If We Lived Here (12 page)

 

Nick was remembering those words—
No pressure, but this place is amazing
—the next evening when, along with his girlfriend and a broker whom she was already chummy with, he was climbing a flight of sloping stairs, looking at paint-peeled walls and smelling rotting trash.

“The halls aren’t ideal, but wait till you see the inside,” Emma said.

As Nick stepped into the space, he felt Emma’s eyes fix on him with expectation. What he saw was a mess. Stained walls. Uneven floors. Cracked molding. Crooked shelves. Cabinets whose doors hung from their hinges. What could Emma possibly see in this den of squalor? He wondered it but he didn’t say it. Somehow he felt himself to be on a precipice, like if he made the wrong move he—or maybe
they
—would be doomed. But after recent events, Nick no longer trusted his instincts. So he stood very still and stayed silent.

“Like I said, it’s a bit of a fixer-upper,” Emma said, still watching him. “But come look at the bedroom. The light is beautiful. Picture the walls painted, and we could have those holes filled. The broker said the landlord would probably pay for it, right, Paulo?”

Paulo nodded and shrugged. He consulted his clipboard. “You people have ten—no, nine—more minutes before I gotta open up the showing. Two other couples are waiting outside.”

“Okay, come on.” Emma led Nick down a long hallway—the apartment was spacious, he’d give it that. “Look at that sunset. It’s stunning.”

She pointed out of a window, which did offer a sweeping panorama of Brooklyn. But view or no view, the place was shabby.

“And come see the tub. We could take bubble baths!” Emma pulled him into the bathroom, which looked like it belonged in some fleabag motel—faded paisley wallpaper and a medicine cabinet whose gold veneer was flecking off into rust. “I know what you’re thinking,” Emma said. “The décor is awful. Paulo said the landlord would change out the light fixtures if we bought ones we preferred.” Before Nick could respond, he was being dragged along. “Oh, and check out the kitchen. There’s a ton of counter space.”

She was right—a large island separated the room, and though its tiles looked as if they’d been slapped down by a drunk (and who tiled a kitchen counter, anyway?), it was a nice feature. Emma sat on the stool and began spinning herself in circles. Was she going crazy, or was Nick’s brain processing still not up to snuff?

“Listen, Emma—”

“Nick.” She came to a stop on the stool and faced him. “Before you voice all your objections, please hear me out. I’ve spent the past week pounding the pavement like a madwoman, investigating Brooklyn’s every nook and cranny in search of a home for us. I’ve seen every variation of shithole and met every flavor of sleazeball landlord, and these were places that were just barely in our price range. That first apartment in Prospect Heights? It was a fluke. We can’t actually afford a dishwasher and skylights and his-and-hers closets, all in such a nice location. Even if we did happen upon another miracle find like that one, guess what? There’d be a dozen other couples lined up right behind us, who all made more money and possessed some kind of magic relationship juju that we apparently don’t have. The competition would blow us out of the water.”

She took Nick’s arm and drew him toward her. “I know this place isn’t picture-perfect, but if we lived here, we’d make it into our home. Can’t you see it?”

And for a moment, Nick could. Despite all his common sense, despite the fact that he knew Emma had put on her P.R. hat and was pitching him like a pro, despite a gut that was telling him this place was not for them, Nick felt himself giving in. Maybe Emma really did know better; maybe he was still in a fog from the injury; maybe they could fix this place up into a home. It was big—and the extra bedroom could serve as an escape from the too-close quarters Nick feared. Plus, the thought of escaping his own apartment, the place now soiled by yesterday’s afternoon visitor, appealed.

“All right, let’s do it,” he said.

Emma leaped upon him with a kiss. “Yay! It’s going to be great, I promise.”

Paulo ushered them into his office to meet the landlord. A squat man with a shaved head and a soul patch beard introduced himself as Luis, then crushed Nick’s hand with his grip. Paging through their financial documents, Luis kept flashing his beady eyes at them, as if they were intruders instead of potential tenants. “Fine,” he said finally. It didn’t exactly feel like a triumph.

Paulo pulled Luis aside and they started up in rapid Spanish; it sounded heated. “What are they saying?” Nick whispered to Emma, who spoke the language.

“Um, they’re talking about a worker who’ll come in and do some fixing up, like Paulo mentioned to us. And, let’s see, they’re discussing the bathroom fixtures.” She smiled at Nick, but it was strained. The men’s voices were escalating.

Finally Luis glanced in their direction. “My brother will patch up the holes. He lives upstairs. But I’m not changing the light fixtures. They’re brand new. I’m sorry if they’re not good enough for you.” He snorted.

Emma jumped in: “Oh no, they’re fine. Paulo just mentioned—never mind.”

“You guys gonna pay the rent on time?” he asked.

Emma and Nick nodded.

“Fine. So I need first month, last month, one-month security deposit, and the broker’s fee. You got all the cash?”

Emma produced a fat envelope. She’d figured out the finances the night before. Nick’s mouth went dry as she handed over the money—nearly $10,000. Everyone shook hands. Luis didn’t crack a smile.

Emma and Nick took turns signing the lease. “What’s the date?” he asked her.

“The eleventh.”

September 11—it seemed like another bad omen to Nick. He couldn’t help his hands trembling as he penned in the numbers next to his signature; he wondered when he’d become so superstitious.

After the signing, Nick and Emma went out for a celebratory beer at the pub on the corner—their new neighborhood bar, Emma called it. But Nick didn’t feel like drinking; his stomach hurt and he was tired. “Em, can we call it a night?”

“Oh.” She took a sip of the pint she’d just ordered, then set it down. “Of course.”

They didn’t say much on the ride home. They watched through windows on opposite sides of the train as it soared out from underground and rattled its way across the Brooklyn Bridge and over the East River.

“We’re done with the wake-ups, right?” Emma asked. “You’re concussion-free?”

“Yes, we did the full week. I can’t thank you enough.” Nick noticed the stiff formality in his speech.

“Then I think I might head home to my place,” she said. “It’s been forever since I’ve slept in my own bed.”

“Okay, Em.” Nick felt torn between disappointment and relief. When the subway pulled into Emma’s stop, he kissed his girlfriend atop the head, and she stepped off, leaving him to stew in his own doubt and regret.

Chapter
14

E
mma pressed Redial for the sixth time, again trying the number Annie had given her for her international cell phone. She’d written a limerick for her friend’s birthday: “My Annie, she once was so purdy./ Though time’s passage is swift as it’s sturdy./ Your hair’s turning white,/ You’ve got cellulite,/ You’re old now and married and thirty.” But with each successive dial the possibility of reciting it seemed less and less likely. She was calling from her office phone to avoid the fees on her cell, and again Emma heard that unfamiliar series of beeps that signaled either a bad connection or a busy signal, she wasn’t sure which. It wouldn’t have surprised her if Annie were on safari, mere feet away from giraffes and elephants, and meanwhile chattering away on the phone to her mother. The image made Emma giggle, but then she felt a pang in the chest—missing Annie was a physical sensation. “Happy Birthday,” she said to the dead line, defeated.

Emma couldn’t remember ever having gone more than a week without speaking to her best friend; their gab sessions were usually multiple-times-per-day events. She was eager to tell Annie about the apartment, and all her clients’ latest antics, and how Nick was finally cleared to go back to work. Being apart from her friend had been like stopping cold turkey on some vital medicine, and Emma would’ve done anything to get her on the phone— spent a whole night entertaining a group of Hellis, reinstated the middle-of-the-night wake-up routine with Nick, continued her apartment hunt, anything.

Because Emma felt unsettled. She couldn’t put her finger on why exactly, but it had something to do with her relationship. She knew talking to Annie would help her get it all straightened out, plus her friend would make her laugh and then suggest something stupid like meeting up for sangria and drunken Zumba. It was exactly what Emma needed. But all she got was that infuriating foreign dial tone, or busy signal, or whatever the hell it was. She slammed down the phone, prompting Genevieve to duck her head into her office and ask if everything was all right.

That was another thing—Genevieve. Her friend hadn’t said hello this morning and had been distant all day; her claim of a doctor’s appointment during their regular lunch date sounded invented, which was odd coming from the actress. Emma wondered if Gen’s aloofness was because she’d been bailing recently on their nights out. But surely Gen understood how stressful it had been taking care of Nick. The strange situation made Emma miss Annie all the more. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said now, half hoping her friend would draw her out. But Gen just nodded and closed Emma’s door.

Usually Emma didn’t mind that her office was windowless—she hardly had time to look up, never mind stare out at some skyline panorama and ponder life’s big questions—but today she was crawling out of her skin, cooped up in the small space. She only had one more client to endure before the two-hour window she’d cleared to meet Nick at the Museum of Modern Art; the excursion had been his pick for one last hurrah before heading back to school the next morning.

After an hour of drilling Isaac Goldstein on SAT vocab and trying not to recoil at the aggressive rash of acne that had sprouted up on the boy’s face, Emma dashed out of her office and uptown to Fifty-third Street. She spotted Nick in MoMA’s sculpture garden, tossing a coin into the water from the bridge.

“Wishing for something?” she asked.

“Luck, I suppose. Or a time machine.”

“Aw, you don’t want to skip over your first day back to school.” Emma hooked her arms around her boyfriend’s waist. “You’ll be great tomorrow, as always.”

“Oh right, of course.” He seemed distracted. “I guess after having Carl as a sub for a week, the kids are pretty much guaranteed to like me.”

“True.” Those who knew Carl and his haphazard teaching suspected his bump up to assistant principal had been a ploy to get him out of the classroom.

“What do you think of that sculpture?” Nick pointed to a contorted figure of a nude woman. “Is she trying to hurl herself over the edge or just washing her hair?”

Emma studied the woman, who was dipping her hair into the pool, her body twisted in what could have either been whimsy or distress. “Hmm, hard to tell.”

“I know, and it’s giving me the creeps. I can’t stop staring.”

“How about let’s leave her alone, then, and go see the exhibits?”

“Okay.” Walking inside, Nick peered back at the sculpture, and Emma was bewildered to see an unfamiliar look in his eyes—a mix of sadness and longing and something else she couldn’t quite name.

They zigzagged their way up five flights of escalators, landing at the entrance to an exhibit about play in the twentieth century. Immediately Emma felt herself transformed by the world of colored blocks and finger puppets. The first room’s toys were wooden, made a half-century before the plastic Legos and Fisher-Price people of Emma’s own childhood, but they transported her back to kindergarten nevertheless. She pictured playing house with Annie, both insisting on being mothers, cooking pretend food and dusting mini-furniture. Emma couldn’t remember what kind of closet space their imaginary house had, or whether it had featured a dishwasher, although she knew for sure no sketchy landlord figured into the scenario; playing house had been predicated on the belief that having a home was their manifest destiny, sacrosanct and certain.

The exhibit’s next room featured armies of toy soldiers, spinning plastic tops, and Radio Flyer wagons. “I’ll race you,” said Nick, eyeing a pair of scooters.

“I’d kick your butt,” Emma said, “but I also don’t want to get us kicked out.”

“Party pooper. And you’re mistaken, my friend. I had that exact scooter growing up and I was the fastest in the neighborhood.”

Emma pictured Nick as a little boy, racing down a broad street in that small Ohio suburb he grew up in, probably screeching to a halt to marvel at a bug on a flower petal, or to point out a cloud in an otherwise blue sky. In her imagination it was seventy degrees, sunny with a breeze. “I wish I’d known you as a kid,” she said, grabbing his hand.

They traipsed along like children, swinging their arms to and fro as they passed tin cars and rocking horses and model airplanes. Emma recited the singsongy chants that accompanied long-ago playground clapping games—
Ooh, aah, wanna piece of pie, pie too sweet, wanna piece o’ meat, meat too tough, wanna ride a bus . . .
and on and on with the nonsense rhymes that had wholly captivated her during childhood recesses.

They moved forward through the twentieth century, eventually reaching the eighties and nineties, and all the toys that Emma remembered lusting after through toy store windows: Moon Boots and Beanie Babies and Skip-Its and, a little later, slap bracelets and Tamagotchi pets. “Remember these?” Emma asked Nick, pointing to Kid Sister and My Buddy dolls. She and her brother had owned a pair of them.

Nick started right in on the product jingle: “My Buddy, my buddy, my buddy, my buddy, my buddy and me.” Emma joined in: “Kid Sister, kid sister, kid sister, kid sister, kid sister and me.” A nearby woman glared.

“It’s kind of bizarre to see the stuff of our childhoods on display in a museum, isn’t it?” Nick asked. “Like our old toys are relics of some long-ago time.”

“Yeah. Although in a way all of it does feel like ancient history.”

Outside the exhibit was an oversized chair, and people were queuing up to sit on it and have their
Alice in Wonderland
moment. Emma wasn’t interested, but Nick joined the line, saying he liked the idea of altering his sense of the world. At his turn, he hopped onto the giant chair, swinging his legs in the air, and asked Emma to take his picture. Emma found it off-putting to see Nick so out of proportion with his surroundings. He looked like a too-old child, or a too-young man. The photo she snapped was blurry, but she didn’t try again.

As they boarded the down escalator, Emma read from the exhibit wall: “The 1900s: Century of the Child.” “Funny,” she said, “that was literally the century of my childhood. I turned eighteen in the year 2000.” She pictured that birthday, when she and Annie had used fake IDs to get into a dive bar in Long Beach, and then spent the whole night exclaiming at how cool it was to be in a bar—not exactly a passage into maturity.

“So what are the 2000s?” Nick said. “The century of the old? Or of the tween?”

Emma thought of Nick posed on the oversized chair, and of herself trilling playground ditties from her past. “Uh, the century of the grown-ups who won’t grow up.”

Nick began singing, “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us kid. There’s a million toys at Toys ‘R’ Us that I can play with.”

“Come on, Peter Pan,” Emma said. “I have twenty-five minutes before my next client, and we’ve got a very adult task to take care of: picking out paint colors for our new walls.”

 

But Emma turned out to be wrong about the nature of the task. Scouring the hardware store for paint colors reminded her of picking out crayons to draw with as a kid.

Nick grabbed a handful of swatches: “For the bathroom, I’m thinking Pink Salmon. A nice, strong fishy smell will suit the place where we do our business.”

“Seriously, who comes up with these names?” Emma asked. She was thinking she’d be a pro at that job, and made a mental note to look into it.

“Or let’s see”—Nick flipped to a swatch of browns—“how about Dog’s Ear? Or Puppy’s Paw?”

Emma giggled. “Do they have Canine Slobber? That kind of iridescence would work better for the bathroom.”

“Look at this one, Dorian Gray. Never ages or chips!”

“You’re terrible.” Emma sorted through the strips in her hand. “How about Chilled Chardonnay? Might be too cold in the winter, though.”

“We could paint it over with Mulled Wine, hardy har. Here’s Final Straw. Perfect for the spare room. When you’re on your final straw, that’s where you go.”

“And our bedroom could be Lover’s Lagoon.” She held out a swatch.

“That awful color? I’d call it Swamp Vomit.”

“Or maybe you prefer a more collegiate look—this one’s Dartmouth Green.”

“How about these for the kitchen? Brown Mustard. Crème Brûlée. Fig. Or Bagel.”

“Bagel? Oy vey. Let’s accent it with Pink Salmon, and then all we need is some cream cheese and strong coffee for brunch.” Emma was laughing her head off. “You know who would love this? Gen. For a hot minute she worked at Revlon naming nail polishes. She called them things like ‘Pepto Pink’ and ‘Cockroach Copper,’ and was fired within a week.” Nick looked funny. Emma was about to ask what was wrong, but then her phone jumped in her pocket, distracting her. She saw a text from Luis, their new landlord:
My bro not free to fix holes in apt. You should hire a guy.

Emma tilted the screen to show Nick, whose face turned dark. “I thought he said his brother was the super.”

“I know.” Emma texted the question to Luis.

A moment later her phone buzzed with his response:
No super. Check your lease.
Emma’s gaze went to the swatches of gray, with names like Storm Cloud and Rocky Slope and Coal Smoke. Where was Silver Lining? she wondered.

“Shady asshole,” said Nick, and for a moment Emma thought he was reading out another paint swatch. Their playful game was over, and Emma had to return to work.

 

Emma’s next client, Dylan York, brought in a printout of Columbia’s application, and the two of them were now paging through it. “Your statement of interest is super-important if you’re applying early decision,” Emma said. “So tell me, why Columbia?”

“Well, it’s Annabelle’s dream school—that’s my girlfriend. And I hear it’s easier to get in early decision, so I think I may actually have a shot.”

“That’s what you’re planning to write about?” Emma asked, incredulous.

“Yeah, I mean, have you heard how some schools let twins apply together, so that the one who’s a stronger student can give a leg up to the weaker one? I’m hoping I can convince Columbia to do the same with Annabelle and me since we’re a couple. She’s got a perfect 4.0. Once she claimed she got a B-minus in Biology, but I found out she was just trying to make me feel better because she knew I had a B. So sweet, right?”

Emma didn’t know which point to address first: the boy’s ill-advised criteria for picking a college, his baffling approach to the admissions process, or the fact that his girlfriend was dumbing herself down in order to stroke his ego. “Dylan, look at me. You cannot tell Columbia that you want to attend because of your girlfriend of—what?—ten weeks?”

“Three months, actually. And fine. Then I’ll write about the architecture, or the sense of tradition, or whatever.”

“Sure.” Emma knew admissions officers could smell that kind of fakery from a mile away. “And if I were you, I’d think carefully about this whole following-your-girlfriend-to-college thing.” Emma couldn’t believe what was about to come out of her mouth: “Do your parents know about this?”

Dylan rolled his eyes. “Isn’t your job to help me get into whatever college I want, not to tell me which school that should be?”

“Touché. It’s just—”

“If you’re worrying about me, please don’t. If I don’t get in to Columbia, I’ll just drop Annabelle. No point wasting time before she shacks up with some Ivy League douchebag next fall. I know of at least three freshmen girls who are dying to get into my pants tonight.”

Emma was dumbfounded, even as she also knew that Dylan’s sudden brashness was just an act born of nerves. He was clearly feeling inferior to his high-achieving girlfriend, plus terrified that he couldn’t cut it at Columbia. About the latter point, he was probably right. But Emma restrained herself from saying so; she was the adult here, and it would behoove her not to rebut Dylan’s adolescent outburst with an insult of her own. Emma felt thankful that she was thirty, not seventeen, and that she’d found a boyfriend who didn’t seem threatened by her smarts. Then again, how intimidating could her intellect be when she spent her days getting ordered around by teenagers?