S01.E01 - Hampered

 

Jenna shuffled slowly out of her bedroom, holding her head and shielding her eyes from the tiny streams of unforgiving sun that dared to invade the living room through the holes and dents in their front-window blinds. There she found Candy using her face to test the scratchiness of their now defiled sofa. Their hair was a disaster, their pajamas were inside out, and they moved only when absolutely necessary. When Candy let out a sigh, Jenna leaned against the door frame of the bathroom in order to recover from the attack.

"Why are you being so loud?" groaned Jenna, pressing her palms against her temples.

"I think we threw the wrong kind of party." confessed Candy.

"Some of those people will never speak to us again."

"Good. The lot of them drank all of our booze then refused to move in. As far as I'm concerned they can all burn in hell."

"Somehow we're in even worse trouble."

"You're in trouble. I only have another twenty minutes to live."

Jenna glanced over at the fish tank and found that someone had hooked a ladle to the splash protector. "There's a ladle in the fish tank."

"When did we get a fish tank?"

"Maybe it came with the ladle."

"Fine." instructed Candy. "Fish it out, then be a good roommate and kill me with it."

Jenna tossed the ladle onto the table, where it landed with a clatter that made all involved wince. "We can't have fish. No pets. It's in the lease."

"Who cares? We've only got 12 hours left before we have to build a new cardboard home."

Jenna leaned against the wall, desperately trying to absorb moisture from it so she didn't have to walk all the way to the kitchen to get a glass of water. "We've been through every lesbian we know, and every one of them refused to move in. It's hard not to take that personally."

Jenna closed her eyes and managed to feel her way over to the bathroom-side of the sofa. After allowing her a compassionate amount of time to settle in, Candy nudged Jenna’s leg with her foot then deployed her patented pouty-beg knowing full well that Jenna was long immune to such tactics. It was a desperate move, but she had to try. "Can you pour some of that fish tank water into my mouth?"

Jenna clawed herself up to a seated position. "I can't. I'm storing up energy so I can fall into the tub with enough force that the police don't have any questions."

"I'd have left you too if they offered me a job that great. In Paris. With a car. That I'd have to live in because how can that bitch possibly afford Paris?"

"Sarah knew how I took my coffee. She remembered my mom's birthday. She *never* used my good scissors for cleaning the toilet."

Candy weakly threw one arm into the air. "I try to fix the noisy toilet one time six months ago. Still with the fucking scissors?"

A rogue nacho chip crunched under Jenna's elbow as she shifted. "Now we're hours away from living in your hatchback, Candy—which by the way smells like a gym."

Candy was holding a deflated balloon between two fingers like a dead jellyfish. "My car smells like *adventure*," she said, flicking the balloon away. "That's not a free air freshener. I paid for that. One of the many reasons why we're short on rent."

"We have to find a storage unit."

"For our stuff?"

"To *live* in, you putz.", correct Jenna without any of the normal motherly emphasis everyone had come to expect from her.

"We have to do the online thing."

"Candy, we can't. We just--we just can't." begged Jenna. "It's like putting up a want ad down at the DMV." She slowly sat up as if trying to defend her position, wincing as a champagne cork rolled off her lap. She looked at it incredulously as it bounced away across the floor. "You know who we get if we look online? The same kind of sick bitch that brings a fish tank full of fish to a stranger's apartment."

Jenna pressed two fingers into her left shoulder, trying to understand the ache. "Ugh. My shoulder hurts."

"That's because someone said it wasn't possible to stick a pizza to the ceiling and you decided to prove them wrong."

Jenna looked up. "So I was wrong?"

"It's in the kitchen."

"There's pizza in the kitchen?"

"No, there's a pizza stuck to the ceiling of our kitchen."

Jenna groaned, pressing her tongue against the roof of her mouth like she could scrape off the lingering taste of regret and stale punch. "I will never drink again. I swear to you, Candy. The only chance I have to get this horror out of my mouth is by standing under the shower with it open until I drown." She rolled over the arm of the sofa and back onto her feet. "Pray for me."

Candy reached above her head for a half-crushed beer can. "Godspeed, Seniora Cuervo. I’ll make us some breakfast." Jenna paused to look over her shoulder at the kitchen. "Or, y’know, something." she added.

Jenna paused at the frame of the doorway to the bathroom, bracing herself for the scrubbing that was to come. "Candy, I can't do another toaster popper. I'd like to request one of the year-old cereals as my last meal." As Jenna enters the bathroom, Candy says to herself, "If you want a real breakfast, then you better start praying too."

The bathroom was a war zone. Someone had drawn a lopsided smiley face in toothpaste on the mirror and Jenna had no doubt that it was Candy. Multiple rolls of toilet paper had been unfurled and scrawled upon with someone's idea of poetry. The trash can held every kind of bottle imaginable, including but not limited to perfume, beer, water, spray, and pharmaceutical. The tiny rug that normally guarded the middle of the floor was hung on the wall. Even the innocuous lavender chips that normally lived in their happy bowl had been molested.

"Great." mumbled Jenna to herself extra quietly. "Just when we need our security deposit back." She looked past the smiley face on the mirror and the reflection responded with a shudder.

Jenna closed and locked the door to keep Candy from saving her, should the decision go in the other direction. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her inside-out pajama bottoms. It was only right to spare them whatever happens to bottoms when they exist within a shower at the same time as a hair drier, but—

Then there was a noise. Jenna spun around. Bottoms back up. It was distinct. It was definitely not a creaking of the wall or the groaning of a pipe. It was alive. Mouse. Possum. Aardvark. The possibilities were endless. They were the proud owners of fish, after all. Who could have seen that coming? It had the unpredictability of something organic mixed with the secretive nature of a Nittany mountain lion.

She surveyed the bathroom. It had to be the shower. The curtain was drawn. What the hell did those freeloading bastards leave in her shower. Jenna noted the location of all self-defensive objects and moved the plunger into a more accessible position just in case. Time for the element of surprise. With all the energy she could muster, she ripped the shower curtain open and leapt back ready for a fight.

Of course it was empty.

The next thing Jenna heard was the rolling of her own dehydrated eyeballs as she tried to choke the adrenaline to death and return to her earlier state of decay. This day had only just begun and already it had to end. Pants. Shirt. Socks. All on the floor. She walked her underwear to the hamper by the sink.

As she opened the lid of the hamper, it took on a life of it's own. A bleary-eyed young woman with smudged eyeliner and the worst case of sandy-blonde bed-head ever burst forth in a panic. "Back off, druggie!!!" she screamed, looking up first at Jenna's face and then down at Jenna's engaging ring.

"Whoa, that's a vagina!"

Jenna screamed at the top of her lungs and then shuffled backward with baby steps while working overtime to strategically position her hands and arms to limit the emotional damage of the meeting now in progress.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" screamed Jenna, desperately scanning the new face in the bathroom for any sign of reason or obvious functionality. "I'm naked. What are you doing?"

The woman's face stared up at Jenna as if to say, "That is an excellent question and I'm impressed that you asked it." The stranger shielded her face from both the bright lights of the bathroom and Jenna's unmentionables--which she had just mentioned.

"That's definitely a vagina. I'd recognize it anywhere."

Jenna scrambled to cover herself with her hands, which only resulted in an awkward mime of someone trying to pat themselves dry mid-air. "What are you—? How did you—? Where did you—?"

"I'm going to need you to pick one of those questions if you want an answer." replied the girl under the hand.

Suddenly, the bathroom door caved in and swung rapidly into the wall by the lesbian podcast poster. Candy burst into the room holding a ladle and a half-gallon of possibly expired milk.

"Is it a spider?"

"What are you doing?" demanded Jenna, staring at her confused roommate with incredulity---her arms now out wide offering total nudity. 

Candy was unfazed, having seen Jenna naked like a ba-jillion times. "You just screamed like you were dying. I'm saving your life."

"With milk?"

"You asked me to make you cereal."

"Look what you just did to our security deposit!"

"You put a pizza on the ceiling. The 'security deposit' ship---has sailed, bitch."

The girl in the hamper decided to participate. "This is the best party ever."

Candy leaned into the bathroom so she could physically look around the sink to see the source of this new hitherto unheard voice. She looked at Jenna as proudly as she had ever beheld another human. "Girl, I've never seen anyone pull tail like you. I didn't even hear the doorbell ring." Jenna searched desperately for the towel that didn't exist under the sink. The fight to keep the stranger from seeing private parts had clearly ended in a total rout.

"Who the fuck is that?" asked Candy of Jenna, assuming she would know.

"You know how the toilet makes noises? She's the plumber."

"I'm Trisha," the mysterious woman supplied helpfully, holding an outstretched hand into the air by way of introduction. Her eyes were wide and trying to process the unfamiliar surroundings. "Do either of you know why I taste lavender right now?" She re-positioned herself inside of the hamper like a queen slipping into a throne.

"Did you sleep in our panty hamper?"

"What's a panty hamper?"

"Don't---" said Jenna to Trisha with a dismissive wave of her hand, trying to ward off an argument.

"Oh," began Candy as if she had disclosed this information already to dozens of people. "We pool our underwear into a communal hamper and then do them all together like a disgusting noodle soup."

"We're poor." clarified Jenna to Trisha. "It saves us a ton on hot water. Our bill went down twenty-eight dollars. That's every month! Can we please get back to you?"

"That might be the best night's sleep I've ever had." said Trisha. "I would totally do this at my dad's house, except his pervert friends would totally steal all my underwear. Does this come with a lock?"

"You slept on our underwear?" asked Jenna, searching desperately and eventually finding a decent, god-fearing bath towel with which to cover herself. "Why didn't you sleep in the tub?"

"Really? That sounds way uncomfortable." offered the newcomer.

"Yeah, tubs are rock-hard metal. Only a psychopath would sleep overnight in the tub of two strangers." said Candy siding with Trisha.

"You're taking her side?" said Jenna, truly betrayed.

"I bet *she* likes toaster poppers." said Candy, with a verbal strike to wound. She turned to the girl in the hamper. "Do you like toaster poppers?"

"I'll eat anything once." came the reply. Candy looked at Jenna with a smirk and mouthed "I'll eat anything once." to drive multiple points home.

"And what if someone turns on the shower while you're sleeping in the shower?" continued Trisha, undaunted. "You slip getting out, crash down on your crotch, now you never walk right again. That's not a good plan."

"Oh, well that's my bad then." said Jenna with a thick layer of snark.

Trisha decided to interrupt before things got any odder. "Did either of you see a pair of pants, because I'm not wearing mine."

When Candy reacted to the news of an exposed butt, Jenna held her off with a fullback stiff-arm. "Look," said Jenna laying down the law. "You seem nice, but this is all far too disturbing. The party is over. It's morning. Get out."

"Hey, wait!" announced Trisha as the thoughts in her mind began to form an orderly line. "From the party, right?". She continued to scout the bathroom from her half-seated, half-kneeling position while attempting to point her finger toward Jenna's collarbone. "I had to put your shoulder back in place after you tried to get the second pizza on the ceiling."

"Shut up, I have a trick clavicle!" hissed Jenna in a whisper, looking around as if someone else might be listening. "Stop confessing things. Why are you still here?"

"Eh--" began Trisha. Everyone froze in place, looking at each other as if they could somehow together find clues to help. But the metaphorical lighthouse in Trisha's brain could not pierce that far into the fog. "Yeah I got nothin'."

Candy decided to get all Candy about this. "Listen," she said quietly. "Clearly you have a lot to answer for. Why don't you drop your panties in the hamper, Jenna will go save us twenty-eight bucks, and you can tell me all about it."

"Stop that!" demanded Jenna, yanking on Candy's arm again. Then she returned to the interrogation. "How did you get in here?"

"The hamper?"

"The party."

"I was walking down the street and I remember a bunch of girls asked if I was going to the party. And I was all like, 'I am now!'." Trisha's smile was crooked, as she waited for Jenna to laugh. When it didn't arrive, she continued. "They were so nice. I got more hugs last night than ever in my whole life."

"Was it a good party?" asked Candy earnestly, in a way that seemed to betray that her sense of self worth depended on it.

"Had to be." shouted Trisha excitedly. She stuck her bare legs into the air and kicked them like she was in an inverse cycling class. "Someone stole my pants."

"I'm Candy."

"I'm still bottomless, here." chimed in Jenna.

"Don't pretend like I haven't seen it before." retorted Candy.

"Don't pretend like I'm not still seeing it.", said Trisha, wagging a finger. "This bathroom is nicer than my dad's car. Except for all the—you know—party trash."

Jenna pressed one hand to her forehead as the numbing power of adrenaline wore off and a second hand to her crotch to shield it from a low-angle panty sleeper. "I swear I don’t usually greet house guests like that."

"Nice job shaving, by the way." observed Trisha. "I give your technique an eight out of ten. It was a short look, but I picked up several tips on how to handle my own business later."

"So, you're also shaved? That's so funny---" offered Candy as Jenna anticipated the quip and escorted her out of the bathroom.

"Back off!"

"What? I'm making conversation." said Candy as she fought to keep her shoulders and head in view. "I'm Candy. That's Jenna. This is Margaret, our murder ladle. She's very territorial."

Trisha blinked at her. "Wow! How fancy. My dad and I only have the one spoon. He's named Howard. Sadly, Howard is the only person in my life who will even acknowledge the word 'spoon'."

"I \want to stand under boiling water until my soul leaves my body," she groused, masterfully operating both the towel and Candy. "Is that too much to ask? Death by steam? A quiet, dignified exit? Everybody out!"

"Whatever." said Candy dismissively as she traipsed toward the kitchen. "Come on Trisha. I'll make you a toaster popper." Candy wagged her ladle in a come-hither fashion.

"Great! I'm starving. I'll eat anything right now."

Jenna's eyes almost rolled out of her skull when Candy mouthed the words, "I'll eat anything right now." as their new pantsless acquaintance plowed past her into the kitchen. Candy followed with a gigantic grin.

=====

Jenna exited her bedroom, still working to get a soaked arm into it's appropriate position within her new t-shirt. Candy was seated on the sofa, her face stern and stewing. Jenna walked over to her friend and confessed, "Listen, I should really apologize to Trisha. She probably was scared and I made it worse---"

"She has to go." said Candy, standing with a raise eyebrow as if to dare Jenna to try to change her mind.

"Why? What the hell happened?"

"She's eating us out of house and home. I've never seen someone Hover down food like that. It's like she's an English whelp."

"Where is she now?"

"Eating the doors of our refrigerator." said Candy in a huff. "That's all that's left in there."

"She ate our toaster poppers?"

Candy tried to swat away the last straw. "Bitch if you tell me you want a toaster popper now, I will murder-suicide the both of us."

Jenna pushed Candy across the living room and into the kitchen to find Trisha sitting at the island on one of the stools eating a slice of pizza. Candy threw and arm out in the general direction as if to say, "And there she is."

"Sorry," explained Trisha, half-standing and half trying not to slip and kill herself. She slapped at her left thigh. "I'd get up except one of my legs isn't as awake as the rest of me."

"That's okay." said Candy as if she had completely forgotten how upset she was just seconds earlier. "Panties like those can cut off circulation. That's a scientific fact."

"What---is wrong with you?" asked Jenna of her roommate, her head shaking in disbelief.

"I don't know. I can't stop." came Candy's whispered reply. "That is a 9-out-of-10 ass."

"That was a great party." said Trisha between bites.

Jenna pushed Candy aside and entered the kitchen fully to survey the damage. "Our landladies *live* to shut down parties like that. They probably assume we're running some kind of fight club."

Candy's eyes lingered. "Do you work out?" she bellowed involuntarily, as if trying to make contact with others while lost inside a thick fog.

"At our house, the gym is shirts vs. skins. And somehow the rats are always the shirts." said Trisha, massaging several major muscles and one sore kidney. "'Cause, you know, they steal them and make nests."

Trisha saw the horrified looks on the other two women's faces and quickly changed the subject. "I promise that I actually *did* arrive in pants." explained Trisha. "It's only polite to leave with them. That's, like, basic party etiquette: never give your hosts extra laundry."

"Where did you get that pizza?" asked Jenna conspiratorially.

Trisha simply pointed a single finger upward as she bit into her slice. Jenna's head followed upward to the ceiling then back to Candy.

"There's literally a slice missing." reported Jenna in a tone that a concerned mother would use when reporting a truly bad report card.

"Bitch, I like the cut of your jib." announced Candy.

"Right back at-cha, blondie." said Trisha while hopping onto one and a half legs. "I'm gonna order some fries and stuff. Do you guys want fries?"

The two women just stood dumbfounded.

"Well, whatever. When they get here--you can eat them. I share."

"Wait, you have money?" asked Candy.

"Yeah, I work at a restaurant. They let me take home the send-backs."

When Trisha reached into her bra, Candy exhaled, got lightheaded, then fell backward into the kitchen door jam. Trisha produced a cell phone and a life lesson.  "Never leave your phone in your pants." she said to Jenna, punctuated with a click of her tongue.

"Petey! What up? Yeah I need chicken wings, bro."

Trisha hobbled past Candy on one-and-a-half legs and disappeared into the living room. It was at that moment that all of the pieces in Candy's mind landed in perfect position to complete the puzzle with no additional effort required. Her face was as hopeful as it had ever looked and she rushed to Jenna--who was lamenting the complete consumption of a pecan pie by a gorgeous locust.

"Hear me out."

"Uh oh." said Jenna, closing the refrigerator door and holding her hands out. "You only say that when it's the really, really bad idea."

"She has money. She doesn't have a lease."

"No."

"She doesn't wear pants. She's a lesbian who will literally sleep on used panties if we ask her to. She checks every box."

"Are you insane? She lives in a house filled with rats and shunned take-out boxes."

"This could be our new roommate. We're saved!"

Jenna yanked off a paper towel then walked up to Candy. "For the love of God, Candy, you are---literally---drooling." said Jenna while cleaning a corner. "Rule 12! You wouldn't last a week."

"Oh please." said Candy, waving a hand dismissively and walking back over toward the kitchen door. "I'm totally over it. She's like a sister to me. Maybe we're Eskimo sisters. It's like me and you now."

Candy opened the kitchen door and leaned out to address the young woman on hold with her favorite pizza shop, "Sweetie, you should get down on all fours and look under the sofa for your pants. That party was crazy. You never know, right?"

Trisha gave her a thumbs up and an eager nod with a big ol' smile.

Candy returned to her conversation as if no detour had been taken. "See?"

"No you're not, you walnut." Jenna sniped, gesturing wildly toward the living room.

"*Everything* is in the lesbian handbook!" groaned Candy. "No roommates. No straights. No brides. Only eight nails. This is crap! I just want to be meeee!" 

"The rules are there for a reason."

"Why can't we share a lip balm once or twice?"

"Is that a metaphor? Forget a week. You wouldn't last a day."

"We're desperate. We're gonna be out on the street---in hours from now!"

"She lives in a house with enough rats that it's not a fair fight." said Jenna, trying desperately to get Candy to understand the future crisis that she was setting up now.

The doorbell rang.

Jenna clutched at her aching mind. "I'll leave you all my possessions if you drown me in that sink before it rings again."

Candy looked at Jenna as though a miracle had just happened. "What the fuck kinda pizza place delivers in three minutes?" she observed suspiciously. "Do you think she has a 10-out-of-10 ass?"

Jenna pushed Candy back out of the kitchen in a huff only to behold a horrifying sight. A nearly bottomless Trisha was standing with one hand on the front door with a phone to her ear chatting up the one and only Barbara Bannon, landlord extraordinaire and owner of no less than two-dozen power blazers. "You know, if you're hungry I can show him my tits and get you some chicken wings or something." Trisha said as if that was perfectly normal. 

Barbara held one eyebrow aloft like the blade of a guillotine.

"I beg your pardon?" said Barbara incredulously. But Trisha had entered an involuntary stream of consciousness and delivered her version of compliments at a blistering pace.

"Did you ever see the old TV show 'Miami Vice'?" offered Trisha of her own free will and without request. "Because what you got, like, the whole show in this one outfit."

Then Trisha really got to digging in earnest. "Also, also, if you're a narc then you legally have to tell us--"

A wave of panic swept Jenna and Candy toward the front door. 

"Hey, Babs!" boomed Candy. "Love the jacket. Very Cher."

"What happened to my bathroom door?"

"It's a---minor---thing. I promise to fix it." agreed Candy, her shame-filled eyes snapping to the floor.

Jenna lunged forward past Candy's immobilized body like a rugby player and shooed Trisha away while taking her spot at the door. "She was just—ordering extra cheese. She kids. She was kidding. She's still drunk. She's insane. She doesn't even know where her pants are. Stop talking? Sure. Okay. Fine."

Barbara’s eyes narrowed, unimpressed by the foolishness.

"The noise last night," Barbara began, her voice practiced like a librarian quoting from the reference section pertaining to local ordinances, "was audible from the *parking lot*. Delilah and I heard what I can only describe as a trombone solo at 2 AM. A *trombone*, Jenna. You know how much I hate jazz." Her glare could have sterilized surgical equipment. "It is a vile genre of music."

"And now," she continued, "there appears to be a pair of women's pants hanging from once of the courtyard trees. Like some kind of perverse declaration of a sovereign nation. Would anyone care to—"

Trisha, overhearing from across the room while putting the finishing touches on a pizza order, pumped her arm proudly as if she had finally solved a long-investigated crime. "Blue jeans? Mid-rise? Slightly distressed at the knees?" She didn't wait for an answer before brushing past Barbara with the casual intimacy of someone who'd never once feared authority. "Doesn't matter. I'll take them either way. Scream when the pizza guy gets here!" Trisha blew past an unmovable Barbara into the open world. The older woman neither blinked nor moved.

"Why is there a half-naked woman walking around my apartment complex?"

Jenna’s brain kicked into gear like a rusted bicycle chain finally catching. She stepped forward, capturing Barbara’s view to prevent her from getting too good of a look at Trisha’s retreating form with all the grace of a drunk flamingo attempting a covert op. “That’s—uh—that's—” she blurted only to run into a wall. She looked at Candy, desperate for help.

"Trisha." supplied Candy.

“Our new lesbian friend Trisha."

"That was a lesbian? Why don't I know her?"

"Barbara, you can't know *every* lesbian.", chided Candy.

The cold stare could have frozen a lake.

"Or you could. You know. Magical powers.", mumbled Candy as her eyes, now drowning in shame, returned to the refuge of the floor.

"She's from Canada." continued Jenna with her lie. "She’s moving to town. Very lesbian. Super gay. Loves women. An above-average amount.”

Barbara’s face twisted with suspicion. “An above-average lesbian who makes indecent proposals to pizza delivery---men?” But Jenna wasn't going down without a fight. At this point, she wasn't even sure what she was fighting for. No one had agreed to anything. It was just to save the pass from the landslide. “Cultural difference. Canadian lesbians do that. It's like a big game of Chicken for them. She's poor, so, it's what they have to do to survive.” 

Candy chimed in, “Canadian lesbians are—different. More—you know—moist.”

Everyone paused and stared at Candy.

"You know, from the—maple syrup making."

"And that's her fish tank?"

"Yes, but only until dinner time."

Jenna resisted the urge to strangle her currently one and only roommate while negotiating for a second. “Barbara, listen—" said Jenna, revving up the negotiations. Barbara's full attention was on Jenna, which was unnerving. "Sarah moved out. We’re gonna be drowning unless we find a new roommate. Trisha’s looking for a place. She’s tidy. She’s fun. She--” Jenna caught sight of Trisha through the living room window, jogging back in the distance with her thumb in the air. “--has pants now. All boxes checked.”

Barbara’s lips pursed as she leaned to look at a pair of sneakers sitting on the floor. “Those shoes scream 'straight girl'.”

"It's a work thing. Restaurant uniform. They're required."

"Son of a bitch." seethed Barbara, staring off into the distance while daring to show the real inner-her for the first time in several weeks. Candy and Jenna watched in wonder as Barbara focused on what was truly important. "Straight men are destroying the world."

Everyone nodded. Jenna could feel it. The deal felt done for about two seconds. But it was at this critical moment that Trisha decided to complicate everything by being herself. "Great news. I found my pants." she announced, re-entering the apartment by squeezing past Barbara. "Not to alarm anyone, but there's like a whole group of lesbians out there checking out my ass. One of them asked me if I had a veggie burger to go with my buns and I was all like---"

"Trisha!" screamed Candy just to make it all stop. Everyone stared as Candy tossed around the contents of her brain looking for a reason to take Trisha out of the danger zone. "There's special stuff—in the kitchen—you haven't seen yet." 

Trisha nodded in confused approval as she walked toward Candy's guiding arms. "Boy, you dames really got it all together, don't you? Lead on."

Candy held an arm out and then ushered Trisha into the kitchen so fast that her bare feet made a squeaky noise as they slid across the hardwood floor. The second that Candy was sure the door was closed and they were out of earshot, she laid out the grand plan for the stranger.

"How would you like to live here with us?"

"In the hamper?"

"No, of course not. You get your own room."

"So, like with rent and stuff?"

"Minimal. Very affordable, so long as there are three people living here then we all do fine."

"I don't know what that means."

"Nobody ever does."

"Do you get all the movie channels?"

Candy pressed her hands together, desperate to land this metaphorical plane. "Trisha, honey, I feel like we're getting into the weeds just, lil bit. Let's sum up. All-lesbian apartment complex seeks awesome bitch to help pay rent and be okay with Bottomless Wednesdays."

"Cool! That sounds sweet. This is right around the corner from my job, actually. And I don't have a car."

"Great!"

"And I'll be the only straight girl here. What an advantage!"

"What were all the words you used just then?"

The entire world froze into silence only for Candy, even as her brain screamed like Edvard Munch. There was no time even to process the revelation because the shot clock was down to two.

"Do you think that's why everyone was hugging me so much last night?"

"Uh oh."

Candy hurriedly pushed open the swinging door to find out just how deep Jenna was in the hole.

"She's the most lesbian of all the lesbians in Canada. She might very well be a dykon someday." said Jenna, aiming for the fences.

Candy returned to the crisis.

"It was a lesbian party for lesbians to find a lesbian roommate for a lesbian-only apartment complex. Woman, why were *you* here?"

Trisha pulled up the footage in her mind of the previous night and hit play. "That one girl said, 'Help me with this stupid fish tank.' and I was all like---"

"Are you even, like---like, bi-curious?"

"You know, I hear that all the time on TV. I don't know what that is."

"Only guys? You date only guys?"

"I'm dating two guys at the moment.", Trisha announced as proud as she had ever been. Then more gears began to turn. "But there's, like, this really cute waiter at this other restaurant--"

"No, no." begged Candy, who was waving her arms wildly. "I can't take any more blows to the uterus if I'm going to make it through the next hour without bursting into tears."

"I can scam the landlady if you need me to." said Trisha with the confidence of a woman twice her age.

"Fine. Yes. Do that. You're a Canadian lesbian and you're moving in. Go."

"Done."

Candy and Trisha returned to the 12-rounder between a now cross-armed Barbara and an all-in Jenna. The sleeves of Barbara's power blazer were wrinkled for the first time probably in their existence.

"G'day, mates." announced Trisha.

"No, no. No more talking. Jenna's got this." said Candy, sacrificing her own body to place it between Trisha and Barbara.

"Enough," she said in a voice that was not loud and yet froze the room instantly. Her voice dripped with the kind of authority that could freeze a protest in its tracks. "I want answers. No more Canadian lesbian folklore. Proof."

Jenna opened her mouth only for her face to contort in agony as both complex lie planning and agonizing hangover fought for control of the same space in her brain. As she worked to cobble together some half-baked explanation about Trisha being a performance artist specializing in heterosexual deconstruction—Barbara upped the ante. 

"Prove it," Barbara demanded. "Right now. Or all three of you are out."

Candy blinked rapidly, her brain visibly buffering. Jenna’s lips moved soundlessly, like a goldfish attempting advanced calculus. But by some miracle Trisha just understood the assignment. She marched over to Jenna, grabbed her by the face with both hands, and kissed her like the movies. Nails behind ear-lobes. The works.

Jenna made noises somewhere between a IROC engine and a whimper, her hands fluttering uselessly as she wobbled between participating and pumping her fist in the air. Finally her free hand settled on Trisha’s waist like a confused moth while the other shook so nervously she thought for sure she was going to knock over the table. Jenna’s knees buckled halfway through, and the kiss tore apart when Jenna swooned and crashed backward onto the table by the window that held all of their mail.

Jenna's pupils were as wide as they had ever been. "I—eh—what—huh?" she managed.

Candy crossed the room so swiftly that she appeared by Trisha's side as if by magic. "Me too, me too, me too." said Candy breathlessly, her arms spiked straight outward in total submission to the cause. Before she could blink, Trisha had Candy dipped like a navy WAC in Times Square. Candy's leg rose without a conscious thought and the event put the previous demonstration to shame. When Trisha finally set Candy upright again, her face was annoyed.

"It didn't have to be French." Trisha whispered.

Candy shrugged and sported a grin so wide it could snag the moon.

"Fine." said Barbara, simply shrugging off the performance with little emotion. "The Canadian stray can stay. Stop down to fill out your paperwork in the next three days. I'll give Sarah back her deposit after the inspection."

"Uh-huh." managed Jenna.

Barbara issued an exasperated huff her nose when her wife, Delilah, appeared behind her. "Sorry. There seems to be a confused pizza man in our parking lot. Is that you girls?"

"These two found a third. We've decided we're okay with it." Barbara reported to her wife with a matter-of-fact tone. "Oh, good for you girls! I know how hard you worked. I never doubted you for a moment." said Delilah, her arms behind her back. Barbara gave her wife a look of confusion over the obvious lie while Delilah just waved her hand ever so slightly to suggest that she should let it go.

"Also, I'm here because one of our trees was destroyed. It's either a hate crime or raccoons. One of the girls said it was 'the veggie burger'. I don't know what that means."

"Please let it be a hate crime." said Barbara, exhausted by all the buffoonery and turning on her heel to march home. "And no more jazz!"

As the two landladies walked away, Jenna shut the door behind them and then pressed herself against it like she was attempting to hold off a wave of barbarians. Her desperate, heavy breathing was two parts stress relief from having pulled off the greatest deception in her career and two parts passionate enjoyment of what might have been the best kiss in the history of lesbianism.

Trisha held her hands out. "So, I gotta what--like--pay rent and stuff?"

Jenna gave her a thumbs up. "Trisha! You just saved us--big time."

"Please. Faking being a lesbian isn't even in my top-10 list of cons I've pulled. This is so gonna be awesome."

Jenna looked at Candy in total confusion. Candy took her formerly only roommate by the hand and walked her into the kitchen.

"Funny story." said Candy, stroking Jenna's hand. "This is only gonna hurt this bad because she ate all of our pie."

===

Jenna pressed her palms flat against the coffee table, leaning forward with the intensity of a general outlining battle plans as Candy and Jenna sat on the sofa,  focused like good little soldiers. "Alright. Ground rules." she began, voice steady despite the lingering haze of last night's tequila. "First and foremost—Trisha, you're gay now. I'm sorry, but it's the rules. You read Sappho, you read Plath, you own at least three flannels, and you have *opinions* about every scandal and every sandal."

"Done." agreed a distracted Trisha, who was busy writing notes.

Candy looked at the paper. "It's 'P-P-H'. Not 'F'." she said, pointing out a correction.

"Ah." said Trisha as Candy and Jenna looked at each other nervously.

"Avoid the landlords at all costs."

"So I gotta, what--like--sneak guys in through the window? Because I've got two very enthusiastic boyfriends—"

"La, la, la, la, lalala!!!" complained Candy, holding her fingers in her ears. 

"Oh my God, we're gonna be homeless." Jenna barked, rubbing her temples. 

"No! No guys!" commanded Candy in a whisper. "If the landlords find out we snuck a straight girl into their precious apartment complex it's over. And frankly none of us here can afford a real apartment at real rent in the real world. So stay vigilant!"

"I'm not going to lie to you, this sucks a little bit." explained Trisha, continuing to take notes furiously. "I was hoping to get fucked a lot."

Candy stood and walked toward the kitchen counter. "Also, there's chores." she announced proudly, as if she had just snuck a clause into the contract despite having clearly just come up with the idea moments earlier. "Number one---you have to let me watch you do laundry. For *safety* reasons."

Jenna pinched the bridge of her nose. "*Christ*, Candy—"

"Chore number two—you have to let me watch you shower. For *safety* reasons." She waved her hand at Jenna to warn her that the third one was going to be amazing "Hear me out." moment.

"NO!!!" interrupted Jenna sensing the serious danger. "Look, we promise not to hit on you..."

"What were all the words you used just then?" spewed out of Candy at a speed normally reserved for an auctioneer.

"...and you are going to agree not to be straight in front of the landlords so we don't have to live out of a converted food truck."

"Deal." said Trisha, putting her hand out.

"Deal."

"Oh come----onnnnn!!!" hesitated Candy.

"Say it!" demanded Jenna

"Whatever! Fine. Deal.", groused Candy kicking her legs in disappointment. She pouted and then shook herself like a rag doll as she stomped toward the door to her bedroom. "This is stupid. We're all gonna die. I hate this place."

Jenna and Trisha shook hands.

"So, how'd you learn to kiss like that?"

"Henry the spoon and I are like this." said Trisha holding up two fingers pressed together.