“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said to Cassie.
Her face showed no emotion. I didn’t know my landlord had a daughter but if I did, I would never have pictured her looking like this. Her blond hair was on the wrong side of yellow—a shade New York girls avoided with five-hundred-dollar coloring appointments, which we sometimes booked for our guests—her eye makeup was too heavy-handed for daytime, and her wrap dress gaped too much at the neckline, though I couldn’t tell if that was intentional. Her slouchy black bag tried to be on trend but was clearly fake leather. These were the sort of things I’d started paying attention to since working at Bhotel. Now I could spot a Rolex a mile away, counting down the days until I could afford one of my own. Still, there was a mix of fierceness and fragility to Cassie in her stark gaze and round baby face, her chin pointed upward in defiance. You could tell she was trying. She wanted to besomeone.
“Cassie’s staying with us for the funeral,” Ms. Crowes said, her voice shaking. “With me, I mean.”
I had been getting ready for bed when I’d been startled by the red flashing lights of an ambulance out the window. Intrigued, I’d gone outside just as the medics were loading my landlord—or rather, his body—onto the van. I’d consoled poor Ms. Crowes as I helped her book an Uber to follow him, which is how I’d learned about the fatal heart attack. My last days in New York were ending with a corpse, as if things weren’t bad enough already.
“Really sorry for your loss,” I said again, glancing at my front door. So close.
“Is your fiancé on his way?” Ms. Crowes asked Cassie. But before she could respond, the older woman’s cell phone rang and she excused herself with a weak smile.
“Where are you from?” Cassie asked me, an eyebrow raised.
“I’m French.” At that point, most people, mostwomen, would start gushing about that one time they went to France, the best meal they ever had at a restaurant tucked at the end of a tiny street in Saint-Germain, the way the Eiffel Tower twinkled in the night, how magical the city felt, and wasn’t I lucky to be from there! I usually said,Yes, yes, so lucky, not pointing out that I’d emigrated to another country across an ocean for a reason. Many reasons, in fact.
But Cassie didn’t say anything.
I wasn’t sure what to make of the amused smile that appeared on her lips, so I felt compelled to explain. “I work at a luxury hotel chain, Bhotel. My bosses in Paris sent me over to manage guest relations at our Madison Avenue location. We have the most amazing views over Central Park.”
Best left unsaid: the fact that I’d had to practically beg for the opportunity to come here or that I’d been let go nearly three weeks ago due to some bullshit restructuring brought about by the American investors.
“Very cool,” Cassie said, her eyes narrowing with intrigue. “Did you know my father well?” Her tone was clipped, far from devastated. More like provocative.
“Only a little. I helped him move stuff into their basement when he needed an extra pair of hands. That sort of thing. Tim was a nice man.”
“Hmm…” Cassie said, casting a loaded glance at Ms. Crowes, who was now standing at the top of her stoop, absorbed in her phone conversation. “A nice liar then.”
I didn’t respond. It sounded like more drama than I wanted to involve myself in, which was none. I already had plenty of my own.
“Did you know he had a daughter?” Cassie said.
“No, sorry.” I searched my mind for an excuse to get out of the conversation, but something about it made me feel a little better. It was good to be reminded that other people were fucked up, too. “Didyouknow him well?” I added without thinking.
“Nope. He took off when I was three, maybe four. I didn’t know he lived in the city and definitely didn’t know he hadthis.” Cassie looked back toward the house. I couldn’t tell if she meant the brownstone or the put-together wife. Probably both.
“I’m sorry—” I started mechanically.
“And then she—his “new” wife—calls me out of nowhere, tells meallmy father’s children should be there, and that it’d mean a lot if I came. Toher,because of course it’s all about her. The ‘right’ thing to do or whatever. She said she’d pay for my trip. I’m sure she just felt guilty for everything I didn’t have growing up, but I never come to the city so…”
So…Cassie was using her estranged father’s sudden death as an excuse for a vacation. My interest was piqued now. “Where do you live?”
“A small town two hours north, in the Hudson Valley. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
Ms. Crowes had gone inside, and judging from the relieved look on her face when she answered the phone, she wasn’t coming back out to hang out with her loving stepdaughter. I was starting to forget I had better things to do, such as leaving the country before being kicked out of it, since my visa, which was tied to my job at Bhotel and only valid for a month after my employment ended, was now expiring in mere days. I told myself I wasn’t actually curious about Cassie. I only welcomed the opportunity to take my mind off my situation for a minute. “Your mother didn’t tell you about him?”
“If I knew he had all this”—again she pointed at the house and the pretty tree-lined block—“I probably would have turned up here a long time ago.”
“Families…” I said with a shrug. I hadn’t spoken to mine in years, but the memory of our last interaction was carved in my brain forever.
Cassie’s eyes lit up with a mischievous air. “So you’re French…like, from France?”
It wasn’t the first time I was asked the question. Americans—even the worldly New Yorkers—could have such a narrow-minded view of immigration, of what it meant to “be” from a different country.
I only had time to nod before Cassie continued. “And you’re coming to the memorial tomorrow?”
I hadn’t planned on wasting one of my last days here by attending my landlord’s funeral. My time in the city had taught me that you never really knew New Yorkers, even the ones who lived right above you. Most of them were particular about what they revealed and only did so when and if it served them. At first I found it thrilling—here I could be a totally new person, all my past mistakes forgotten—until it worked against me. I never saw it coming. My boss was kind and friendly, a blank face, up until the very moment she told me I was being let go, my visa and my future here be damned.
“Please!” Cassie said, pressing her hands together as if in a prayer with a smile. “I won’t know anyone there.”
