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Tom Haverford was like winning the roommate lottery -- but in a bad way. The odds of ending up with someone so completely wrong for you had to be astronomical. In fact, Ben had developed a sick, sinking suspicion that maybe someone in the roommate assignment department had ties to Partridge and had been taking a very deliberate revenge, because there was just no way anyone could have seen his application and Tom’s and thought “hey, here are a couple of guys who are going to get along great!”.
Ben, for instance, had said he was interested in big band era jazz and table-top gaming. Tom listened to the kind of house music that went MMMff-MMMfff-MMMfff and seemed to spend most of his time making up Top Ten lists no one was ever going to use on the Tonight Show. Ben had said he read a lot and loved Star Wars. Tom didn’t seem to own any books (not even textbooks, bafflingly) and had shaken his head in a pitying way when he’d seen the Millennium Falcon model Ben had hung over his desk. Plus there was the clothing issue (Tom’s collection was vast and color-coded, and occupied their entire shared closet plus a rack in the middle of the room), and now the Jean-Ralphio issue, which was basically what had brought it all to a head. So now here they were, three weeks into the fall semester and already Ben was done. Finished. At his wits’ end.
“Uh huh,” Ron the RA said, when Ben finally ran out of steam. He was staring at Ben in this really unsettling way, his face unreadable behind his youth-defyingly luxurious mustache. Without taking his eyes from Ben’s, he put a pipe into the corner of his mouth and puffed on it.
“So,” Ben said. “I’m just not sure what to do about it all, I guess.” He resisted the urge to wave the smoke from the pipe away.
“Unarmed combat,” said Ron the RA, without blinking.
Ben looked to the side in case someone was maybe there, watching, and could confirm how insane this was getting. But no one was. “You want me to...fight? Him?”
Ron the RA barked out a sound. Ben blinked and backed up a step, but it turned out it was only a laugh.
“I’m joshing you, son,” Ron said. “There’s a form.” He reached behind himself into a stack of papers, found a particular one and yanked it out from the rest. He slapped it down on the table in front of Ben. “Just fill it out and bring it to the Office of Student Life.” He took the pipe out from the corner of his mouth and blew an impressive smoke-ring into the air between them.
Ben coughed. “Thanks,” he said, picking up the form.
Ron nodded, stuck the pipe into his mouth again and closed his eyes. Ben guessed that it was a dismissal. He nodded, too, just in case, then backed himself out of Ron’s room.
*
The Office of Student Life was on the other side of campus, in the same building as the student union. It was getting cold, almost winter, even though it was still only the beginning of October. Leaves were falling from the trees in orange and yellow gusts and the wind smelled like snow. Ben put his head down and hastened his steps. Still, his ears were stinging by the time he got inside. He should probably have worn his hat.
The building was nice and warm, though, and the office he needed was right next to the foyer, on the first floor. There was someone at the desk ahead of him, a fair-haired girl in dark green corduroys and a pink sweatshirt. She was holding a large parka and duffel bag, and had an enormous roller suitcase parked next to her, too. “Well, I understand that,” she was saying as Ben slid into line behind her. She paused and glanced back at him, leaned closer to the young man behind the desk and lowered her voice. “If I’d known there was going to be an issue, I would have filled out the form ahead of time, but I didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter. I just. I came back from class today and found my stuff in the hall, all...like this.” She waved a hand at the suitcases.
The young man’s face fell a little. “Ah,” he said. “I see. Yes. That is literally a quandary.” He sat back in his swivel chair and tapped his lips with his steepled fingers. “All right,” he said finally. “What I’m going to do, if you would indulge me, is make a very quick stop at the desk of my supervisor. One moment.” He stood and disappeared into the office behind him.
The girl sighed and rubbed her forehead with her spare hand. She turned to glance at Ben again, made an apologetic face. He shrugged and smiled. They waited in an uncomfortable silence.
After a few minutes, the young man returned. “I’m afraid it is simply going to take at least a business day for us to find you a new room,” he said, very apologetically. “However, what my supervisor suggests is that you call your parents and ask about the possibility of temporary accommodations. There is a Best Western not far at all from the campus.”
The girl sighed. Her shoulders sagged. “Yeah,” she said. “I’ve been trying to reach my mother. She’s...a very busy woman. She’s in politics.” She shrugged, like, what can you do?
The young man nodded. “Well, we have a phone you can use just out there,” he said, pointing to the foyer by the doors. “Would you like to try her again?”
The girl looked where he was pointing and then nodded, too, shifting her grip on her giant duffel bag so she could grab the enormous roller suitcase with her other hand. She began to make her way toward the phone. She looked like a hermit crab dragging a shell it hadn’t grown into yet. Ben glanced at the young man behind the desk and then back at the girl. “Do you need a...hand?” he asked her.
“No, I’ve got it!” she said brightly, without looking back. Ben suspected she might be crying.
“Okay,” he said. “Are you sure?”
The girl sniffed. “Yep! Just gonna call my mom.” She shuffled industriously toward the phone.
Ben took a breath, but let it out again without saying anything else. What could he do, really? If he was in the girl’s shoes, he’d probably prefer to save what dignity he could, too. He pulled the form from his coat pocket instead and smoothed it out, handing it to the young man behind the desk. “I’ve, uh, I have the same kind of situation, I think,” he said.
The young man looked pained. “Are you presently unable to stay in your room?” he said. “Please don’t say yes.”
Ben thought about spending the night in the midst of Jean-Ralphio’s Fancy Sweaty Dance Party™ and sighed. “No,” he said. “I just...really wish I didn’t have to.”
The young man was visibly relieved. “Excellent,” he said. “Then all you need to do is leave this with me and we will contact you in a matter of one to three business days with a resolution.” He beamed at Ben and tugged the creased transfer request form toward him.
Ben smiled back. “Thanks,” he said.
The young man nodded, still beaming. “You’re quite welcome.” He was the most cheerful administrative person Ben had ever encountered, probably. It was a little unnerving. Ben found himself giving the guy an awkward, weird salute before he turned on his heel and walked out the front doors.
*
The wind had gotten colder out there, and it was nearly dark. The street was deserted. Everyone was probably in their rooms, getting ready for dinner. Ben tugged the collar of his coat up around his ears and shoved his hands into his pockets, hurrying back toward the dorms. He didn’t notice the person in front of him until he had almost caught up with her. It was the girl from the office of student life. She was heading down the sidewalk in the same direction he was, but was moving much more slowly. She had put the parka on, but was still carrying her ridiculous duffel and dragging the suitcase behind her, fair head held high. She obviously didn’t want to be embarrassed, but she’d probably already heard him behind her. It would be weird if he slowed down now, and kind of rude to pass her without saying anything. He took a breath, let it puff his cheeks out, and then exhaled again.
“Hey,” he called, while he was still a couple of steps away.
She looked back over her shoulder at him and yeah, her eyes were red-rimmed. She had definitely been crying. She smiled, though. “Oh, hey,” she said.
He lifted his hands, palms out. “I was just...I’m going back this way, too. I didn’t mean to, um. Follow you. Or anything.”
She hiked the duffel up on her shoulder again and gave him an amused look. “Yeah, I get it. It’s okay.” The suitcase’s wheels got stuck in a crack in the sidewalk. She sighed and yanked at it until it was free again, then hiked the duffel back onto her shoulder one more time. “My roommate moved her boyfriend in,” she said. “So. That’s my story.”
Ben made a sympathetic face. “That’s kind of my story, too,” he said. “Except I don’t think my roommate’s actually dating the guy he moved in? It’s almost worse, though. They’re hosting this ongoing pop-up dance party...thing.”
“Oh!” the girl said. “The Fancy Sweaty Dance Party™! That’s your room? Wow. Even I got an invite to that.”
Ben pressed his lips together and nodded grimly. “That would be the one.”
The girl tugged her suitcase up over the curb. “Bad luck,” she said. “Man. I didn’t think anyone else lived in that room. What are you going to do?”
Ben shrugged. “I put in a transfer request. Irreconcilable differences. Until it goes through, I guess I’ll...I don’t know. Sleep in the hall.” He grimaced.
The girl nodded. “Well,” she said. “The dining hall in Carter stays open all night, even after the kitchen closes, and they’re always serving french fries with dinner. That’s what I was going to do tonight. You’re welcome to join me, if you want.”
Ben smiled. “That would. Yeah. Thanks. That would be really, um. Cool.”
The girl smiled, too. “I’m Leslie, by the way. Leslie Knope.” She propped her suitcase against her hip and stuck out a hand.
Ben shook it. “I’m Ben,” he said. “Uh, Wyatt.” He braced himself in case she recognized the name, but she just smiled again and let go of him, picking up her suitcase.
“You know,” she said. “I was thinking, this college should really be better equipped to handle housing crises when they arise. I’m sure we aren’t the first people to find ourselves in a situation like this, you know? We should use tonight to do a little brainstorming on the topic. I mean, since we’re going to be pulling an all-nighter, anyway.”
Ben lifted his eyebrows. Leslie just went on looking expectant and cheerful, though. He tilted his head. “Well, yeah, I guess we could,” he said.
Leslie beamed. “Great! I love all-nighters. Do you happen to own a whiteboard?”
Ben blinked, but again, she seemed to be expecting a serious response. “Uh,” he said. “No, sorry.”
Leslie nodded, unsurprised. “That’s fine,” she said, starting back down the sidewalk. “Me, neither. I’m sure we can improvise something with napkins. Now. Who do you know in student government?”
And okay, she was kind of a weird tornado of a person, but she was the first interesting thing that had happened to him since he’d come to college. Since the whole mayoral catastrophe, even, if he thought about it. And there was something really admirable about how she was already fighting again, even though she had just been so defeated. He tugged the suitcase out of her hand and this time, she let him. “Actually,” he said, pulling it up the next curb. “I do sit next to Wendy Sapperton in Econ 101.” He steered the suitcase around a corner and up he sloping walk toward Carter's dining hall.
Leslie beamed at him again, pulling open the door and holding it for him. “Oh, perfect,” she said. "She can be our first lead. This is going to be great.” And Ben was startled, as he ducked into the warmth and noise and light within, to find that he completely agreed.