by Ruby Lang
Another image in his head of her falling down into a pile of pillows in a soft, well-lit room.
Well, he thought, looking around in the dark night, that was definitely a fantasy.
Besides, she was shaking her head. “Thank you. That means a lot to me. But I can’t leave. I don’t feel right about it.”
He thought for another minute. “Tell you what,” he said. “I’m going to go back to my apartment. I’ll get a sleeping bag for you. It’s not cold out, but at least it’s some padding if you sleep on the floor. What else would you like? A toothbrush and toothpaste? Something more comfortable than the suit? I have a T-shirt you could use.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Hey, it’ll be fine. Kind of an adventure through an abandoned city.”
“If you’re sure. A sleeping bag and a toothbrush and toothpaste would be great. I have some workout clothing I can change into.”
“Nothing else you want? Korean face mask? Seltzer? Extra flashlight?”
“How do you know about Korean face masks?” He heard the laughter in her voice. Good.
“I like to keep up with what the kids are into. Plus, I figure you must get your glow somehow.”
“I think the glow is from making out.”
Oh. Ty took in a deep breath. Yes, the air was very hot.
Magda said low, “No face mask required. But maybe a flashlight if you have one. My phone battery is low and obviously, I won’t be able to recharge it. Thank you, Ty.”
“It’s no problem. Okay, I’m going to take off. You shut the door and I’ll be back in”—the elevator in his building was probably out of commission. It would be a sweaty hike up to his apartment, and he’d be looking in the dark for gear he hadn’t used in a long time—“half an hour, maybe? I’ll text when I start back. I have your number from your card. Will you be all right?”
“I’ll be all right.”
They smiled at each other. It was going to be their first goodbye after their first kiss. Ty wondered if his life was always going to be divided this way: the life he’d led before he kissed Magda, the life after.
“Okay,” he said again.
And then she leaned forward, he leaned down and their lips touched again, and they breathed together, they pulled closer, and then apart.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
“I’ll be waiting.”
Chapter Nine
After Ty left, Magda went inside and shut the door. She threw the deadbolt as a precaution. Then she took a deep breath to get her bearings.
The darkness made the house seem unfamiliar. It was so strange to be feeling her way around, trying to be careful of the buckets and building supplies left by workmen. More than once, she caught herself reaching for the light switch or flipping one to no avail.
She made her way back to the kitchen and snatched a now-cold dumpling—still delicious—and carefully boxed up the rest. No use putting them in the fridge. She checked Twitter one more time before tucking her phone away to save the battery. The blackout seemed to be concentrated above 125th Street. It could take hours before Con Ed fixed it.
A combination of excitement and nervousness still bubbled through her veins, heightened by the strangeness of the last hour. She was alone in a now-unfamiliar house. But she’d kissed Tyson Yang. At this counter. Over this counter. Her lips still felt sensitive; her whole body was still thrumming in expectation. Her palms tingled, her legs, her thighs, the juncture between them, felt heavy, thick with need. Because she’d promised—the kiss had promised—so much more.
But he wasn’t there right now. And she had to be practical. After stumbling and stubbing her toe, she managed to find her bag and her workout clothing. She stepped out of her shoes, unzipped her skirt, and laid it neatly on a kitchen stool. She took off her camisole.
She was in her underwear in the kitchen of a large house, and a man who she’d kissed and kissed was returning to her very soon.
Her breathing heightened, she pulled out her T-shirt and the yoga pants and held them for a moment.
The fabric touched her bare thighs briefly, like a provocation. The night and the heat seemed to envelop her completely. It was almost frightening. It was exciting.
She was not going to do anything rash.
Her phone pinged. She reached for it, her heart pounding, and blinked for a minute at its too-bright face. “I’m coming,” the message read.
She let out another shaky laugh.
It occurred to her that maybe she could take a cold shower, a rinse. Step in, step out in time for Ty to return. She rummaged for a towel and picked her way carefully to the small half bathroom off the kitchen.
Right. Be brisk.
She took off the rest of her clothing, turned on the water to cold and let it run. Her small shriek startled even her but the water did its business and she emerged tingling and far too awake. But at least the nerves in her body were confused enough that she wouldn’t jump on Ty and ravage him when he returned.
The doorbell chimed as she was pulling on her yoga pants.
Make good decisions, she reminded herself.
But as the T-shirt slithered over her body, she was pretty sure that she was already ignoring her own advice.
* * *
Ty stood in the doorway, a bulky backpack distorting his shape.
By mutual agreement, it seemed, they decided not to touch each other. Slippery slope and all that, Magda thought giddily.
Ty handed Magda a light pack. “There’s a sleeping bag, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a crank flashlight. I guess I made an emergency kit at some point in the last two years. Go me.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
She should not invite him back in. She should shut the door and let him go home, let him sleep, or shower, or run outside shirtless in the enveloping darkness. It was already late and she should also definitely try to lie down and toss and turn and think about him all night long.
“I also brought the ice cream that was melting in my freezer,” Ty said.
He pulled out two dented cartons.
“You’d be doing me a favor,” he said. “They’ll go to waste.”
She never could resist ice cream.
They avoided the chairs they’d taken the last time they were in the kitchen. They leaned against the cabinets. For a few moments, all they did was spoon rapidly melting ice cream into their mouths. She’d chosen the mint chocolate chip, leaving him the banana fudge.
There was something about darkness and ice cream that made her want to confess things. She felt like she had to tell him something about herself.
“I need the money,” she said. “I have a lot of student debt. I still owe a lot to the culinary school. You asked jokingly earlier if I was...occupying the townhouse. I’m not. But I’m tempted. Every time the end of the month rolls around and I’m sweating and wondering if this is the month my rent check will bounce, I think about moving in here, just into a closet, not even the bedroom, so I can stash my blankets and pillows away. Clearly, I’ve thought about it. It sounds appealing, not only because I’d be squatting here rent-free, but because I’d be hiding. From everything that’s gone bad, from all of my missteps. I know it doesn’t make sense, because even if I stay here, eventually I’d have to face the consequences. Byron would find out, he’d be mad. I’d be out of a job.”
“But you’ll sell the place.”
“I wonder.”
“Everyone our age has debt. It’s not easy to save these days.”
“Even you?”
“Even me. I have some student loans, and a mortgage is debt. Believe me, it’s not you, it’s the economy.”
She thought about that. She nodded. “What does it say about me that every day I pretend the house is mine. I stare at this oven and wish I could start baking, cooking, everything. I make
up ingredient lists for pernil, for cookies, for a seven-course dinner that I could serve to my friends and family. I go into the bathroom to clean and think about leaving a toothbrush. I know exactly which table would go at the entrance, where I’d leave my mail.”
“Do you really think you’d do it?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I could. I spend a lot of time talking to the people who come see it, telling a story about how they’d be in this house, the barbecues they’d have, the soups they’d cook on this stove in wintertime. In the middle of it, I manage to convince myself that the story is for me.”
“It must be hard to be around it sometimes. Sometimes I feel that way about managing other people’s money. But that’s abstract. To hear people talk about how they’d arrange their furniture, or who could have which room. I think it would make me want a piece of it.”
“Yeah. So if I gave in to the temptation of making myself at home here, I think... I think it would really hurt if I sold it, or worse if I didn’t sell it and had nothing to show for the work I’ve put into it.”
“And now you’re going to stay the night.”
“Now I’m going to stay the night. For the first time, I’m going to try to sleep here.”
“Have you decided where you’re going to sleep? Because I don’t think a closet is a good idea. Too stuffy in this weather.”
A pause.
She stared down at the soupy mess in her ice cream carton. Her mouth felt sticky and sweet.
“I was thinking of the roof.”
She felt rather than saw his frown.
He put down his pint of ice cream. “Is it safe there?”
“Reasonably. My uncle started to build a deck there, but the neighbors objected because all the roofs are connected.”
“He started, as in it needs some furniture, or started as in it has only part of a railing and you’ll roll off in the middle of the night?”
“Give me some credit.”
“I’m sorry. It’s that the idea of you sleeping alone and outside on a roof makes me nervous. It’s not about your competence, it’s about my fears.”
Magda confessed grudgingly, “It still needs proper decking if that’s what you’re asking. It’s secure and I won’t come crashing down, but it isn’t polished wood up there. I love it anyway.”
She took the remains of his ice cream and hers. Their fingers touched briefly. Then Magda turned and threw everything in the trash. When she spun around again, he was standing close.
“Take me to this roof of yours.”
* * *
They went up and up the stairs, past the second parlor and dining level, Magda called it, up past the hallway where they peeked briefly at the room with the one bed. It did look inviting, and soft, and layered, even in the brief illumination of the flashlight. But it was much too hot for beds. At least that’s what Ty told himself. They went up into a room piled high with boxes and then they emerged finally out into the night sky.
It hadn’t cooled down very much in the night. Cars drove by occasionally, booming with bass, their headlights cutting through the thorough darkness of the blackout. Choruses of horns trumpeted in the distance, their brassy complaints coming from the larger avenues where traffic was no doubt a mess. Somewhere not that far off, someone had decided it was a good night to play music, and snatches of plaintive singing burnished the night.
Magda was staring up. “People say you can’t see the stars in New York City. Too much light pollution. But on clear nights, I’ve always been able to make them out.”
“Maybe those aren’t stars, maybe they’re planets.”
“Even better,” Magda said. “You can’t live on a star. But you can always hope for a planet.”
Oh.
He really, really liked her, especially now that he could see her soft silhouette out here on this rooftop under a clear sky. He wanted to hug her to him, to feel the length of her body pressed against his, to run his fingers through her curls. But aside from some accidental brushes, they hadn’t touched each other, not since he’d set out to bring her the sleeping bag.
And he shouldn’t. She shouldn’t. She should stay away from him, refuse to talk to him, refuse to kiss him. Because if she did, she might be disappointed in herself.
He didn’t want to be her weakness. He wanted to be a part of her strength.
So, he kept his mouth shut. He helped her carefully spread out the sleeping bag across the rough surface of the roof. And he sat down beside her, and stared up at the planets, his bent knees beside hers, close enough that he could almost feel the warmth coming off of her, far enough that it wasn’t enough.
“I can see why you love this neighborhood,” Magda said.
“It grew on me. I moved here not long after my mom died. I wanted a fresh start and my apartment, the place I live in now, was somewhere that could happen. I remade it and it felt new. There was plastic on the appliances. There were even those foam spacers still gripping the fridge drawers, and tape to keep them from rattling. I remember at my old place, coming home late from the hospital, every night I’d sit down on my couch and drink a beer and stare out the window trying to shake off all the—all the anger and sadness. When I moved, I got rid of the couch. I can’t stand the taste of beer anymore. I didn’t even know why I did these things until recently. The couch was fine. Beer is probably fine. Same with the apartment. I tried to justify moving with saying my home was an investment. I was being sensible and planning for my future. But now I think I was so relieved to come to a place with no personal history for me. Although I guess I’ve managed to screw that up completely for myself by getting involved with the garden.”
He lay back on the sleeping bag.
“My dad also moved not six months after she died. Just packed up, said a short goodbye, and he was gone. Left the house in Jersey for me and my sister to deal with. It seemed like he couldn’t get away fast enough. But now, I think maybe I should have more sympathy for my dad. It’s what I ended up doing after all. What I would have done if I could.”
“There’s no shame in wanting a fresh start after a long, tough time. Although I wonder if there is such a thing.”
“Why not?”
“Well, there are memories, of course. I see it with Uncle Byron trying to rebuild this entire house, renovating it and renovating it until it seems completely different. But there’s other stuff that we can’t get rid of as easily. Like, I can start a new career, but it’s not like I can magically erase the debt that came before.”
“How did you end up with it, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“School. All of the different kinds and varieties, all the kinds of education that I grew up believing was an investment in the future. I told my mom at the beginning of college that I didn’t want her financial help. The more she pressed it on me, the deeper in I dug. I was in pre-med. I planned on following in my mother’s footsteps. It would have been the best way to prove myself to my family. But I didn’t like it. By the time I was done with undergrad, I’d decided to study psych instead. Then, I was in graduate school and it was all wrong for me, so I quit. I did a bunch of in-between jobs. I tutored kids for their SATs. I hostessed at a restaurant. And all that time, it seemed okay that I was trying out new things. That’s what your twenties are for, right? Then, after working in restaurants I decided it was best for me to go to culinary school, which I loved. But that’s when it really began crashing around me. I was denied financial aid and my loans couldn’t be deferred any more. I tell people I couldn’t hack it because, maybe because I’m ashamed.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
“I should have paid more attention. I shouldn’t have gotten myself in the hole. But I was so eager to prove all this experimentation was worth it.”
“To who?”
“To—to my mom, or my sisters, I guess. But instead, I didn’t.
I don’t want my family to know the real reason that I stopped was that I couldn’t afford it anymore. The most responsible thing was to stop going to school and to work. By that time, I found a job at a real estate firm. I was good at some things. But also, I got paid regularly when I managed the office. I got more challenging work, and I’d get more money. Keith was fair that way, at least. That was more important than anything else.”
“So you did the responsible thing.”
“Well—”
“You said it. You can’t take it back.”
She sighed, but Ty was glad to hear there was a laugh in the sound. “No one told me being responsible would make me seem like a disappointment. That sounds so naive. But I have to get it together. I’m almost thirty years old.”
“I’m thirty-two.” A pause. “My mom died two days before my twenty-ninth birthday.”
He paused. “If you want to talk about immaturity, in a way, I—I almost resented that. I wasn’t ever going to forget about my mom. But now it’s like that grief is cemented in the way I think about every passing year. But that’s terrible and selfish and unreasonable, I realize it.” He sighed. Why was it always easier to confess in the dark. “Birthdays are for kids.”
“No.”
Her voice was quiet and emphatic. “That isn’t selfish or unreasonable. It’s complicated. Like grief. Like the thing that drives Byron to want to sell this house as much as he loves it and can’t let go.”
“And now if—when—you sell it for him, you have a chance to take away a big chunk of your debt. For—well, for that fresh start for him and for you.”
“Yeah.”
“I guess I can’t blame you for that either, for wanting a break, the thing I was able to give myself after my mom.”
“Even though there’s no such thing as a fresh start.”
He hummed. “Well, it’s like gardening—”
