Two weeks went by.
The comic kept getting better, and the money kept following it. Just not fast enough.
And in the meantime, life was living.
He had a roommate, and it turned out to be almost no work. He drew at night. He cooked, properly, twice a day, in a kitchen with more than eleven inches of counter, and he had gone from a guy who ordered something soft to a guy who could portion beef by eye. Every so often they went out, because she wouldn't otherwise, because if left alone Luna produced nothing at all except a phone and a shape.
She doomscrolled. That was her occupation. Nine, ten hours of it, on the couch, in positions that would traumatize a contortionist. She ate when she felt like eating. And every few days she'd wander into the bedroom and "help out" with the comic for an hour, which she was good at and which lasted exactly as long as she found it interesting.
It worked. He'd have signed for it.
Then he did the books.
✦ ✦ ✦
Outside his savings, he had $1,284.53 left.
AccountsChecking$1,284.53Savings••••••••That was all the money he had that wasn't in the other account.
In two days she'd need groceries. A week of meat came to about $4,469.08 now. The receipts had been running higher than the spreadsheet: it had said $18,334.85 a month, and the real number was $19,408.52, because most of what she put in the cart was steak and not all of it was sirloin.
Grocery runAmountIn his account$1,284.53A week of meat−$4,469.08Short$3,184.55And nothing was coming in. The month still had nine days to go, and the payout came at the end of it.
So in two days, for the first time, he'd have to take money out of his savings.
The month before she arrived, he'd put $5,893.77 into that account. It had gone up every single month for six years. It had never once gone down.
He wasn't letting a girl he'd known for three weeks put the first dent in it.
He checked whether next month would at least fix itself. The pledges were at $19,043.67 now. Everything going out, her food and his own costs, was $21,272.52 a month. He left tax out of it. He paid tax every quarter, not every month, so none of it was due yet. That was a problem for later, and later wasn't this week.
Next monthPer monthPledges$19,043.67Her food and his costs−$21,272.52Left−$2,228.85It wouldn't fix itself. Every month, the account would go down a little more.
So where does extra money come from?
✦ ✦ ✦
He thought about the degree first. That didn't take long and was mostly a formality.
Computer science.
It was worthless in this economy. He was well past regretting it.
He wasn't even a computer guy. He'd only picked it because of the hype. Back then, everybody was going into computer science, and everybody was sure it was a safe bet. Then, by his fourth year, the big tech companies were laying people off by the thousands, and it was in the news every day. Nobody was hiring a fresh graduate when experienced programmers were out of work too.
And he hadn't touched any of it since. Six years of drawing instead. Whatever he'd had at graduation was gone. Nothing keeps if you don't use it.
Which left the other option. A real job. Nine to five, five days a week, minimum wage, on top of the comic.
Impossible.
Not actually impossible. But impossible. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
So the job search was over, and he was out of options.
Which meant there was exactly one other person in the apartment.
He ran it for her before he said anything. Minimum wage was fifteen dollars an hour. Full time, that was $2,600 a month. After Social Security, Medicare and her income tax, she'd keep $2,270.77.
With her jobPer monthWhat she'd keep$2,270.77The gap−$2,228.85Left+$41.92Green. Barely. Even the worst job in the city would do it.
But a job pays two weeks after you start, and the grocery run was in two days. Whatever happened, the savings were getting hit first.
Fine. Then it wasn't a dent. It was a loan. Everything that came out of the account until her paychecks started, beginning with that $3,184.55, she'd pay back. With interest, at the same 4.21% a year the account paid. The account wouldn't lose a cent.
✦ ✦ ✦
She was on the couch.
The word on was doing a lot of work. Her chest was on the seat cushion. Her hips were up on the backrest, above her shoulders, which put her spine into something that had a fold in it. Both legs were folded forward over her own head and crossed at the ankle somewhere down by the armrest. One arm was underneath all of it and had presumably been there a while.
The phone was on the floor. A finger was going down to it at intervals.
"Hey," Josh said. "So, um. I need to have a talk with you."
"Listening."
Her head didn't move.
"Look. This is serious. Look at me."
So she looked at him.
Her head came up off the cushion and kept coming, because the head was the only part that moved. Her neck fed out of her shoulders slowly, thinner than a neck, smooth, taking its time, the skin of her throat sliding out of itself in a steady unhurried unspooling until there was about two and a half feet of it and her face was level with his, on the end, like a head grafted onto a stick.
The rest of her stayed exactly where it was.
"Go ahead," said the head.
Josh looked at it for a second. He was hard.
He put his hands in his pockets and carried on.
"Listen. I checked the books. The math doesn't line up."
It didn't. In two days he'd be taking money out of his savings.
"What now?" said the head. "Did your earnings dip? Do you need another session?"
"No. Not that. My earnings didn't dip." He got that out fast. "But they can't really go any higher. There's a ceiling on it. We need a bit more to keep the budget happy."
"So."
"Are you expecting an answer from me?" The head tilted, which at two and a half feet of neck is a whole event. "What am I supposed to do here?"
"Yeah. That's what I'm saying." He took a breath. "All we need is another job. My schedule's packed — I couldn't take one if I wanted it. So that leaves..."
He gestured at the couch. The entire couch.
"You."
✦ ✦ ✦
The legs came down first.
They uncrossed at the ankle, and then they came apart and unfolded, one and then the other, at the knee and then the hip, slowly, the whole length of each one arriving down the front of the couch in a single continuous movement with nothing hurried about it anywhere.
Josh got harder. He kept his hands in his pockets.
"You want me to get a job?" Luna said.
"Yes."
"After all I have done for you." She put a hand on her chest. "You want me to get another job?"
"Stop bitching."
"I have—"
"The money is short. We need another source of money." Josh didn't move. "And you have been lying on this couch on your back, or your front, or whatever that was, for weeks, like a log. You need to get a job."
"And until your first paycheck, everything comes out of my savings. That's a loan. You're paying it back." He held up a finger. "With interest."
Luna opened her mouth.
(Luna:She had four comebacks ready.
Then he said the money is short, and she put all four down. She knew that sentence. She'd lived on it for fifty years, week to week.)
Her spine let go.
That was the third one, and it got Josh hard all over again. The fold in the middle of her simply stopped being a fold, the vertebrae coming into line one at a time from the base up, unhurried, her back reassembling itself along its whole length while her hips came down off the backrest, and the neck went with it, the excess feeding back into her shoulders at the same rate, two and a half feet of it going home in a smooth continuous draw until her head was sitting where a head sits.
She swung around and sat on the couch like a person.
"So," Luna said. "When do you need me to start?"
Josh, standing in his own living room with a hard-on and his hands in his pockets, took a moment.
"...Soon. As soon as—"
"You need to give me a few days," she said, stretching her arms out and rolling her shoulders. "To source some cocaine."