“The Blue Pearl in 2620 C.E.”
“I’m having trouble finding the address,” I said to my realtor Dave through the car phone.
“It’s almost at the very end of the spit. On the left. The condo is light blue, almost white, and the posts that support it are teal. Well—they’re actually grey now because of the sea air. They haven’t been painted in a while, but some of the teal shows through.”
“Okay, I’ll call you if I don’t find it by the end of the road.”
“Better hurry. A rental like that won’t last a day. Don’t park in the driveway, or the other occupants might complain.”
I found the place only two blocks in from the beach, just past the First in Flight museum. I knew that I would sign the lease—I had worn through my sister’s couch.
“We’ve got six people living in nine hundred square feet,” she had complained three nights earlier. “I’m sorry, but we need the couch.” She had to know how pretentious that sounded. Her husband worked as a high-level manager at Mid-Atlantic Light and Fisheries. They had more space than anyone I knew.
I called Dave back.
“I found the place. I’ll take it. Can you let them know?”
“Yep, right away. You gonna wait there for the key?”
I looked at the building’s cracked paint. A gust of banana-salted breeze stunk up the driveway. Six hundred years ago, this two-floor beach rental was prime real estate. I squinted. There appeared to be a goat living in the parking area beneath the house.
“Yes, I’ll wait.”
A faded sign pronounced the condo’s name as “The Blue Pearl,” an optimistic label to juxtapose the rotten ocean that stunk up the long barrier island.
I leaned on my car to wait.
It beeped at me because you weren’t supposed to lean on cars.
“Tough,” I told it.
Second-floor window blinds flinched. Someone was checking me out.
Then Someone decided to be neighborly. The front door opened and probably the oldest woman I’ve ever seen descended the steps to the patio at their base, waving at me halfway down.
“You gonna rent number ten?” she asked.
I nodded and flashed my name palm at her, saying “I’m Llewellyn Winter.”
She held out her hand, a bundle of sinews, and I felt the lack of sensors on her palm. Maybe she was a Natural.
“I’m Glattice. Number six. Stop by after you move in. I’ll make ya’ a sandwich and show you how the kitchen works.
A working kitchen?
She winked. “The Blue Pearl is pretty nice on the inside. Stormy and stinky outside, but nice inside, if you can stand living close with old fogies like me. Well, except Marize. She’s about your age. She’s divorced, so. . .”
It must have been a terrible situation for Marize to go so such an extreme length as to get divorced. Everyone stayed married these days.
I nodded, and Glattice went back inside.
Twenty minutes later, a compact car drove up and a frazzled blonde lady stepped out with a key to my new apartment.
“A dang log truck full of Rotini Pines™ almost ran me off the road just before I crossed the bridge,” she complained before verifying my name with a palm scanner. Her reader beeped, automatically verifying my identify and absorbing two months’ rent in credit bits.
“They’re a menace,” I said and nodded sympathetically.
She frowned at the information on her reader. “Your parents live in Durham?”
“They do.”
“In a two bedroom?”
I nodded.
“Why would you want to live out here then?”
“Oh, I decided to get out of the rat race. Take it easy. Get some sea air.”
She covered her mouth with her hand as if that would reduce the stench of rotted ocean.
“You’ll be able to dependably make rent?”
“Absolutely.” Almost a hundred years ago, I had tweaked the blade curve of my company’s wind turbine design, resulting in seven hundred and fifty million in additional annual profit the following year. My pension would cover a mid-range rental like this condo.
Inside the house, on the second floor of living space, I walked through apartment number nine to reach number ten, my new dream home. Thankfully, it already contained a small bed. I hauled in my four boxes and folding desk and dropped a laundry basket full of old electronics and bed sheets on top of the mattress. The ocean smell was less noticeable inside the house.
When I found the shared kitchenette downstairs, I happily discovered a working toaster-oven, a stove top, a bubbler full of spring water, and a man smiling at me from his seat at the table.
“I’m Damun,” he said. “I milk Kimberly.”
I hoped that he was talking about the goat.