If We Lived Here (19 page)

“Oh, give me a break, Nick,” Emma said, forgetting to whisper. “Here we are, two decent, hardworking people surrounded by who knows who, in this interminable line that shows zero sign of moving. There’s this scene in
The House of Mirth
where Lily hits rock-bottom and has to start working as a hat maker, a job that’s far below her class—”

Nick could feel people staring. Now he was the one to whisper: “Emma, stop it. You are not some society lady-who-lunches stuck in a terrible tragedy. You’re not above anyone here. And
you’re
the one who wanted to pursue this in court, remember?”

“Well, I just thought—”

“What, that you’d get special treatment? That you’d be able to skip to the front of the line?” Emma pouted, and Nick realized he was being harsh; he was exhausted and taking it out on her. There was a reason he usually spent Thursday nights home alone, sans girlfriend. He worried what Thursdays would be like once they were living together.

A half hour later, when it was finally their turn at the window, Emma nudged Nick, pointing to a sign:
CASH ONLY. MUST HAVE EXACT CHANGE
!
NO EXCEPTIONS
!
ATM AT MCDONALD’S AROUND CORNER
. “I don’t have cash,” she said. “Do you?”

Nick felt so exasperated that he began laughing. “Of course not. And of course they wouldn’t think to mention this on the Web site, or at the start of the line.”

“Next!” snapped the clerk behind the glass. “I don’t have all day.”

“Come on,” Nick said, taking Emma’s hand. “Let’s go get some money.” Reluctantly they abandoned their hard-earned spot at the head of the line.

As the elevator bumped its way to the ground, Nick held his head between his legs. “This ain’t Edith Wharton territory, by the way. It’s Kafka.”

Emma was suddenly scratching at Nick’s back and arms. When he glanced at her, startled, she said, “I’ve metamorphosed into a cockroach. I’m crawling all over you.”

“Ah, Kafka.” It was a feeble attempt at a joke, but Nick went along with it. “You better disguise yourself before we hit McDonald’s. I don’t think they’re too fond of large existential bugs on their premises.” He kissed her on the forehead.

At the ATM, Nick avoided looking at his bank balance as he withdrew twenty dollars. He broke the bill on an Oreo McFlurry, a treat he knew Emma secretly preferred over the organic tart yogurt she often ate with Annie. Back upstairs, and back to the end of the line, Emma slurped at her dessert, which drew envious stares from the cranky kids; Nick was relieved when it was gone. The line did creep forward, although at the rate of a DMV, and occasionally Nick caught Emma re-afflicted with her Lily Bart look. “Cut it out,” he’d say, pinching her. “Return to real life, please.” In Nick’s opinion, Emma had been leaning on this escapist crutch for far too long; instead of facing life’s unpleasant and uncomfortable moments, instead of feeling them and dealing with them like a mature adult, Emma had the bad habit of slipping away from reality and envisioning herself as the heroine of some long-gone society with black-and-white rules, good guys and bad guys, and a beginning, middle, and end already written and memorialized. Nick felt that it would do Emma a world of good to give up her obsession with Wharton’s high society, once and for all.

After an hour of waiting the second time around, Nick and Emma finally reached the front of the line, only to discover that they could’ve completed the whole process online. “Although I’m not sure if we’ve updated the Web site to let you know that,” mentioned the clerk, double-checking that they’d handed him fifteen dollars. Their court date was set for October twenty-fifth, exactly four weeks away. Nick considered how, by then, they would’ve come and gone from Annie and Eli’s apartment, and they’d be settling into a new home, wherever it might be. It seemed not quite believable.

It was not until the next morning when Nick, hoping to finish the Barter Day preparations for his fifth graders, realized he’d forgotten to retrieve his scissors from the court. He imagined the officers issuing a warrant for the arrest of Edward Scissorhands, with the charge of “abandoning a potential weapon, willy-nilly, on the premises.” This made Nick snort out a laugh, although he did worry, irrational as he knew it was, that they’d dust the scissors for fingerprints.

 

“So Emma’s a racist, huh?” Carl asked, sucking at a juice box.

“Not racist, exactly.” Nick had visited his friend’s office to vent about the courthouse experience. He’d brought along his pet, Mensa.

“I mean, you’re either racist or you’re not, right?”

“I think it’s more like, everyone she works with is in the top one percent—superwealthy and privileged and, yeah, for the most part Caucasian.”

“So she’s classist, then. Almost as bad.” Carl tossed a handful of animal crackers into his mouth, then held out a giraffe for Mensa; the gerbil grabbed at its neck in nibbles. Carl had clearly stolen his snack stash from the kindergarten supply closet.

“It’s not that simple,” said Nick. “I dunno, the whole thing just made me uneasy.”

“Because you’re secretly a racist and a classist, too, obviously. Don’t deny it, dude. I know you get nervous walking to school early in the morning in the winter, when it’s dark out and the streets are empty and at any moment someone might jump out and mug you like, POW!” Carl leaped forward in his seat and mock-punched Nick. Nick’s breath caught in his throat and Mensa emitted a squeak, then scurried down his leg. Carl erupted in laughter, cracker crumbs spewing from his mouth. “Just screwing with you, man. I know you’re not like that. But seriously, dude, fuck the courts. After working for the goddamned government all these years, I can’t believe you haven’t learned your lesson that everything in the public sector is a total cluster-fuck. Maybe Emma doesn’t know any better, but you should. If I were you I’d forget about the few Gs you lost and save yourself the hassle of dealing with the system’s bullshit.”

“That’s exactly what Wade said.”

“Who’s Wade?”

“Some Upper East Side trust-fund kid. From a party.”

“Ah yes, Wade. Anyway, my point is, I don’t think this is about the money. Emma needs this court case to pursue some sense of justice, and I’m guessing that’s because her job of abetting rich people who throw mountains of money at the college process is not very fulfilling. You, my friend, are toiling on the ground day in and day out in pursuit of social justice, so you don’t need to stick it to one shitty landlord to feel like your life has meaning. If you ask me, you should talk to Emma and convince her to drop the case. Otherwise you’ve got a whole load of crap ahead of you.”

Nick wasn’t used to Carl saying anything of any value, never mind sharing actual wisdom. “I’ll think about it,” he said. And he would.

“Want some more advice?”

“I know you’re going to give it to me either way, but be quick because the kids are back from gym in four minutes.”

“It’s a fucking cesspool out there, and soon it’s gonna be flu season. Load up on Vitamin C while you can.” Carl tossed Nick two juice boxes. “One for you, and one for the furry guy. Now get the hell out of my office. Scram.”

 

When Emma burst into Nick’s apartment that night, bearing an armful of flattened boxes she’d gathered from the curb, and speed-talking about the document she’d gotten José’s father to sign about bearing witness to the bedbug infestation, Nick knew there was no point in suggesting they drop the case. Plus, it was easy to get caught up in her excitement—she’d already organized and filed all the relevant documents into an accordion folder, like his own personal Julianna Margulies from
The Good Wife
. She seemed confident they’d make Luis look like a fool before the judge.

Emma went on about all of this as she reconstructed the boxes, wielding the packing tape like a pro, and Nick was grateful for his girlfriend’s energy. All week he’d been putting off packing. Not only would Emma’s brother be arriving in two days to haul their stuff over to Annie and Eli’s, but on the same day Nick would have to forfeit the keys to his apartment. It was hard to imagine, after seven years in the same spot. He’d tried to convey to Emma how big of a deal this was, how his stalling on packing was out of sentimentality and not just sloth, but she’d gone directly to his gaming console and touched the top; her frown indicating it was still warm. The disappointed-mom look was not becoming on her. Nick knew she wouldn’t understand that the video games and the sentiment were connected—yes, Nick had given in to giving up his single life, but he felt a right to cling to it until the last possible moment.

Nick watched helplessly as Emma refolded each of his shirts and sweaters—somewhere she’d learned to do this in the fancy department store way—and then stacked them into boxes. “I cannot believe you still have some of these,” she said. “Surely it’s time to ditch the 1992 Science Fair T-shirt with a hole in the armpit.”

“Don’t you dare get rid of that,” Nick said. “My wind-powered rollercoaster won second place in ’92.”

Emma raised her eyebrows and made a show of folding the shirt extra carefully. Nick knew she was joking, playing the part of the exasperated girlfriend—but he feared part of her was more serious than she let on. He changed the subject: “So listen, Em, my school’s launching this new tutoring program to help kids apply to the city’s top middle schools. Carl of all people issued a survey, and it turns out eighty-four percent of our students don’t get any help on their apps. That means almost all of them get funneled into the crappy local schools, even when they could get into better ones.”

“Uh-huh.” Emma had moved onto Nick’s pants, tugging out each pair’s crotch before bending the overlapping legs into thirds. She wasn’t really listening.

“So they’re looking for a coordinator,” Nick went on. “It’s a part-time position—”

Emma wheeled around. “Nick, you are not seriously thinking of taking on another activity at that school, are you? What is it, a five-hundred-dollar stipend for five hundred hours of work? Is Carl pressuring you into this? I am so sick of them pushing you around.”

“Oh, well, I was thinking of it for you.”

“Me?” She stopped folding. “What do you mean?”

“You’re always talking about how your clients are spoiled and overprivileged, and how ridiculous it is that their parents hire them a tutor for every single subject—”

“I’m not always saying that.” Nick knew she would act defensive. He waited, and eventually she put down the pants. “Some of them, fine, but most of them are just kids. With those kinds of parents, anyone would grow up spoiled.”

“That makes sense. But what if you did both, if you cut back at
1, 2, 3 . . . Ivies,
and took on this position, where the kids could really use your help?”

“My kids can use my help.”

“I know, but—”

“Just because they’re wealthy doesn’t mean they don’t need help. Most of the Hellis believe throwing money at a problem makes it disappear, and that approach makes their kids totally unfit for the real world, or just plain terrified. They think because their parents are sinking tens of thousands of dollars into college prep tutoring that if they don’t get into Harvard then they’ll be total failures, doomed to mediocrity, unable to ever afford the army of staff they’ve grown up to believe is essential to managing their lives. I help them with their SATs and essays, but more than that I’m their source of support, their counselor and big sister and cheerleader. I assure them it’ll be okay, Ivy League acceptance or not, despite the company name. And these kids need that. Plus, I figure if they’re going to be running the world someday, with all their inherited money and influence, they might as well have some empathy and humility, too—and I’d like to think I have something to do with teaching them those things.”

It felt like the end of a speech, and Nick began slow-clapping. He was impressed.

“What?” Emma blushed.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you talk about your job without apologizing for it or making fun of it or denigrating it as total B.S. Turns out my Emma Feit is providing a real service, and you’re proud of yourself. I like it!”

“Plus,” said Emma, smirking, “if I worked with your students instead of mine, what kind of holiday presents would I get?”

“One kid once got me a five-dollar gift card to Popeye’s.”

“Hmm, tempting.”

“But seriously, think about it. You could do both jobs, really.”

Now Emma changed the subject. “Next up is to pack your comic books. Where’d you put them?” Nick’s stacks of comics had been a contentious topic for the move—Emma hadn’t been shy in grumbling about how much space they’d occupy in their new place, wherever the two of them ended up. Nick had planned to surprise her with the bookshelf he’d set up in his classroom: a comic book lending library for the kids.

“Come here.” He pulled up a photo of it on his phone.

“Aw, sweet,” said Emma. “Too bad I sold my soul to the devil to get you a new comics subscription.” Nick had no idea what she was talking about. “O. Henry, get it? It’s a gift of the magi.”

“Ah, I see. Well, I got you a welcome mat, but you no longer have an apartment.”

“Not funny. Anyway, that’s so thoughtful. The kids are going to love your comics collection.” She wrapped her arms around him. “Ugh, I’m sick of packing all your stuff. I can’t believe you roped me into this.”

“Hey, you roped yourself. I didn’t ask you to do a thing.”

“Either way, I’m done for the night. How about Scrabble, a tournament for the final weekend in our single-person apartments?”

“Bring it.”

And so, among the boxes and half-packed contents of Nick’s apartment, they each took seven tiles and began arranging and rearranging them into viable words on their racks. Distracted as he was by this being their last round of Scrabble in his soon-to-be-abandoned bachelor pad, Nick knew he didn’t stand a chance.