If We Lived Here

by Lindsey Palmer

  In retrospect, it was hard to understand how little Nick had paid attention to the news that week. But at the time, he was plenty preoccupied: by the new apartment that they had yet to settle into, by the upheaval of trying to launch an after-school program, and by the court date with Luis, which was scheduled for that Thursday, October 25. Nick had planned on reviewing the paperwork for their case against the landlord, but every time he approached the accordion folder that Emma had smartly kept separate during the move, his stomach seized. The thought of seeing Luis again in the flesh—those beady eyes, that stupid soul patch—filled Nick with dread. And now that he and Emma had moved on, literally to another apartment, Nick wished they could move on from this mess, too—accept their losses and leave the rest in the past. But Emma was adamant about recouping what was rightfully theirs; and though Nick wished he could’ve given her a good-luck kiss and sent her off to court solo, he knew that opting out would result in worse repercussions to his relationship than was worth it. So for better or, as Nick suspected, for worse, they were in this together.

  He planned his Thursday school day according to how anxious and distracted he knew he would be; instead of teaching, he kept the kids busy with worksheets and video clips. He’d worn a suit and tie, but the outfit was itchy and constricting, making him fidget and sweat. More than one student asked him if he was okay.

  Nick didn’t realize quite how resentful he’d been feeling toward Emma for spearheading this ordeal until he met her at the courthouse, where she greeted him with a granola bar and he felt his anger recede. “You knew I’d be too nervous for lunch,” he said, gratefully tearing into the snack. It calmed his stomach, both the sustenance and the reminder that his girlfriend understood him so well.

  Luckily their case was number two out of nearly fifty on the docket, so when Luis still hadn’t appeared halfway through roll call, Nick let himself hope that he would arrive too late to testify. But after the announcement of two separate cases against one management company and the calling of a plaintiff and defendant who shared the same unusual last name—Nick didn’t want to look to see if they appeared related—Luis showed up, sauntering up the aisle to find a seat. Even from half a room away, Nick could feel the landlord’s eyes like lasers through his back. His hands grew clammy and, as if sensing this, Emma reached for one; her cool grasp soothed him.

  They had to sit through the first case as observers. It involved a landlord claiming his tenant had broken and/or stolen his refrigerator, and the tenant countering that the fridge had been broken to begin with, and that since the landlord had refused to replace it when it started “stinking to high hell and leaking like a nursing mom’s ti—” (here the judge had cut her off), she’d tossed the thing. Nick felt bad for both parties and mostly tried to tune them out, but a glance at Emma revealed she was rapt. They didn’t learn the verdict—judgments got mailed out—but it was pretty clear the tenant had won. When the judge, a middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and a thick Queens accent, asked the landlord how old the fridge was, and he answered twelve years, she gave him a withering look and then launched into a lecture about how everyone knows the shelf life of a refrigerator is seven years (Nick didn’t know this), and that no decent homeowner should expect to keep one humming along for so long. Case closed.

  Nick was trembling as the judge called them to the stand. Luis stood inches away, and Nick smelled his musky cologne. “So what’s your story?” she asked. “Not another dud appliance, I hope.”

  Mercifully Emma did most of the talking, laying out a succinct version of the events that had transpired between them and Luis, the landlord shaking his head and laughing under his breath throughout. When it was Luis’s turn to speak, Nick was surprised at how similar his account was to Emma’s (in Nick’s mind the landlord had morphed into one of those street bums who twitchily spurts out nonsense); only in Luis’s version Nick and Emma were the villains, expecting him to spend a fortune to get rid of harmless little bugs, acting too fancy for a reasonable solution like foggers, and turning their noses up at his floors as if their feet were too good to walk on them. Nick could tell Emma was relishing the drama—her eyes went wide when Luis mixed his metaphors—but all this rehashing of their trauma sickened Nick. Luis talked about how “man to man, me and Nick had an understanding” and how Emma “was a trickster with a capital T.” Emma was likely thinking Luis’s sexism would tip the judge in their favor, but Nick simply wanted it to be over. When the judge asked Luis to confirm whether this—she pointed—was his signature on the lease, which stipulated that he would pay for his tenants to redo the floors, he claimed he’d been forced into it. “As in physically forced, like with a gun to your head?” the judge asked, wearing a wry grimace. Luis seethed. For another half hour they rehashed the last month’s events, point by painstaking point, the judge interrupting the he-said, they-said with her sassy commentary. In the end, Nick was pretty sure they’d prevailed, although he didn’t feel very triumphant.

  Out in the hallway Luis appeared as if from a shadow. He stalked up to Nick. Nick tried to retreat but ended up trapped against a wall. “You know this is fucking bullshit,” he whispered. Nick’s eyes darted around in search of a court officer, but none was near; plus, Luis had a smile on his face that might’ve looked friendly from afar. “Buddy, if you win this case, I’ll never pay. I’ll appeal your ass, I’ll sue you, I’ll do whatever it takes to wear you down and make your life miserable. You and your stupid girlfriend will be so sorry you ever messed with me.”

  “All right, enough. Let’s go.” Emma stepped between them and tugged at Nick’s sleeve. He found it hard to pick up his feet.

  “What a crock of B.S.,” she said on the walk downstairs. “He knows he lost, so clearly he’s feeling helpless and angry. But he’s so obviously all talk. Wanna get a drink and take our minds off all of this?”

  No, Nick didn’t want to get a drink. He didn’t even want to open his mouth to say so. Emma was doing her best—she’d taken charge, whisking them into the stairwell so they wouldn’t have to wait for the elevator with Luis, and then rubbed Nick’s back in a way that usually eased his tension—but Nick didn’t want a drink. He wanted Luis out of his life, and to live somewhere that wasn’t covered in boxes. He wanted to be back in his old apartment, alone, playing video games. “I’m gonna take a walk,” he mumbled, and took off, pretending he didn’t hear Emma ask after him whether she should wait or go.

  Nick had made the Herculean effort to hook up the TV and then clear off a small area of the couch so that he could assume his Friday post-school position of half conking out and channel surfing. He flipped past the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, one of Emma’s favorites, wishing the cable was set up so he could DVR it for her. Nick thought about how strangely all over the place he’d been feeling. Last night after the run-in with Luis, he’d retreated to a bar and played round after round of pinball, letting the flashing lights and the balls’ movements lull him into a stupor. When he’d finally snapped out of it, it was much too late for a school night. And although hours had passed, he’d still dreaded going home to Emma, facing her questions and looks of concern. And yet, after several minutes of jiggling his key in the lock he still wasn’t used to, Nick had realized what a comfort it was to return to his girlfriend. She’d already been asleep, curled up on top of the covers, and when he’d climbed into bed beside her, her warm body instinctually found its way to his. She smelled exactly like herself, and their bodies fit together just so. Nick thought of this now and, aware of Emma’s absence on the couch, threw a blanket over his legs. He flipped to another channel. The screen flashed onto what looked to be The Perfect Storm, a perfectly decent movie for his end-of-the-workweek ritual. Just as he tossed aside the remote, his cell phone rang: Carl’s dopey mug accosted his screen.

  “So sorry to interrupt your daily masturbation hour,” Carl began, “but I just got set free from an epic meeting with our beloved principal. The one time I dared glance at my phone she shot
me that ice queen death glare. It was brutal.”

  “Sounds like a real tragedy.” Nick felt impatient. “So, to what do I owe this call?”

  “Lara wants to finalize the budget. Is it true your moneybags friend is going to bankroll the tutoring deal? And is Emma still considering gracing us with her presence? Lara wants a résumé and all that; it’s just for show, of course—she likes to pretend well-qualified candidates are beating down her door dying to help our crappily educated kids get into good middle schools, all for a grand jackpot of twenty-five bucks an hour.”

  “Nice attitude for a school leader.” Nick could hear Carl snapping his gum. “I’ll know everything by Monday.” He felt a twinge about following up with Eli on his offer.

  “Thattaboy. See ya, dude.” He’d hung up before Nick could say bye. Nick turned back to the TV. Again it was the storm images, but when he realized it wasn’t a movie but the news—boring—he flipped it off and called Emma.

  “Hey, so according to Carl, you have to officially apply for the tutoring position.”

  “Ah, so you’re calling to say you’re volunteering to ghostwrite my cover letter?”

  “If that’s what it takes to get you, then of course.”

  “Although first I should probably have a serious sit-down with Carl. I’d like some answers, like, what’ll be the criteria to recruit kids? And which pedagogy will we use to teach essay writing and test prep? How about textbooks, and parental involvement? Is there a snack budget? And will there be student liaisons at the target middle schools?”

  “Carl would adore this conversation. We’ll get it on his schedule—a two-hour window, minimum. So does that mean you’re really up for the gig?”

  “Hm. Hey, have you heard about this storm they’re predicting for the weekend?”

  “Are you purposely changing the subject to the weather?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “Good-bye, Ems. I have very important Friday afternoon relaxing to attend to.”

  Chapter 24

  Emma started to freak out in the bottled water aisle, where the shelves were so deserted it didn’t even look like a supermarket. “What if this storm is actually a big deal?” she said to Nick.

  “Oh, come on.” He tossed a green pepper into their cart. Most of their items were perishable, meaning they’d quickly rot if the power went out. Emma thought of the court battle over the broken refrigerator, which now seemed like an omen. “Remember last year for Hurricane Irene? Everyone freaked out and bought flashlights and first aid kits and weeks’ worth of canned goods, and then it rained for, like, an hour.”

  That was true, and Emma was happy to latch onto the comforting comparison. Plus, Nick was usually the cautious, overprepared one, so if he wasn’t worried, then she probably shouldn’t be, either. “Remember that little twig they kept showing on TV?” she said, more breezily than she felt. The local news, seemingly desperate for footage of Irene, had broadcast a loop of the so-called damage, and Emma and Nick had laughed their heads off at the repeated appearances of one twig rolling down a windy avenue.

  “See? Exactly.” Although as Nick threw a pint of mint ice cream into their cart, Emma made a mental note to eat it within the next day.

  “I’m going to get some supplies just in case.” She added cans of soup and beans and fruit to their haul, plus shelf-stable milk that Nick claimed he wouldn’t go near even in case of apocalypse. Emma wanted candles, too, but Fairway was sold out, along with batteries. The lines for the registers wrapped all the way around the store.

  “Should we abandon ship and just eat out?” Nick said. They’d come in for dinner ingredients—Emma couldn’t put up with any more takeout—although seeing all the panicky people clutching at their disaster supplies, her appetite had been replaced with a case of nerves.

  “Let’s split up our cart so we can both stand in ‘15 items or less.’”

  “Fewer,” said Nick. “And I really think we should leave.”

  “What? Oh, thanks, smarty-pants. What do you think’ll be more useful during a hurricane, proper grammar or a cabinet full of canned food?” She divided the groceries between them, thinking they still needed to find somewhere to buy bottled water, then ducked over to the express line and stuck out her tongue at Nick.

  Emma slept poorly that night. She dreamed of running from a tidal wave, surrounded by her clients and their panicked parents, plus her niece and nephew. Emma ran and ran, until it suddenly occurred to her to wonder where Nick was. Had he tripped and fallen? Was he okay? Eventually she reached a ship, which she somehow knew was Noah’s ark. But when she tried to board, she was denied entry: Couples only, someone said, and it was a moment before she realized that that someone was Luis, apparently the ark’s bouncer. As others raced past her to embark, she was trampled.

  Emma bolted awake—it was early morning. She’d sweated through her T-shirt. Nick’s breath was even against her cheek—there he was, safe beside her in bed, not caught up in some tsunami—but still Emma couldn’t calm down. She got up and flipped on the news. The mayor and the governor were giving a joint press conference, warning of the severity of the coming storm—the winds could hit ninety miles per hour, the mayor said, and the water surge might reach twenty feet, the governor added. Schools would be closed tomorrow, said the mayor, and subways would shut down this evening, added the governor. It was like a battle of who could make the most shocking statement. The city’s flood zone map appeared onscreen, and Emma searched for her new neighborhood among the color-coded sections. There it was, smack in the middle of the red, like it was bleeding: Zone One.

  But when Nick awoke, he didn’t want to evacuate. He was convinced that once again the politicians were overreacting and the media was feeding the hype in an effort to boost ratings. “Anyway, it’ll be fun to be all cooped up inside in the rain,” he said. “There’ll be nothing to do, so we can finally unpack. Plus, where would we even go?”

  “Gen’s place up in Harlem is outside the flood zones.”

  Nick looked outraged. “You mean her five-hundred-square-foot pen that she shares with three roommates?”

  “Good point. Or Annie and Eli’s. They’re in Zone Five, which is supposed to be much safer than our Zone One.”

  “Zones? So you know all the lingo now? What is this, The Hunger Games?”

  “That’s districts.” Emma’s voice was sober; it seemed easier to feel upset about botched Hunger Games terminology than about the possible coming mayhem.

  “Em, I know you’re scared, but I really don’t want to go lean on Annie and Eli’s hospitality again. We did it for weeks and now we finally have a home of our own. Come on, we survived apartment hunting in New York City; we can survive anything.” As Nick pulled her into his arms, Emma considered whether she would evacuate without him.

  She spent most of the day staring out the window—the air was heavy, so that the tree branches seemed to be straining against it, their leaves hissing with effort. The birds sounded louder than usual, like they were issuing warnings. Emma was on and off the phone with Annie, who was begging her to come stay with them. “Seriously, Ems, your apartment is, like, ground zero.”

  “Please don’t say ‘ground zero.’”

  “You know what I mean. It’s supposed to be a total shit show. Plus, Monday’s a full moon. The tides are going to be wacky.” When Annie started in on her horoscope, Emma tuned her out in favor of the mute TV; President Obama was standing at a podium as a banner of text flashed across the bottom of the screen: Emergency declared in the state of New York. Nick, meanwhile, was sprawled out on the couch devouring a can of corn, which he must’ve pulled from their disaster supply; Emma burned with fury. Annie was still talking: “Our apartment has extra-thick storm-proof windows, plus we’re on the twenty-sixth floor—as in, twenty-five floors higher than you guys. I bought pretty much all of Whole Foods, including rum and grenadine so we can make Hurricanes.”

  The reminder that they were on the ground floor, plus t
he sight of Nick lying about eating his way through their storm food, was the breaking point for Emma. “All right, I’ll come,” she told Annie. She found her overnight bag and called out, “Nick, I’m going to Annie’s whether or not you come with—although I hope you will.” No response.

  An hour before the subways were set to shut down, Nick was still planted on the couch watching the news. “Holy shit,” he said, turning up the volume, “IKEA’s closing until at least Wednesday.” At which point he got up and began packing, too. Emma would make fun of this comment for the rest of the week—the fact that it wasn’t the president’s declaration of emergency or the mayor’s call for mandatory evacuation, but IKEA’s closure that finally convinced Nick to haul out. But Emma suspected it was really the fact that she’d be leaving; Nick had put on a good front, but he, too, was scared.

  So in what must’ve been one of the last rides before the mammoth MTA machine cranked all of its trains to a halt, Emma, Nick, and dozens of other Zone One residents boarded the F train headed to Manhattan. One guy had a boom box and was blasting Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane.” Unusually for the train, no one gave him dirty looks or shouted to shut the damn thing off. Several people actually sang along—Emma mouthed the lyrics without quite realizing she was doing so—and two kids got up and began that subway-specific dance genre of pole swinging and fancy footwork in the aisle. Despite the song’s ominous melody, and the fact that the train was filled with people in practical clothes toting backpacks and duffel bags, rather than the usual fashion show of the Manhattan-bound F, it was hard to remember this wasn’t just any New York moment, everyone nodding along to the same song. One of the dancers performed a one-armed pull-up using the bar directly over Emma’s seat, and she dropped a dollar in his hat.