When I moved from L. A. to New York, I didn't realize I was moving to a small town. I found the apartment through an ad in the New York Times, and I didn't know about my new neighborhood. It wasn't a gay ghetto like Chelsea. It wasn't a punk fun zone like the East Village. It was Williamsburg, with three salami stores on every corner and thirty nosy old Italian widows on every block.

Now, I've always loved Italians. I had an Italian mother-in-law once, and I couldn't believe how hard she worked. She'd get up at six in the morning and clean the house from top to bottom, then make pasta for lunch by hand, all to keep her son happy. I come from a German/French family and my mother wouldn't have tossed her beer on me if I were on fire.

Before she agrees to rent me the apartment, Luigia quizzes me on the phone. "Are you married?" she asks. "Do you have a girlfriend? Do you do a lot of dating?"

I say no to all of the above, trying to sound more like Joe Jonas than Liberace, but I can tell she's suspicious. I don't have the most masculine voice, and with the notable lack of women in my life I think she senses that something is up.

Still, eventually she declares the apartment is mine. When my taxi pulls up in front of the building, though, and I find her waiting there in a lawn chair, I realize I'm not just moving into her building. I'm moving into her life.

"You finally got here!" she says, beaming at me and pulling the wrinkles out of her housedress. "How was your flight?"

"Long," I complain. "I had an aisle seat next to a woman with a baby. She was up every five minutes. My butt has never been so busy."

Just as I realize there's a touch of innuendo in that sentence I see the look of horror on Luigia's face. Without another word she flings my keys at me and then runs up to her apartment on the second floor.

As I unpack my boxes it hits me. Luigia knows I'm gay and she's cool with it -- as long as I don't bring it up. It's like we've got our own "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Obviously it's not the ideal situation, but with a big, cheap apartment involved I'm willing to play along. Besides, I expect a little homophobia from an eighty-year-old woman. She's got Catholic baggage to deal with. I didn't expect her to be hanging off the balcony, waving a rainbow flag and yelling, "I LOVE MY NEW GAY TENANT!"

So, I resolve to watch what I say. Everything will be fine as long as I watch what I say.

Unfortunately, Luigia is no longer speaking to me, so I don't get another chance. I see her wandering around, and while everybody else in the neighborhood gets an animated hello, I get an annoyed grunt. I do what I can to get back on her good side. I water the plants in front of the building. I clean the graffiti off. I take the trash cans to the curb for the garbage men. And after a couple of weeks, there's a knock at my door.

It's Luigia. "I just wanted to make sure you're eating right," she says, almost apologetically, handing me a big foil pan full of food. There's pasta and meatballs and sausages all covered in spaghetti sauce.

I thank her profusely -- homophobia goes down fine with me as long as it's catered -- and the next day she drops by to ask how everything was. I wrack my brain: I can't say I love sausage, because then we'll be talking about stuffing long tubes of meat into my mouth. And I can't say a word about those tasty crimson balls the size of my fist. The noodles were certainly . . . long, thin and coated in sauce. I throw up a thousand compliments in my head but shoot down every one. Italian food is all about gay innuendo.

When I look down at her she's staring at me and wondering if an answer is coming. "It was absolutely delicious," I finally say.

And so, over the months a bond forms. She asks me a question and I find a non-sexual answer, though I have to think for so long she becomes convinced there's something wrong with me.

One day she calls and says, "Roman, I'm going to call an exterminator -- a man who kills bugs -- for tomorrow. Will you be home?"

She's like the thoughtful grandma I never had, I think. I'm really going to like New York.

And I start to say I'll be in and out all day but finally just swerve it into a yes.