10
THERE IS A SIX-FOOT-FOUR MAN WITH PIERCING EYES AND A DIMPLED SMILE standing at my doorway. And it’s not Parker Warren.
How many of these are allowed to exist in a single Manhattan block anyway? Is there a quota or something?
I swung the door open without looking through the peephole, because I figured it would be Parker, ready for our next excursion. Reason #207 that I wouldn’t survive an encounter with a serial killer, according to my favorite true crime podcast.
Maybe I look like I’m about to spray him with my nonexistent Mace (reason #208 I wouldn’t survive an encounter with a serial killer), because he puts his hands up and smiles. “I’m Luke, the contractor,” he says. When my brow knits together, he clarifies: “For the unit renovations.”
Right. The main reason I’m house-sitting in the first place.
“I just need a few more photos of the interior, if that’s okay,” he says. His hands are still up.
And I’m pretty sure the true crime podcast hosts are screaming at me from wherever they record, because I just shrug and let him in, no identification or other reasoning required.
He’s doing more than I am to protect myself from hypothetical murder, because he leaves the door propped completely open, with a doorstop he apparently keeps with him.
“The photos I need are of the master bathroom. Is it okay with the other person here if I access it?”
I frown. “I’m the only person here.”
I really am serial killer candy.
He squints at me. “I thought I heard you speaking to someone.”
I swallow. I’ve been talking to myself for half an hour, trying to hype myself up for another run that I am so not ready for, because, according to Parker, that’s the best way to visit the High Line, the second location on my list. Apparently, I talk to myself a lot louder than I thought. The excuse blurts out of me: “Oh, you must have heard the TV.”
We both do a slow turn to the television, which is still in its box. “That I stream on my laptop.”
Both of our eyes drop to my computer, which is sitting closed on the counter.
“Right,” he says.
I gesture for him to feel free to go get the photos he needs, while I linger by the door and wonder if there’s a chance the floors weren’t installed correctly and they might do me the favor of swallowing me up.
I blink, and there he is. The hot contractor.
I watch a lot of home improvement shows. I know hot contractors exist. But I always kind of guessed they were basically actors, and other people did the actual work.
“I bet you’re overcharging them, right?” I say as he finishes up and goes to leave. “You know, you could honestly probably charge them more. They likely wouldn’t even notice. I hear they have a lot of money.”
He just looks at me, says, “Nice to meet you,” and turns around.
Only to almost run into a man who is just a hair taller.
Parker is scowling.
“Sorry about that,” the contractor says, smile bright. Parker just looks at him, not saying anything, until the contractor bends down, collects his doorstop, and leaves.
Parker turns to me. “Who was that?”
“The contractor,” I say. “The people who own this place are doing renovations.”
He nods. He’s still frowning when he says, “Are you ready?”
“Absolutely not.”
OUR LAST RUN, I LASTED ALL OF THREE MINUTES BEFORE MY LEGS felt like they were going to give out.
“Let’s try five minutes today,” Parker says.
I shake my head. “I don’t mean to be dramatic, but that would kill me.”
We walk through the lobby, and nosy Richard the doorman looks up from his phone behind the desk, then double takes. The idea of two residents hanging out together is no doubt very interesting to him.
“Four minutes?” Parker says, while we walk down the block.
“I honestly think three minutes was beginner’s luck,” I say. “And my legs are still really sore.” His frown deepens, but I wave off his concern. “It’s okay. I have a massage tomorrow.”
“Is it that painful?”
I shake my head. “No, I get one every month. CAA pays for it.” When I’m on deadline, at least. Sarah swears by massages and thinks a stress-free writer is a productive one.
Parker glances over at me. He echoes my words from a few days ago. “Are you really that important?”
I almost laugh. “No. The movie is.” My voice is light, but the tension in my shoulders isn’t. “No pressure.”
We run in spurts. One block jogging, one block walking. Parker is surprisingly patient. I’m clearly slowing him down. If he wanted to exercise, he would be better off running without me.
He doesn’t, though. He actually looks at the buildings on the block, whereas I’ve never studied them very closely. We pass a movie theater.
“Do you ever see your own movies?” he asks.
I think he’s trying to distract me from the fact that I already have a cramp in my side. I shake my head. “No. I never go to the premieres. Well, because I’m anonymous, for starters. But even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“I prefer to watch them alone. It feels . . . too personal to watch with other people.”
That seems to interest him. “Are your movies usually personal?”
I feel the defensiveness surge, with the predictability of the tide. Part of me wants to ignore him. Another part realizes that if we’re going to spend the summer together, conversation is a given. We’re going to talk. I’m going to have to learn how to stop acting like every question is some sort of personal attack.
“In a way,” I say. “Writing . . . is how I make sense of the world. How I make sense of myself. ” I glance over at him, bracing for some sort of retort. Some way he’s going to make me feel small or make me regret sharing anything at all.
But he doesn’t. He just looks intrigued. “Do you have a journal?”
His question surprises me. I shake my head. “No. I can’t . . . I can’t write anything in first person.”
“Really? Why not?”
I feel the prickliness returning, like a second skin. Too many questions. My voice comes out a little more irritated than I mean it to. “Writing other characters is the closest I can get to expressing my own emotions. I see myself through others. It’s the only way I can bear to look at the ugly parts, without flinching. Like staring at the sun with sunglasses.”
He nods. He seems to understand, though I have no idea how he possibly could. “We should watch a movie together,” he finally says. “Not one of yours,” he adds, in response to my look.
Yeah, that’s never happening. Our agreement is clear. It does not involve watching movies, unless one of Parker’s vague appearances takes place at a theater. “You wouldn’t want to watch a movie with me,” I say. “My best friend, Penelope, stopped about three years ago.”
“Why?” He shoots me a look. “You don’t use subtitles, do you?”
“Worse. I get the script and have it in front of me while I watch. I take notes. I pause and rewind liberally.”
He winces.
“And, also, I use subtitles.”
I don’t think I have to fear Parker Warren asking me to watch a movie with him ever again.
The sun is blazing in full force by the time we reach the High Line, and I am soaked in sweat. Parker is annoyingly not . He hands me my small notebook from his pocket, and this time he leaves me alone while I take my notes.
The High Line used to be a train track. Now, it’s like an endless bridge, an enchanted elevated road running through the west side of Manhattan, in between silver skyscrapers and over traffic.
Technically, it’s a public park. Nature has been planted everywhere but the walkway. There’s something almost dystopian about it, grass growing through abandoned train tracks.
Every few minutes, I stop, scribbling some notes. Parker stays by my side but doesn’t try to read over my shoulder. We walk through old terminals with stands selling ice cream and iced coffee in plastic bags that look like the juice pouches my sister and I used to beg my mom to get us from the supermarket.
We have the filming permit for a few days. That means this could be a night scene. At this point in my screenplay, the protagonist is still denying her attraction to the guy. He’s trying to win her over, but she’s not budging. She needs to fold a little. She needs to relax and have some fun.
Maybe there’s a movie premiere party on the High Line?
Maybe the actor invites her, so she can meet her costume designer idol, but things go wrong?
Parker doesn’t approach until I put the pen down, and, frustratingly, something in my marrow sings at the fact that he has learned a part of me, like I am some sort of board game with strict and confusing rules.
My marrow needs to raise its standards. It needs to remember that this man thought he could buy my affection.
He holds his hand out, and I hand him my notebook and pen. He slips them into his pocket.
“Run home?” he says.
“I would rather die.”
SOMEHOW, OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, A ROUTINE TAKES SHAPE without my permission. Parker shows up almost every morning for a run. More often than not, he’s holding a latte from my new favorite coffee shop, so I don’t immediately slam the door in his face.
No . . . little by little, I start getting up earlier. Getting ready. Slipping my running shoes on just before I hear the two solid knocks against my door.
Forget witch laughing. Penelope would need CPR from the hot doctor she’s dating if she found out I was regularly exercising.
Afterward, we usually part ways, and I’m thinking in the shower again . I’m rushing to my computer to write, still wrapped in my towel.
It feels like college when I couldn’t get the words out fast enough. Within a week, I have more than enough ideas.
Now, I need to shape them into the Skims shapewear of screenwriting: Save the Cat plot structure.
There are sticky notes coating my floor, like a neon carpet. I look like I’m trying to solve a cold case on cold hardwood.
I’m a visual person, and putting scenes on note cards usually helps me see the story. The CVS on the corner ran out, so here I am with a Frankenstein’s monster mix of what it did have: neon-pink and -green sticky notes and faded yellow legal pads.
Of course, that’s the moment the contractor decides to make his second visit. His eyes immediately go to the mosaic of paper across the living room, and his joyful smile strains. Between this and me talking to myself, he must think I’ve lost my mind.
It’s a good thing, I tell myself. Maybe he’ll think I’m too crazy to murder.
Maybe he thinks I’m going to murder him.
I continue to work, sitting regally on the floor, while he and two of his employees start painting what will one day be an office. I’m crawling toward the inciting incident of my screenplay when my phone rings.
It’s my sister.
“Ellie!” she squeals—she’s the only person who calls me that. “How’s my apartment?”