“What was that?” Hal asks me.
“Oh, nothing,” I say. “Just a delightful NRA caller reminding me to fight for my rights.”
“Right, because our children dying in mass shootings every day is the epitome of freedom,” Hal says.
“And the Constitution should be taken literally,” Tara adds. “With no exceptions, given it was written nearly two hundred and fifty years ago whenarmsmeant rifles, not machine guns.”
“Precisely,” I say, feeling an extra wave of gratitude for these beautiful humans that I get to call my best friends.
Jenni murmurs in Peter’s ear that we’re just joking.
“It’s not a joke,” Hal says. “Gun violence is now the second-leading killer for teens, behind car accidents. It’s pandemic territory.”
“Of course the shootings aren’t a joke,” Jenni says. “Just how EJ trolled the caller.”
“You really shouldn’t pretend to agree with those maniacs,” Tara tells me, as if people-pleasing isn’t her entire personality. “It just gives more fuel to their fire.”
“Fighting fire with fire,” I say. “It’s the only way.”
I zone out for a bit, enjoying the way that not telling them about the dogsitting for Chris makes it seem like a secret, or something exciting enough to be a secret.
Anything that isn’t worth hiding isn’t worth keeping. That’s one of the EJ aphorisms of life.
I tune back in when they’re talking about women’s basketball, and I start being a little warmer to Peter, only because being cold isgetting kind of old and I’m too preoccupied thinking about Chris and why he called me of all people. The feeling I keep coming back to is that he doesn’t actually know why he did, that he’s just as confused as I am right now.
Victory splatters me like paint, vibrant and vivacious. I knew Chris wouldn’t be able to stay away from me. I knew he’d cave eventually.
I top off everyone’s wineglasses and propose a toast to winning bets. The others don’t understand the meaning, but I don’t elaborate. I just lap up the wine and squirm happily in my seat from side to side, avoiding the center, the evenness of it there.
Chapter 5
Chris tells me to come over to his apartment on Thursday evening at seven o’clock.
This makes me snort some laughter because he thinks everyone’s life revolves around such confining things as days and hours. I can nearly always distinguish a sunrise from a sunset and that’s about all I need. I’ve got no interest in shoving my life inside the tiny squares of a calendar. Time is nothing but a construct meant to make people feel behind. Women, specifically, with all the wedding-and-kids pressure.
I make an exception for the dogsitting, though, and set a reminder on my phone. Once I get done rolling my eyes at the rigidity, it’s actually quite exhilarating to have a specific place to go, a time someone expects me to arrive. Defying defiance feels good sometimes.
Chris lives in Tribeca, the highest-income neighborhood in Manhattan, bordering the Hudson River on one side and the Financial District on the other. All the corporate sellouts live there so they can sleepwalk to their Wall Street skyscrapers and fulfill their noble calling as disposable cogs in the wheel of capitalism.
I drive over to Tribeca rather than take the subway because I haven’t yet hit my road rage provocation quota for the week. When I finally get below the stop-and-go traffic of SoHo, there’s an eerie hush that falls over the cobblestone streets. It feels like everyonein this zip code has died an early death, and now it’s just their bodily shells marching on in their puffed-up routines because they wouldn’t know what to do or who to be if they stopped.
The tidy sidewalks are nearly empty. All the tourists are tied up in Times Square and the homeless know better than to waste their time begging from the wealthy. The streets are still packed with parked cars, though—Range Rovers and Jaguars, it’s all so predictable. I have to squiggle around for a while until I can snag a spot. I’m no good at parallel parking. Perpendicular things are nearly always more interesting, so I hold up the cars behind me by taking my sweet time until finally the Red Rocket is wedged into the spot, the back tire up on the curb.
I get out of the Red Rocket and walk east, or maybe west. It’s hard to tell because the sun hasn’t sunk yet but the buildings are tall enough to block the light, so it feels like night already. That’s a metaphor if I’ve ever heard one.
Eventually I get to Chris’s place. He lives in one of those obnoxiously tall towers, a total eyesore in the sky. Thirty or sixty stories tall—I don’t feel like craning my neck to check.
The Windemereis written in loopy cursive on the frilly awning out front; it’s so typically English try-hard. There are these two doorpeople guarding the place like it’s Buckingham Palace. They have to wear these ridiculous uniforms and top hats that make them look like little props in a show; it’s so demeaning. They see everyone but no one sees them. It’s sort of like being an Uber driver, I guess, but at least I get to wear whatever I want.
I strut into the building like I belong. As I’m making my way toward the elevator bank, the guy at the front desk calls me over and asks my name. If I were on staff here, I’d rather take the outside shift. It beats sitting in this stuffy lobby all day in the sickly light of the crystal chandelier, passing fake niceties with multimillionaire tenants who don’t remember your name or more likely never even ask for it in the first place.
I try to bond with the guy at the front desk, laugh about what a joke this place is. I figure he’ll appreciate that I’m another outsider, but he’s all formal and serious and won’t break character. It’s not his fault. There are probably security cameras rating his professionalism, waiting for the slightest misstep so they can fire him and hire someone younger who doesn’t expect to be paid a penny above minimum wage.
He calls up to Chris’s apartment to verify that I’m allowed to be here, that I’m not plotting some heist to steal all the jewelry in this place. The thought makes me giggle, makes me feel unbridled and alive.
In the elevator, I jab the number 27 for Chris’s floor. I’ve never been in an elevator that moves so fast. It’s a rush and leaves my ears popping with pleasure.
I try to open the door to Chris’s apartment, but it’s locked so I rap on it to the beat of a song I was listening to on the radio on my way here. It’s my new favorite jam that I know I’ll overplay and won’t be able to stand by tomorrow.
