So I hired a broker named Pam recommended by a friend. Pam was an older, oversized woman, in her sixties, who moved like she was running away from a very small, very sluggish axe murderer, which is to say, she barely moved at all, but in a very urgent way. She took deep breaths in the middle of her sentences, and spoke cautiously, like someone was listening to our conversation. Her attention was always half-focused on what was happening around us, and so she never quite seemed to notice what I was saying.

“I thought you were supposed to be a girl” was the first thing she said to me, outside the building where we’d planned to meet.

“Oh. Um. No? I’m a dude,” I said. I’d texted her I was “Arielle’s friend Matt, and I’m looking for an apartment,” but I realize now I might not have been clear enough. “Is that . . . gonna be a problem?” I asked her then.

She shrugged her shoulders and heaved herself inside anyway. I followed along, uncertain. We climbed into the elevator together.

“You’re the first one to see this apartment,” she huffed. “The landlord didn’t get me the keys until today. A piece of work, he is.” She turned to me and made sly eye contact. “The kind of guy who beats his wife, ya know?”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I mean, what the fuck are you supposed to say to something like that? The “kind of guy” who beats his wife? Does he beat his wife or not, Pamela? If he does, why are you so casual about this? If he doesn’t, what the fuck are you talking about? I looked at the ground. “Oh. Uh. OK. That’s . . . that’s something.”

We didn’t say anything else. The elevator doors opened, and Pam led me twenty feet down the hallway to the apartment. She burst through the door and collapsed immediately onto the closest piece of furniture she could find, out of breath from the taxing elevator ride and stroll. Granted, we were on the eighth floor, and it’s possible the high altitude was harsh on her feeble lungs. “Make yourself useful and turn on the air conditioner,” she barked.

I did as she asked, and left her to defrost while I reviewed the apartment, though there wasn’t much to review. It was a one-room studio, big enough to fit a small bed, a couch, and a dying old woman without feeling too crowded. There was a tiny bathroom and a kitchenette, and two windows that faced a solid brick wall, so nobody could see in or out.

Pam’s phone rang and she answered. She spoke to the other person for five minutes, hung up, and turned to me. “One of my friends just died.” Breath. “He was like a mentor to me.” Breath. “Anyway, you want this apartment or not?”