Apartment 1986

by Lisa Papademetriou

  I look up at the sky to make myself feel better, but sometimes the clouds are just too far away to help.

  CHAPTER TWO

  In which I make a momentulous decision

  WHEN I LEAVE THE apartment on Monday morning, I do not slam the door. That is because I do not believe in drama before 10 a.m. But also, I do not say good-bye to my parents. Because do you know what happened when I reminded them about the ticket to the Lucas Zev concert? They got into a fight.

  This was the scene:

  Dad: “She obviously can’t go now, Helen.”

  Mom: “It’s a networking opportunity! You never know what doors it could open—think about who Zelda’s father is.” Because this is how my dad got his last job: he went back to school to get a master’s in business at Columbia University, and he networked like crazy. And that is how we went from being kinda regular middle class to being whatever we are now. “Besides, George, she already said she would.”

  Me: “Um, you guys? The ticket is, like, two hundred and fifty dollars? Just, you know, for your infor—”

  Dad (horrified): “Helen, we can’t just waste money now—she can sell the ticket on eBay!”

  Me: “But then my friends would have to sit with some eBay weirdo?”

  Mom: “You have to seize every unexpected opportunity!” I happen to know that this is the title of the latest business book my mom read to help her run her new fancy soap business, Scent With A Kiss. This is the business she started after she decided that being a social worker was too depressing.

  Dad: “Are you kidding me? I have to talk to a lawyer at nine a.m.! Callie, you’re not going.”

  Me: “What should I tell my friends?”

  Dad: “Don’t tell them anything; it’s none of their business.”

  Uggggh. So I left.

  I did give Desmond a little kiss on the head right before I ducked out, though. He didn’t notice—he was watching some cartoon show about a purple blob that might or might not have been a plastic bag. I swear, kids’ shows these days are so weird. Back when I was a kid, there was SpongeBob. I guess there is still SpongeBob, only it seems weird to me now. Anyway, Desmond was oblivious to all of the shouting, which is just as well.

  Ray is at the door when I get off the elevator and I smile and say, “Hi, Ray,” because I think it’s always a good idea to be nice to the doorman. Because if you aren’t nice to the doorman, they can send your packages to the wrong apartment, or give the Chinese food deliveryman a hard time and not let them in when you really need the food right away, like before Project Runway starts. Althea says that this is called karma, and if there is one thing I have learned from my grandmother’s 1980s music, it’s that karma is like a chameleon, which means it is adorable.

  Anyway, Ray smiles at me and tips his hat, which I think is supercute and old-fashioned. One thing that Ray and I have in common is that we both have to wear a uniform, only his has this jaunty little hat and Haverton K–12 School for Girls does not allow hats in classrooms. Because of gangs. Which is a shame, because I look totally amazing in hats. I could totally see myself as a yacht captain someday.

  Anyway, I head up Madison peeking in the shop windows. They are perfect for checking my full-body reflection. I adjust my sunglasses so that they are halfway down my nose (to make it look normal and not like my granddad’s nostril-fest—thanks for the genes, Grandpa!), yank down my shirt, and then flouf it up again so that it looks casual. Then I give up. I never quite manage Zelda’s look—like she just rolled out of bed looking rumpled yet perfect, which is probably what she did. She never has, like, a zit on her face or whatnot. Our other good friend, Min, is the same way. It’s very aggregating.

  I keep checking my reflection in the windows, so I end up basically scuttling sideways up the street. Like a lemur, or like those crazy running people in Central Park who are always jogging backward or sideways or carrying a tractor tire or whatnot because regular jogging is simply not challenging enough.

  This makes me think that checking my reflection in the windows is kind of sort of an exercise, which cheers me up a little. Then my phone buzzes. It’s a text from Zelda.

  U coming to Lucas Zevvvv? Mom freaking; needs final head count.

  Then there’s an emoji that I don’t really recognize—is it a battery with a smiley face? Uggh. My phone is actually my mom’s old smartphone, and I’m still kind of bad at using it.

  Yes, I type in, even though I’m not really sure. Zelda’s mom is beautiful and terrifying. I super don’t want her mad at me. I managed to put this off for a whole weekend, but now I can’t avoid it. Sorry. Eep.

  Zelda: NBD. She’s driving me crazy.

  Me: But doesn’t that make her happy?

  Zelda: Lolz, Callie, you’re h’lair.

  I stand there wondering how to respond to that text because I wasn’t really trying to be funny but then three little dots appear, like fingers tapping on a tabletop, which tells me that Zelda is typing again. Finally, the text pops up:

  We are gonna have a blasssssstttt!!! Followed by twenty emojis: a party hat, a horn, a camel (?), a smiley face, a winky face, streamers, a cruise ship, a tree, and something that looks like a hockey stick. No clue.

  I send a smiley face back. Emojis are not really where I shine. Like, there was one that I thought was chocolate ice cream for the longest time, so I would send it whenever something was yum and people were like ew and then I realized it was not chocolate ice cream, after all. I wish emojis came with little explanations about what they mean—like, “I’m feeling happy!” Or, “Life is like this penguin!”—it would be so helpful.

  The clock on my phone says 7:21. I was so eager to get out of the apartment this morning that I’m going to be crazy early for school, and I suddenly realize that I have time to drop by Grandma Hildy’s apartment. That makes me happy, because I can maybe get inspired and shake off these yucky money worries. And then I think of a cool thought that might even be good on a T-shirt someday: always look on the bright side, because it is totally hard to see in the dark.

  Lots of people could use that one!

  Grandma Hildy lives really close to Haverton, and I drop in on her a lot. Usually after school, but she gets up at six, so it’s not like I’ll be waking her. I detour down Eighty-Eighth Street.

  Robert, my grandma’s doorman, is hosing down the sidewalk under the long green awning. He frowns at me as I give him a wave. When I reach the nineteenth floor, I notice that something is sticking out of the plant that my grandmother has placed in the little nook by her front door. It’s a small plastic box. When I pick it up, I see that someone has written down a list of titles, and I realize what this is—it is a cassette. I think that is cute, because my grandmother likes antiques. The song titles also sound pretty good: “What Is Love?,” “Just Like Heaven,” “Love Is a Stranger,” “Love My Way.” I know the song “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” It’s by Culture Club. I love Culture Club, but not as much as I love Cyndi Lauper.

  I slide the tape back into the plant. I have no idea why my grandmother would have put it there, but I don’t dare to question it. Grandma Hildy likes stuff how she likes it, and that’s it.

  I poke the doorbell under the brass number 2086 and then walk right in. My grandmother never locks her front door. She says Robert is the best security. Most people basically have to give him a DNA test to get in.

  “Grandma?” I call. “Gran?”

  The apartment is still. A tablet computer sits on the sage green couch, but the screen is dark. Beyond the window, this strange fog hangs over the city, like a . . . well, not like a blanket. Blankets are thin. I can’t see the sky at all, so this is more like a comforter, I guess. It’s pretty, but I can usually see all the way to the Met from Grandma’s window, and now I can’t see anything, not even the street. It’s like I am in a cloud, and I imagine this apartment floating in the air with nothing below and only sky above.

  “Gran?” I call again, walking into the narrow kitchen.

/>   A sweet scent hangs in the air. It’s like vanilla and orange and something else. A small plate and her favorite coffee mug—World’s Greatest Grandma!, courtesy of guess who—are in the sink. Probably Sherlock Holmes could do something with all of this information, but all I know is that my grandmother isn’t here.

  I’m surprised at the hollow feeling in my chest and the heaviness in my arms. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted to talk to my grandmother this morning.

  There’s a movement from the dark hall, and Biddy walks in, eyes her food dish, and looks up at me as if she thinks I’m going to do something about it. She gives me her usual meow, which sounds like a motor that can’t quite make up its mind to start: Me-uh-uh-uh-uh?

  “Girlfriend, you know you’re on a diet. Sorry.”

  Her green eyes give me this look, like, If this is all I can eat, why live? And, honestly, her gray fur is so fluffy and she looks really good carrying a little extra padding, and what’s one treat in the scheme of things, and who wants a skinny cat, and lots of other things run through my head, so I go to the jar and say, “Okay, but just one,” and I give her a treat. She takes it so happily that I give her another. Then one more, and I shut the lid. “It’s called restraint,” I tell her as she winds through my legs.

  My phone buzzes again. It’s Min.

  What r u weering on fiday????????? Min has fat thumbs, and is the world’s worst texter. My hand starts to vibrate—now Min is calling.

  “Hello?”

  “Did you get my text?”

  “The one you sent one second ago?”

  “Okay, you got it! What are you wearing on Friday?”

  “I don’t know, maybe—”

  “Oh, Lord, Callie, you’re hopeless. I hope you’re wearing the white dress.”

  “The white—?”

  “With the gold shoes.”

  Gold shoes?

  “The ones you wore at Beyoncé’s party?” Min prompts me.

  Oh, right! I do have gold shoes. I only ever wore them once, though, and that was to a wedding six months ago. Although, uh, I might have told Min something about a party on a yacht. It’s like Althea says: “Sometimes there is a very fine line between reality and wishful thinking.”

  “So here is my question—” Min goes on. “What should I wear?”

  “Why don’t you ask your mom?”

  “Because she buys everything at L.L. Bean.” Min’s mom is a pediatric heart surgeon—she wears a lot of scrubs and things that look like scrubs. “Should I wear the new jumpsuit, or the tank dress?”

  “Have I seen either one of those?”

  “I’ll send you some selfies and you can text me back. Okay? See you in a few!”

  She clicks off before I can even say good-bye, and in another ten seconds, my phone vibrates again. There’s Min reflected in a mirror, peeking out coyly from beneath dark bangs streaked with pink. She’s wearing a red jumpsuit with a funky pattern that looks like a disco ball barfed up a sack of glitter. Another image appears—it’s Min in a neon pink tank dress with grommets down the sides.

  I can tell that she made both outfits herself. Min is obsessed with Project Runway and sews like a fiend. I text back that I like the jumpsuit and sigh. The truth is that I couldn’t care less what Min wears. What difference does it make? I won’t see the outfit in person—Min will probably be seated next to some weirdo who bought my ticket on eBay. I hope the eBay weirdo likes the jumpsuit.

  I wander back out into the living room and sit down on the couch. It’s this nice velvety fabric, and a very sinky sort of a couch, and it’s very, very comfortable. A beam of sunlight slants through the open window, shining onto my grandmother’s colorful oriental rug. A light breeze puffs through the apartment and Biddy walks to the rectangle of sun and perches there, like a sphinx, her tail curled tight around her front paws.

  Three magazines are fanned on the coffee table, and I look at the headline of the top one. It’s a Time magazine, and it says “Viruses,” and I think about the world and how it has nothing but problems and diseases and melting ice caps and drowning polar bears and oil spills and how when I’m a grown-up all of the best jobs, like doctor and stylist, will be done by robots, and I feel a little down. Whenever I feel that way, I have to quickly look at the sky or something else that’s beautiful and it makes me feel a little better. Like Althea says, a girl could get really bummed thinking about all of the stuff that’s going wrong, and as you know, I do not believe in being bummed out.

  I look toward Gran’s window for one moment, but the sky beyond is still gray, which makes my chest feel a little bit tighter, and then I try to snap my mind onto some new thought. I turn back to the coffee table and notice two more magazines sitting there. These are something called Newsweek, which I have never heard of but which sounds very official. I pick up the top one—it has a picture of Ronald Reagan and the title “Reagan’s Role.” That’s a little weird. I think maybe it’s a “looking back” kind of article, but when I open the magazine, it’s full of ads for stuff I’ve never heard of—Big 8 Cola? Casio watches? I check the date.

  December 15, 1986.

  I check the other one. Someone named Donald Regan is on the cover (Ronald Reagan’s brother?). This one is from December 8. The virus one is from March. All 1986.

  That qualifies as kinda peculiar. Why is Grandma Hildy collecting vintage magazines? Is she, like, starting an online store? I flip through them to see if there is anything in them about Cyndi Lauper. No luck. So I put the magazines back, trying to place them exactly as they were. For some reason, I don’t want Grandma Hildy to know that I was looking at them. Is that weird?

  I lie back onto the comfortable couch for just a minute and look over at the painting on the wall directly across from me. A serious-looking young guy holds his hand up to the glass that frames him. The look on his face is all hope and joy. But looking at that picture makes me feel kind of sad, so I kick off my oxfords, prop up my feet, and close my eyes. Wow, this couch is comfortable. It’s warm in the apartment, almost stuffy, even though the window is open a crack.

  A moment later, there’s a heavy weight on my chest and I get this creepy feeling someone is staring at me intently. For a second, I feel like it might be the painting, but when I open my eyes, I see that it’s Biddy. She’s three inches from my face, and purring.

  “Ugh—you’re getting cat hair all over my uniform, you nutburger!” I scoop her gently onto the floor. Then I notice the clock, which freakishly says 9:50, which can’t be right, so I look at my phone, which says 9:53, and for a minute I’m confused and wondering about time zones and time warps and black holes, and then I realize that I have fallen asleep and missed homeroom. And science. And part of Spanish.

  Oh, no!

  I stand up. Then I sit back down again.

  I am sinking I am sinking I am thinking of quicksand and how the more you struggle, the more it just sucks you in.

  Another tardy means my parents get called in.

  No.

  Nope.

  My mom and dad can barely handle getting dressed these days.

  Jeez, this couch is comfortable. I wish it really were quicksand. I wish it would just suck me in so I could just stay here all day.

  And then I realize something: It would actually be easier to skip school than to deal with a tardy.

  Because Haverton does not call home until ten thirty to follow up and make sure that you are supposed to be absent. If your parents get in touch before then, they mark you as excused.

  And then my busy brain has this truly amazing thought that I did not even know was in there: I have my mother’s old phone—this number is on file. If I text the Haverton office, they’ll think it’s her.

  My heart is stuttering and my ears are buzzing, and I’m thinking, I could do it. I could skip school. I could! Because if you can’t stand the heat, you should get out of the oven, am I right?

  I’m thirteen years old. I’m in seventh grade. My dad is always telling stori
es about how he rode the New York City subway all over the place by himself at the age of eight back in the eighties, when the city was 95 percent crack addicts. And I wouldn’t go all over the city, anyway. I’d just stay somewhere on the Upper East Side, which is all rich people and their small rich dogs.

  I have never done anything like this before, and just thinking about it makes me a little dizzy. But what else can I do? I glance around Grandma Hildy’s apartment. I can’t just stay here. When my grandmother comes home, she’ll have questions. And if she stays out all day, I’ll be bored. My eye falls on a catalog from the Metropolitan’s latest special exhibition. My grandmother leads a lot of guided tours at the museum—she is kind of a volunteer exhibitionist.

  Beyond the window, the comforter of fog has begun to dissolve, and I can see the edge of the Metropolitan Museum of Art against a partially blue sky. Museums . . . are . . . educational . . .

  The Met is huge. And very, very safe. I could easily stay there all day. Grandma Hildy always says that she could live at the Met.

  I check my phone. The museum opens in six minutes.

  I text Haverton. It isn’t even 10 a.m., and I’m causing some potentially serious drama, but I’m not going to school today.

  I’m keeping it happy—at the Met.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In which several important questions are answered and asked

  HERE IS A VERY important question that has been on my mind a lot lately: why do I have so much junk in my bag?

  I don’t even understand where this junk comes from. It’s like, okay, books, notebooks, pens—yes, that seems normal. But a mini watercolor set, a tiny amigurumi that I carry around for luck, three old movie tickets, about fifty receipts for random smoothies, a brush, three combs, five ponytail holders, a headband, my mom’s sunglasses, my sunglasses, sunscreen, three lip balms, an ancient fossilized granola bar, a postcard I meant to send Zelda when my family was in Cozumel—I can find everything except my wallet. Which is black. And has clearly passed into some sort of space-time portal for wallets. Or maybe it has been stolen. How would I know?