I shifted the car into Park and turned off the engine. Jennifer Lopez’s “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” stopped mid-chorus. The quiet neighborhood bordered the north side of Oakley University. Trees lined the sidewalk, their leaves swishing in the warm breeze.

“Which one is it?” I asked.

“That one.” Hazel indicated a set of row houses across the street. The end unit on the corner had a bright red For Rent sign posted in the front window.

“Looks cute.”

“It just has to be livable,” she said.

“Well, right. But cute doesn’t hurt either.”

We’d already been to five different apartments, looking for a place we could move into as soon as possible. Nothing had been perfect, and Hazel provided a detailed list of every flaw as soon as we’d gotten back into the car. Sometimes it seemed that was all she saw—all the ways in which something might not work out. Most of the time, I found it endearing and liked how it put me in the role of disproving her, but not today.

Coordinating apartment hunting had been difficult. With her still living in Lima and me forty minutes outside of the city, we had little way of knowing what was available—most rentals only advertised in the Echo’s classified section, and the one’s showing up online were way outside our price range. But Hazel had worked it out with Doug. She crashed at his new place—an apartment complex called University Village where a lot of second-years ended up because of its proximity and shuttle service to campus—until we checked finding shelter off our to-do list.

Hazel tucked the newspaper into the passenger door side pocket. The click-clack of our seatbelts sounded as we unbuckled and got out of the car. We walked toward the brick row house, and I checked out the front porch, picturing a set of matching lawn chairs, lengthy late-night conversations, cigarettes, and cheap wine coolers being doled out between the two of us on that stoop.

“I like the little porch,” she said.

“What?” I nearly stopped in my tracks. “You like something about this place?”

“Shut up.”

“No, I do too.” I linked my elbow around hers. “This could be the one!”

She gave me a smile and a sideways glance. I let go of her arm, and we climbed the cement steps. I knocked on the screen door, and a woman with an antique beehive hairstyle answered the door.

“Hi, we called about the apartment. Hazel and Maeve.” I gestured between the two of us.

“Come in, come in,” the woman croaked, and even I could smell the after-smoke clinging to her hair and clothes. “You saw the ad—two-bedroom, one bath, four-fifty a month. Have a look around. I’ll wait outside.”

Dark hardwood planks lined the floors. Tall windows let in tons of light. The front living room led seamlessly into a back dining room—open-concept style, although historically, it had probably been separated by a set of interior French doors. A closet-like galley kitchen sat off to the side of the dining room. A plain metal sink and yellow Formica countertops ran the length of one wall. Through the window in the back door, I spotted a gravel path, an alleyway stretching behind the row houses, and then another house directly behind us but facing a side street, and another and another, all lined up in a row. Hazel stepped toward an avocado-green refrigerator; next to it was a second cutout, another doorway. A dankness lingered at the threshold.

“Smells like a basement,” she said. “Follow me. I don’t want to go down there alone.”

We carefully plodded down a set of planked stairs, running our hands along the scratchy brick as we progressed. The temperature dropped considerably. A single bulb hung from the ceiling. Hazel pulled the string, and the light didn’t do much to alleviate the creepy, damp space. Chipped and peeling white paint covered the walls. Dried-up rivulets marked the floor where water had leaked through in rainier months. Mold pocked one corner.

But there were not only washer/dryer hookups but also an actual set. On-site laundry that didn’t require hoarding every single quarter that came our way? A real bonus, an impossible find.