In the Village, she looks totally out of place. Very Boca Raton, Florida. And she’s looking at me equally aghast.  I’m dressed right for this neighborhood but not for where she’s coming from: ripped white jean shorts, a green sleeveless blouse tied with a belt around my waist, a cheap Indian necklace, and white flip-flops.

“Come in,” I say, giving her my most gracious smile.  All I can think is thank God she’s from out from town, because otherwise she’d know that she belongs on the Upper East Side, not here. “Would you like to take a look around?”

Beata goes straight to the window and looks at the view: walk-ups, street merchants, and lots of people walking, a mix of funky locals and swarms of tourists and B&Ts.

“It’s nice and quiet here,” I say, and of course, as soon as I finish my sentence, a screeching car alarm goes off and then the clunking shrill of an ambulance. “They do this everywhere in New York when they want to skip a red light. Everyone finds it not only annoying but totally unnecessary.”

Beata smiles and takes a peek in the bedroom then comes back to the living room and sits on my couch, all business.

“Nine hundred you said?”

“Yes, plus half of the utilities.”

She pauses and purses her lips, and I expect a polite refusal. I simply cannot imagine this woman living in my apartment.  Just by looking at her I can tell she’s a neat freak. It’s good I cleaned the apartment right before she arrived. It’s a drag, but I do it every two weeks.

Beata stares alarmed at my left arm. “May I ask why you have a prison tattoo? Are you an ex-convict?”

“Oh, no.  I lost a bet against my ex-boyfriend.  I did it here, down the street, one night after I drank like a stupid head.”

Beata purses her lips again. I know she hates my tattoo, but she’s polite. “It’s very nice. They did a wonderful job.”

“So do you want to take the room?” I just want to get it over with. I know she’s probably counting the seconds before she’s out of here. “It’s okay if you don’t… I’ve just lost my job, this is why I placed this ad, I am trying to cut down on my expenses, but I’m not desperate, I have some money saved.…” I’m lying nonchalantly. 

“I’ll take it,” Beata cuts me off.

“Really?”

“I’m a Polish Jew and this is right in the Polish neighborhood. It would be lovely to spend some time here."

“So what do you do for a living?”

“I’m an interior designer, I travel a lot. Short trips, long trips. I’ll rarely be home.”

It sounds busy and high-paying enough: “Great.”

Before she vanishes she tells me that her name means blessing. All I can think is that she’s indeed a blessing for me. The money I got from her covers the entire expense of my rent-controlled apartment, and it comes at a desperate time when I have no job, no unemployment and no idea how to pay my bills.

Beata returns one night looking as fabulous as always. As soon as she greets me, she looks around and frowns.

“This stray sock is still here? It was here, in this crease of the futon, five days ago.”

Embarrassed, I grab the sock and throw it in my laundry basket, although it has a hole in it, and I will probably just throw it away tomorrow. I hear her say behind me, “Sorry, but I am a neat freak.”

Oh, I know that. And I half like it, half hate it.  When I turn back around, she’s opening her purse and taking out a jewelry box and a bottle of Flower by Kenzo.

“Let’s see what Larry got me….” she says.

I restrain from asking who Larry is, and watch her pull out a beautiful silver necklace from the box.

“How awful! What an idiot!” she sighs. “Larry knows I only like gold. And this is so small. Like a piece he had in his house for his upcoming granddaughter’s bar mitzvah. Here, you can have it,” she says and offers me the box as if it’s just a piece of junk.

I take it, because these days I count pennies on groceries and can’t afford any new jewelry. Then she opens the perfume bottle and makes an appalled face.

“How expensive do you think this is?”

“I don’t know, about forty to sixty bucks?”

“Boaz is such a cheap schmuck! He went to Europe and this is all he brought me back.” She sprays a bit of perfume on her wrist and sniffs it. “I don’t like this fragrance. Smells like cockroach spray. You can have it.”

I smell it. Granted, it’s not the best perfume I’ve ever sniffed, but it’s not that bad. I take it.

Beata comes and goes every week and when she’s here she is either scrubbing, or killing me with kindness. I never knew that having a roommate can be so much fun. She’s almost never home, and when she is, she’s better than Santa Claus, showering me with gifts from fancy places where I’ve never shopped before: Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, and Barneys. I don’t know whether these gifts come from happy interior design clients or from admirers or from people who qualify as both.

Upon each of her rare arrivals, she first cleans and scrubs everything. The apartment gleams for the first time in the last hundred years or so since it was built.  The only downside is that she spends hours in the tiny bathroom taking long scented baths, scrubbing her skin, grooming her face and body with masks and perfumed lotions, and coiffing her hair to glossy perfection. She used to be an award-winning hair-dresser, before she became a designer, and she’s amazing at it.

“So, tell me about the last house you decorated,” I venture to ask one night. I put down the art book borrowed from the public library and look at her expectantly.

“Ah. I’m not really a designer. I’m studying to become one,” she says, but it’s hard to swallow because I’ve never seen her open a book.

“Then what’s your real job?”

“I work as an independent escort. I have a few regulars and some one-timers who rent my services for their business trips. I love doing business trips.” 

This is at once appalling and unbelievably exciting.

“What are they like?” I ask, breathless.

“Either short, fat, old, ugly, semi-impotent and married—or all of those things,” she replies with a flat voice. “The one I’ve been with this week lives in Brooklyn.  Big and hairy.  All white.  When his wife goes away, I stay with him for a few days. He’s totally harmless; he hasn’t gotten it up in years, Viagra and all.  He only wants to go down on me for hours which I find pretty annoying—because for me shorter is better, as you can imagine.  I hate it when they waste time trying to make me come. And they all seem obsessed with this.”

My stomach churns.  I look at this clean, beautiful woman and I imagine a big-bellied, hairy bozo licking her and I don’t understand how she can do it.

“You don’t need to love someone to be, uh, intimate with them?”

Beata looks at me surprised with her big, round, dark eyes. A faint smile flies over her perfectly rouged lips.

“I don’t believe in love anymore.  I married for love.  I was young, innocent; a starry-eyed immigrant. My husband threw me out when he got bored and brought in his next wife from Mexico. He kicked me out in the streets with no job, before I even received my permanent green card.  My parents in Poland were both dead and I had nobody to go back to. Now, I’ve heard he’s brought in another immigrant from Russia. Forever Love is just a glorified name for Temporary Lust and Mutual Interest. I only believe in money. I want to have lots and lots of money.”

I feel bad for Beata, but suddenly I know I don’t want her in my apartment any longer. I attempt to say something to this effect, but my lips don’t move. I don’t want to seem judgmental.

“I’m sorry that you’re so bitter.”

“Don’t be sorry for me. I make five grand in a good week. Be sorry for you. How much do you make?”