Gutter ***s

“Guess what!” Billie exclaims as Tre and I enter the apartment.
“You discovered deodorant.” I say jokingly.
“No!” Billie scowls as Tre laughs, I can see Adie standing behind Billie grinning madly, “Adie and I are going to get married!”
“Dude, have you been watching Ferris Bueller again?” Tre jokes.
“No, we really are.” Adie pipes up.
“Congratulations!” I say happily.
“We got news too,” Tre says cocking an eyebrow, “Ma, Pa, we’re moving out.”
“Awe, and leave all this.” Billie says cynically motioning to the ravaged apartment.

Tre kisses Billie’s cheek.
“I’ll always remember the fun we had as roommates.” Tre says laughing. He turns to Adie and smirks evilly, “Good luck, you’re gonna need it.”
“Well I can say the same to Lisea.” Billie taunts. I roll my eyes.
“So when’s the big day?”
“July second.” Adie says almost giddy.
“Wow, that’s like a week and a half away.” Tre says laughing, “Way to jump the gun.”

*
“I don’t work today.” I mumble to Tre, probably waking him up.
“Sex?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of apartment or house hunting.”
“Oh,” Tre says biting his lower lip, “I guess we can do that too.”
“C’mon, it could be fun I guess.” I say as I lie back down, “I already highlighted some places in the newspaper. So basically we just have to go check out the places.”
“Mmmm, okay.” He whines, “Let’s bring Jackson with us.”
“He works today.”
“Awe.” Tre says smirking evilly, “When do you want to go?”
“Soon I guess, it’s already ten.”
“Wow, we really slept in.” he says yawning as he gets out of bed, “I showered two days ago, so” he pauses as if to think, “I’m still good.” He pulls on a pair of shorts off the floor then whips around in spot looking for a t-shirt.
“Qualities of Tre, he’s organized, stylish and hygienic.”
“You know it babe.” He says plucking a t-shirt from under the bed and putting it on. I’m already dressed so we fumble out of the room.

We find Billie and Adie sitting on the floor, hovering over the coffee table with a note pad and pen.
“Morning.” Tre yawns as he goes into the kitchen, he returns to the living room, seconds later with two packs of pop tarts, he hands me one then goes to devour his, “Wathcha up to?” he asks with a full mouth.
“Wedding planning.” Billie says happily, Adie smirks adoringly at her fiancé, “Honestly, TV shows make it sound so much worse than it actually is.”
“So Adie,” I chuckle, “Would you consider yourself a bridezilla?”
“Nah,” she giggles as Billie pulls her into a hug.
“You guys look so cute together.” I tease because I know Billie hates being called cute, I look down at my remaining pop tart, I practically inhaled the first one, “I need juice.” I announce as I head into the kitchen.

“Hey Lisea,” Adie says as I’m about to pour orange juice in a glass.
“Yeah?” I say filling the glass to the top.
“You know, like, I know we don’t really know each other all that well but,” she sighs and clears her throat, “But basically all my friends are back in Minnesota and you and Anastasia are my only girlfriends here.” I furrow my eyebrows as I put the juice back in the fridge, Adie sighs nervously, “I was wondering if you’d like to be one of my bridesmaids.”
“Sure Adie.” I say smiling.
“Oh thanks a million.” She says hugging me happily, “I was wondering if tomorrow you wanted to go run the girly errands for the wedding with Ana and I?”
“Sure, when are you going?” I say as I sip my juice.
“Today Billie and I have to see if we can rent out a hall or something at a hotel so everyone can get pissed.”
“Sounds like fun.” I smile
“I’m so excited.” She practically squeals which is sort of unusual for Adie.
“You should be.”

“If you’re done with the girlinessness, can we go now?” Tre asks from the acrchway of the kitchen.
“Yep.” I say downing the rest of my juice, as soon as I reach Tre I feel incredibly queasy, “Just one second.”

I hurry off to the bathroom and throw up my breakfast.
“Craptacular.” I sigh as I rinse out my mouth. I go back into the living room to find Billie and Adie back at the coffee table and Tre waiting at the door playing with his hair.
“Alright?” he asks.
“Uhuh.” I nod as we head through the doors.

“Not here.” Tre says as soon as we pull up to an apartment building. It’s the fifth place we visit.
“Huh?” I ask quizzically.
“Not here, we can’t live here.”
“We haven’t even seen inside.”
“No, the guy who sells us acid lives here.” He starts up the van again and drives off.
“Fair enough.” I groan, “Maybe we should stop looking at places in the south side since they all seem kind of, hazardous.” Tre squiggles his head to look at the news paper on my lap.
“What do you have for North side?”
“Keep an eye on the road!” I say as we nearly hit a parked car, “Uhh, Dustan Street, that’s near Carmedy Mall.”
“Uhh okay.” Tre says pulling a U-turn.

We pull up to a shack of a house.
“This place looks like shit.” I say as we get out of the van.
“Yeah.” Tre sighs, “Wanna leave?”
“Yeah.” I grumble as we get back to into the van, “I think that’s it.”
“Really?” Tre says grabbing the news paper from me, “We didn’t go to this place.” He points to a highlighted square.
“What’s the point,” I say frustrated, “Its just, its just. ARGH!”
“Lisea!” Tre exclaims, “Calm down, we’ll find a place before your parents come.” I breath in deeply through my nose as Tre just stares at me, “I want the best for the baby too, but we’re not going to get anywhere if you keep freaking out.” I cross my arms and continue to breath in deeply as Tre starts up the van again.

“Hey, this place isn’t half bad.” Tre says pulling up to a duplex, “And look, there’s a park just down the street.” We get out of the van and Tre runs up the flight of steps to the door and peers inside through the glass, “No one’s living here anymore.” He states, he then looks at the main window where there’s a “FOR SALE” sign with a phone number underneath.
“We have to call the land lord to see inside.” I sigh as I look up the street for a pay phone.
“Maybe the people who live downstairs have a key.” Tre suggests from the top of the stairs.
“I’ll check.” I say considering I’m still at ground level and he’s way up at the second. I go up to the door and ring the doorbell. A man in a suit opens the door and looks me over.
“Yes, can I help you?”
“I was wondering if you’re the land lord.”
“Yes I am.” He says looking at his watch, “And I’m going to be late for work.”
“Well, my boyfriend and I would like to see inside the upstairs flat.” he turns around and says something to someone before returning with a set of keys.

He leads me up the flight of stairs to where Tre is waiting.
“You must be the boyfriend.” He says as he unlocks the door, he hands me the keys, “Give them back to my wife when you’re done.” With that he leaves.

Tre and I walk inside to find a bunch of cardboard boxes and other crap stacked up in the front room, but other than that, it seems pretty nice.
“I don’t know about you.” Tre says heading into the kitchen, “But this place is pretty good.”
“Yeah.” I say looking into the bathroom and to my relief unlike all the other places we looked at today, it was decent, “I think we should take it.” The flat has two bedrooms, a spacious living room compared to where we live now and the washroom and kitchen aren’t disgusting.
“Yeah?”
“Well it’s the best we’ve seen in our price range.” I say simply, “the neighborhood’s nice and well face it, my parents are coming in like a week.”
“The fourth right?” he says shoving his hands in his pocket as he looks out the window.
“Yeah, Independence Day.” I murmur, “Remember last Independence Day, you guys were celebrating signing with Reprise, Billie was all happy because Adie came for the week.”
“Yeah.” Tre sighs, “The fireworks and the sex afterwards.” I giggle.
“Everything was just so easy then. No responsibilities, no real jobs, no babies on the way, just us and nonsense.” Tre sighs.
“I’ll go talk to the land lady.” He says heading out of the flat. I stay and look around some more, all this place needed was a coat of paint and some curtains. I start thinking about how much everything’s going to cost to move in here, furniture and appliances, my saving’s account is going to be empty by the end.

Tre returns a while later with a grin on his face.
“She said she’ll draw up the papers and we can sign them tomorrow.”
“That’s great.” I say happily, “So we can move in this week practically.”
“We can move in tomorrow if you like.” Tre says laughing.
“Can’t, tomorrow I said I’d go shopping with Adie and Ana.”
“We’ll have to paint this place.” Tre says looking at the chipping paint on the walls, “I guess I can do that while you’re out shopping or whatever.”
“Can you handle that?” I ask not picturing Tre as the renovation type.
“I’m handier than you think,” he says rolling his eyes, “I painted Billie, Mike and I painted the apartment we’re living in now, it doesn’t look half bad if you ask me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, when we moved in there were piss stains on most of the walls, the whole place was a friggin toilette when we moved in.”

“Let’s go buy paint.” Tre says at a moment or two of staring at the flat.
“Uhh okay.” I say as we head back down the flight of steps, I go to return the key and we get into the van.

Its not far to the hardware store and before we know it we’re standing in front of the little multicolour papers to choose the paint.
“Living room?” I question.
“Oh! Green!”
“Our room.”
“Green.”
“Kitchen.”
“Green.”
“Bathroom.”
“Green.”
“Goddamnit Tre!” I laugh.
“Green.”
“Why green, for everything I might add?”
“I like green.” He smirks to himself, “Mmm okay, how about our room, we paint blue.”
“Okay,” I say looking over the multitude of tones of blue and taking one I particularly like, “This okay?” he nods, “How about green for the living room and yellow for the kitchen.”
“Banana yellow.” Tre exclaims as he grabs a colour card. I grab a green colour card and we both fall silent.
“Bathroom,” I sigh, “White?”
“Nooooo, white’s too boring.” Tre exclaims, “Lets do neon pink!” I burst out laughing, “So that’s a no on the pink?” he sighs and continues to look over the colours, “Orange?”
“Yeah, sure.” I say as he waves an orange card in my face.

We go up to the paint counter and tell the guy working it what we want. Its such a long list of paint he actually writes it down and tells us to come back in ten minutes.
“We’re going to need to put the paint in a cart.” I says as we wonder around the hardware store.
“Race ya.” Tre says wiggling his eyebrows.
“Pregnant.” I remind him.
“So you can’t run.”
“Well more like I don’t feel like running because I’m nauseous.”
“Ew.”

We go over to the carts and Tre climbs into one.
“Hey look, I can fit!” he exclaims. I laugh, “Really, I can’t fit into the Wal-Mart ones without hurting myself, these are great.”
“Hmm, spacious.” I laugh as I poke him in the stomach. We receive awkward glares from the people around us.
“Right.” Tre grumbles as he climbs out of the cart and starts to push it towards the paint counter.

“I like fudge, I like fudge, if you ask me what I like, I say I like fudge.” Tre sings as we wait at the counter bored out of our minds, “Lisea, do you like fudge.”
“Meh.”
“Well pretend you do,” he says nudging me, “I like fudge, I like fudge.” I can’t help but sing along with him. The other people in the store stare at us like we’re lunatics.
“Hey fudgecakes!” the paint guys calls to us, “Your paints ready.”
“Oh honeybuns, you’re so sweet.” Tre says to the paint guy as we load the cans of paint into the cart.