran off to the living room to find where she left the phone. This was going to hopefully be a lot of fun!

The hug was unexpected, but Carlos took it like some sort of champ, and only nodded in agreement. He had her number and she had his so that seemed fair. “Sound great,” he said -- following her out into the living room in order to find the door again. “I’ll -- uh. Call. Tomorrow. Thanks so much, seriously.”

“You’re so very welcome. There might be some paperwork tomorrow, so just a heads up. Have a lovely day and I’ll see you tomorrow,” she was all smiles as she went to help open up the door, “Oh and go down the elevator and straight out into the lobby. It’s fairly easy to find the door to get out. Sorry for not escorting you out. But hey, just think of it as practice, right?” So, with a chuckle she opened up the door and watched as Carlos left and closed the door behind him before she started working on calling up her landlord.