If We Lived Here

by Lindsey Palmer

“And making out with Joey Puck tonight, right?” Annie dipped Emma and made kissy noises at her. “Ems, my wedding is going to be a hundred times better than Prom. Picture us fifteen years from now, ancient at thirty, two old married ladies reminiscing about Prom. We probably won’t even remember whether or not we kissed our dates.”

  Emma felt herself heating up, her thighs sticky with sweat against Eli’s expensive leather sofa. But next to her, Annie was squealing. “Can you believe this shit? And here I am, tying the knot just under the wire, one week before my thirtieth birthday. God, I must’ve been psychic back then.”

  Emma smiled, but she felt slightly sick. She’d turned thirty back in March, five months earlier. Plus, she did remember what had happened that night: Joey Puck had managed to maneuver his slobbery tongue around her mouth for the entirety of Toni Braxton’s “UnBreak My Heart,” and Annie had snuck out of the dance early to go lose her virginity in the back of Doug Parker’s mother’s minivan. “Let’s turn this off.”

  “Oh, come on, the best part is coming up. The boys arrive and we all pose for pictures super-awkwardly. Doug has that awful bowl haircut. Can you believe I wanted to marry that guy? I think he still lives with his parents.”

  “Annie, I don’t think I can bear any more of my teenage self.”

  “Yeah, that green taffeta is a nightmare. Okay, fine. Ooh, I know.”

  Annie pecked at her keyboard a few times, until another scene appeared onscreen, the two girls, aged six or seven, in Emma’s childhood living room, wearing oversized blazers that they’d probably nabbed from her father’s closet.

  “Hello, we are Emma Feit and Annie Blum, world-famous chemists,” Emma announced to the camera. “We recently invented a brand-new element that will transform the face of modern science. Behold element number 119, which we have named Em-An.” Emma gestured at a bowl of ice cubes that looked to be dyed with orange food coloring.

  “Em-An is the best element the world has ever seen,” Annie added.

  “Yes. It will be key to curing both cancer and the common cold. In fact, our sources have just informed us that we’ve won this year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry.”

  “Wahoo, go us! And the celebration ball is tonight,” said Annie. “The menu will be pigs in blankets and prime rib and chocolate cake, and the New Kids on the Block will be performing. Watch out, world, these scientists will be partying down tonight.”

  On screen, Annie began Electric Sliding and Emma frowned at her friend, adding, “To learn more about the many benefits of Em-An, tune in tomorrow to Science Talk. This has been Nobel Prize–winning chemists Emma and Annie, signing off.”

  “Toodle-loo!”

  Annie paused the clip. “Hilarious, right? I mean, the New Kids on the Block!”

  “I think back then I really believed I might win a Nobel Prize one day.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past you, Ems.”

  Emma smiled, grateful for her ever-supportive friend; she pushed out of her mind the fact that she prepared kids for standardized tests for a living.

  “Now come help me wash this mayo out of my hair, and then we’ll veg out in a bubble bath.”

  Changing into a bathing suit in Annie’s room, Emma tested herself to see if she could still recite the periodic table of elements. She started struggling in the forties. At ruthenium, Annie called out, “Come on, I’ve got the jets going!” so Emma gave up and gave in to the idea of a soothing bath.

  Annie and Eli’s bathroom was slightly smaller than Emma’s entire apartment, all white marble and soft lighting, with fresh flowers in vases beside the double sinks and an actual sitting area in the corner. The claw-foot tub looked vintage, but was tricked out with enough amenities to rival a high-end spa. “It’s still hard for me to believe you actually live here,” Emma said to her friend.

  “I know. And lucky you, you get to come over and play anytime you want!” Emma had once Googled Eli’s address and discovered the apartment’s market value: $2.6 million. She knew Eli had paid to break Annie’s lease when she’d moved in with him back in May. Emma began wondering if Annie contributed at all to the mortgage, then forced herself to stop; this line of thought was a slippery slope. Plus, she wanted to keep feeling excited about the prospect of a dishwasher and his-and-her closets in her own place. She plunged into the water—piping hot.

  “Nice, right?” Annie dunked under, popping up a moment later covered in soap bubbles. “I feel just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.”

  “Like a prostitute in a client’s hotel room?”

  Annie splashed her. “No, dumbass, like I’m living in a fairy tale and all of my dreams are coming true.”

  “Ah.” There was some truth to that. Annie had been dreaming about her wedding since age five, and in Eli Silber she’d managed to find a sweet, well-off guy, and Jewish, to boot. Emma wasn’t jealous of Eli—he was too much the M.B.A. guy’s guy to interest her—but she envied the fact that Annie knew exactly what she wanted in the world and had gone for it, heart and soul all in. Emma could feel less sure about a pants purchase than Annie seemed to feel about the sum of her life’s choices. It was exhausting to consider—and so for the moment she decided not to. She took a deep breath and dipped under the surface, letting her unsettling thoughts drift away, drowned out by the gurgle of the turbo jets.

  Chapter 4

  Emma had cleared her Friday appointments for maid-of-honor duty, but she’d still managed to field two client phone calls, plus convince the dean of Riverdale to switch Isaac Goldstein’s history class, all before Annie blinked awake at nine-thirty.

  Annie blended them kale-quinoa-ginger juices (Emma discreetly poured the majority of hers down the drain), then they suited up in bikinis and hit the roofdeck. “We are not lying out for leisure,” Annie declared, slathering herself in a pungent tanning oil that Emma suspected was not FDA-approved. “This is our very last opportunity to soak up some sun before the wedding, and I want to be positively golden. Plus, my vows are a mess. Please tell me you’re in the mood to ghostwrite.”

  Emma slathered on SPF 30—Annie called it “sad pale person potion”—and asked, “What do you have so far?” Emma wasn’t thrilled with the idea of authoring her best friend’s wedding vows, but it couldn’t be much different from helping her students write their college essays. It was just a matter of pulling out the right anecdotes and sentiment to convey a certain message, in this case, eternal love.

  Annie handed over a mess of papers, which Emma saw was a series of templates printed out from bridal Web sites. “Are you planning to do this Mad Libs–style? Okay, give me three adjectives and a verb, and I’ll fill it in.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Annie said. “Sexy, shocking, aquamarine. Serenade.”

  “Let’s see, ‘You are the most sexy, shocking, and aquamarine person I have ever met, and I promise to always serenade you.’ Well, I’ve heard worse.”

  “Ems, please help.”

  “Look, you want your vows to sound like you and Eli, not just any old couple. So talk about your relationship in specific ways. Like, what have you done for each other’s birthdays?”

  Annie shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “Seriously?”

  “We haven’t had them yet. We started dating last November. My birthday’s next week and Eli’s is in October.”

  “Wow.” Emma thought about the first birthday she’d spent with Nick, her twenty-eighth. He’d given her a silver bracelet with a star dangling from it, and ever since on birthdays and Valentine’s Days and other holidays he’d added a charm. The bracelet was heavy now; it clanked when Emma wore it. Depending on her mood, this either delighted or depressed her. She couldn’t even remember all the gifts she’d given Nick for his various birthdays. “Then how about your favorite date? Or a memory that stands out?”

  Annie shrugged. “We always just go to dinner, or to the movies, or out to bars. I know you and Nick take cooking classes and have game nights, and that’s totally adorable, but we’re not like
that. Give me Eli, a meal, and a rom-com, and I’m happy.”

  “You’re making this difficult, Annie. Um, when you let your mind wander, what comes to mind about Eli?”

  “It’s pretty simple. I love Eli and I always will. I have no idea where it comes from, but it’s something I feel deep in my heart and know in my head, too. We haven’t been dating that long, but when you feel it, you feel it. You could say that’s just a stupid hunch, but it’s the strongest one I’ve ever had, and anyway, I trust my feelings one hundred percent. I love Eli, I just do.”

  Annie shrugged, and Emma felt a funny urge to cry. Annie’s words weren’t witty or clever or even original, and they had zilch in common with the kind of vows Emma imagined herself writing one day for her own wedding. But they were honest, and exactly right for Annie. “Say that,” Emma said, just as her phone started ringing. “Write it down now, quick, before you forget. I’m going to get this—it’s probably one of the Hellis.”

  “Hello?” She wandered to the other side of the deck.

  “Hey, Feit, I cannot believe you flaked on work.” It was Genevieve. “I’m trapped all alone in this pressure cooker of adolescent angst and parental stress. Help! SOS! Get your butt over here right now and rescue me!”

  “Gen, come on, you’ll be fine. I told you I’m with Annie today.”

  “Oh, right, the blushing bride and her aah-maaazing wedding.” She was doing her sarcastic voice. Despite Emma’s many efforts to get her two closest friends to be mutual friends, Genevieve and Annie had only ever politely tolerated each other; Emma couldn’t figure out why they didn’t gel. “I guess that means you can’t come out with me this weekend. I’ll have to hit the bars without my favorite wing-woman.”

  “Sorry, Gen. Next weekend, I promise.” In truth Emma had grown tired of New York City nightlife. Years ago she and Genevieve had gone out to the bars each weekend practically glowing with the thrill of a night’s potential, whereas these days Emma preferred to stay in on the couch with Nick, a bottle of wine, and a well-stocked DVR. But she felt guilty that Gen didn’t have a Nick of her own, so she occasionally braved the too-loud music, the overpriced drinks, and the string of guys Genevieve sized up through a veneer of flirtation. Emma suspected Gen was sick of the scene, too, although without much of a viable alternative for meeting a man—Gen inexplicably refused to try online dating—she wouldn’t have admitted it.

  “Fine, fine,” said Gen. “Tell the bride I say break a femur.”

  “Absolutely not. Talk to you later.”

  After hanging up, Emma immediately felt her phone buzz again. She picked up and spat out an impatient hello.

  “Emma, hi, it’s Mrs. Caroline.”

  “Oh hi.” Emma plopped down into a lounge chair.

  “I’ve heard some nice things about you and Nick over the past few days.”

  “That’s great. I hope you weren’t expecting anything different.” Emma laughed nervously.

  “No, no. Listen, I have a question for you.”

  “All right.”

  “Do you and Nick talk about the future, like plans and dreams, maybe marriage and kids, things like that?”

  “Excuse me?” It was windy on the roof, and Emma was hoping she’d misheard. The truth was that she had trouble planning beyond the next weekend, but that had nothing to do with her and Nick.

  Mrs. Caroline continued: “What I’m trying to say is, because I feel I must be honest … I’m having trouble—how shall I put it?—placing you and Nick.”

  “Placing us?”

  “I’ve rented to married couples, and to single folks, and even to two friends—they had this very clever setup with these folding Chinese curtains as room dividers. Do you know what I’m talking about, those accordion thingies? They can look very elegant.”

  “Uh-huh.” Emma was impatient. She couldn’t care less how Mrs. Caroline’s former tenants had set up the apartment. And whatever this woman was getting at, Emma felt it was only fair for her to come right out and say it.

  “Anyway, and I only mean to be looking out for you—” Mrs. Caroline paused, and a chill shivered down Emma’s spine. She hugged her arms around her torso.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, what will you do if, say, you and Nick split up?” Mrs. Caroline whispered the words, as if decreasing her volume would reduce her rudeness. “You’ll be on a lease together. Are you certain it’s smart to move in with a man who hasn’t proposed yet?”

  Now Emma was furious. This was almost worse than rejection. She knew if she relayed this conversation to Nick (which she already knew she wouldn’t), he’d say, Forget about the apartment and let’s find a place whose landlady doesn’t think she’s their couples counselor. And yet, Emma wanted this home.

  So she strategized how to respond in the most appealing and convincing way, humiliating as it was. She cleared her throat, trying to shore up some semblance of dignity; the noise made Annie look up from her vows and wave. “Technically,” Emma said into the phone, “it’s not your problem if Nick and I break up, since we’ll both be on the lease, therefore legally obligated to pay the rent. But you asked if I feel certain, and I do.” (She worried she didn’t sound at all certain.) “I hope speaking to our references confirmed for you how committed Nick and I are. If there’s something else I can do—”

  “That’s the concern. You’ve really done all you can, but …”

  “But what?”

  “I’ve got this feeling I can’t quite put my finger on.”

  Emma was tempted to chuck her phone over the deck down onto Houston Street. She wanted to howl, to jump up and down, go ballistic with rage. Later, she’d wonder why she hadn’t done any of those things, why instead she’d put up with Mrs. Caroline’s insults, why she’d waited patiently for the woman to articulate herself and then responded with a simple, civilized, “I see.” What she would briefly conclude, and then push out of her mind before she had time to dwell on it, was that Mrs. Caroline had been onto something in her ungracious speech. As Annie sat on the other side of the roof scribbling down her complete and total devotion to her husband-to-be, Emma had stood there unsure of her own relationship. She’d marveled at the fact that she and Nick’s ambivalence—their many late-night talks expressing worry about commitment and fear about making the kinds of serious, adult decisions that had serious, adult consequences in their lives—had been so blatant to this near-stranger. And that for some reason that tough stuff had cast a shadow over her and Nick’s love and devotion to each other, when to Emma the latter felt so much more meaningful and substantial.

  But before Emma had time to do anything daring or even to think these thoughts, Mrs. Caroline chimed in again: “You know what? Let’s do it. Let’s throw caution to the wind and do it!”

  “So we’re getting the apartment?” Emma’s skin sprouted with goose bumps and she leaped into the air. She felt the tie to her bikini top go slack, but didn’t even care that she was now flashing half of lower Manhattan. Later she would think about Mrs. Caroline’s wording, and wonder, How was this throwing caution to the wind? The woman had pored over their financial documents and called every major person in their lives and received only ringing endorsements. But for now, Emma was simply thrilled.

  “I’ll prepare the lease and you two can stop by to sign it tomorrow.”

  “Oh, tomorrow we’re going to a wedding.”

  “Then the next day?”

  “We won’t be back in town until Monday night, and Tuesday is Nick’s first day of school. How about Tuesday evening?”

  “That’s a long time to wait.” Emma started panicking. Should they return early from the wedding? Could Mrs. Caroline scan the lease and fax it to them to sign? Whoa, calm down, she told herself; they’d gotten the apartment. “But if we must wait until Tuesday, we simply must wait.”

  “Great!” Emma ran to Annie to tell her the news, and they squealed like kids.

  “I wrote my vows, you got your apartment, and we’re on top of the wo
rld,” Annie said, gesturing to the Manhattan skyline laid out before them like a grand buffet. She grabbed Emma’s hands and spun her around just as she had in the Prom video. “That juice didn’t quite fill me up. Should we mix up some Bloody Marys?”

  Emma flashed guiltily on Genevieve, stuck at 1, 2, 3 … Ivies! reception while she and Annie were spending the day like spoiled socialites. Oh well, Emma thought; if Gen wasn’t so cool to Annie then she could be here with them, too. “Yes, Bloody Marys, stat.”

  Nick was busy battling a bioterrorism-induced zombie outbreak when Emma called to tell him about the apartment.

  “Take that, flesh-eating douche.” He’d said it under his breath, but she’d heard.

  “Video games?”

  “Check. I just got my hands on Resident Evil 6.” Nick had spent a fairly successful morning destroying a fleet of C-virus-infected cruise missiles and picking off human-hungry zombies. Big accomplishments, considering he hadn’t even put on pants.

  “All those kids so scared to go back to school on Tuesday, if only they knew their teacher was home playing his Nintendo whatchamacallit, just like they probably are.”

  “GameCube. And, Em, you’ve gotta respect the ritual. It’s my last day of freedom, and I’m one hundred percent committed to being a complete and total waste of space. Besides, didn’t you say you were tanning with Annie?”

  “She’d tell you that’s for work, not pleasure.”

  “And she’d be crazy.”

  “I’m getting the signal that it’s time to flip to our stomachs. Don’t tell Mrs. Caroline I’m soaking up cancerous rays all day, and I won’t tell her you’re rotting your brain killing vampires.”

  “Zombies. Virus-ridden zombies intent on destroying our planet. It’s very important work, Em. I think even Mrs. Caroline might concede the point.”

  “I see a career change on your horizon. Zombie killer.”

  “I wonder what the benefits are like. I’d probably have to go freelance.”

  “Whatever makes you happy, babe, as long as you can pay the rent.”