Guess who's coming to dinner?

There comes a time in a young professional’s life when she must switch career paths or U-Haul it out of Manhattan. I chose to move. Having heard and answered the call of teaching and then skipping through graduate school in fourteen months, my only option was to move from my two-bedroom (shared three ways) on the Upper West Side and venture outward. To the boroughs. Teaching may have fed my soul but it wasn’t filling my pockets, and there’s only so much scrimping a girl is capable of when all the boutiques along Columbus Avenue know her name and everyone’s glad she came—with the happiest of them all being her credit card company.

I spent my last Sunday morning as a city girl camped out at one of those coffee shops that’s too cool for coffee and has now moved into the realm of exotic teas and gluten free baked goods, reading the Sunday Styles and phrasing my own wedding announcement. “Ms. Finley, who will keep her name, wed Mr. Whitman last night at some magnificent waterside soiree.” I may not have been able to afford the croissants and cabs of New York City anymore, but the tradeoff was having some money tucked away for monogrammed napkins and a honeymoon next summer. I could deal with that.

And so I began making the negotiations betrothed people make. I (begrudgingly) traded in the bustle of Manhattan for the bustle of a Nicole Miller gown, and decided to head east. With Curtis working on Long Island and me teaching in the city, we battled it out in a mean game of Tug of War. Curtis would heave the red taped-off center on our rope toward Huntington, then I would yank it back near Brooklyn. Both tired and ready to let the real negotiations begin, the rope started to hover over Queens. I neatly packed up my books, stuffed animals, and college photo albums, and off I inched—watching the rows of brownstones and parade of hipsters fade behind the horizon—hoping LL Cool J was right when he sang, Queens got the vets, Queens be the best.

Far from my best-laid plan, I went apartment hunting with my mom. Curtis, knowing all too well the impulsive decisions we would soon make, wisely instructed, “Don’t sign anything.” After researching the address of some buildings near the 7 line, my mom and I hopped into her Honda and hightailed it for a day of looking and thinking... Oh, who were we kidding? We were signing.

I can picture my first impression now: whitewashed arched doorframe and quaint walkway, two gleaming, marble fireplaces in the lobby, and a staircase that cleaved left and right. In my pathetic attempt to play it cool, I just smiled and exchanged this-is-it looks with my mom, all while jumping up and down. Smooth. (As we’ve always said, we could never work for the CIA.) Then I saw my potential home sweet home, a corner apartment on the sixth floor, cattycornered to the floor’s garbage disposal. All the closer to throw my garbage out with. The level of delusion still frightens me when I think about it. I’ve been told I see the world through rose-colored glasses, but let’s be honest—it’s more like I take intermittent, frenetic glances from behind a satin eye mask.

“Great door! So cute!” I chirped.

“Mmm-hmm!” mom smiled back.

Goners, the broker cackled to himself. “And this is the kitchen,” Mr. Broker explained. And luckily he did, because the sterile white room sans cabinetry or appliances that we were staring into could have gone one for one against a psychiatric holding room. I appreciated the clarification.

“And this is the living room,” Mr. Broker pointed out as we continued the tour, or rather, herding of sheep. “And the bathroom...” Mr. Broker trailed off. OK, so it had a hole in either corner of the room, marking the place the toilet and bathtub would one day be affixed to. My gut told me I needed that apartment, and beyond that my gut was also telling me that it was the last apartment left in Queens. What is that, gut? The last apartment ever? Oh no, I better sign. What’s that, gut? You think I should sign immediately? You’re probably right, gut. (I ate Indian food the night before and I realize now that I might have misread that message from my gut. Either that, or I was high off veneer and paint fumes.)

Why the deranged obsession with a frighteningly unfinished apartment? Why the need to move into that apartment right then? This is where I’m reminded of sage advice I received in a fortune cookie years ago, a fortune I’ve saved and framed: A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning. Full of knowledge, there was no room left for common sense. I ended up signing the lease because it resided in Sunnyside. Yes, I chose my future home based on my attachment to the song "Stay on the Sunnyside," a song Curtis put on a mix tape for me while we were dating.

The name was a sign.

The name was all I needed.

The name turned out to be the best part of the whole place.

***

A few weeks after moving in, I woke up to a familiar scene for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or any other creature living in the sewers. Green-tinged water trailed down my bedroom wall and pooled on the increasingly warped wooden floor. The ancient heating system released enough scorching steam at night to press my shirts or power an engine, and it was definitely hot enough to create a mirage. I prayed for a mirage, or at least a reflection from another building. I tiptoed out of my bed, toward the slimy cascade, wiping beads of sweat from my hairline. I slid my fingers down the shellacked mess and I realized it was no illusion. The walls were leaking and quickly turning into mold. Overnight. My rose-colored glasses and eye masks gathering dust in the corner, I was quickly settling into life in Sunnyside.

There was no live-in Super, so it was nearly a week before I contacted a human being at the leasing office, then another few days before they arranged for someone to come check out the "eledged" mold, and from that timeframe I estimated it would be about a year or so before it was cleaned up.

Yet clean it up they did. But of course, it had to be before 4:00, and since I’m with students everyday until at least 3:40, I hailed a cab faster than you can say, “Spores are killing me!” Thank goodness I made it home in time to watch the barely functioning employee douse my wall with bleach, mop up the floor, and extend his hand for a tip. Here’s a tip: Fix the leak!

He assured me it was, “All better, all better,” and left me seething with clenched teeth. By the end of that week I started to notice bubbles popping out of the bathroom wall. My adolescent walls (that cried at night and sprouted acne by day) needed obvious and immediate repair. Yet before I had time to dwell on what might be inside the bubbles, one of said bubbles grew an arm! Upon closer inspection, the protrusion wasn’t an arm as much as, with God as my witness, a mushroom. And unfortunately, the only mood altering this mushroom produced was agitation.

Getting dressed the morning of the fungi finding, I mindlessly outfitted myself in my teacher uniform of cardigan and khakis. With each button I fastened, I silenced my gut that kept whispering, "I might have been wrong. Sorry, Alice. Apparently this ain’t no Wonderland."

I scratched my neck and cursed the heater for sucking all moisture from my skin. As luck would have it, the defunct heating system averaged the perfect temperature to not only farm mushrooms, but also bake my skin. As I slammed my front door closed, I saw a flyer posted on it with the word ATTENTION: MEETING RE. BUILDING LAWSUIT. Frankly, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn my apartment was condemned, but it was just a friendly reminder regarding the building meeting later that night. My first thought was, “If it starts at 5:00, how soon do I need to come home to avoid the meeting and how quiet do I need to be in order to pretend not to be home yet?” Despite the strong tug of my desire to avoid all things group, the tug of why the fuck is this building involved in legal matters won out.

Skip to quarter past five that evening, upon tripping over some disgarded furniture in front of my building, I flew through the lobby doors and took my place among the we’re-fed-up-and-we’re-not-going-to-take-it-anymore crowd goers.

“It’s been a few months since we last gathered to discuss the legal proceedings against Vantage Management,” the Tenant Advisory Board chairwoman said. “But before we catch everyone up, does anyone have new concerns or issues with their apartment?”

“My rat problem has gotten out of control! Now I’m trapping about one a week. They keep finding their way through that sliver of space between the pipes and the floor,” one neighbor complained.

“Try stuffing that space with Brillo pads and then covering it with caulk. Worked for us, so far,” offered a fellow friend.

“Well, I have roaches all over my kitchen,” voiced a third person. “No matter how well I seal bags and containers, they keep finding their way into my cabinets!”

“Have you tried sealing bags and boxes with tape and then enclosing them in Ziploc bags?” suggested another member of the masses.

I thought I had it bad with mold, a radiator that seemed to be housing a prisoner trapped inside clanging to come out at 5:30 every morning, and a toilet that sporadically went on strike. Maybe I had broken out in hives over the last few months, but who wouldn’t have a visceral reaction to a crumbling apartment and foreclosed dreams? I was starting to realize that I had it easy and that I would take the path of least engagement; nod and look fed up, then scurry like a good little mouse up into my apartment and count the days until Curtis moved in. Why deal with it when you can ignore it? So that’s exactly what I did. Hives making my woolen sweaters unwearable, I soldiered into the winter months warmed by the knowledge I would soon live with my husband-to-be. Staying on the sunny side would be markedly easier with him next to me.

When moving day finally came the weekend after Valentine’s Day and our six-year anniversary, it seemed as though all the loose ends swirling around my head were neatly weaving together into a cuddly cashmere knit. In preparation for our imminent cohabitation, we treated ourselves to a modern day marriage bed. Foregoing one strewn with hand-dyed fabrics and rose petals, we opted for the current mark of a couple’s switch from single life to commitment: a pillow-top mattress and box spring set from Sleepys, and a massive mahogany sleigh bed from Pottery Barn. Those two components were also the last to be moved in from Curtis’s truck, and at the end of a day serving as a painful test of patience and love, we were approaching the finish line. I could see the Gatorade and the shiny medal awarding us Best Couple Ever. Bring it on, mold! Bring it on, busted radiator and plumbing!

Since my old mattress cost about a hundred dollars Memorial Day weekend two years prior, it weighed about as much as a hundred dollar bill. Its lack of cushioning and back support had greatly impeded my hours of rest, but it made the last step of moving day incredibly easy. We lifted it off the metal frame, turned it over, and each let out of breathy gasp.

“Is that… Is that a… stain?” I asked.

“It’s moving. I’ve never seen a stain move. Have you?”

“Look! There’s like five of them. What’s all this black stuff in the corner over here?”

Our eyes met, our faces blanched with realization, and we uttered the words that have left an indelible mark on our lives and bedding. Bed bugs.

Writing this now I am itching the nape of my neck and the back of my leg, worried for a moment that they’re back. I dream about them, so much so that last week I woke up clawing at my forearm. I then wandered into the medicine cabinet, and applied hydrocortisone, all because I thought they had started climbing over my body and left blistery welts in their wake. I generally come to around the time in the nightmare that someone, usually my mom, consoles me by saying, "It's only a mild case. I won't tell anyone."

As soon as we uncovered the fully functioning micropolis living under my nose -- a civilization I had unknowingly fueled with my own blood -- we looked left, toward the plush, pristine pillow-top that peered out from the hallway, shrink-wrapped and untouched. It seemed so wrong to bring such innocence into such filth. Then Curtis and I turned our heads to the right toward the solid wooden bed frame, ready to cradle our hopes and dreams. Little did the sleigh bed know the only thing it would soon provide would be impossible-to-raid hiding places for our little illegal immigrants.

Then, one by one, oddities of the past few months started making sense. I pulled up my sleeves and stared at my mottled arms, red dots blazing on my pale skin. Those were no hives! And the heater might have caused dry patches, but that itch resulted from a far smaller, sneakier villain. My own bed mates! And all those mattresses, side tables, couches, and bed frames that had increasingly piled up on the curb, they weren’t the unlucky cast offs of interior makeovers—they were testimony to a home infested. The peculiarities I had previously shrugged off began to slap me in the face, or, rather, bite me in the ass.

Having no clue where to begin and already overwhelmed by the enormity and minutia of it all, we popped our collars, slipped on sunglasses, and ducked into the hardware store. We were in desperate need of some Grade A juice, some real hard stuff.

“Psst. Hey, Larry. Yea, what’s good for killing bed bugs, really knocking them out. We need the good stuff.”

Larry winced and shook his head. “Nothin’ kills ‘em. They’re out of control, man. But your best bet is to spray them with this,” he said, holding up a white plastic bottle that I could already picture in my pest killing holsters. “Then, you’re gonna’ want to fill any holes in your floors and walls with this,” and he took a machine gun-looking caulking tool off the shelf. Armed with sprays, covers and caulks, we sped home to unleash guerilla warfare. Tools and weapons gave me back glimpses of the power and control sucked dry by the enemy.

We washed all of our sheets and towels, and all the clothing we stored in our bedroom. That was a solid nine loads right there. I still cringe upon opening our linen closet when I eye each tightly folded piece of cotton, crammed onto each shelf, towering four feet above my head. I think, "What if?" as memories of my laundry abyss take over. During the raid, we had to wash the curtains and circular rugs—but we decided just to toss those. We sprayed down each of our expertly restored antique dressers with the magic liquid in the white bottles, heretofore known as White Magic, zapping a few bugs here and there. Once the furniture had been cleaned out and sprayed and all the clothes washed, we began the caulking of the floors and walls. It seemed like no two pieces of wood connected and we found ourselves all but refinishing the floors with the gloppy white mess. There went Saturday and Sunday. Not sure which of my bites were old and which were recent, I figured they would all disappear, give or take a week, after our chemical laden raid. I was practically developing DNA mutations as a result of all the shit we unleashed into the air.

But the red, itchy, welts emerged like clockwork, averaging two a night. They would glow strong in my morning shower, either on the back of my calf, or forearm, or thigh, even on my shamed cheek. I was becoming my own version that doll whose make-up appears after you put hot water on her face—a wave of the “magic wand” and she had her face on, ready for a night of debauchery and tomfoolery. Yet, the only thing hot water revealed on me were marks of disgrace and defeat that were growing harder to cover up as the warmer months approached.

So, we tried Boric acid under each foot of furniture in our apartment. Larry said that might work—except it didn’t.

We also pulled each staple out of our box spring, the place the most bugs tended to burrow, and one by one the metal fasteners fell to the floor with a tinny sound—resonating in our fabric-free room, reminding us that despite all our efforts and might we were steadily losing the battles and it was becoming clear we were losing the war.

Next, the sleigh bed fell victim. Upon dismantling each slat we realized the pieces formed a tightly knit breeding ground for the bugs. The fact alone that it was wood made the bed frame a likely candidate for the enemy to usurp. We placed the sections along our bedroom wall and commenced our habitual spraying down of all things contaminated with White Magic. As winter slowly turned to spring, and snow melted away to reveal new growth and promises of dormant life, so too had our bedroom been exposed. Our unmasking, however, stripped the room of the trappings of comfort and safety, leaving us to sleep on a distressed mattress on a floor sprinkled with Boric acid and crumbling caulk. The scene, resembling an installation at the MoMA, was as follows: walls lined with the one time formidable headboard and footboard, a dejected boxspring, and rows of empty spray bottles. Title: Psychological Warfare. Each night that Curtis and I surrendered to our bed, he would hold me and whisper, “I’m so sorry I can’t stop them from biting you. I’m so sorry they’re still here… somewhere. Those little fuckers.” I would sigh and leave an understanding kiss on his cheek before rolling over to retrieve the bottle of Skin So Soft and begin my nightly ritual: Spray sheets and pillow, spray arms and then legs, tuck pants into socks and shirt into elastic waistband. Curtis, watching me prepare for a fitful night of sleep, looking on while I geared up to battle during my rest, had ironically enough never felt the sting of our pests. Apparently, he wasn’t as sweet. What he was pedaling was of no interest to the little bloodsuckers, making the abuse I continued to endure all the more unfair and senseless. Whenever he did discover a rouge bug, he would drop it into a clear film canister filled with the chemicals used in the daily dousing of our mattress. Sometimes I’d find him holding the bottle of captured terrorists up to his face, just staring at their upturned bodies lifelessly floating atop the sea of toxins. I think it gave him some sense of victory, of valor, proof that he had at least saved me from these creepy crawlers and that yes, we were infested, even though eyeing culprits were hard to come by as the altitudinous emotional damage mounted.

By this point we stopped inviting people over. We had also stopped going to the movies, what with the upholstered theater chairs and thickly carpeted aisles striking fear in our damaged minds and all. We couldn’t risk it. Netflix became our main connector to the outside world, allowing us to appreciate new stories and interesting people with the security of a plasma screen between us. Our wedding was quickly approaching and our nightly visitors continued to mark me with thick, rough bumps, so I decided once school let out to hide at my mom’s house until the big day. Wearing my strapless, sweetheart gown that put my arms, shoulders, and back on display would be the first little snitch to reveal my dirty secret. Camping out in my old twin bed at mom’s was my only option. Curtis, free of bites, continued to battle it out behind closed doors—defending my honor with every squirt of White Magic and caulking of open spaces.

Once we were hitched—the rice settled, cake eaten, and champagne sipped—we left for our honeymoon. Each night we held each other close, close enough to whisper sweet nothings.

Curtis: You’re beautiful. I love you. Did you check the mattress for bugs?

Me: I’m so happy. I love you. Yes, I checked the mattress. Did you check our luggage?

Curtis: I checked, and I think we’re fine. I can’t wait to go to sleep.

Me: I know! I dreamt about being in bed with you all day.

Curtis: Me too! Mmm… Good night!

Me: Good night! Sleep tight—

Curtis: Don’t even think about it.


The week slipped by in a blur created with five parts rum and three parts blazing sun, and before we sobered up on our second day our joie de vivre had awakened and reminded us of how restful sleep and thread-count sheets truly were. Restored and refueled, we flew home ten days later, emotionally prepared to finish the job we started months earlier.

Tattered white flag in hand, we finished the job by surrendering to the reality that we were fighting a battle best suited for Sisyphus. We put down the gimmicks, tools, and hope, and signed a new lease quite a ways down Queens Boulevard, whistling while we packed. Even though each item (frame, votive, book) had to be doused and quickly loaded into cardboard boxes, and each box then had to be placed into black garbage bags and stacked in the foyer (since the bugs could easily and relentlessly hitchhike on the cardboard), the tedium paid off. We pulled up anchor and set sail.

Dozens of boxes encased in bags later, we speedily figured out what to do with the furniture. In the manner of glossy magazine spreads that informed me at the start of each season what to keep, store, and toss, we determined the future of our furniture. Mattress: keep (after careful chemical treatment by exterminators and encasement in microfiber slipcover). Sleigh bed: store (in mom’s garage while wrapped in plastic). Couch: toss (without thinking twice).

“It’s Moving Day! We’re leaving, we’re leaving! Get me the hell outta here!” I sang as I jumped out of bed (read: mattress on floor). Curtis oversaw the moving out and I managed the moving in. The exterminators showered our new place with chemicals that killed any existing bugs and chemicals that nuked any visitors that decided to welcome us to Rego Park. Rego Park. Not as sugary sweet sounding and sentiment inducing as Sunnyside, but sentimental is so last year.

Recently, Curtis and I took an impromptu stroll through Forest Hills, and my boots clicked against the cobblestones while my neck craned up toward the pre-war buildings. We felt like we had stumbled upon the brick road leading us to Oz. “Maybe, when our lease is up next summer, we can think about buying a place here. I mean, could you imagine? The train, the subway, the restaurants—the young people!”

“It’s certainly younger than the Eastern European retirement community of Rego Park!” Curtis smiled.

“Could you just die?! Dartmouth Street!”

And as much as the idyllic town tugged at our hearts, causing Rego Park to feel increasingly like the USSR and us to feel increasingly strange in it, Curtis squeezed my hand, and pausing in the middle of the road, he leaned his forehead against mine and said, “We may live in Little Russia, with no young people for miles. We may still rent, and we may be far from Manhattan… But tonight we can go home, curl up in our clean bed and know we’re the only two things there. That's about all I need right now. I'm good.”

At the end of the day, all anyone really needs are people we love, people to share our lives with—people to help us fight our battles and help us rebuild when the spray settles. And if you’re lucky enough to find someone who will hold you close at night even when your bed is plagued with bed bugs, well, then that person is someone you can trust will hold you close for years to come. Because let’s face it, you both know each other’s deepest, dirtiest secret and that right there is enough blackmail to bond you for all eternity.