Page 7 of Faking the Heat

The couch, oversized and sunken in the middle, is flanked by a low table stacked with paperbacks. I read the spines out of reflex. All the usual disaster biographies, a beat-up copy of The Things They Carried, a graphic novel about arsonists, a medical reference for paramedics, and, inexplicably, a dog eared volume of Sylvia Plath. I run my fingers over the stack, trailing the memory of old bookshops and the way my mother used to pronounce “literature” like it was both a diagnosis and a punishment. Next to the books is a glass jar of keys, some of them rusted, some labeled in Sharpie locker, file, truck, home. I wonder how many are from doors that no longer exist.

Above the couch, a trio of framed photographs. They are not arranged with intention, just hammered in as if someone needed to cover a dent in the wall. The first: Sterling and a half dozen other guys, all in turnout gear, faces streaked with soot and grinning like idiots, arms slung around each other’s necks as if there’s nothing in the world they can’t survive. The second: Sterling in Army camouflage, so young it almost hurts to look at, the smile so determined it borders on defiance. The third: me and him, summer barbecue, plastic cups and paper plates and sunburns. My hair is longer, I’m wearing sunglasses and holding a corn dog like a microphone, and he’s next to me, the only person in the frame who seems aware of the camera, looking straight into it with that particular blend of amusement and concern he usually reserves for runaway shopping carts and street magicians. I have no memory of this moment, which means it was probably one of the happy ones.

I step back, arms folded, not sure if I want to feel anything about these artifacts. I fail spectacularly at not feeling anything. I want to be grateful, or at least polite, but instead what I am is hollowed, out, like someone set off a controlled demolition in the middle of my chest and forgot to file the paperwork.

Bowie materializes at my ankle, inspects the carpet for ten seconds, and then launches himself onto the windowsill, where he proceeds to watch the street as if expecting it to apologize for the morning’s inconvenience. I leave him to his post.

The guest room is at the end of the hall, its door open, a little rectangle of white in a hallway that is otherwise all shadow. I walk to it on autopilot, dragging my hand along the wall as I go. I touch the duvet, which is clean and smells faintly of lemon. The floor is cold. The walls are bare. For a second, I can almost imagine I am just visiting, that this is some weirdly austere Airbnb, and that in a day or two I’ll pack up and go back to my own perfectly ordinary studio apartment, my books and my art supplies and my ancient electric kettle all exactly where I left them.

But I’m not going back, not for a while. Not ever.

I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, and look around the room like a defendant surveying a holding cell. I try to summon gratitude, but all I get is a distant echo of my own voice, a dry hum that could be either thank you or I’m sorry or something less articulate.

I am so tired. I want to lie down, to let the bed swallow me, to sleep through the next few weeks and wake up in a timeline where nothing ever caught fire. But, the need for a shower hits with the urgency of a medical crisis. I last washed… honestly, I can’t remember when, which is answer enough. Right now, my skin is upholstered in cold sweat, old coffee, and a chemical layer of incinerated drywall, and there’s a distinct chance that if I don’t fix it, the filth will become my new baseline. The bathroom is three steps from the guest room and, praise be, the towels are stacked in neat, inviting rolls on a shelf by the door. No sign of prior guests’ hair clinging to the tiles. No mildew. Just a bar of soap and the subtle, manly grandeur of Sterling’s taste in toiletries.

I peel off my pajamas, half-expecting them to crumble into ash, and step into the shower. For a second, I am suspicious of the water pressure; I’ve been hurt before, by the trickle of ancient pipes in every apartment I’ve ever rented. But then I turn the handle and the jet nearly concusses me. I want to weep. I want to write a thank you note to the city’s municipal water board. This is not a shower, this is a full-scale detoxification event. It is thunder. It is baptism.

The shampoo is in an unbranded bottle, but the scent is instantly familiar, cedar, pine, something like mountain air, which is probably just a chemical designed in a lab to appeal to the fragile egos of men who buy artisanal soap. Whatever, it works. I lather and rinse and repeat until my hair stops feeling like a biohazard, and then just stand there, letting the hot water blast the grime and the last eight to ten or so hours out of my brain.

I lose track of time. It might be minutes, it might be a calendar year. It’s only when the mirror outside the shower fogs so thoroughly that it no longer reflects my outline that I remember I am a guest in someone else’s home, and that running up their utility bill is not a great way to say thank you.

I turn off the water, wring my hair out, and step onto the bathmat. I am clean, and for the first time since sunrise, also acutely naked. The towel is luxurious, thick enough to serve as a weighted blanket, and as I wrap it around my body, I allow myself precisely one second of feeling safe and cared for. Then I remember my pajamas. Which are soaked in tragedy and not exactly a wearable option for a squeaky clean body. I have exactly zero alternative outfits, unless I count the t-shirt I slept in, and that is, let’s be honest, more sweat than cotton at this point.

I stand there, dripping, staring at my reflection in the fogged mirror. My hair is an angry tangle, my eyes are red, and there’s a stripe of bruise on my left shin I had not previously noticed. I weigh my options. Could towel, dash to the guest room. Could wrap myself in toilet paper like a mummy and pray Sterling doesn’t have a Ring camera in the hall. Or… I could wear his clothes.

The thought is mortifying for a moment before I realize that this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve worn his clothes. I used to steal his hoodies all the time so really this is no different right? I listen for signs of life in the rest of the loft, but all I hear is the vague, industrial hum of the A/C and Bowie’s intermittent paw thumps as he tests the structural integrity of the furniture.

Fine. This is an emergency. I cinch the towel and make my move.

Sterling’s room is the next door down. It’s much like the rest of his place, utilitarian, but not sterile. The bed is neatly made, the sheets a navy blue that’s probably not forgiving of stains. There’s a single nightstand with a lamp and a charging cord for every conceivable device. Above the bed, a framed map of the city, fire stations and old train lines traced in fading red. On the dresser: a tray for keys and coins, a bottle of cologne, a wristwatch with a cracked face.

I make a beeline for the dresser and pull open the top drawer, determined not to get sentimental about any of this. The t-shirt s are stacked in military precision. I grab the one on top, a heather gray number that says “Hayes” on the inner collar in black laundry marker. It’s soft, worn, and smells faintly like the shampoo from the bathroom and a little like him, which is a combination I find both comforting and vaguely forbidden.

The next drawer yields boxers, most of them black or dark blue. I select a pair at random, reasoning that the universe already owes me a dozen indignities and what’s one more.

I dry off, dress quickly, and catch myself in the mirror on the back of his door. The shirt reaches mid-thigh. The boxers only fit because I fold them down again and again and again. For a split second, I look like a normal, functioning human. Then I look at my face, and the normalcy vanishes. I look like someone wearing a disguise, someone who could be erased by the wrong word or the wrong glance.

I turn away from the mirror.

Bowie is waiting in the hall, tail twitching. He eyes my ensemble, clearly unimpressed, and then meows with a tone that could only be described as accusatory.

“Yes, I know,” I say, stepping past him toward the kitchen. “It’s not my best look, but it beats public nudity. For both of us.”

The kitchen is large, clean, and dominated by a blender so fancy I do not trust myself to operate. I opt for the electric kettle, which is idiot proof and already filled. I set it to boil, rummage the cabinets until I find a single bag of green tea (Sterling drinks the kind with ginseng and weird motivational quotes on the tags), and plop a teabag in a mug.

Bowie leaps onto the counter, making himself exactly as much at home as I wish I could.

I look at him. “Are you proud of yourself? First you abandon me to a burning building, now you’re acting like we live here. Where’s your sense of solidarity?”

He blinks, then begins a slow, methodical face washing, as if to remind me he’s always two steps ahead in the self-care department.

“Okay, fair,” I concede. “You’re the emotionally stable one. Noted.”

I pour the boiling water over the tea, watch the swirl of green bloom in the mug. For a moment, the scent is enough to ground me. I curl one hand around the ceramic, anchor myself to the heat.

I turn to the window and lean back against the counter, watching the city outside continue in its oblivious, unstoppable rhythm. The sky has brightened, the street is full of people who do not know, and will never know, that today is the first day of my new, accidental life.

This is normal. I am handling this. These are the things I repeat, mantra, like, as I sip the tea and allow Bowie to take up residence next to the sugar bowl.