CHAPTER THREE
By three forty-five Tuesday afternoon, Nat had divided her possessions into four categories: necessary, sentimental, possibly useful, and evidence of poor judgment.
The first category occupied two suitcases and six boxes.
The second filled three more. The third had expanded to include most of the kitchen, half the living room, and a potted rosemary plant that had survived two winters, one infestation of aphids, and an unfortunate incident involving Lena’s dog.
The fourth category was represented by a countertop pasta machine Nat had used exactly once and a ceramic rooster large enough to frighten children.
Lena stood in the center of the apartment with a roll of packing tape around one wrist and the ceramic rooster beneath her arm. “I’m not carrying this down three flights of stairs.”
“It was a gift.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Then your emotional attachment has already failed the first test.”
Nat took the rooster from her and placed it in a box marked KITCHEN—FRAGILE, although neither word accurately described its contents.
The box already contained a cast-iron tortilla press, twelve linen napkins, a hand-cranked cherry pitter, and a jar of preserved lemons she had started eleven months ago and never found the courage to open.
Outside, car doors slammed and voices echoed between the buildings as her neighbors loaded belongings onto sidewalks.
Mrs. Dalrymple had hired two college students to carry down her collection of ceramic dogs, each wrapped in a bath towel.
The city inspector remained stationed near the front entrance, checking names and reminding residents that access would end at six.
Every time Nat passed him, she felt the afternoon shrinking.
Lena sealed another box with enough tape to protect it during maritime transport. “We need to discuss the stranger.”
“His name is Michael.”
“That is not the reassuring distinction you think it is.”
“He has excellent credit.”
“So did several well-dressed criminals.”
“I don’t think he’s a criminal.”
“You’ve known him since ten thirty.”
“Ten twenty-nine.”
Lena stopped taping. “You remember the exact minute?”
“He looked at his watch.”
“That explains nothing.”
Nat carried a stack of cookbooks from the shelf and lowered them into a box.
She had already told Lena about the apartment, Mrs. Gable’s condition, and the agreement she and Michael had written in the coffee shop.
She had omitted the brief moment when he described her as someone who did not stop when circumstances became difficult.
The words had followed her home, warm and uncomfortable, and she had not yet decided where to put them.
“He’s a financial analyst,” Nat said. “He brought references.”
“People can print references.”
“He brought a credit report.”
“People can print those too.”
“It had colored tabs.”
Lena stared at her.
“Fine,” Nat said. “That sounds worse when offered as proof of character.”
“It sounds like you’ve become engaged to an office-supply store.”
“We are not actually engaged.”
“You’re wearing a ring.”
“It’s temporary.”
“Your finger is turning purple.”
Nat had tried soap, oil, cold water, and a method from the internet involving dental floss. The ring had resisted all four. “That is also temporary.”
Lena dropped the tape into an open box. “Let me understand this. You met a man this morning, pretended to be engaged to him, signed a handwritten agreement governing your fake relationship, and now you plan to move into an apartment with him.”
“When you say it all at once, it loses nuance.”
“There is no nuance. There is only an increasingly detailed bad decision.”
“It’s a beautiful apartment.”
“Beautiful apartments are how bad decisions attract tenants.”
Nat closed the cookbook box and wrote HEAVY across the top.
Her hand slowed as she looked around the room.
Most of the shelves were empty now. Pale rectangles marked the walls where pictures had hung that morning.
The refrigerator door had been stripped of photographs, recipe notes, and the postcard her mother had sent from Santa Fe, leaving behind only mismatched magnets and faint lines in the dust.
“I don’t have a better decision,” she said.
Lena’s expression softened. She crossed the room, took the marker from Nat’s hand, and added VERY beneath HEAVY. “You have my sofa.”
“For a week, maybe. Not for however long this takes.”
“You can stay longer.”
“You have to step over your coffee table to reach the bathroom.”
“That’s because I need a smaller coffee table.”
“You need a larger apartment. Adding me and everything I own would turn your hallway into a storage unit.”
Lena leaned against the box. “Then we make sure this Michael person is safe. I want his full name, workplace, phone number, and emergency contact. I also want a photograph.”
“I’m not asking him for an emergency contact before our first fake dinner.”
“Then take a picture when he isn’t looking.”
“That sounds more criminal than anything he has done.”
“I’m protecting you.”
“I know.”
Nat reached across the box and squeezed her hand.
Lena had been protecting her since their second year of college, when Nat had tried to cook dinner for twelve people on a hot plate and Lena had unplugged it moments before the dormitory curtains caught fire.
Their friendship had survived failed recipes, failed relationships, unreliable cars, and one memorable road trip during which neither of them admitted they had been lost until they crossed a state line.
Nat trusted Lena’s concern because she knew it came from love, even when it arrived disguised as interrogation.
A knock sounded at the open door.
“Ms. Tremaine?” the city inspector called from the hallway. “You have a visitor.”
Nat expected another neighbor or someone from Lena’s office.
Instead, Michael appeared behind him wearing dark trousers and the same white shirt from that morning, although his tie was gone and his sleeves had been folded precisely below his elbows.
He carried a collapsed hand truck in one hand and a package of flattened moving boxes beneath the other arm.
Lena turned slowly toward Nat. “You invited him here?”
“No.”
Michael stepped into the apartment. His gaze passed over the boxes, the bare walls, and the remaining contents of the kitchen. Something tightened in his face when he saw the red notice on the door.
“You said you had to be at your office,” Nat said.
“I did.”
“It’s not after five.”
“I left early.”
“You leave work early?”
“Occasionally.”
“Was there a fire?”
“No.”
“A structural emergency?”
His gaze moved toward the red notice. “Apparently.”
Lena folded her arms. “And you are?”
“Michael Conroy.”
“The temporary fiancé?”
Michael looked at Nat.
“She knows,” Nat explained.
“You told someone?”
“She’s my best friend.”
“Our agreement did not address disclosure.”
“Our agreement was written on a legal pad beside a cranberry scone. It may have gaps.”
Lena held out her hand. “Lena Ortiz.”
Michael shifted the hand truck and boxes before shaking it. Lena studied him with the concentration of someone assessing a suspicious package. Michael appeared to recognize the scrutiny and endure it.
“Why are you here?” Nat asked.
“You sent a message asking whether Mrs. Gable had confirmed access to the storage room.”
“She did.”
“You also said you had thirty-two boxes to move before six.”
“I was exaggerating.”
“How many are there?”
Nat looked around. “Twenty-seven.”
“You have two hours and seven minutes.”
“I know.”
He opened the hand truck. “Then we should begin.”
Lena’s gaze met Nat’s. The look contained several questions and one reluctant adjustment to her opinion.
Michael removed his watch and placed it in his shirt pocket. “Which boxes are ready?”
“The ones by the door,” Nat said.
“Which are heaviest?”
“Anything marked kitchen.”
He bent, tested the weight of the nearest box, and looked at the word HEAVY with VERY written beneath it. “What is in this?”
“Cookbooks.”
“All of it?”
“Mostly.”
He lifted it without further comment.
Nat watched him carry the box into the hallway. “He has an emergency contact,” she told Lena.
“You don’t know that.”
“A man with a folding hand truck has planned for death.”
They worked quickly. Michael arranged the boxes on the hand truck according to weight and dimensions, securing each load with a strap he produced from his car.
Lena carried clothing and smaller boxes.
Nat made repeated trips with kitchen equipment, framed photographs, and the belongings she had labeled fragile despite knowing she had never treated them that way before.
Mrs. Gable had left the storage-room key beneath a flowerpot beside the rear entrance of the brownstone.
The room was larger than Nat expected, with clean concrete floors and wooden shelves lining one wall.
Michael organized everything into sections as it arrived.
Kitchen boxes went together, clothing occupied the driest corner, and furniture was positioned so nothing rested directly against the brick.
“This is temporary storage, not a military campaign,” Nat said when he measured the remaining floor space with his eyes.
“Temporary storage still benefits from order.”
“My belongings have never experienced this much discipline.”
“They appear to be resisting it.”
By five fifteen, only the larger pieces remained at Nat’s apartment. Lena tied the ceramic rooster into the passenger seat of her car because neither she nor Michael wanted it packed with breakable items. The rooster stared through the windshield with an expression of offended dignity.
Michael carried the turquoise china cabinet down the stairs with the help of Mr. Alvarez from the first floor. Nat followed with a drawer in each arm, watching every turn and issuing warnings whenever the cabinet came within several inches of the wall.
“It survived forty years before you found it,” Michael said from beneath his end. “It will survive the stairs.”
“You don’t know what it has endured.”