… Watch as the young woman accepts her fate, moving into the thick brush of the East Village to hide from the world and wait for the cold embrace of death…
“Absolutely not,” Emma said, the genesis of a plan already forming in her brain. “You’re coming over to mine. You need wine and food and I have Sunday dinner in about an hour, so you’re invited. It’s usually just family—well, our neighbors who have been like family my whole life—but it could use some fresh company.”
“Oh no.” Nadine shook her head, her eyes growing even wider as she looked down at her coffee-stained top. “I’m a mess. I can’t—”
“You can and you will,” Emma replied, looping her arm with Nadine’s and heading toward her car. This was perfect: Nadine needed help realizing her potential, and Emma had the time. And the closet. “I have clothes. So many clothes. And so much wine! It will be fun, I promise.”
“Okay,” Nadine replied, though it didn’t seem like she was entirely sure.
On the ride from 14th Street to 83rd, Emma was able to fill in the required gaps in Nadine’s history. She was twenty-two years old and had just graduated from Ohio State University in the spring. She grew up in Ohio, too; her parents lived only an hour from the university, and she would go home on the weekends to work at their pet store. She saved every cent she earned over those four years to afford coming to New York for graduate school.
“I really want to work at one of the big auction houses someday, and they’re all here, so when I got accepted to NYU for my master’s, I knew I had to take it.”
“Absolutely,” Emma said with a decisive nod. “I’m in my second year and can tell you from personal experience that it is the best. Everything in New York is the best.”
“You’re studying art history too?”
“Yes. I’m going to work at the Met after graduation.”
Nadine’s eyes widened. “You already have a job lined up?”
“Well, not exactly. They have an internship program for graduates, which I’m applying for. I should have an interview in the spring,” Emma replied confidently, brushing her dark hair from her shoulder.
“Wow.” Nadine swallowed, eyes drifting back to the car window. “The Met.”
Emma had to stop herself from sharing too much: how she spent practically every weekend there as a child, dragging Knightley to gallery after gallery, with Margo and Ben bringing up the rear. How it had been her mother’s favorite place once, too—or so she had been told—and Emma would go searching for the paintings her father had loaned to the museum in her honor. And how every time she found them, it felt like she had found her mom again.
An odd emotion swelled in Emma’s chest, and she cleared her throat to dislodge it.
“So,” she said, turning to her new friend with a manufactured smile. “Did you leave anyone special behind in Ohio?”
“You mean my nana?”
Emma’s smile faltered. “No. I mean like a significant other.”
“Oh.” Nadine’s gaze darted to where her hands fidgeted in her lap. “Yeah. Marty. He’s my boyfriend. We’ve been together since ninth grade.”
Emma tried to imagine having the same boyfriend since she was fourteen. The longest relationship she ever had was with Jean-Laurent Caron, an incredibly hot and incredibly moody film student from Paris she’d dated during her senior year at FIT. It had been tumultuous and wonderful, punctuated more by orgasms than conversation, but she still hadn’t been bothered when he movedback to France after graduation. In fact, she had barely thought about him at all.
“Wow, that’s impressive. It must be hard being so far apart,” Emma replied.
Nadine nodded. “Yeah. But I’ve been planning on coming here for a while, so we’ll just… make it work.”
There was something else under the surface of her expression, but before Emma could dig further, the car came to a stop. She got out, already searching through her bag for her keys, so she didn’t see Nadine’s face as she stared up at the building ahead.
“This is your house?” she asked, her mouth agape.
“Yup.” Emma found the gold key ring and pulled it from her bag.
“The whole thing?”
Emma caught Nadine’s startled expression, then turned to see what she was staring at.
The house looked like it always did: the neoclassical facade was still white and clean, and the iron banisters along the first- and third-floor windows had only just been repainted black last fall.
“Yes, but we barely ever use the fourth floor. Really.”
She walked up the stairs to the black lacquered front door and unlocked it, motioning Nadine inside. The sprawling foyer opened up before them and Emma barely noticed how Nadine gawked at the marble floors or the wide staircase that loomed ahead of them. She just deposited her light blue Saint Laurent quilted shoulder bag on the entry table and started down the stairs to the kitchen.
