Chapter 3
After meeting with Ari, I normally just walk down University Place until I reach my building. I’m lucky that she’s only five minutes from me—as close as can be in a city as large as New York.
But today I need a longer walk. I need to breathe out that conversation.
I take a loop around Washington Square Park, walking the perimeter and watching the cornucopia of city life inside: lounging students, shrieking kids playing, smokers shooting the breeze, skateboarders practicing, tourists snapping photos in the shadow of the famous arch. There’s pure early-summer bliss emanating from behind it as the sun starts to dip and the water of the giant fountain catches the light.
The conversation keeps replaying in my mind, no matter how hard I try to distract myself. It’s one thing to decide you’re in a rut and need to do something about it. It’s another thing to know what actually to do.
For as easy as Ari made all her suggestions sound, they’re not exactly easy for me. It’s been hard enough in recent years to take her advice about my family and stop trying to contain my feelings through just the sheer will of ignoring. Actively knowing what I want and going after it has been Ari’s yearslong project for me. But can she really expect me to apply that to a man I’ve never even met?
Happily, though, my train of thought is interrupted by one of my favorite sights as I walk back toward home. Three of my neighbors are standing in front of our building, chitchatting.
There’s nothing inherently special about our building from the outside. It’s ten stories tall and made of brick and concrete, and it was built at the turn of the twentieth century as a printing factory. In the seventies, a group of people bought the abandoned space and turned it into a co-op apartment building. If you can imagine the kind of people who wanted to live in Greenwich Village, amid the dueling crime and bohemia of that era, that’s the majority of my now–senior citizen neighbors.
And because they were all friendly with each other, very few of them ever left; as a result, most of the original tenants (that are still alive) remain here. So I’m surrounded by either elderly badasses or young professionals like me, and there’s no one in between.
I bought my little top-floor studio apartment from a woman who was an accomplished portraitist (she’d even had a retrospective at the Whitney in recent years) and who’d said she always loved the light that streamed in from the northern view. She was leaving in her nineties to finally move in with her “kids.” To say she was a character would be an understatement. And the few people my age in the building all have similar stories to mine.
I’ve been here for five years now, and I can’t imagine living anywhere other than my little slice of New York.
Meryl kneels on the sidewalk with her face up against Kwan’s border collie, Lucy. Meryl’s usual billowing skirt tiers out across the ground like a cupcake, and she’s howling with laughter as Lucy licks her trademark small, circular purple glasses. Tom—Meryl’s adoring husband—and Kwan are barely paying attention, because nothing about Meryl’s behavior is out of place. As I get closer, I realize they’re dissecting some minutiae from the semiannual neighborhood Build the Block meeting they always insist on going to.
“. . . Maureen always wants to act like trash collection isn’t a public safety concern, but when the bags aren’t tied up, it can really wreak havoc,” Tom is saying.
“And it’s bad for the dogs!” Kwan points out.
“Absolutely right. Absolutely,” Tom concurs, shaking his head with as much condemnation as you’d expect for a triple homicide.
“Hey, guys,” I say, sidling up to the conversation. All three of them immediately smile and start talking at me at once. Meryl even stands up and brushes herself off so she can get right in my face, as she always seems partial to doing. She shushes Tom’s and Kwan’s hellos to get her own word in edgewise.
“Hi, sweetie. How’s the cheaters, snoozefests, and soon-to-be divorcées?”
I purse my lips to stop myself from laughing. She always describes my clients with an ever-expanding disastrous vocabulary, as though anyone in marriage or relationship counseling is automatically a train wreck.
“Not everyone can find someone to be obsessed with for fifty years, ya know what I’m saying?” I tease.
She pooh-poohs me even as Tom looks at her with a playful smile. Whenever he watches her, he takes on the air of a young boy instead of a tall, silver-haired man in pressed pants and a button-down. He’s still as striking today as I bet he was all those years ago when they worked together in a newsroom, where he was the big shot anchor and she was the wild production coordinator he fell for. I can see why her opposing whimsy must’ve been appealing. I never know with them whether I want to be envious or ask them to adopt me.
“I like this green on you,” Meryl says, changing the topic completely, as is always her way, and rubbing her hands across my blazer in a tactile assessment of what I’m wearing. “You know if you want vintage things, I’ve got a whole storage unit filled to the brim with the eighties.”
I smile, not wanting to admit that I’m too much of a coward to wear anything as flamboyant as what Meryl wears.
“You doing okay?” Kwan asks, ignoring Meryl and clearly picking up on something being off with me. Great, my insides must be showing on my outside again.
“I’m a little tired from the day,” I admit, shifting to more generic pastures. “The Tuesday after a long weekend is always hard.”
“Wouldn’t know a Tuesday from a Saturday at this point.” Meryl shrugs.
“You knew it was Memorial Day yesterday, because you were very gracefully pointing out all the many items that were on sale,” Tom murmurs.
“Yes, but isn’t it one of those holidays that falls on a specific date and not on a day of the week? Like Christmas or Veterans Day? Memorial Day? We’re memorializing some specific day, right?”
“I think it’s for veterans,” Kwan points out.
“But there’s already a Veterans Day?” She frowns dramatically and squeezes her eyes shut, like she’s trying to solve a particularly hard math equation in her head.
“Is that different?” Kwan asks.
Tom sighs deeply, like he’s disappointed in both of them. “Veterans Day is for all veterans. Memorial Day is for the veterans who died.”
“But,” Meryl points out, “on Memorial Day we barbecue and on Veterans Day we get all solemn? That doesn’t seem right.”
I can tell she’s now trying to get a rise out of Tom, and he’s clearly going to fall for it, because he’s such a literal person who always falls right into Meryl’s teasing.
And I figure that’s my cue to leave, before this whole conversation devolves more than it already has. Tom, Meryl, and Kwan will probably still be out here in an hour when I come down to take George for a walk. Our building takes neighborly interest to a new level. And I can’t say I mind it; there’s a comfort to this weird little single-structure community amid a giant city.
“I’m gonna go make dinner and take George out. Kwan, let me know if you still need me to take Lucy on Saturday night. I’m happy to do it.”
“Thanks, Nora,” he says, rubbing my arm the way you would to a pet who’s been particularly good. “Such a sweet girl you are.”
“You’re just buttering me up so I take your dog more,” I tease, and his full-throated laugh makes me smile.
“Oh, and Nora,” Tom says, stopping me before I can open the door. “Esther’s unit was turned over to her grandson today. I know you’re right above it, so I figured you’d want to know.”
Well, that is news to me. Esther died a few months ago, but I haven’t kept up with what’s happening with the apartment below me. I really admired her, though—Esther was a cantankerous, tough broad. She was apparently one of the first female mathematics professors at NYU, and she remained tenured and teaching classes right up until she passed away.
“The family didn’t sell the place?” I ask. Esther was British, and I knew vaguely that most of her family still lived in the UK, so I’d just assumed there’d soon be another thirtysomething singleton looking to buy her studio apartment.
“No, the grandson is moving in,” Meryl cuts in excitedly. She loves a dose of gossip, so I imagine she’s already pulled up his entire history and we’ll know soon if he’s gotten even a parking ticket. “He’s apparently a writer, so I suppose he can live anywhere. Although I heard he was divorced or separated or something, so maybe he’s fleeing the country.”
“Heard from whom?” Tom asks, seemingly not expecting an answer, because he doesn’t even bat an eye when Meryl cryptically waves him off.
“Well, thanks for the heads-up,” I say as I put my key into the lock and open the door. They all say goodbye, and I’m bolstered as I get in the elevator. This day has felt both exhausting and inspiring, but my neighbors are always entertaining.
I get off the elevator at the tenth and top floor and open my apartment door to the impeccable sound of little feet racing across the wooden floor.
I sit down cross-legged and let George hop onto me, the familiarity of the scene calming down all the confusion from my day.
Maybe other people would think it doesn’t count, but I know George understands me best—even without the ability to tell me in words. He knows me and I know him. He might be the mangiest-looking rescue dog around, and he might hate most people with an indifference that could haunt you, but he’s my little, particular, mangy pup. He won’t eat food that isn’t a little wet; he’ll pout when it’s cold outside; he growls at pretty much anyone. But he suits me. He doesn’t smile and jump around like an enthusiastic show monkey; he lets me brood when I need to; he doesn’t seem to mind when I need to veg; he curls up on my lap when he senses I need affection, without fanfare or chatting. He gets me.
I rescued him after a solo trip I took following a breakup with a boring guy I’d stayed with too long. I went on the trip to try and reflect on what I was doing wrong, but the main takeaway was that I just really needed a dog. I strolled by a rescue event and saw so many cute puppies and boundlessly happy dogs getting attention, while George—this all-black, stocky dog with one white paw—was curled up in the corner, ignoring everyone.
Something about his disinterested nonchalance struck me as something I could use more of in my life. When I asked about him, the volunteer warned me that he was so irritable he was already on Prozac. I found it hilarious that a dog could take the same medication as humans while also feeling a bit defensive that someone would think anyone was lesser than for needing a bit of anxiety medication. But it made him feel even more right. I could protect him from the anxieties of the world, and he could teach me how to not give a shit about what others think. It seemed like kismet.
I brought him home that day, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. I’ll often wake up to that one white paw resting on my arm, as though we’ve got each other no matter what.
And right now, as usual, I could probably take a little bit of George’s attitude. If George were a person, he’d definitely stand up for himself. He’d go after what he wanted and accept nothing less.
And now I’m hoping to aim as high as my dog. Nice.
Yet no matter the day I’ve had, it’s always a balm being back in my apartment. I don’t think I’ll ever stop appreciating the sanctity of having my own space. I spent my entire childhood sharing a room with my brother, even when I was in high school, all teenage angst to his middle school awkwardness. My parents never thought it was strange, even though it clearly was, so we both just muddled through it. And then it took graduating from college and grad school for me to finally have enough income to not have roommates. Being able to build a life where I get to introvert alone is one of the greatest advantages to aging.
But before I can try and focus on that sentiment instead of the ruins of my day, my reverie is broken by a loud banging right below me. George hops up and barks at the floor, as though that’ll solve anything.
It stops for a moment before starting back up again. And then it falls into the same rhythm for at least ten minutes—banging, followed by seeming silence, only to resume once more.
Normally, I would just wait it out. So what if it’s after hours and you’re not supposed to do anything particularly noisy after 6:00 p.m.?
But watching George get more and more anxious makes me want to take action. He can’t help but be confused and upset by this intrusion on his space. Maybe today I’m bolstered by my conversation with Ari. I feel the urge to ask for what I want instead of blithely waiting for the circumstance to change. Against all my normal judgment, I stand up and walk the one flight down until I’m standing in front of Esther’s old apartment’s door.
I knock. Softly at first and then, with a bit more determination, slightly harder.
But my burst of confidence is short lived when the door swings open and I see who’s on the other side.
Because staring back is a face that I know is not happy to see me.