No Strings Attached

Chapter 4

The intercom beeped from the living room. "Your stuff is here," the landlord/doorman bellowed.

I excitedly hopped from the ground and bounded down the stairs, while my dad took the elevator—as usual. I didn't even bother to proclaim my victory because I was too anxious to arrange the apartment the way we wanted.

"Thank you so much," my dad said as he was handing the money he owed to a largely-built man's outstretched hand.

The brute grunted in response. Three other fellows were lugging our furniture behind them. "Right this way, guys!" I called from the first stair. "We are apartment 3-C." I led the way up the stairs to our door, and propped it open with the small door stop.

"The couch?" one man with a voice higher than you'd expect him to have asked.

"Oh, um..." Dad and I never really discussed where the general furniture would go. "Set it down against that wall. We will move it if we change our mind."

He did as I instructed, and one shorter and strong-looking mover set a coffee table right beside it. The last guy set the media cabinet against the opposite wall.

This is going to take a while, I thought. Why do they have only three crew members?

Slowly, but surely, our apartment began to look like our home again. When it came to my room, they didn't listen when I told them to put my bed sticking out of the corner. They just shoved it against the wall like a normal bed. I decided I would fix it after they left. Once all the things too large for containers were brought into our residence, the boxes piled in. There were walls completely covered with cardboard boxes. I never really noticed how much stuff we had. We would clearly have to give up even more things than we'd had to up until that point.

After the very last item was dropped off, my dad and I got to work. I took all my boxes to my room, and helped my dad separate the others into their designated places. Luckily we had labeled them before we loaded them into the truck, or it would have been a lot harder to decipher which box goes where. After about an hour, I was finally able to design my room the way I wanted.

First of all, I cleared an area in the center of my floor so I could have all my things in one space when I took them out of their boxes. The first box I emptied was the first one I packed. In other words it was full of knick-knacks and things I just had around my room. The issue is, most of them belonged on shelves.

Well, this is just fantastic. I can't even have my tiny bear Mom gave me for my first night here, I groaned to myself. I wasn't supposed to hang things in the apartment because...well, we rented it. You can't have holes in the walls of a rental home. I made a mental note to go out to buy those Command strips so I could put shelves up without puncturing the wall.

I set the box aside and move on to the next. It was some of my clothes. Easy enough to put away...if I had hangers. They weren't t-shirts that I could just throw in my dresser drawer. Oh no, they were my sweaters and nice blouses for when I went out. I let out an exasperated sigh and began to dig through the other boxes to see where I put my hangers. I finally found them in a box that held my stuffed animals. My logic is great.

Another two hours crept by as I unpacked all my necessities and found a place for them. By the time I was done, there were only the things which I needed to supply shelves and my toiletries.

I grunted as I lifted the heavy box of hair products and makeup from the ground and shuffled across the hall to the surprisingly spacious bathroom. I placed my shampoo, conditioner, coconut-scented body wash, and my shaving supplies on the bathtub. My dad had apparently already been in there, as his Dove Men+Care shower stuff was already taking up a space in a corner.

I opened the medicine cabinet to put in my deodorant, toothbrush and toothpaste, and mylittle bottle of perfume. Dad's was already claiming the top two shelves, so I marked my territory on the two bottom ones. I reached down to see which drawers were not home to Dad's cologne and shaving cream so I could have a place to store my makeup and hair styling items. The two on the right were free, so I took about fifteen minutes to set up my station.

I sighed in accomplishment when I finished, and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like crap, my hair up in a tangled bun, my eyes drooping with dark bags. But I felt great. This will be a great place to live.

I marched back to my room and began collapsing the empty boxes. When that chore was completed, I slid the three remaining ones containing my shelves and stuff to-be-shelved in an empty corner, but still in sight so I wouldn't forget to do something with them.

Deciding to see how Dad is doing, I knocked on his door. "Come in!" he let me know, so I opened the door. He was sitting in a chair with his glasses perched on his nose, reading Salem's Lot by Stephen King. His small amount of belongings were neatly put away, and about five boxes were collapsed in a corner.

Looking up from his book momentarily, he suggested, "I was thinking about going out for breakfast tomorrow morning to celebrate our successful move."

"That's a great idea," I said sincerely. "Wake me up at eight."

"Will do. Have a good night's sleep."

"Thank you. You too." I left the room, smiling to myself.

I flopped into my newly arranged bed and slept soundly until there was a loud bang coming from the room above us.