The studio was cute enough, the kitchen decent, the owner very nice, and DD was making a good impression. But the reason Martine’s partner got ordered to run upstairs is because his name is Chinese and the studio’s owner was Chinese and yup, the time had come to play the Asian card. I mean, DD is half-Chinese but let’s play the whole deck, she’s been looking for three weeks with not a nibble. Or so I gathered was the idea.
After DD got selected for the apartment, I told her about how SWMBO and I looked for an apartment for a month when we moved to Berkeley for my MBA program. Every apartment was mobbed, people were offering a full year’s rent upfront, SWMBO and little toddler DD were living with my dad 90 minutes away and I was living in a nasty motel in the seedy part of Berkeley.
One day we went to see a beautiful place, the entire upstairs of a classic wood shingle duplex in the super-desirable Gourmet Ghetto area. It was mobbed too, crammed full of desperate people waving checks and resumes at the owner. SWMBO took DD to the garden so she wouldn’t be trampled and to enjoy a few minutes in this perfect place that we wouldn’t get. The owner came and found DD. She was a Chinese lady, married but childless, and she was so excited to see this little Chinese girl in her garden. We got the place and the lady and her husband are now some of our oldest friends, though they live in Melbourne now.
DD signed the lease today. Neither the owner nor DD understand French legalese well so the owner’s little sister, who lives across the hall, helped them out. She moves in later this month, and I think it has all worked out well. I don’t have photos of the place but maybe I’ll get some later.
Q