essay

Cookie Magic

The bank teller called my name just as I reached the sidewalk. I’d trudged over there on my lunch hour because I really needed some cash, and was about to return to work when she stopped me.

“I’m sorry,” she said when I answered her summons. “You don’t have enough funds in your account to cover this.” She was holding the check I’d just written. It was February of 1983, my first year in Seattle.

“What?” I couldn’t believe it. I pulled my checkbook out of my purse to look at the balance, feeling like a second grader who’s been caught stealing lollipops.

“Come inside,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”

I followed her back into the bank, wondering if I had a neon sign saying “Overdrawn” emblazoned on my back. After we’d conferred, I could see I’d made a simple error in subtraction, leading me to think I had $100 more in my account than I did. I was sure everyone was looking at me as I opened my wallet and handed the teller the money I’d so recently received. Payday was coming soon, but still…. I slunk out of the bank with my head down.

That night at home I faced facts: I couldn’t afford the apartment where I was living. In fact, the only way I could afford to live anywhere in Seattle other than a garage would be to share it with someone else. Back in the Midwest, I’d lived alone quite comfortably for ten years before Bob came into my life. I’d left there almost a year ago after our breakup, hoping for a new start. I was thirty five, but now I felt like a little girl trying to keep up with the big kids. How was I to support myself and my two-year-old on what I was making in a city where everything was so expensive?

I looked at Ian, contentedly sitting on the floor with his toys, and wished I could be him--depending on someone else to take care of me. But there was no sense indulging in those kinds of thoughts. I needed a new place to live, and I desperately needed to get my rent deposit back when I moved out of my current apartment, so I sat down and wrote my 30-day-notice letter to the landlord, not knowing where we would go when the 30 days was up.

The next day, I picked up the alternative weekly newspaper that carried ads for shared housing and began my search. I turned up several possibilities that I followed up on, but they all seemed to end the same way. I’d be sitting in the prospective house, gazing at the polished, hardwood floors, the fabric wall hangings, the lush plants in pots on the floor, and I’d know this was no house for a two-year-old. Or I’d visit a house where the kitchen floor was sticky and loud music blared from bedrooms occupied by college students fifteen years younger than I was. Or I’d be talking to a prospective housemate on the phone, asking if she’d consider a child, and there would be a long pause before she’d ask, “How old is your child?” Toddlers and teens, I learned, were equally undesirable.  

Two weeks went by and I began to panic. So, when Ian and I were doing our Saturday errands, I knew I needed a treat. Money might be tight, our future uncertain, but surely I could afford to have one of those big chocolate chip cookies they sold at a place near the grocery store. I enjoyed the rich aroma of the place as we stood in line, and when we sat down at a table there was a newspaper there, left by the previous patron. Capitol Hill Times, the masthead read. Capitol Hill was my neighborhood, but I’d never bothered to read the paper before. I picked this one up and thumbed through it, then noticed it had classified ads. And there it was, under “Shared Housing”:

“Single professional woman seeks same to share Central Area house. Non-smokers only. Call Brenda, xxx-xxxx.”

The neighborhood the ad mentioned wasn’t the greatest, but as soon as we got home I dialed the number, and one of those cheery, “I’m having a great day, aren’t you?” voices answered.

“Is Brenda there?” I asked. “I’m calling about the ad.”

“This is Brenda.”

We talked about her house, which she said had two stories, with three bedrooms and one bath. She’d been living there alone after purchasing it, but now had decided she wanted someone to help pay the mortgage.  

Then I asked the fateful question: “Would you consider sharing with a child?”

“Well,” she answered with no hesitation, “I’m a pediatric nurse.”

I went over to her house that afternoon, taking Ian with me. We entered through a large, nearly empty living room that extended across the front of the house, then went through some glass doors into the dining room, where Brenda had her living room furniture. This smaller room had a wood stove, she explained, allowing her to stay warm more cheaply. We sat there and talked, while Ian alternately sat on the floor with toys I’d brought or toddled up to the sofa where we sat. Brenda talked to him and admired his toys.

When I asked her about her life, it became clear that Brenda was about my age. A rather buxom woman with curly, light brown hair that she wore quite short, she’d used her nursing career to travel--taking a gig on the hospital ship Hope and working for a while in an Israeli kibbutz, even though she wasn’t Jewish. Despite her obvious love of children, she’d never married and had none of her own. I liked her immediately, and more importantly, so did Ian.

Then she took us on a tour of the house. I learned that the downstairs bedroom was empty, as was one of the two upstairs bedrooms. And the rent would be about half what I was currently paying. I offered to move in at the end of the month and she accepted.

Ian and I ended up living in that house for more than two years--two years during which Brenda gave me sage advice on childhood illnesses and injuries, babysat for Ian on numerous occasions, and eventually adopted a child of her own. I felt lucky to have found her, and wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped at the cookie shop that day, or hadn’t found that abandoned paper I’d never looked at before. No doubt I would have found someplace for Ian and me to live, because I had to. But with Brenda, we found a home. 

Nancy Wick is the winner of a skirt!-sponsored contest on Women on Writing (www.wow-womenonwriting.com).  Nancy has been a writer and editor for 30 years, working in newspapers and magazines, and has won both regional and national writing awards. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Speech and Drama from the University of Missouri and is a former film and theater critic. She also earned a doctorate in communication at the University of Washington. Now that she is nearing retirement from her job as editor of the faculty/staff newspaper at the UW, she has started a small editing business, EnLightened Edits. She enjoys working on many kinds of writing, but is especially fond of character-driven novels (both genre and non-genre), psychology/self-help books, essays and memoirs. Contact her at ­wicknb@juno.com.

~Nancy Wick