Coffee, Tea or Me? by Donald Bain, Trudy Baker, Rachel Jones, Bill Wenzel

them.”
    Jane excused herself and disappeared into her room. She came out a few minutes later looking more relaxed.
    Joan passed out the white paper with the purple printing on it. We each took one and began to read.
    TO: Residents of the penthouse
    FROM: The rules committee
    SUBJECT: General operating rules
    1. Each pair of girls will clean up their own bedrooms.
    2. Bedrooms are privileged areas. Do not enter anyone’s bedroom without prior permission.
    3. Label all food stored in the refrigerator or kitchen closets.
    4. Men may be entertained in any general area of the apartment or in your own bedroom. Work out any conflicts with your roommate. Try to encourage men to use their own dwellings for certain intimate activity.
    5. Arguments will be settled by the rules committee.
    6. No loud noise at any time.
    7. 2% late charge will be levied for late rent payments for the first three days. 5% after that.
    8. Each set of roommates will have their own telephone installed in their bedroom and will use only that phone.
    “Who’s the rules committee?” Helen asked.
    “Jane and I,” was Joan’s answer.
    “Why you two?” was Helen’s next question. It seemed a logical one, except to Joan.
    “That was decided when Richard allowed me to ask you girls in to the penthouse.”
    “Who’s Richard?” Helen didn’t give up easily.
    Joan simply ignored the question. Jane went back to her room for another moment’s worth of relaxation.
    “Are the rules clear?” Joan asked in a loud voice.
    No one answered.
    “Good. That’s all for this meeting.”
    We all went back to our rooms.
    “I think the power is going to her head, don’t you?” I asked Rachel when we were safely alone.
    “She is a little overbearing,” she agreed.
    “The others are a good bunch.”
    “Yeh. They seem great. Gee, I wish there were some way to help Jane out. All that drinking, I mean.”
    “She sure puts it away. I like her, though. And underneath all Joan’s veneer, she does seem to stick by Jane. That’s pretty nice.”
    Another month went by in the penthouse without serious incident. We were spared any more meetings, too. And we began to know our roommates in this housing venture.
    Sally, a pretty but shy little brunette, was as sweet as could be. The delightful thing about her was her habit of telling little white lies. She couldn’t help embellishing the stories she told, usually with the story improved by her embroidery.
    Helen, tending to be overweight, was on a perpetual diet. She’d been on one for six years in a never-ending battle to satisfy the airline’s rigid weight checks that came often and unannounced. Yogurt was her staple food, her portion of the refrigerator a virtual supermarket display of the world’s yogurt varieties.
    Marie was a darling, in her own way. She loved animals. Any animals. In her room, which she shared with Sally, were six birds of varying origins and species, a live mink in a cage and a baby alligator in a large fish tank. His name was Nelson. He was frightening even in his infancy.
    Helen roomed with Sarah. Sarah loved to borrow things. Sometimes she returned them. Most of the time she didn’t.
    That was our group. The diversity of interests and problems seldom posed any serious threat to the penthouse’s tranquillity. Not until the fourth month of residence when all the individual quirks meshed together to create a night from The Twilight Zone.
     
    That night Rachel and I watched Johnny Carson until we’d fallen asleep. We’d been asleep for maybe an hour when the sound of our bedroom door being thrown open brought us both up to a sitting position.
    Standing in the open doorway was Jane. She was drunk. Stoned. Her head was going from side to side as if getting up steam to say something. She finally did.
    “Where is it?” she muttered, her voice with that slurred quality whiskey in abundance will bring about.
    “What in the name of . . .” I was cut off.
    “Where is it, I said?” She