You must excuse the mess

Had something rubbed off on me?

In the audience I noticed a homely girl. She had long mousy brown hair, and looked like she was in her mid-twenties or so. She wore dungarees and kept to herself. Even during breaks. And during the proceedings she scribbled notes in a little blue book. I also noticed that she traded a couple of nods with Juha. And they shared a smile. I had to know who she was. I had planned to get to her when the day was over, but I lost sight of her and she was gone like a ghost.

My new friend Lisa offered me to stay over at her place. That was good because if I had taken the bus back I probably wouldn't have been able to come back the next day.
We have so much to talk about anyway, she said.
Her apartment building was located in a complex of gray slabs with vertical and horizontal rows of tiny windows. It looked like a prison despite the absence of window bars. The pavement was dotted with concrete playgrounds were jungle gyms sagged and where sad-eyed kids with diaper rashes and runny noses roamed.
The streets were named after the sciences. She lived on Kemigatan, Chemistry Street.
You must excuse the mess, she said as we entered her building. I assumed she was referring to a potential disarray of shoes in the hallway, or some unwashed dishes in the sink, or piles of clothing strewn about in her teenage girl room.

In the kitchen nicotine-stained walls appeared to be caving in on Lisa's mother, rocking an Aerosmith t-shirt and drinking beer straight out of the can, and Lisa's baby brother who was in the midst of an asthma-sounding cough attack.
Hey girls, Lisa's mother drawled. The words came out all lop-sided. How was the trial?
Fine, Lisa said. Have you made dinner? Can Stella eat here?
Sure she can. She opened another can of beer with a pop and that hissing afterglow of carbonation. But you guys will have to boil some macaroni or something. I have to watch my girly figure so I'm only having liquid dinner tonight. 

After a bowl each of pasta with ketchup we retreated to Lisa's room. She had tacked a picture of Juha, cut out from a newspaper, above her bed. He fit in there among all the other long-haired, dangerous looking men that watched over us as we sat cross-legged on the floor and talked about the day.