Charitable Deeds (closed for kristaswallows)

If had been a very strange month for Mike Gentry, a fact he was still musing about in his head as he walked through the door. The building was fairly nondescript, even a bit worn down, very few comforting amenities or things to make you feel more at ease as he walked through the door, and took his place in line. He was an oddity in this lineup; everyone else here seemed to be much older then him, more down on their luck. They were in here looking for handouts, and comfortably clad in black jeans, a white t-shirt, and dark green jacket, Mike was looking for none of those things.

He was here to help. A statement that sounded strange, even to him, but the last month in of itself had been fairly odd. He looked around hesitantly, in unfamiliar surroundings, but someone with a clipboard approached him, apparently sensing his unease. A woman, probably thirty five or forty, with short red hair, looked at him curiously.

"Hi there. Are you here for aid, or..." She'd started to tilt her head as he responded.

"No. I'm here about the housing program. I've, um...got a spot for someone."

"Great! Over here, then." Mike followed her away from the lineup (which led to a table manned by three staffers) to another desk, where another woman sat; a stern faced brunette, pen in hand, who nodded at Mike to sit down.

"Name, please?"

"Mike Gentry."

"Age?"

"Twenty five."

"Address?"

And so on it went. There were a lot of people who needed help after the earthquake, although Mike was far from one of them. If anything, he would almost have remained indifferent to it. Not that he wouldn't have donated, or even volunteered a time or two to clean up. But it wasn't his nature to throw himself right at a disaster to be mister goody goody. He was a decent person, and not normally a good one unless the situation truly called for it. Earthquakes were not that frequent around here, but the were a danger. And this one, while the harshest one they'd seen in a long time, had not stirred Mike's altruistic spirit.

No, there was self interest in this one for him, too, a fact he didn't manage to hide from Danielle, the worker who was getting his details as she asked him why he was volunteering his home to shelter someone who'd lost their home in the earthquake. "Well, my roommate moved out recently, and I hadn't gotten anyone else to move in yet, so I figured I'd lend a hand." He breathed in without realizing it, but it wasn't necessary for any kind of deception here. If Danielle was bothered by anything Mike had said, she didn't show it.

"Mmmhmm. And how big is the space you'll be offering?" She asked while barely looking up.

"One bedroom." He replied quickly. "Obviously, they'll have access to everything they need, shower, kitchen, whatever...but those would be shared." Mike was a little unsettled by Danielle's seemingly cold nature, not realizing that she was just trying to get through this as quickly as possible so she could help the next person; maybe someone who actually needed it.

"Mmmhmm." A moment, as she scribbled down a couple of other things before meeting his gaze squarely. "Gender preference?"

A beat passed, as Mike thought about his last roommate. Brittany and him had gotten along reasonably well; different social circles, different working hours (his were all across the map with his job, where she was always out evenings and some nights), but she'd paid the rent, fair and square. Her departure had been a little hasty, with a few things left behind, but he'd always been able to count on her for her share of rent, utilities, and groceries. Which was more then could be said of the candidates he'd interviewed so far...

If he was accepted to take in someone who had been made homeless by the earthquake, then the government would pay him to have someone live there. It wouldn't be perfect, but to him it was far better to have money he could count on rather then hoping the right roommate came along.

"None." He quickly replied, before realizing something and leaning in. "Although...can you make sure I don't get a family?" He whispered, seeing Danielle's hard gaze on him; he almost wilted back, but steeled himself. "I mean..I don't really have room for one. It'd be better if...you know...they ended up somewhere else." A moment passed, and Mike could swear that Danielle was trying to make him disappear with her gaze before she simply scrawled something on the sheet where his details were, and he could make out the words:

SINGLES ONLY

Whew. he thought to himself, wiping his brow. He could live with the judgment of one charity worker as long as he got the subsidy. That was assuming they found someone suitable for living with him, anyways.

Shortly after, he left with a copy of the form in hand. He was due at work an hour later, and lost in the busyness of setting up lights, cameras, and backing, he stopped thinking about who they might send...

"Krista Soren?" the man with the clipboard called. Krista stood up slowly, and shuffled stiffly across the gymnasium floor. The whole place had been filled with over a hundred cots, and it had been her home for the past week. Before that, she had lived on the fifth floor of an apartment building downtown that had been flattened by the quake. If she'd been at home, she would have been flattened as well. By some stroke of luck, though, she'd been out of coffee filters, and she'd run down to the 7-11 on the corner at 6am.

The convenience store had been flattened, too, and she'd been trapped under the collapsed roof for a day and a half before anyone found her. They'd cut her out, and rushed her to the hospital. She spent most of the day waiting to be seen, only to be told what she already knew. She had a few bumps and bruises and a badly sprained wrist. She was dehydrated, but other than that she was fine. Fine, except that everything that she owned was gone. All she had was what she'd been wearing that morning, a pair of pink sweatpants, an oversized hoodie, and flip flops. She hadn't even been wearing underwear. She didn't even have any ID. The bar where she worked was gone. It was like her life had been erased. Now she had a cot, and a blanket, and a sling for her wrist.

"I'm Krista Soren," she told the man with the clipboard.

"Doc wants to see you," he said.

She nodded, and shuffled down the hall to the classroom where the doctor's had set up. She sat down and waited. They always made you wait. Finally, he came in, smiling.

"Hi, Krista," he said brightly. "How's the wrist?"

She shrugged. "I can move it pretty well," she said.

"Good," he said, and after he had her demonstrate, he made a few notes on the chart and recommended she keep using the sling for a few more days. He looked at the chart again, and then he turned serious "How are you sleeping?"

She shook her head. She'd hardly slept since the quake. It was the reason she was such a zombie.

"You need sleep," he said. "It's very important. Have you used the pills I gave you?"

"No," she said. She lived in a room with over a hundred other women. They were the ones who had lost everything and had no place to go. She knew they weren't all bad people, but after the things she'd heard in the night, there was no way she was going to take a pill to knock herself out.

The doctor sighed. "The sooner you can get back to a normal life, the sooner you'll be able to put this behind you."

"Yeah," she said. "I don't really think I'm going to be having a normal life. I have no money, I have no job. I can't get a job because all I own is a pear of sweatpants and a hoodie. I live in a gym."

"No," the doctor said. "You don't." He pulled a sheet off the chart and handed it to her, smiling again. "Your name came up. One bedroom, shared bath and kitchen. You're going to be living with a... Gentry, Mike."

She stared at him, too exhausted for any kind of enthusiasm, but a huge weight was lifted off her shoulders. "For real?"

"For real," he said, and he gave a sympathetic smile. "This isn't something I would joke about. There was a guy that was supposed to go, but he got in a brawl at the men's shelter last night, so he got moved to the county lockup, and you were next the list."

She gave a weary laugh and smiled. She took the paper and looked it over. Gentry, Mike was 25 years old, just three years older than she was, but he owned his own house. It was impressive. Most of the guys she knew in their 20s could barely make rent. Then again, most of the guys she knew were the guys that came to the bar every night.

She went back to her cot, gathered up her things. When she arrived, they'd given her a blanket, a pillow, a toothbrush, a pair of panties, a t shirt and a pair of drawstring pants. She handed in the blanket and the pillow for the next refugee, and made a bundle of the rest. A volunteer in a minivan that smelled of dogs and kids drove her out to Gentry, Mike's place, telling her how the Lord never closed a door without opening another somewhere else, and assuring her that if she had faith, she would be rewarded.

Krista just closed her eyes and watched the neighborhoods passing by. She didn't ask the woman if she had any thoughts about why the Lord felt the need to rip her life apart. The woman was trying to help, after all. When they stopped at her new home, Krista thanked her and got out of the car. She checked the address against the form once more, before she walked up the front steps and knocked on the door.

It wasn't that Mike hadn't been warned about his incoming roommate's arrival, or about who she was, when she'd be coming, what she'd be bringing...all of that had been communicated to him, two days ahead of time. It was just that up until this morning, the 'she' had been a 'he', and Danielle's attempt to get a hold of him had met his voicemail, to which a currently unlistened to clarification still sat:

"Hi Mike, it's Danielle from the agency. Your tenant has been changed from a Ralph Pederson to a Krista Soren. Thank you." There was little sincerity in her tone, but the intent had been clear, and of little consequence anyways. He had asked for no families and gotten it; what would he care if his roommate seemingly changed genders? With what she thought of him, he'd probably appreciate the sudden change of circumstance.

But knowing it was a female would have changed a lot of things. It would have kept him from making the effort to clear the boxes and things out of his old roommate's closet, as his last roommate, Brittany, had left a few of her things behind, and while he wasn't about to pander to his incoming tenant's every need, common courtesy said to clear the closet out for him. He wouldn't have shuffled her leftover towels to the back of the linen closet, as if anyone seeing them would need some kind of explanation for their presence aside from someone leaving them behind. Roommates left things all the time, even ones who moved out on reasonably good terms as Brittany had.

He also would have made more of an effort to be awake when he heard the knock on the door. It wasn't his fault, really, as he'd worked obnoxiously late the night before...correction, the same very day, as he lied down sprawled on his couch when he stirred from his slumber. There was a big event going on at one of the major hotels and he'd been called upon to take point in terms of meeting with the client to ensure they had everything they need, and when one of the guys had called in 'sick', he'd also had to stay late setting up, meaning that sleep was at a premium. But he'd figured on not needing to be that awake when the guy got there; just lead him in, show him where everything was, and then crawl into bed (or, as the plan had been, back into bed until passed out on his couch.

Still, the sudden shock left him somewhat out of sorts, and he ran his hand through his hair as he made sure he was semi-presentable for the salesman at his door, walking down the steps to the midevel where his front door sat.. His mind hadn't quiteworked things through yet, and he opened the door. "Hi, but I'm not-"

Mike stopped speaking when he saw her. Arm in a sling, bundle of stuff in her arm, and a look about her that told him she was most certainly not selling anything. He opened his mouth again, stopped, and smiled pleasantly. "Hi, I'm Mike. And you are...?"

The response he got woke him up more then any slap ever could have, and he instantly stopped slouching; only then realizing he was still in the muscle shirt and exercise shorts he'd thrown on before falling into his couch, intending to zone out to some television but never getting that far in his series of events. "Oh, well, come in, come in." His sleep addled mind was still trying to process things, and he took an appraising look at her wrist. "How bad is that? Do you need help carrying anything, or...?"

Given how little she had, it was a fairly silly question, but he felt like he needed to ask anyways. "Well, lemme show you 'round." He decided he'd take her downstairs first, get the boring stuff out of the way as they went into his tiny, unfinished basement with cement floors and visible framing. "Just the laundry room, furnace room, and storage down here." It was a little chilly, and there were a few random boxes strewn about - including a couple he'd need later, although he didn't think of it at the time, so eager he was to show his new tenant the lay of the land.

The front room near a large picture window and in view of the street had the couch he'd just been laying on; the dark blue fabric still firm and slightly indented, red pillows strewn about on the floor. "Living room. There's the TV and the remote. You're obviously welcome to it whenever I'm not here, or even if I am. I'm used to a bit of noise, and since I tend to sleep at odd hours don't feel like you have to keep it down at all." In his ideal tour, he wouldn't spend much time here, but his living room was in the centre of everything, the hub to get to anywhere in the house. If you were here, there was no way to avoid you.

Just off the stairwell from the front door, and in view of the living room was the kitchen. It was small, but the newest part of the house, and the area Mike took the most pride in keeping immaculate. "Kitchen. You're free to help yourself to whatever...I keep a good supply of fruits on hand. Once I get a better idea of what you like, we'll make a run to get some stuff...." It sounded like charity, but the government was funding her stay here, for he most part, and Mike wasn't about to let it go by without taking advantage.

He found his eyes drifting to her as she took it all in. For someone disheveled and out of sorts, Mike would still admit she was attractive. He didn't think about what she'd look like cleaned up, her arm free of the sling - she was someone in need, and he was just here to help her out. It wouldn't do him at all to entertain thoughts like that, and as he turned out of the kitchen down the hallway, he looked at the four doors that ran down the corridor, tapping on each of them; the walls were all painted a dark brown; a stark contrast to the pearl white doors.

"Bathroom, linen closet." The first two doors, almost exactly across from each other as he pushed open the bathroom door to show beige tiled floor, off-white tub and toilet, with a pink shower curtain currently closed. He gave her a bit of a smile. "It was my roommate's." He'd forgotten about replacing that, but now he almost found it a benefit; for as many male characteristics as this house had, it might do her some good to see one or two things that were feminine. Further down the hallway, were the two bedrooms; his on the left side in the corner, and hers slightly offset, on the right.

"Your room is on the right. Mine is on the left." Not exactly right across from each other, but close. He lead her down the hall, discreetly closing his door a bit even as he pried her 'room' open to show the bed (with light green sheets and pillows, perfectly made), dresser, and empty closet. "My last roomie left some stuff behind...towels, toiletries, stuff like that." And some clothes, he remembered then. "But in a day or so we'll make a trip in and get you what you need."

It was a lot to take in, so he leaned against the doorway.

"So, I know you must be hungry, tired, whatever...what do you want to do first?" He looked away for a moment before turning his gaze back on her, his tired eyes lingering just a bit. "If you need something to eat, we can do that, or if you want to shower...or both." Suddenly, he remembered how haggard she looked, and felt his own fatigue threatening to overtake him. "Or sleep." He smirked, fighting back a yawn of his own.

No, if she wanted to stay up for a bit - what time was it, anyways? - then he was going to indulge her as long as he could.