New York for Beginners (4 page)

“The heat wave will have the city in its grip again today until it’s expected to break in the early afternoon following heavy thunderstorms,” the spiffy young sidewalk chef reported dramatically. Based on his level of enthusiasm and the time of day, Zoe thought he must have been an intern. “It’s 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday here in front of Rockefeller Center, and it’s already 91 degrees. Today’s high temperature will be 106.”

Then he said something about public air-conditioned spaces for people who were too hot in their own homes.
For people like me
, Zoe thought, and turned off the TV. She rolled over and buried her face in the sweaty sheet. Her stomach started growling, first softly, and then more insistently. She couldn’t get the damn eggs from the news out of her mind. Fried eggs, scrambled eggs, poached eggs. She wanted eggs for breakfast. Preferably American-style eggs, sunny-side up. And she wanted them now! Hadn’t the half-secretary asked her to make a shopping list for New York before she left? Somewhere between buying the garden cress seeds and her new glasses, Zoe had forgotten. She forced herself to get out of bed and dragged herself into the kitchen. She was still sweating. Her bare feet slid a little with each step on the smooth parquet floor.

At least there was a shiny espresso machine on the kitchen counter, complete with a milk frother and a pyramid of colored capsules. That improved her mood a little, because without coffee in the morning, Zoe was helpless. As she opened the double doors of the huge American refrigerator that could easily have held rations for a family of eight, she discovered a bottle of champagne. A Post-it note was stuck next to the Veuve Clicquot label. “Dare to be foolish, xoxo, Al,” it read. Zoe had to laugh. If Allegra had been here now, she would surely have opened the bottle. Zoe pirouetted once in front of the pleasantly cold fridge, took out the bottle, and discovered eggs, bacon, butter, and even a can of ready-bake breakfast rolls behind it. It seemed her half-secretary deserved a wholehearted thank-you.

Zoe turned on the oven to 350 degrees for the rolls, as directed on the package. In Celsius, 350 degrees would have turned them to ash in short order. But it was probably correct in Fahrenheit. Then she chose a frying pan for the eggs and bacon. She turned on the gas stove, let a piece of butter melt in the pan, and threw in a couple of eggs. The bacon went in next. Cooking made her sweat even more. Zoe mopped her forehead with a kitchen towel. She felt like she was in a big industrial kitchen somewhere in India. But it was still better than air-conditioning-induced hypothermia.

Just as she was about to choose a coffee from the pile of colored capsules, she was shocked out of the deliberation process by a shrieking alarm, combined with a blinking red light! And all that directly over her head. Was that round, white plastic thing on the ceiling a smoke alarm? It must have been, but what in God’s name was it doing above the stove?

“Only Americans would have the crazy idea to put a smoke alarm directly over a stove!” Zoe shouted. Her voice was drowned out by the alarm. “In! A! Kitchen! Where you cook! How am I supposed to turn the thing off?”

She made a valiant leap onto the countertop and stood up slowly from a crouching position, stabilizing herself with one hand while using the other to block at least one of her ears. The noise that the little round device was making was ear-shattering in the truest sense of the word. But there was still a good yard and a half between the tips of Zoe’s fingers and the ceiling.

Now it began to smell strange in the kitchen, somehow singed. No, burned! From her bird’s-eye view, Zoe looked down in annoyance at the frying pan on the stove. In her effort to turn off the smoke alarm, Zoe had completely forgotten about the pan. Instead of eggs and bacon, she saw little black clumps with flames shooting out of them.

Shit, shit, shit!
That was the only thing that went through her mind as she jumped down from the counter again, sprinted to the apartment door, tore it open, and ran out into the hall. The next door was 47A, and Zoe beat on it with both fists.

“Hello, is anyone there? My kitchen’s on fire! I need help!”

The smell of smoke was in the air, and the smoke alarm was still squawking as the door to 47A was flung open so fast that the handle smashed into the wall behind it, certainly leaving a dent.

“What the fuh . . . ?” a sleep-befuddled guy said. He was wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else, and had the upper body of a swimmer. Unfortunately, Zoe didn’t have time to admire his physique.

Zoe gestured wordlessly at her door, her eyes wide. The neighbor understood and sprinted into her apartment. Zoe heard him throw the pan into the sink and douse it with water, which made it hiss and pop. She remained at a safe distance in the hall, near the elevator. After all, you couldn’t be too careful with fire. Finally, the alarm stopped. Zoe breathed a sigh of relief. And then she realized she was wearing only her bra and panties. And they didn’t even match: dark blue, no-name-brand cotton panties with a yellow, flowered Calvin Klein bra. Her grandmother had always warned her: “Make sure you wear decent underwear, child! You never know when you’ll end up in the hospital!”

The thought drifted out of her mind, like the echoes of a song that had just ended on an iPod, as the neighbor strode back out into the hall a little too smugly for Zoe’s taste. Somehow he reminded her of Patrick Dempsey from
Grey’s Anatomy
. But bigger. His hair was rumpled from jumping straight out of bed, and he had the same innate self-assurance as TV neurosurgeon Dr. Derek Shepherd, who went by the well-deserved nickname of McDreamy.

“Hi, I’m Tom,” McNeighbor said, extending his hand to Zoe. Despite not wearing a shirt, he was completely nonchalant.

“Thanks. Uh, hi. I’m Zoe,” she stammered, still not wearing matching underwear, and completely embarrassed. She suppressed her flight reflex with difficulty. This bearer of XY chromosomes would surely see it as ungratefulness if she ran back into her apartment and slammed the door. But doing so would have been justified, considering the fact that she hadn’t showered after sweating all night, was wearing no makeup, and was basically naked.

“Since I’m completely awake now anyway, and I saved your life, you’re welcome to invite me over for breakfast, Zoe,” McNeighbor said with a grin, giving her a blatant once-over from top to toe.

“OK” was all Zoe managed to say.

“You can also put on some clothes, but only if you really want to.”

Zoe had already opened her mouth for another “OK” but stopped herself when her brain caught up with her mouth a fraction of a second later.

“And turn on the air-conditioning. Otherwise the damn fire alarm will start again.”

Zoe turned on the unruly air-conditioner again. Fortunately, the smoke had dissipated fairly fast, and her apartment didn’t smell as bad as she thought it would. The water was still running into the frying pan in the sink. The only victim of the mishap was a kitchen towel. McNeighbor had used it as a potholder to remove the flaming pan.

What was the plan of action? Shower, put on matching lace underwear as a purely preventative measure, and text Allegra just in case McNeighbor turned out to be an ax murderer and the FBI had to reconstruct the last moments of Zoe’s life. She turned on her phone, which made a series of melodic pings as new texts arrived. All of them were from Benni.

where are u, zoe? we have 2 talk!

zoe, let’s b reasonable. it’s not going 2 help

where’s the tv? and the fridge? and

are u nuts? what did u do 2 the rug?

are u insane? an obituary? my parents were completely

WHERE THE HELL R U?

Benni Nigmann. How far away the Big Nice Nothing suddenly felt. Like something from another lifetime. She would never forgive him for leaving her for someone else. For an avatar, to be precise. It
had
all started on the Internet. Zoe deleted the rest of his texts without reading them. BNN was
history
. Zoe texted Allegra with glee:

Breakfast with 47A. Delicious!

After showering, Zoe tied back her damp hair in a loose knot and slipped into a raspberry-colored linen dress. Then there was a knock at her door. McNeighbor stood in the doorway, dressed in a simple white T-shirt and jeans, with a big paper bag and a copy of
The
New York Times
under his arm. He’d brought bagels, cream cheese, orange juice, and even fruit salad.

“
Der Mann ist Heiratsmaterial,
” Zoe let slip out in German. The man was husband material.

“Excuse me?” McNeighbor said with a wonderful lopsided grin. His hair was still standing up in all directions.

Bed head
, Zoe thought, remembering what the Americans called it. “Oh, nothing,” she mumbled, and invited him inside.

They ate their breakfast, and Tom wanted to know more about Zoe, so she started talking. He smiled again when she told him she already missed her two cats, Carrie and Mr. Big, but she had to wait until she found an apartment before she could have them brought over. He leaned toward her with interest when she admitted that she definitely wanted to move to Nolita—preferably Mott Street—because that’s where Café Gitane was and you could watch interesting people on Saturday mornings, before all the tourists showed up with their cheap sneakers and fanny packs. Tom obviously knew how to listen. He laughed at all the right moments. That motivated her. Zoe was a triple Gemini, and according to her horoscope, that meant that she loved an attentive audience, because she liked to tell amusing stories about her life. She was also a Mercury in Gemini, and Mercury was the planet of communication. In other words, Zoe Schuhmacher was a natural-born communicator.

Because—according to her inner clock—it was afternoon, and at home in Berlin she and Allegra would have already switched to something harder than orange juice, Zoe and Tom opened the bottle of champagne.

“Tell me five completely unrelated facts about yourself,” Zoe said, her eyes glittering.

“When I walk under streetlights, they often go out.”

“How mysterious. Do you have magical powers?”

“Who knows?”

“Next!”

“I just got back from England yesterday.”

“I just got in from Germany.”

“I thought so. Eco-friendly air-conditioning hater with a charming accent.”

“I can’t believe you find my accent charming! In American movies, only Nazis talk like me.”

Tom laughed. “Christoph Waltz was extremely charming in
Inglourious Basterds
.”

“And he ended up with a swastika engraved on his forehead.”

Tom laughed again.

At least I seem to amuse him,
Zoe thought, suddenly feeling strangely satisfied with herself.

“You’re never at a loss for an answer, are you, my dear?” Tom said.

“And you, my dear, still owe me three unrelated facts.”

“Let me think. I generally never wear ties.”

“And I own a hundred and twenty-nine pairs of shoes.”

“That’s totally . . .”

“Crazy?”

“I actually wanted to say ‘female.’”

“Thank you for your understanding. That’s very gentlemanly of you.”

While McNeighbor refilled their champagne glasses, Zoe let herself steal a good look at him. His brilliant-blue eyes, high cheekbones, and enviably long lashes lent him the brooding air of a sensitive, bohemian type. He sat so naturally on the kitchen chair that one could get the impression he wasn’t a guest there, but that the apartment, or even the entire building, belonged to him. This man radiated the self-assurance of someone who knew for certain that he would always be on the winning side of life. He was the kind of person who had an almost seismographic sensitivity about when to leave a party, a job, or a relationship, before the mood changed. It was a kind of self-assurance that couldn’t be achieved with a good upbringing, excellent education, or money. You had to be born with it.

“And my middle name is Prescott,” Tom said.

“Very classy. And by the way, you’re the first man who’s ever pronounced my name correctly at the first attempt. ZOH-y, and not ZOO-y, like the zoo. Germans always get it wrong.”

“I must also be the first man who ever saved your life.”

“Let’s not overdo it, Prince Charming. Or did you park your white horse in the hall?”

“Who knows, princess?”

McNeighbor looked at her thoughtfully. He slowly lifted his hand, leaned in, and pushed a strand of hair out of her face. Then he kissed her. Just because.

First he kissed her a little tentatively, as though he actually expected her to object, and then passionately. And above all, he kissed her extremely well. In the blink of an eye, they found themselves in the state of undress in which they had made their first acquaintance, and Zoe was sitting on McNeighbor’s lap, her legs crossed around his back. It was eight o’clock in the morning.