A red manual typewriter sits inside. James examines it. Fresh ribbon of ink already installed, the keys intact and functional, as far as he can tell. The carriage lever slides smoothly.
Nelle searches for a tag. “How much is it?”
“Doesn’t matter,” James says. It’s coming home with him. His hands tremble as he carries it to the front counter. “Is this still functional?”
Chapter 15
For two weeks, James swims in his story. He writes all night, and when he is out to eat with Nelle and Jessie, or walking through a park, or in line for coffee, he isthinkingabout writing. The story—these characters—consumes him.
Fingers cramping, he finishes typing a sentence and stretches his arms behind his head. Outside, the city buzzes. On the bed, Nelle curls like a question mark with her back into the pillows. She goes to sleep hours before he does. Hours before Jessie, too. Some nights, James tiptoes into the kitchen to find his cousin at the island, hunched over a bowl of spicy ramen, huddled in a duvet cocoon, watching trashy reality TV.
James has been writing for Nelle for weeks, but now he has rediscovered how much he loves to write forhimself. That red typewriter unlocked the floodgates. And the words have yet to stop rushing in. He drinks three more cups of tea and finishes typing another seventy pages before the sun rises.
Nelle stirs awake, her face cute and puffy. “Did you sleep?”
James’s fingers freeze on the clacking keys. “No, ma’am.”
“You wrote all night?”
“I’ve only stopped to pee. And to get more tea.” His eyes are so dry and tired, he can barely keep them open. But more adrenaline pumps with every word he types. “It’s like something’s fueling me, but the fuel isn’t running out. I think it’s being here, in this place.”
Or it’s you,he thinks.
“This apartment?” Nelle asks.
“No, New York.” He spins toward her in the desk chair. “I’ve never beenthisinspired in my life.”
“What time is it?” Nelle grumbles.
James glances at the wall clock. “Half past six.”
Nelle’s head hits her pillow, and soon a new line of drool dribbles out of the corner of her mouth.
James stands in line with bloodshot eyes for fifteen minutes at an artsy coffee shop on Seventh Avenue, rereading the pages he wrote the night before. He stapled them together to carry around, and they are already riddled with wrinkles, coffee stains, and red ink. He orders an iced latte and a cortado and carries them back into the morning sun, down the street and around the block. With full autonomy throughout Jessie’s apartment, Nelle gave James the permission to leave her there under the stipulation that he come back with coffee for her.
He doesn’t bother being quiet when he comes in. Jessie works afternoons in a bookshop sometimes, interns part-time at a personal-injury law firm, and spends her other days with a group of artists in Brooklyn, often not returning until well past two in the morning, also often stoned out of her mind. Last night, she went across the river and has yet to come home.
James carries the drinks down the hall into his and Nelle’s room and sits on the bed beside her sleeping body.
“Nelle,” he coos. “It’s not half past six anymore.”
Nothing.
He clears his throat. “I have coffee.”
Miraculously, she stirs, stretches out a lazy arm, and takes the cup from him. She plunges the straw into her mouth like it’s her life support.
“Thank you,” she says when she finally detaches herself.
“I thought you might need a little energy after the weekend.”
On Friday and Saturday, they visited all the touristy places they wanted to see. Rode the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building. Took a ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty. Spent the evening at a Broadway production ofWickedin the nicest clothes they could find, James in a rented tuxedo and Nelle in a green satin gown. After that they joined Jessie at a bar in the East Village where they got so drunk, James could barely walk home. Seeing the city’s tourist attractions so late was an unspoken way of putting off leaving the city. Now that they’ve experienced New York as visitors, he knows that Nelle wants to move on. Only a couple of weeks until school starts, anyway. But James isn’t ready.
Her sleepiness fades as she hungrily drinks her latte. “Where do we go next? Paris? Tokyo?”
Can she read my mind?“Why don’t we stay here a little longer?”
“Why?” She sits up. “We’ve seen New York. I want to see theworld, don’t you?”
