Shelly Oria - New York 1, Tel Aviv 0

A good time to explain about the bedroom: when I first moved in, the two rooms were both called bedrooms, and the rest of the apartment was a space we shared. Then one Sunday morning Sophia said, Let’s make the small room a recording studio. Sophia was buying another guitar then and all kinds of expensive equipment, and I was mostly sleeping in her room anyway, so it seemed sensible. She said, If I have a studio I’ll have to get serious. I thought she was already plenty serious about her music, but Sophia was always looking for ways to get serious about things, and if you said anything back that sounded like advice, all of a sudden you were her enemy. Then you needed to make it up to her, and that wasn’t always easy, so the best way was to say, That’s a great idea. I said, That’s a great idea, and that’s how Sophia’s bedroom became our bedroom and my room became her studio.

Another thing that sometimes happened on Sundays was End of Weekend Blues. That was especially common on Indoor Picnic Sundays: when Sophia looked outside and the window said evening, she would get antsy, like she was waiting for someone to arrive. I had to be careful, because when she got like that saying the wrong thing was something that could creep up on you. One minute there would be peacefulness, the next you were fighting with Sophia and you felt like she hated you, because Sophia doesn’t know how to fight with the future in mind. Sophia fights like Sophia cooks like Sophia makes love like Sophia plays the guitar: as though possibly it’s the last thing she’ll ever do. Her eyes get so red there is no green left in them. Her lips get tight and lose their heart shape completely. She screams without stopping for air, and even if it’s a day before a show, she forgets she is supposed to watch her voice. I know the reason: this is also a show, and it is no less important to her than any other. But when someone is throwing loud, hurtful words at you, your heart doesn’t care about reasons. Sometimes she throws things, too.

Monday

Monday was Sophia’s Errands Day. Sophia’s definition for errands is Anything you hate to do, and her theory is it should all be compressed to one day or you end up believing your life sucks. So, for example, grocery shopping is not an errand, but calling her aunt Zelda is. If Sophia has a toothache and the receptionist says Thursday one week from today, Sophia will say Give me the next available Monday, because going to the dentist is an errand, and errands are done on Mondays. And if you tell her it doesn’t make sense to suffer tooth pain longer than you have to, she’ll make a face like she just swallowed something sour and say, Clearly, you don’t know much about artists.

It was a Monday before Sophia meant anything to me, five, maybe six p.m., and I was standing at the door with my suitcases and everything. A while later, when I learned about Sophia’s week, I realized I must have been one of her errands that Monday. Interview Lydia’s cousin . The thing about Sophia, she opens the door, you see right away how beautiful she is; you see right away it’s the kind of beauty everyone wants to share. I was funny to her then — first thing she did was laugh. I laughed too, because her laughter made me happy, even though I knew it was directed at me and didn’t know why, which is usually unpleasant. Finally she said, Lydia couldn’t have been more right. Lydia is a relative of mine, second-cousin-once-removed sort of relative, and she was the one to say, You go ahead and move to the city and you’ll see things will just work out. She gave me Sophia’s number, and on the phone Sophia gave me the address and said, See you then, so I assumed I was moving in. I didn’t know then that in New York people interview other people to be roommates; I thought you usually went on interviews when you wanted other people to hire you, pay you, not when you wanted to pay them. I packed everything I had — which wasn’t much, because the man I was leaving was the kind who sues if you take stuff — in two suitcases and one huge handbag. I took a cab from Penn Station and told myself the stuff was simply too heavy, but really I was just afraid of the subway. Then: Sophia, laughing, and I knew right away, though it still took some time to figure out.

Tuesday

Tuesdays Sophia usually spent the day auditioning people for her band. If she liked someone (usually a drummer), that person would be auditioning other people with her the following Tuesday, but often by the Tuesday after that they’d be gone; it rarely took Sophia more than a week to discover Disparities in Artistic Visions.

Sophia loved those Tuesdays, and the more people showed up, the happier she was. Really, when you think about it, Sophia was auditioning all the time, not just on Tuesdays; some auditions were simply more official than others. Sophia ran auditions for friends, for lovers, for people who might cook for her or tell her things she didn’t know. And people just kept showing up, trying their hardest, because that’s the thing about Sophia: she makes you feel like her approval is the one ingredient you’re missing.

Let me explain about the finances, though my knowledge is limited. I shared a bed with Sophia for over a year, and in that year more often than not we appeared to the world as two halves of a thing, but still: what Sophia doesn’t want to discuss she won’t, and good luck to you if you think What’s the harm in just raising the question. So here’s what I do know: Sophia doesn’t have to work. There is no lavishness about her, but she firmly believes that needs should be met. If a certain need means money, then money will be spent; but mostly Sophia thinks about money the way most people think of socks — sometimes essential, at other times unnecessary, but either way not an interesting topic for conversation or thought.

Over time I’ve heard more than one theory about Sophia’s finances, because people think if someone who has money isn’t interested in money there must be something they don’t know, and when people think there’s something they don’t know, they talk. Lydia said a trust fund, and Lydia has known Sophia for years, so possibly that’s right. In fact, that was one of the first things she told me when we talked about my leaving that jerk and moving to New York. She said A friend of mine, said We go way back, and said She’s living off a trust fund that would last her great-grandkids if she ever has any, and she’s pretty generous, so maybe you won’t have to worry about money for a while.

Of course I always worry about money, and living with Sophia didn’t change that at all.

One night at a party we were throwing, a very tall girl who seemed to know a lot about Sophia said, Babe, I’d be dreading Monday so bad if it weren’t for you, and touched Sophia’s arm, and Sophia smiled and went to the kitchen to get more beer. What’s Monday? I asked the tall girl, because that was before I learned that Sophia’s people often judged you by how much you really knew about Sophia. The tall girl snorted and said, The shoot; once a year she still has to do it or there’ll be no money for pretty girls like you to live off her. I don’t live off her, I said all deadpan, and got up to go help Sophia with the beer; but really I felt happy that she said I was pretty. So that was the second theory I heard.

Then, once, Sophia said, An old friend will be staying with us a couple of nights, and when the old friend arrived she was young and beautiful and Sophia’s ex. Her name was Anna but Sophia called her Honeydew. Sophia rarely called anyone by their given name. For a whole evening it was Honeydew remember this and Honeydew remember that, and Of course, Sophie, how could I ever forget. I felt unnecessary, but we were drinking a lot and gradually it got better. At some point I looked out the window, and even though I squinted I still couldn’t tell if it was dark or bright, and I couldn’t remember in which room we kept the clock, and I heard Anna giggle and say, Is he still sending you that much every month? and You should really see that stock person I told you about, Sophie, you’re being irresponsible. So that was the third theory I heard about Sophia’s money, except I had no idea what I heard.