Red Flags

When NYT bestselling author and actress Annabelle Gurwitch found herself unexpectedly downwardly mobile after her “gray divorce,” she joined the legions of (pre-pandemic) home-sharing Oldsters.

Annabelle Gurwitch (right) has had a parade of tenants take up residence in her home including trap rapper Keyawna Nikole (left). Gurwitch thought inviting tenants represented a low point; instead it added love and unlikely friendships.

This story is adapted from Gurwitch’s You’re Leaving When? Adventures in Downward Mobility, a New York Times Favorite Book for Healthy Living 2021 and a Good Morning America MustRead now out in paperback and as an audio book which Annabelle reads herself.

There are few universally recognized symbols, but most people around the globe can agree that when someone gives you the middle finger, it means “fuck off.” A thumbs-up indicates that the coast is clear, and a red flag is a sign of a problem that needs attention. Sometimes in life, red flags are waving right in front of us. We simply choose to ignore them.

A flag with three vertical stripes of blue, white, and red has another meaning altogether. That’s the flag of France, and I’m a sucker for all things French, which is why I was elated when I answered the door to my first candidate, the son of a friend’s friend from summer camp. We’d had only one brief email exchange, which he signed with the initial J. I’d had no clue that he was Parisian.

Jean Luc was twenty-seven, tall, slim, big sad French eyes, motorbike helmet in his hand. He said “Bonjour,” it was all I could do to stop myself from saying, “Welcome to your new home, roomie.”

I was elated when I answered the door to my first candidate, the son of a friend’s friend from summer camp. We’d had only one brief email exchange, which he signed with the initial J. I’d had no clue that he was Parisian.

Jean Luc immediately launched into his predicament. I could only make out every other word. “Recently graduated from NYU . . . cross country road trip with friend . . . falling out with friend . . . terrible situation . . . no longer speaking . . . all of my belongings . . . a storage unit.” Was it that he’d had a falling-out with his friend that he’d gone across the country with, or was it a disagreement with the one with whom he’d been renting a place? Were his belongings in storage, or was he living in a storage unit? I couldn’t divine the exact circumstances, but the message was clear: “bad things have happened since I arrived in Los Angeles.”

I was such a nervous wreck that I could only hear my heart pounding in my eardrums. Choices make me anxious. Cereal aisles with their floor-to-ceiling offerings overwhelm me. I can’t be trusted in big-box stores. I’ll go in to buy strawberries and walk out with new set of lawn furniture but my hearing kicked back in as he explained he was working as a receptionist at a Pilates studio in Santa Monica. More bad news for him, as Santa Monica is at least an hour’s drive from my home, but good news for me. The commute would add to the hours he’d be out of the house. I explained that the kitchen, dining room, and living room would be common spaces and held my breath, hoping he would like la chambre. His eyes lit up when I showed him the guest quarters.

“This is amazing. Living here would be the best to have happened to me since I moved here.”

Gurwitch’s book is now available in paperback.

Jean Luc had so much going for him as a tenant. He was the one and only candidate I’d met. He was French, didn’t seem at all murdery, and he was offering me money. But almost as enticing was the chance to be a part of changing someone’s luck. I didn’t even have tennis partners depending on me to return their serves. Jean Luc offered a chance to restore my sense of usefulness. Some good could come from my losses.

Two of Jean Luc’s gregarious friends showed up to help him move in. A good sign. Then, as they were leaving, one of his pals turned to me and said, “Just keep him alive.”

Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

That evening, I let Jean Luc know that a few close friends were stopping by for an intimate re-housewarming party, my first gathering since the ex moved out. I hadn’t said not to come, nor had I invited him. As I looked over at him, drink in hand, chatting up my friends and neighbors, it would be the first but not the last time during his tenure that reminded me of an episode in the actor Charles Grodin’s memoir. Grodin was shooting a film in a castle in England, and when he attempted to chat up the lord of the manor, the gentlemen retorted, “It would be so nice if you weren’t here.”

Two of Jean Luc’s gregarious friends showed up to help him move in. A good sign. Then, as they were leaving, one of his pals turned to me and said, “Just keep him alive.” Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

In the beginning was the word, and the word was…bacon. The sound of bacon sizzling accompanied Jean Luc’s cranking up my espresso machine each morning. The scent wafted up the stairwell into my bedroom, invading my sleep. It seeped into everything, like black mold or a lingering depression.

Just when I’d successfully flushed the heavy odor of the morning’s rasher from the house, he’d arrive back home and begin preparing supper. So strong was the smell, I half expected to see that he’d dug a pit into the living room floor and was roasting a pig. It wasn’t just bacon for breakfast, it was all bacon, all the time.

A grease stain, caramel in color, began forming on the kitchen ceiling. Oblong shaped, like the Ile Saint-Louis. My refrigerator resembled a meat locker. He stocked it with bacon strips, bacon bits for seasoning, and jars of bacon fat. It’s possible he was also using the drippings as pomade because I often caught a whiff of pork when he walked by.

More exasperating than the realization that my closet smelled like a smoke house, was that I’d lost my appetite. Since my kid left for college, food had lost its pleasure.

Meals consisted of shoving something in my mouth while standing over the sink: a hunk of rice cheese, with all the flavor of a glue stick, placed on top of a rice cake, about as appetizing as particle board seasoned with dust.

Watching Jean Luc take pleasure in carefully seasoning his meats, assembling colorful arrays of vegetables, made me feel sadder by comparison.

When not foraging for my pitiful fare, I was scrambling for work and feeling the weight of running the household. The plumbing backed up. The water heater expired. Still reeling from the death of my parents, I took to skulking around my house to try and avoid Jean Luc. It was impossible. He wasn’t just living in my home— it felt more like an occupation.

When not manning the stove, he’d settle into the backyard couch, with a glass of wine or five, binge watch TV shows and smoke weed.  Soon, bottles of whiskey took up residence next to his bottles of wine. The bracingly medicinal odor was often the first fragrance I’d encounter in the morning. I began to worry that should I expire in my bedroom, I might not be discovered for months, between the cigarettes, weed, bacon, and now whiskey, no one would notice the smell of my corpse decaying.

Then, the deadly wild fires of the winter of 2017 broke out. Up and down the California coast, the state was burning. Our neighborhood received a high fire risk warning, called a Red Flag Alert. During Red Flag conditions, residents in my neighborhood are instructed to refrain from smoking or cooking outside, in case emergency response vehicles need to squeeze through on their way to a fire zone. I explained this to Jean Luc and he said he understood, but the next day, I noticed he was seated outside smoking weed. Was it possible he believed there was a weed exclusion to the Red Flag Alert? I didn’t know what to say. Instead, I placed an ashtray next to the couch and checked to make sure my homeowners insurance was up to date.

Still, Jean Luc proved helpful around the house. My cat’s raison d’etre was inviting rodents over for playdates. Toting them inside the house with his teeth, he’d toy with them until he tired of their company, leaving them to roam freely about the house. “Jean Luc! Living Room!” I’d yell and he’d race in, armed with a broom and dustpan. He never failed to dispense with them, although at times, his cool ease reminded me that the French had stood in the streets and welcomed Hitler when he rode into Paris.

Still reeling from the death of my parents, I took to skulking around my house to try and avoid Jean Luc. It was impossible. He wasn’t just living in my home— it felt more like an occupation.

Three months into his tenancy, the stain on my kitchen ceiling was spreading, it resembled the wine region of Burgogne and the skunky smell of cannabis clung to my clothing,

I focused my energy on trying to find the upsides to his residency. Every so often, I’d overhear him speaking on the phone in French. When he was speaking French, I could imagine he was affirming what a marvelous choice Macron had made in choosing a wife twenty years his senior.

What exactly was my breaking point? It’s never one thing. Towards the beginning of spring, as the days grew longer, my patience grew shorter. One morning, I woke up to an email letting me know that an assignment I was counting on had canceled. I dragged myself into the kitchen to make a bracing, double cap when Jean Luc bounded out of his room to question me about Austin Powers.

“Austin Powers? You want to talk about a movie?” I asked, wiping away my tears. He’d actually said Austin Pendleton, the actor. I hadn’t heard him correctly.

“I studied with him and I’ve been dying to know if you’ve ever crossed paths with him. Do you like his work?”

Although I am a big fan, there were few things less appealing at that moment than reviewing the highlights of Mr. Pendleton’s career.

But the last straw might have been the bathrobe incident. One morning, Jean Luc appeared for bacon-fast in a terrycloth number that barely reached mid thigh. Now, he was in that bathrobe all day long. It was a thigh too far.

Moving in with a middle-aged woman, in the process of getting divorced right after her only child goes off to college? There were plenty of red flags, Jean Luc. There were red flags. 

I worked up the courage to evict him only after lining up a new tenant and finding him another place to live. I offered everything short of packing his suitcase.

One of the lasting images I’m left with is Jean Luc, carcassing a chicken to make bone broth. He uttered the most French thing I’ve ever heard. I asked him to pass me a package of rice cakes that were on the counter. He answered, “I don’t know what that is.”

Oh, Jean Luc, you thief.  You stole my love of all things French, my love of bacon, the actor Austin Pendelton, and people who are twenty-seven years old. You took from me the illusion that I could change someone’s luck. Bien sur, you taught me things. I learned that ennui is just another word for being a bummer to be around.

I’m sorry, Jean Luc, Je regrette tout. How I must have looked to you? Standing over the sink, shoving food in my mouth, like an animal.

To cap things off, a few weeks after we said au revoir, a minor earthquake rattled both the pictures on the walls and my nerves. I cried, realizing it was the first time I’d been in close proximity to danger when I wouldn’t hear from my parents. My ex didn’t phone to ask after my safety either, but you called and texted. Boy, did that make me feel like an asshole.

But, mon ami, you should have seen the denouement coming. Moving in with a middle-aged woman, in the process of getting divorced right after her only child goes off to college? There were plenty of red flags, Jean Luc. There were red flags.