As soon as I saw Katie, I wanted to live there. Concrete steps led up to the front door of the house, past a flower bush, fallen petals caught like fish in a net of branches. She opened the door and said, with her cartoon heigh-ho enthusiasm, “Well, you must be our Emily,” and led me in past the living room, down the stairs to meet James, her boyfriend. I had found the room through a handwritten ad tacked up in the University of London student union, and they had invited me over right away.
James was tall, long-limbed, with dark hair he had to brush away from his eyes before shaking my hand. Katie busied herself cleaning, washing a frying pan whose nonstick surface had burnt off the middle and then rinsing the plates under a swan-necked faucet. She used huge squeezes of soap for each piece and put the dishes onto the drying rack with suds still sliding off. A candle burned in a glass jar by the sink, sending out its perfume like a small, hot bouquet.
