If We Lived Here (29 page)

“Because the entire city shut down!” Max said impatiently. “Not just the beehives! Did you not hear Emma? Her whole neighborhood has been obliterated, and after all she went through to find an apartment.” So this was Max’s apology, his standing up for her to their parents. Emma felt grateful.

“And you guys should see Alysse,” she said, trying to return the favor. “She’s been cooking for the whole block, like, restaurant-style. She could be a professional chef.”

“That Alysse has always been resourceful,” said their mom. “It’s a good thing we installed that high-quality oven back in the nineties.”

“El horno está bueno,”
said their dad. “Anyway, Emma, Sophia and I have been having a ball practicing our Spanish, and she told me all about her application to the art program. That girl thinks the world of you.” That was flattering to hear. Emma missed Sophia; in fact, she was surprised to realize that she missed many of her clients. After a week out of the office, she was itching to get back. “Mom and I were thinking how fun it would be to get more involved with teenagers, how energizing they can be.”

“Not all of them,” Emma said. “Sophia’s sort of an exception.”

“Ooh, maybe you guys could start an after-school beekeeping club for at-risk teens,” Max interjected. “I bet all those stings would be very character building.”

“You could sell honey cakes at the bakery and donate the surplus,” Emma added. “Food banks are probably dying for shipments of top-notch, artisanal honey.”

“That’s an idea,” their dad said, smirking. “Your mother and I would look dashing in those beekeeping suits. The hoods are very hip now, right, hon?”

“All right, enough,” said their mom. “That’s the last time I tell the three of you an interesting news story. But, Emma, seriously, if you’re up for it, we were talking about investing in you to start up your own tutoring venture.”

“And then you could call the shots on the type of clientele. Not just kids from Park Avenue.”

“You could expand to Madison and Lexington, perhaps,” Max said.

“Well, my point is,” said their dad, “you could broaden beyond the rich families who you say are always trying to buy their kids’ way into top colleges. And maybe you wouldn’t have to deal with those—what do you call them?—Hellios?”

“Hellis,” Emma said. She was surprised to hear her dad repeat back all of this information; she’d never been sure he was listening when she talked about her job.

“Right, Hellis. It was actually Sophia’s idea, investing in a company for you. She thought you might hire her on as an online tutor so she could earn some extra cash next year.” Emma smiled at Sophia’s savvy. She would actually be quite a good tutor.

“Well, it’s something to think about,” Emma said. The idea of being her own boss was intriguing, although she thought of Max’s accusation, that she never stuck with any job for very long. She’d only been with
1, 2, 3 . . . Ivies!
for a year.

“Max-y, did the kids get our Halloween package? We sent it last week.”

“Yes, thanks, Mom. They really loved it.”

“Oh, good. Emma, I don’t think there’s any hope of your receiving our recent goodies for you, considering the weather and all.” She looked stricken. Emma thought again of Shelley saying she had their mail, how absurd it was that she’d probably get the knickknacks from her parents when the rest of her stuff might be destroyed. Hopefully the package included a water damage restoration kit. “All right, kiddos. We’ve got to get up early. The challahs won’t bake themselves. No rest for the weary.”

After they signed off, Max began laughing. “God, they’re obsessed with those idiotic care packages.”

“Speaking of which, I haven’t heard a peep from the kids about the package you claimed they loved so much.”

“That’s because it went straight in the trash. Mom sent face paint that’s totally toxic. Plus enough candy to fill a convenience store. The kids, not to mention their teeth, don’t need all that junk.”

“You’re kind of nuts, you know,” Emma said.

“I’m not the one considering going into business with Mom and Dad. You’re the crazy one.”

“No, Mom and Dad are crazy,” Emma said.

“You’re right. Mom and Dad are crazy.” After a moment Max said, “So would you really do that, have them invest in you?”

“I don’t know, maybe. It would be nice to be able to take on other kinds of clients, and charge them on a sliding scale. Nick’s starting this tutoring program at his school that he wants me to help run. Maybe this would allow me to do that, join forces somehow.”

“I bet you’d be great at running your own business.”

“Really? That means a lot.”

“Well, it’s true.” It felt strange to be so polite with each other, but at least they were working their way back to solid ground. “I’ll help you with any legal stuff, as long as you agree to take on the kids as clients one day, with a family discount, of course.”

“We better get on that. In my professional opinion, kids do best on the SATs when they start studying by age three—four at the latest.”

“Darn, I guess Caleb’s already screwed. Maybe we just forget the whole thing and resign ourselves to third-tier state schools. That would save me a few hundred grand.”

“Yeesh, the cost of college tuition.”

“Yeah, it stinks. Every once in a while I think of cashing out the kids’ savings accounts and blowing it all on a Ferrari.”

“Alysse would be thrilled.”

“I’d get her something, too. A necklace, maybe.”

“She deserves more than a necklace for spending all day, every day with those nutso kids of yours. One morning alone with them and I was kind of ready to kill them.”

“Nice, Em. If Caleb and Aimee get murdered, now I’ll know who to blame.”

“What’s
muh-duh?
” Aimee appeared at the desk and climbed onto her dad’s lap.

“Ah, that explanation seems most fitting for a father to give,” said Emma. She mussed her niece’s hair and got up. Max flung a pen at her back as she walked away.

Chapter
29

B
y Saturday, Emma felt as if she and Nick had moved in with Max’s family. She’d been helping Alysse with a food drive, and Nick was making progress teaching Caleb his letters. But Emma knew they were stalling the inevitable return to Brooklyn, avoiding going home and facing reality. Nick’s school was set to reopen on Monday, as was
1, 2, 3 . . . Ivies!
So on Sunday afternoon, they all piled into the minivan, along with a box of clothing and food that Alysse had packed for them, and set out for Red Hook.

They were quiet for most of the ride—even the kids seemed to sense the foreboding. Eventually Max flipped on NPR. They were airing an interview with a Brooklyn Grange beekeeper about his destroyed hives. Max and Emma began laughing hysterically. Caleb and Aimee caught the mood and started giggling, too.

“What’s so funny?” Alysse asked. “I think it’s pretty sad about the bees.”

“Who knows?” said Nick. “Apparently a Feit inside joke.”

Their laughter died down as they turned off the BQE and the smell of gasoline kicked in. “Mommy, it stinks,” Aimee whined. Alysse shushed her. Entering Red Hook, Max slowed the car and they all peered out the windows at the wreckage. The scene didn’t seem quite real, as if it were a series of dioramas in a museum instead of Emma and Nick’s own neighborhood. The sidewalks were littered with debris, waterlogged furniture, and the occasional overturned car. The sides of buildings featured watermarks sometimes higher than the heads of passersby. Emma wasn’t sure if she was imagining that everyone looked exhausted, beaten down. Certain street corners were mobbed with people—those handing out supplies and those taking them. It felt like a third-world country, and Emma remembered Max’s comments, how he’d ridiculed her for moving to such a shithole. Now he said nothing.

When the car pulled up to their address, the noxious odor had become intense. “You guys can come back to Westchester if you want,” Max said. “You could commute into the city with me. There are early trains to get you to school on time, Nick.”

“Thanks, but no, we’ll be all right,” Emma said. Aimee had started whimpering again, and Caleb was becoming agitated, asking over and over what they were doing there. “You better get going before the troops revolt.”

“I can come inside for a few minutes to help if you want.”

“Daddy!” Aimee shrieked. “I wanna go home!” Max shot her a stern look.

“I think the people have spoken,” Nick said, shaking Max’s hand and then scooching out of the car. Emma leaned in to hug her brother, and they each held on for an extra beat. The great thing about siblings, Emma thought, was that no matter what you said or how much you pissed each other off, your bond was like an elastic, snapping you inevitably back together.

“Nice hair piece,” Max said. Emma touched her head and felt the fuzzy fabric of her niece’s barrette.

“Oh, this is Aimee’s.” She unclipped it and handed it over. Aimee shook her head.

“That’s a present for you. You’re a wise girl.”

Emma touched her niece on the nose. “No, you’re the wise girl.”

“Aimee and Emma, Emma and Aimee.”

“That’s right. Aimee and Emma, Emma and Aimee. Bye, you guys. See you very, very soon.” She bonked her niece and nephew on the heads, one per “very.”

Emma and Nick stood there waving even after the minivan had pulled out of sight. If they could freeze themselves in this moment, Emma thought, then they wouldn’t have to face the next one. Eventually Nick turned toward her. “Ready?” he said. Emma felt a twinge in her stomach, but let him take her hand. She realized it had been over a week since they’d been alone together.

Inside the apartment, Emma felt as if it was her first time there. It smelled musty and the wood floor had warped into sloping hills. It didn’t seem like a space where they, or anybody, might live. Nick flipped on the light switch and it took a moment before the main bulb flickered on, revealing pockets of water bubbled behind the wall’s paint and items scattered around the floor. Mostly their moving boxes were still stacked where they’d left them, although now they slumped in various states of damp and collapse.

Emma felt the need to tiptoe as she surveyed the scene, as if wary of doing more damage. The place was in bad but not terrible shape—the couch and chairs were soggy, but the metal table and bed frame looked fine, solidly standing and rust-free. The electronics were obviously done for. Emma nearly broke down imagining her waterlogged laptop, until she considered Nick’s video-game console, now caput, and how much she’d stressed about the possibility of him spending all his time in their shared home gaming. It was funny how the things you worried about rarely materialized; it was the things you never could’ve anticipated that actually went wrong.

Emma glanced over at Nick, who was poking at a pocket of water trapped in the wall and whistling—actually
whistling.
She felt a flash of anger and, in sudden despair, tore at a rip in one of the moving boxes. The box split open and out tumbled a pile of shirts and sweaters, and along with it a strong stench of mold. Emma spotted her purple tunic, and reached to pull it out. Her favorite top was now damp and distended, and splotches of discoloration lined the hem.

And then Emma lost it. Her knees buckled and her throat clenched with sobs. She clutched at the ruined shirt, which she’d bought years ago, long before she’d met Nick. She ran through a slideshow of all the times she’d worn it, its delicate silk swishing like little kisses against her skin, its sleek silhouette making her feel pretty and glamorous. She pictured nights out with Annie and department parties at Cornell and those early-on dates with Nick, so heady with promise.

Nick.
Emma reeled around to find her boyfriend surveying a shelf of books. He was still whistling, his tune jaunty and light, like at any moment he might start tap-dancing. Emma felt furious. “Do you not even care that our lives are ruined?” she spat.

“What?” He turned to face her, his eyes going suddenly sad; Emma had started whimpering again and she held out the tunic. “Oh, Emma. Hey, shhh, it’s okay. Our lives aren’t ruined. This is all stuff.” He made a sweeping gesture. “It’s all just stuff.”

“It’s not just stuff,” she said. “I had this on when I told Annie I was leaving grad school to move here. And I wore it the first time we went to the Botanic Gardens—you said the color made my eyes look violet. It means something to me. All of it does.”

Nick was nodding, but he didn’t look sympathetic; he looked impatient. “Okay, so you can take it to the dry cleaners, baby.” The term of endearment made Emma flinch.

“You don’t get it, do you?” She darted into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. She flashed on an idea of Nick as a hurricane, intent on destroying their lives—and not just their stuff. For the past week Emma had pushed from her mind the images of him and Gen, focused as she was on the storm and staying at Max’s. But now that she was back in their wrecked home, the place where the two of them were supposed to start a new chapter together, the nausea returned: Nick had cheated on her. Yes, he felt awful about it; Emma didn’t doubt that. But the fact was, he’d done it. It’s not like it was always easy for Emma to be in a relationship, like she never felt stifled or bored by monogamy, like she wasn’t sometimes tempted to fall into bed with a cute guy who gave her a certain look across a bar. But the point was, she’d never given in to those whims. She’d never lost sight of the wreckage and hurt that such a misstep would cause. She’d never been so selfish or stupid.

Nick was knocking on the bathroom door. “What?” she shouted.

“I found something behind the counter.” Emma cracked the door. Nick was standing there, holding up her charm bracelet, the one he’d been adding to for each of her birthdays and other special occasions. A part of Emma wanted to say something nasty, like that the next charm should be a cell phone so they’d never forget his dalliance with Gen, another great milestone in their relationship. But Nick looked more than repentant; he looked devastated. So Emma held out her wrist. Nick’s fingers were delicate with the clasp, and the charms clinked against one another like wind chimes. The silver was shiny, as if the storm water had polished it; the star, the miniature book, the thimble-sized champagne flute, and the Edith Wharton figurine all glinted in the light. “Beautiful,” Nick said, kissing her hand.

“Nick,” Emma started, water again pooling in her eyes.

“So much has been ruined, I know,” he said. He took her shoulders and met her gaze. “I’m going to do everything I can for us to rebuild what we had.” Emma nodded, and he wiped the tears from her cheeks. She nodded again, resolving to let him try.

 

For dinner they opened a can of pineapple rings and another of peaches in syrup. As Emma stabbed at a slimy peach with her plastic fork, she thought of all the elaborate meals her sister-in-law had fed them that week. Now she and Nick were perched on a countertop slurping at juice from tin cans. But it didn’t feel awful, exactly. It felt like starting over. Emma glanced at Nick, who was poking his tongue through a pineapple ring. She leaned in and bit off chunks until the remainder fell away and slopped to the ground. “Storm debris,” she said. “We’ll clean it up later.” Nick kissed her, his mouth pineapple-sweet, and Emma felt a surge of love. For the moment this all felt okay—her boyfriend, their relationship, this mess of an apartment, their life.

When the doorbell’s mechanical beep sounded, Emma started—it was strange that the buzzer system still worked, considering the collapse of everything else. Peering through the peephole, she saw their landlady, Shelley, waving energetically. She opened the door and Shelley lunged in for a hug. “You’re okay!” she yelped.

“We are, we just got back. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, too.” Shelley handed Emma a laminated index card, nearly identical to the one she’d given them when they first moved in, the one labeled,
Shelley’s best ratings!!!
This card also listed local venues, but instead of bars and restaurants it was supply pickup spots and pop-up soup kitchens. Emma read from the
Bonus!
section at the bottom:
IKEA serving breakfast all week. Free! Cinnamon buns so sweet!

“Also, you have not had good time as tenants so far,” Shelley said. “No heat, water everywhere, electricity on and off—they say for many more weeks, maybe.” As if on cue, the apartment went dark. They heard someone yell, “Goddamn it, again?” from across the airshaft. A moment later the lights flickered back on. “Let there be light,” Shelley said, slapping her knee. “Anyway, I decide to give you free rent for the first two weeks, okay? And here’s your mail. I like
People
magazine, too.”

“Thanks,” Emma said, not quite believing what she’d heard. “For everything. I’d offer you a drink, but all we have is bottled water.”

“No, no, I get out of your hairs. Got to go give out my little cards.” And then Shelley flitted away, like some kind of fairy spirit.

“Is she for real?” Emma asked.

“I think we may have found the one decent landlord in all of New York City,” said Nick. “Speaking of which . . .” He pointed to the two letters on top of the stack of mail—both from the court. “I can’t look. You better do the honors.”

As Emma tore open the letters, Nick flipped through an L.L. Bean catalog, his nonchalant air clearly an act. Emma peered over his shoulder; nearly half the pages were filled with rain jackets and water-resistant gear, which seemed like a practical joke.

Emma turned her attention back to the court letters and scrutinized the legal jargon. “Well,” she finally said, fairly certain she’d gleaned the correct meaning. “We won every penny we asked for. Yay! But Luis is appealing. Boo!”

And then they were both laughing. Of course this would be the result; of course they would win, only not really; of course Luis would continue to cast a cloud over their lives. Emma thought of that silly friend of Sophia’s, the one who was making his way through law school one course per semester, who’d warned her of the long, painful, paperwork-filled process these court cases always were. Nick swatted the letters from Emma’s hand, and they flitted to the floor. “Storm debris,” he said.

The electricity cut out again, and Nick laid one of their borrowed blankets across the damp couch. He took Emma’s hand, and reluctantly she let him pull her down beside him. Without the hum of electronics, all she could hear was the sound of their breath and the tinkling of her charm bracelet. Emma felt happy. When it was time for sleep, she pulled another blanket on top of them, tucking it tight like a cocoon. “How’s this for being socially conventional,” she said. “Just how you imagined our shacking up together, right?”

“Exactly. You know, we could get some cats and a few creepy knickknacks and open a bed-and-breakfast. We already have the musty smell and the rotting furniture.”

“Emma and Nick’s Ramshackle Paradise.”

“Emma and Nick’s Storm-Ravaged Haven.”

“Emma and Nick’s Waterfront Wasteland.”

“Emma and Nick’s Happy Home.”

Emma fell asleep in Nick’s arms, the names of all these imaginary places pinging merrily about her head.

 

When Emma arrived at work the next morning, she was so focused on slipping past Gen’s desk undetected that she nearly tripped over the basket in her office doorway. It was filled with bottled water, batteries and candles, plus several kits meant to dry out wet electronics. Her boss popped her head in. “Oh, good, you saw our little care package.”

“This is so generous, Quinn.”

“Oh, everyone pitched in. The rest of us live uptown, where Sandy was just a little rainstorm.” Tucked among the supplies Emma spotted a bag of Swedish Fish, and pulled it out. “Genevieve said those are your favorite,” Quinn said. Emma felt a pang, no longer wanting the gummies. “Anyway, let me know if you need to cut out early this week to deal with whatever. I can cover your clients.”