“Nothing for you?” I ask. “Not hungry?”
She says, “Every time you talk, I’m restarting this thing from the beginning.”
I pantomime my lips zipped and pop a grape into my mouth.
Today’s program features the world’s most monotonous voiceover. The unseen filmmaker seems to have specific feelings about each washer and dryer; she goes through an excruciatingly tedious monologue about what happens when you set the far end dryer to air dry.
“Is this a joke?” I ask.
“Shhh,” she scolds. The movie rolls on. Still she ignores the food.
I pretend to keep watching as the unseen auteur launches into the fascinating mystery of the “dryer-lint bandit.” Apparently there’s a rule that you’re to clean the lint from the screen after you dry your clothes and one person wasn’t doing it. There was sleuthing involved, but the culprit was never caught. Maisey is back again with her own interpretation—that people simply forget.
“Maisey’s an optimist,” I say.
“Shhh,” she says. She’s looking back over at the cart. I pretend to focus intently on the screen, but I’m really looking at her reflection in the window. Warmth spreads across my chest as I watch her take one and set it on a plate. She picks it apart and eats it in her bird-like way. At one point, she closes her eyes in pleasure. It’s a rich pastry, and she’s enjoying the forbidden hell out of it, and I’m enjoying the hell out of her.
She glances over again once she’s done with the pastry. Will she have another? “Not hungry?” I ask.
“Oh…I don’t know,” she says.
“Not a fan?” I ask.
“Shhh,” she says.
On screen, people theorize endlessly on how to uncover the identity of the person who doesn’t clean a dryer lint screen. They’re laughing and joking; they really do seem to know each other well in this building, right down to the details of who uses what detergent. There are ideas on how to set traps for the offender, but they’re all good natured.
Is this how people in groups live? They collaborate on silly projects? They regale each other with endless details of their lives? They empathize about friends lost in wars decades ago? Growing up, I got a lot of my information about how groups and families operate from TV, and from being over at my neighbor Howie’s. Scant information. And then I was overseas at school.
Onscreen, the case of the lint screen bandit rages. They’re saying nice things to each other, now.
Something grinds in my gut.
I finish my plate and I wander over and load a bit more food onto my plate. “You do realize your presentation has devolved into people literally discussing dryer lint, do you not?”
She smiles.
“Dryer lint.” I take her plate, load it up with an assortment of pastries and cheeses, and set it back down in front of her.
“What are you doing?”
“It would be a shame to let it go to waste,” I say, settling back into my chair. “I’ve never seen a group so animated about dryer lint. They really need to get lives.”
She stops the presentation. “Quiz.”
I grin. “Please let it be about mail delivery.”
“It’s about dryer lint. Why do you think this group is so interested in the whole dryer lint situation?”
I groan.
“You need to take my quizzes seriously,” she says.
“Fine, I’ll take your quiz seriously.” Casually, I cross my legs. “Most of these people are theater people. Emoting dramatically is what theater people do. Especially Antonio and Mia. Those two are super emoters.”
“Can you think of any other reason?” she asks.
“Are you telling me my answer was wrong?”
“It’s not the answer I was looking for.”
“But it’s the right answer,” I say. “Have you been watching this footage? Have you seen how they all mug for the camera? The pink-haired one.”
She’s grinning, building a cheese and cracker sandwich. “Can you think of any other possibilities?”
“Insanity?” I try.
“Come on.” She’s eating one of her cheese and cracker sandwiches. She goes on to another.
“Let’s see,” I say casually. “Do they want an excuse to use the homemade guillotine that they’ve been building in the basement?”
She laughs, covering her mouth to keep from spitting crumbs. “Stop. Give a real answer.”
“Or what?” I ask. “Will you give me an X?”
Right then, that witchy look comes over her face. “Maybe,” she says.
My pulse races. God, that witchy look from the dressing room—like a sexy secret coming up from deep inside of her. Country-mouse Elle, eating all the snacks, tormenting me, inventing her little quizzes.
This nearly irresistible compulsion to grab her hair and kiss her washes over me. I force my gaze to the screen, though out the corner of my eye, I can see that she’s building another open-faced sandwich with a cracker, two giant hunks of cheese, and several grapes. A French sandwich. You can’t build a proper French sandwich on a cracker. I should have ordered French bread. Next time I’ll get French bread.
“Well?” she asks.
“Give me a moment, I’m trying to think,” I say as she chows down. I wait for her to finish it, and then I say, “I give up.”
She dabs at her mouth with a napkin. “It’s because they care about the place. They love that building and each other.”
“But there is a saboteur in their midst,” I say, “who must be unmasked.”
“That’s not the point. Look how deeply they care about every little thing in that building. Imagine the effect that knocking it down will have on these people.”
“I’m to get all of this from their fervent—and might I add, slightly insane—hunt for the dryer screen bandit?” I say.
She shrugs. “It means a lot to them,” she says.
I smile. “Spirit,” I say with Shakespearean enunciation. Dramatically I hold my hands in front of my face, shielding my eyes. “Please, spirit, I can’t bear to see anymore. Remove me from this place!”
“W-what are you talking about?” she asks.
“You’re the ghost of Christmas present, showing me the lives I’m ruining. Will I be treated to Christmas future after this? Will Tiny Tim yet live? Just to be clear, I’m Scrooge in this formulation. I’m entirely comfortable with that, you know.”
She hits play. Discreetly, I watch her eat, watch her pink tongue dart out to lick the powder off the side of her lips.
She turns to me. “Are you even watching?”
“How could I tear my eyes away?”
“I feel like you’re not watching.”
“You want to give me a quiz?” I ask. “Go ahead and give me a quiz. Or maybe I’ll give you one.”
“You’ll give me a quiz? Regarding the people there?”
“I certainly will.” I raise my pointer finger. “What secret is John keeping?”
Elle hits pause. “You think that…this John fellow has a secret?”
“I don’t think that he does; I know that he does,” I tease, pleased she hasn’t figured it out. Most people wouldn’t.
“Well…he wears that hat from the army a lot,” she says. “You think it has something to do with the army?”
“Nope. Something contemporary. Regarding another resident.”
This perks her up. “What is it?”
“You have to guess.”
“Tell me,” she demands, beaming at me.
Something lifts in my chest, and I just want to grab her and kiss the little crumbs off the side of her mouth and then devour her like an almond croissant.
She leans in closer. “Tell me!”
“Or what?” I tease. “Will you give me an X?”
She’s grinning outright now. “Maybe I will,” she says.
I shrug. “He’s in love with Maybell, of course.”
She straightens, studies my face. “What? You think he’s in love with�
��Maisey?”
“You can’t see it?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “Looks to me like they’re just friends.”
“Back it up. To the part where all of those people are in the lobby with the pink-haired girl. When she’s giving the announcement.” Elle backs it up and finds the place I mean. “The way he looks at her. Everybody watches Pink Hair except John. He watches Maymie. He always watches Maymie.”
“Maybe they’ve known each other a long time or something,” she says.
“He beams at her when she talks,” I say. “The woman rambles like nobody I’ve ever heard, but John could listen all day.”
“Maybe they’re just friends is what I’m saying.”
“The way he looks at her? Come off it,” I say. “Anyway, men being just friends with women? Very rare. Go to that roof part. I think it was in yesterday’s highly instructive emotional intelligence program.”
She goes to the part I mean.
“Do you see?” I say. “Maybelle is absolutely insufferable in her rambling, but John can’t keep his eyes off her.”
“Hmm,” Elle says.
“I’m sorry, that’s not enough for you?” I take the iPad and navigate to the beginning, pause it on Maisey’s shirt. “What is this pin she wears? With every outfit.”
“Gerbera daisy.”
“She wore a belt buckle with that same kind of daisy, too, one time—in that dull pink color,” I say.
“Salmon,” Elle mumbles.
“Now, I’ve only seen a few days of footage. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the salmon gerbera daisy is Maybelle’s favorite flower. And let me ask you, what sorts of flowers does ol’ John grow in those pathetic little coffee cans up on the roof?”
Elle takes control of the player and rewinds to yesterday’s section of footage. When she gets to the John-and-his-sad-flowers-growing-out-of-coffee-cans section, her lips part in surprise. “God, that is so observant of you,” she says. “He grows the flowers that Maisey likes.”
“Do I get my tick now?” I say.
“You are really observant,” she says, stunned.
“I know,” I say. “Maybe I’ll use my amazing powers for ill and make a billion dollars someday. Oh wait, I already did.”
“No, it’s amazing,” she says. “You really see people.”
“All the better to crush and destroy them on my way to the top.”
She looks at me, challenge in her eyes, lips pursing and then un-pursing, as if she wants to say something, but isn’t quite sure what. Maybe she wants what I said not to be true. Unfortunately, it is true.
I could never be one of the people in that video, all fun and laughing in a group. I don’t like people. I don’t like being around people, and vice versa.
“Can we wrap it up now?” I ask. “You can take the rest of the food to your room if you want. They’re just going to throw it away.”
“Wait—you haven’t watched the whole hour,” she says.
“Come on,” I say. “I feel like I won emotional intelligence today. I get nothing for that?”
“Talking doesn’t count. The hour is only you watching the video,” she says.
“You understand, don’t you, that the more of this video I watch, the more convinced I am that this is a piece of property that should’ve been torn down long ago. I think it’ll be good for these people to be out of there—the place is a dump.”
“It’s not at all a dump,” she protests. “All of those vintage details? The moldings? The chandelier?”
“The way I see it, I’m doing them a favor. It’s called reality feedback.”
She goes still for a moment—she even looks a bit pale. I wait for her to reply; it certainly seems as though she wants to, but then she scoots her chair forward, and without a word, she hits play, or more, stabs it. I can only see the back of her head now, and I can see that her arms are crossed.
“Buildings come down and buildings go up,” I say to the back of her head.
“What about Maisey and John?” she asks. “You would tear them apart?”
“If they want each other badly enough, they’ll find a way to be together. That’s how it works.”
“How would they have a chance of being together if they never even saw each other ever again? It’s not as if they’re going to find rent-controlled apartments in Manhattan,” she says, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. “More likely, they’ll end up miles and miles from each other and never see each other again.”
“Or John finally realizes he has to act, and he declares his love and Maybelline reciprocates and they get a little place together on Long Island or in Florida or something, which they never would have done if the building remained. Humans thrive on challenge. It’s how we’re designed. Maybe they’ve become too comfortable in that place.”
She turns to me. Hotly, she asks, “Is that what you tell yourself? When you throw people from their homes? That they’ve become too comfortable in their places?”
“No,” I say, picking up my glass of lemonade and swirling around the ice. “I tell myself that I’m going to make a whole boatload of money while improving the city.”
She regards me dolefully, then turns away from me and hits play yet again.
14
Noelle
* * *
I start the video back up, trying to keep my hand from trembling.
Am I making things worse? Are these videos making Malcolm want to knock down the place even more? I’ve never met anybody like him.
“The entire neighborhood will improve,” he adds.
I grit my teeth. Nisha and Coralee and those guys warned me not to let him get into my head, and he’s definitely in there, now. More than in there—he’s rooting around like a warthog in a china shop.
I hate that he’s in my head. I hate that he saw things about John and Maisey that I never did. I hate that he’s brought me all this food and it’s so delicious, and now I just want to eat more, and it’s not just because I’m hungry, it’s that I’m tired in some soul-deep way that I can’t define.
I hate how his voice gets me so stupidly quivery inside. I hate how muscular he looks under his sexy suit and how I have to exert actual energy not to imagine what it would be like to climb onto his lap, to press a kiss to his lips, to feel his hands clamp around my hips, solid and strong.
“What is it that you want, little country mouse?” he asks softly.
“For you to have empathy for these people.”
“Negotiation one-oh-one,” he says, “never ask for something that a person doesn’t have to give.”
“All humans are capable of empathy,” I say. “Including you.”
A deafening silence hangs in the air.
You sure about that? That’s the question between us now. He doesn’t even have to voice it.
“Even if I were capable of empathy, nothing would change. I would still knock down any building I see fit to knock down, including John and Maisey’s.” He watches me strong and steady, like he really needs me to get this. “Inspiring a person to feel empathy for those whose lives he might upend only works on somebody who cares, who wants to avoid being a villain. Me? I know what I am. I’m a bad man, Elle, and I’m perfectly comfortable with it. I’m the villain in everybody’s story, and I always will be.”
Chills come over me. “I don’t accept that.”
“Which part of it?” he asks.
“The whole thing.”
He narrows his eyes. “You didn’t know me before,” he says. “You didn’t give a shit about my empathy or emotional intelligence or moral fiber a month ago, and you won’t give a shit about it in a month. What do you really want here?”
I swallow back the dryness in my mouth. “Your empathy.”
He seems to find this amusing. “Come on, now, think big, Elle. What is it really? Tell me. Who knows, maybe you’ll get it. Tell me what you really want. Make a list. Ask for more than one thing. Be outrageous. Go for it.”
&nbs
p; I shouldn’t play his game; I shouldn’t allow his question to sink into my heart, but I do.
I want him to see the beauty in the building. I want for him to love it the way I do. But there’s so much more—maybe it’s something about eating the rich treats, but images of him crowd my mind...images of him watching me with that intensity that he has. Images of large, rough fingers skimming my cheek, my neck, my bare arm.
He’s watching my eyes, looking back and forth from one to the other.
It’s exciting and addictive, because I’m not used to it; people never even give me a second look. I’m used to being part of the furniture, always there in the background, and here is this man focusing on me, on what I want. And this is a man who sees people. Sure, he claims it’s for ill, but I’m reveling in it.
And I would smooth my hand down his scruffy cheek, and I would help him off with his suit jacket and I would slide my hands over his shoulders and I would tell him that he’s not a villain. I would whisper it in his ear. I would tell him that I knew from the first that he has a good heart. It’s that good heart of his that enables him to see people like he does.
“I know there’s something,” he rumbles. “Let’s see what we can do to get us both what we want.”
“What I want,” I force myself to say, “is for you to complete today’s video with no more side conversations.”
“Oh, how incredibly boring,” he says.
“It’s not boring to me.”
He glitters. He’s a nuclear reactor of sexy power, and I’m the nobody who will never contain him.
Quickly I turn and hit play. He watches the rest of the program—as much as he ever does, anyway.
I get out of there quickly as soon as it’s over.
I observe yet another negotiation session the next day, observing him slowly and methodically spinning a web of friendly engagement and even charisma around the unsuspecting room. His keen interest cuts under the surface of everybody, makes people want to tell him things, to give him things.
He has one of Gerrold’s lawyers proudly sharing their contrarian opinion on something about domestic interstate transit; he gets the son talking about a pit-smoked barbecue place near the Austin distribution center that the crew is crazy over. He has Gerrold sharing intimate business details like they’re old colleagues.
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