“I can come inside for a few minutes to help if you want.”
“Daddy!” Aimee shrieked. “I wanna go home!” Max shot her a stern look.
“I think the people have spoken,” Nick said, shaking Max’s hand and then scooching out of the car. Emma leaned in to hug her brother, and they each held on for an extra beat. The great thing about siblings, Emma thought, was that no matter what you said or how much you pissed each other off, your bond was like an elastic, snapping you inevitably back together.
“Nice hair piece,” Max said. Emma touched her head and felt the fuzzy fabric of her niece’s barrette.
“Oh, this is Aimee’s.” She unclipped it and handed it over. Aimee shook her head.
“That’s a present for you. You’re a wise girl.”
Emma touched her niece on the nose. “No, you’re the wise girl.”
“Aimee and Emma, Emma and Aimee.”
“That’s right. Aimee and Emma, Emma and Aimee. Bye, you guys. See you very, very soon.” She bonked her niece and nephew on the heads, one per “very.”
Emma and Nick stood there waving even after the minivan had pulled out of sight. If they could freeze themselves in this moment, Emma thought, then they wouldn’t have to face the next one. Eventually Nick turned toward her. “Ready?” he said. Emma felt a twinge in her stomach, but let him take her hand. She realized it had been over a week since they’d been alone together.
Inside the apartment, Emma felt as if it was her first time there. It smelled musty and the wood floor had warped into sloping hills. It didn’t seem like a space where they, or anybody, might live. Nick flipped on the light switch and it took a moment before the main bulb flickered on, revealing pockets of water bubbled behind the wall’s paint and items scattered around the floor. Mostly their moving boxes were still stacked where they’d left them, although now they slumped in various states of damp and collapse.
Emma felt the need to tiptoe as she surveyed the scene, as if wary of doing more damage. The place was in bad but not terrible shape—the couch and chairs were soggy, but the metal table and bed frame looked fine, solidly standing and rust-free. The electronics were obviously done for. Emma nearly broke down imagining her waterlogged laptop, until she considered Nick’s video-game console, now caput, and how much she’d stressed about the possibility of him spending all his time in their shared home gaming. It was funny how the things you worried about rarely materialized; it was the things you never could’ve anticipated that actually went wrong.
Emma glanced over at Nick, who was poking at a pocket of water trapped in the wall and whistling—actually whistling. She felt a flash of anger and, in sudden despair, tore at a rip in one of the moving boxes. The box split open and out tumbled a pile of shirts and sweaters, and along with it a strong stench of mold. Emma spotted her purple tunic, and reached to pull it out. Her favorite top was now damp and distended, and splotches of discoloration lined the hem.
And then Emma lost it. Her knees buckled and her throat clenched with sobs. She clutched at the ruined shirt, which she’d bought years ago, long before she’d met Nick. She ran through a slideshow of all the times she’d worn it, its delicate silk swishing like little kisses against her skin, its sleek silhouette making her feel pretty and glamorous. She pictured nights out with Annie and department parties at Cornell and those early-on dates with Nick, so heady with promise.
Nick. Emma reeled around to find her boyfriend surveying a shelf of books. He was still whistling, his tune jaunty and light, like at any moment he might start tap-dancing. Emma felt furious. “Do you not even care that our lives are ruined?” she spat.
“What?” He turned to face her, his eyes going suddenly sad; Emma had started whimpering again and she held out the tunic. “Oh, Emma. Hey, shhh, it’s okay. Our lives aren’t ruined. This is all stuff.” He made a sweeping gesture. “It’s all just stuff.”
“It’s not just stuff,” she said. “I had this on when I told Annie I was leaving grad school to move here. And I wore it the first time we went to the Botanic Gardens—you said the color made my eyes look violet. It means something to me. All of it does.”
Nick was nodding, but he didn’t look sympathetic; he looked impatient. “Okay, so you can take it to the dry cleaners, baby.” The term of endearment made Emma flinch.
“You don’t get it, do you?” She darted into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. She flashed on an idea of Nick as a hurricane, intent on destroying their lives—and not just their stuff. For the past week Emma had pushed from her mind the images of him and Gen, focused as she was on the storm and staying at Max’s. But now that she was back in their wrecked home, the place where the two of them were supposed to start a new chapter together, the nausea returned: Nick had cheated on her. Yes, he felt awful about it; Emma didn’t doubt that. But the fact was, he’d done it. It’s not like it was always easy for Emma to be in a relationship, like she never felt stifled or bored by monogamy, like she wasn’t sometimes tempted to fall into bed with a cute guy who gave her a certain look across a bar. But the point was, she’d never given in to those whims. She’d never lost sight of the wreckage and hurt that such a misstep would cause. She’d never been so selfish or stupid.
Nick was knocking on the bathroom door. “What?” she shouted.
“I found something behind the counter.” Emma cracked the door. Nick was standing there, holding up her charm bracelet, the one he’d been adding to for each of her birthdays and other special occasions. A part of Emma wanted to say something nasty, like that the next charm should be a cell phone so they’d never forget his dalliance with Gen, another great milestone in their relationship. But Nick looked more than repentant; he looked devastated. So Emma held out her wrist. Nick’s fingers were delicate with the clasp, and the charms clinked against one another like wind chimes. The silver was shiny, as if the storm water had polished it; the star, the miniature book, the thimble-sized champagne flute, and the Edith Wharton figurine all glinted in the light. “Beautiful,” Nick said, kissing her hand.
“Nick,” Emma started, water again pooling in her eyes.
“So much has been ruined, I know,” he said. He took her shoulders and met her gaze. “I’m going to do everything I can for us to rebuild what we had.” Emma nodded, and he wiped the tears from her cheeks. She nodded again, resolving to let him try.
For dinner they opened a can of pineapple rings and another of peaches in syrup. As Emma stabbed at a slimy peach with her plastic fork, she thought of all the elaborate meals her sister-in-law had fed them that week. Now she and Nick were perched on a countertop slurping at juice from tin cans. But it didn’t feel awful, exactly. It felt like starting over. Emma glanced at Nick, who was poking his tongue through a pineapple ring. She leaned in and bit off chunks until the remainder fell away and slopped to the ground. “Storm debris,” she said. “We’ll clean it up later.” Nick kissed her, his mouth pineapple-sweet, and Emma felt a surge of love. For the moment this all felt okay—her boyfriend, their relationship, this mess of an apartment, their life.
When the doorbell’s mechanical beep sounded, Emma started—it was strange that the buzzer system still worked, considering the collapse of everything else. Peering through the peephole, she saw their landlady, Shelley, waving energetically. She opened the door and Shelley lunged in for a hug. “You’re okay!” she yelped.
“We are, we just got back. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay, too.” Shelley handed Emma a laminated index card, nearly identical to the one she’d given them when they first moved in, the one labeled, Shelley’s best ratings!!! This card also listed local venues, but instead of bars and restaurants it was supply pickup spots and pop-up soup kitchens. Emma read from the Bonus! section at the bottom: IKEA serving breakfast all week. Free! Cinnamon buns so sweet!
“Also, you have not had good time as tenants so far,” Shelley said. “No heat, water everywhere, electricity on and off—they say for many more weeks, maybe.” As i
f on cue, the apartment went dark. They heard someone yell, “Goddamn it, again?” from across the airshaft. A moment later the lights flickered back on. “Let there be light,” Shelley said, slapping her knee. “Anyway, I decide to give you free rent for the first two weeks, okay? And here’s your mail. I like People magazine, too.”
“Thanks,” Emma said, not quite believing what she’d heard. “For everything. I’d offer you a drink, but all we have is bottled water.”
“No, no, I get out of your hairs. Got to go give out my little cards.” And then Shelley flitted away, like some kind of fairy spirit.
“Is she for real?” Emma asked.
“I think we may have found the one decent landlord in all of New York City,” said Nick. “Speaking of which …” He pointed to the two letters on top of the stack of mail—both from the court. “I can’t look. You better do the honors.”
As Emma tore open the letters, Nick flipped through an L.L. Bean catalog, his nonchalant air clearly an act. Emma peered over his shoulder; nearly half the pages were filled with rain jackets and water-resistant gear, which seemed like a practical joke.
Emma turned her attention back to the court letters and scrutinized the legal jargon. “Well,” she finally said, fairly certain she’d gleaned the correct meaning. “We won every penny we asked for. Yay! But Luis is appealing. Boo!”
And then they were both laughing. Of course this would be the result; of course they would win, only not really; of course Luis would continue to cast a cloud over their lives. Emma thought of that silly friend of Sophia’s, the one who was making his way through law school one course per semester, who’d warned her of the long, painful, paperwork-filled process these court cases always were. Nick swatted the letters from Emma’s hand, and they flitted to the floor. “Storm debris,” he said.
The electricity cut out again, and Nick laid one of their borrowed blankets across the damp couch. He took Emma’s hand, and reluctantly she let him pull her down beside him. Without the hum of electronics, all she could hear was the sound of their breath and the tinkling of her charm bracelet. Emma felt happy. When it was time for sleep, she pulled another blanket on top of them, tucking it tight like a cocoon. “How’s this for being socially conventional,” she said. “Just how you imagined our shacking up together, right?”
“Exactly. You know, we could get some cats and a few creepy knickknacks and open a bed-and-breakfast. We already have the musty smell and the rotting furniture.”
“Emma and Nick’s Ramshackle Paradise.”
“Emma and Nick’s Storm-Ravaged Haven.”
“Emma and Nick’s Waterfront Wasteland.”
“Emma and Nick’s Happy Home.”
Emma fell asleep in Nick’s arms, the names of all these imaginary places pinging merrily about her head.
When Emma arrived at work the next morning, she was so focused on slipping past Gen’s desk undetected that she nearly tripped over the basket in her office doorway. It was filled with bottled water, batteries and candles, plus several kits meant to dry out wet electronics. Her boss popped her head in. “Oh, good, you saw our little care package.”
“This is so generous, Quinn.”
“Oh, everyone pitched in. The rest of us live uptown, where Sandy was just a little rainstorm.” Tucked among the supplies Emma spotted a bag of Swedish Fish, and pulled it out. “Genevieve said those are your favorite,” Quinn said. Emma felt a pang, no longer wanting the gummies. “Anyway, let me know if you need to cut out early this week to deal with whatever. I can cover your clients.”
“Thanks. You’re really the best.” Emma was touched by her boss’s kindness. Although she felt a tad paranoid, too, as if Quinn somehow knew she was considering leaving, and was reminding her of the benefits of working there.
All day long, Emma heard tales of her clients’ storm dramas. Some lived on the Upper East Side, set off from Sandy’s most intense rage, but others hailed from Tribeca and the East Village and spoke of freezing nights without power, broken windows, and dogs forced to do their business inside. Unlike what Emma had heard of Hurricane Katrina—how it had wreaked havoc precisely along socioeconomic lines, preying on New Orleans’s poorest while sparing its wealthiest residents—Hurricane Sandy hadn’t discriminated in its damage. One client, Paul Spencer, said his family would have to stay indefinitely with cousins up in Queens; this boy who, two months ago, had slunk into Emma’s office timid and terrified, now stood up and delivered a hilarious impression of his socialite mother discovering she’d have to sleep on an air mattress. All of Emma’s clients had done their homework, too—some by candlelight, it sounded like. Emma was sure this was due to her recent revised strategy of finding out what the kids actually wanted out of their tutoring.
Sophia was the last client of the day, her last-ever session. Emma had scheduled it this way on purpose, so they could linger. Sophia rolled in, greeted Emma with a double-cheek kiss, then launched into rapid-fire Spanish—she’d clearly advanced more than Emma’s dad in the few weeks they’d been Skyping. The torrent ended with an upward inflection, implying a question. Emma shrugged. “My Spanish is kind of rusty, sorry.”
“So listen,” said Sophia, switching back to English, “I want your feedback on my Madrid app, which I brought, but I also want to talk about my future as the best part-time tutor you could hire. If you want me to sit for the SATs and actually take them seriously so you can advertise your star tutor as having aced some stupid test, I’ll do it. Gladly.”
“All right,” said Emma. Sophia had thought this all through.
“So are you really gonna go for it, then—start your own business?”
“Shhh.” Emma went to close her door. “I don’t know,” she added, but even as the words came out of her mouth, she thought, Yes, I’m really going to go for it.
As Emma read over Sophia’s application, dazzled as usual by the girl’s writing but also impressed for the first time by her passion for the subject matter, Sophia sat sketching. Emma made a few notes and then handed the papers back to Sophia. “If they don’t accept you, I’ll have my parents personally go and beat up the admissions team.”
“Deal.” Sophia passed her sketch to Emma. It was a picturesque, Disney-style scene: a cartoon of a cozy home, two figures embracing in the doorway, and friendly animals flitting all about. Hanging from the mouths of a pair of bluebirds was a banner reading, THANK YOU, EMMA!
“That’s you and Nick,” said Sophia. “And look at the clouds.” Emma glanced up at the cumulus formation at the paper’s edge, where she spotted a girl in a flamenco outfit standing before a museum, two wizened faces smiling behind her.
“You and my parents?”
“Yep.”
“They’re going to drive you kind of crazy, Sophia. I’m warning you.”
“Oh, they’re the best—they said they’d teach me how to bake. I’ve never even turned on the oven!” Emma pictured Sophia whipping up rugelach and mandel bread, exclaiming “Oy vey” when the kitchen overheated. “And wanna know what your dad said when we were talking about the tutoring business?” She stated this as if a business already existed. “He said, ‘Emma is so strong and capable and brave that we never worry about her.’ Apparently that’s not the case for your brother—what’s his name, Matt?”
“Max.”
“Anyway, my mom would never say something like that about me.”
Emma thought about this, how sweet it was, and yet, how maybe it wouldn’t hurt for her parents to worry about her occasionally. “If it makes you feel better,” she said, “I think you’re strong and capable and brave, and I don’t plan on worrying about you at all when you skip off to Spain and embark on your illustrious new life as an artist ex-pat.”
“That does make me feel better,” Sophia said.
“I’ll hang this drawing in my new office. That is, if I get a new office. And you’re hired, no SATs necessary, on the contingency that I actually start up a business.”
“You’ll do i
t, I know it.”
It seemed like the shortest session ever, and before Emma realized it Sophia was trilling, “Adios, mi amiga,” and flitting away. Emma felt like a proud parent, launching her child out into the world.
It was late, so Emma was surprised to find Genevieve still at her desk. When Gen rushed up to her, bubbling over with exclamations of “Oh my God, are you okay?!” and “How’s your new apartment after the storm?!” it was a shock to remember that she had no idea what Emma knew. Emma realized she’d been steeling herself for a tense reunion. But all of Gen’s hugging and concern derailed her from her original plan to confront her friend and curtly demand an apology. Instead, she found herself recounting her Sandy saga like the plot of some steamy TV drama, then asking after Gen’s own storm story.
“Well, I had a revelation!” This was practically Gen’s catchphrase. “As the water was pounding down on my roof, I started thinking, What if this was it for me? What if my ceiling suddenly caved, and kaput, I’m gone? Would I want to die knowing I’ve spent my days answering phones, or even taking sick people’s pulses and drawing their blood? Hell, no. I’d want to know I’ve given my all to my dreams. So, I’m moving to Los Angeles!”
“Wait, what?” Emma had half expected all of it, except for the last bit.
“For pilot season. Well, first I have to get my headshots together and do a boatload of research on directors and producers and the kinds of scripts that are coming down the pipe for the season. Which is why I’m here so late.”
“So you’re going permanently?” Emma asked. Even in the shock of the moment, Emma was aware that maybe she should feel relieved; with Gen relocating thousands of miles away, whatever had happened between her and Nick would now be 100 percent through. And maybe there was a flicker of relief, but it was accompanied by sadness. Despite recent events, Emma couldn’t conceive of her life without Gen.
“Not necessarily. I mean, if I get cast in a part, then obviously yes.”
“Or if you meet some dreamy Venice Beach surfer dude, right?”
If We Lived Here Page 30
