5. Darcy
CHAPTER FIVE
darcy
I wake up on the air mattress to gray light and spend about four seconds wondering where the hell I am before it all comes back.
Boston. My apartment.
The air mattress lets out a long, dramatic wheeze when I shift, formally noting its objections. I lie there for another minute and just listen.
The rain stopped overnight. Somewhere in the walls the old radiators are clinking, and the apartment is warm in the uneven way that old-buildings are.
Still better than the forced air I’ve been breathing for the last three years.
A door closes somewhere on the street below.
A car starts, idles for a minute, then pulls away.
The city is already awake, waiting for me to catch up.
Actually slept, not the half-alert version where some part of my brain stays on duty all night waiting for the next thing. Just eight straight hours of completely unconsciousness, and I wake up in it with that strange, disorienting feeling that maybe I’ve been here longer than a day.
I sit up and immediately regret putting my feet on the floor. The hardwood is freezing through my socks.
“Rugs,” I inform the room. “Immediately.”
My own voice lands softly and echoes in the half-empty bedroom. I like the sound more than I expect.
Last night I’d hung my coat on the hook by the door without thinking about it. I’d stood there looking at it for a solid ten seconds like I’d never seen a coat hook before.
At Brett’s, I’d stopped doing that somewhere in year two and started draping it over the bedroom chair instead.
The chair that wasn’t really mine, in the apartment that wasn’t really ours, in the version of mornings that required me to already know what kind of mood I was walking into before I had gotten out of bed.
I went back to unpacking before I cried about a coat hook, which I consider a personal victory.
The night itself had been…a lot. In the best possible way.
I’d ordered Thai from a place three blocks over and eaten drunken noodles cross-legged on the hardwood with the disposable chopsticks from the takeout bag.
Chappell Roan blasted from my phone speaker at a volume that would’ve required a discussion in my old life.
Instead of someone turning it down or requesting a song change.
I sang along with a mouth full of noodles and at one point accidentally dropped a piece of broccoli into an unopened box labeled OFFICE.
The Sauvignon Blanc I’d picked up for the occasion had been opened by seven. I assembled my new nightstand with one hand and a wine glass in the other, which added roughly forty minutes to the process and resulted in a piece of furniture that’s structurally sound but spiritually compromised.
Then I’d done what any reasonable woman does on the first night of her new life—opened every furniture website I’d been lowkey bookmarking for months and went absolutely feral.
Which is how I ended up waking up to seventeen order confirmations and zero regrets. A rug, a floor lamp, a sideboard I plan on using as a TV stand, and a handful of smaller things chosen for no reason other than the fact that I liked them.
By the time the kettle starts whistling, I’m already halfway through unpacking the kitchen.
Turns out I own an unreasonable number of mugs. I line them up across the counter anyway, because apparently this is who I am now. A woman with a dozen coffee mugs and no couch.
The cast iron pan emerges from a box labeled MISC.
KITCHEN? in my own handwriting. I place it on the back burner where it belongs.
The dish rack follows. My favorite chipped cereal bowl survives the move.
Against all odds, so does the wine glass I wrapped in three separate Trader Joe’s bags and blind optimism.
An hour later, the room has stopped looking like a storage unit and started looking like a kitchen.
I carry my tea over to the counter and open the pitch I’ve been circling all week. I’ve been stuck on it since before the move. Staring at it now, the problem practically introduces itself.
The client keeps asking for luxury and approachable in the same breath. Exclusive but welcoming. Premium but accessible. The deck has slowly become six slightly different versions of the same identity crisis.
I stare at the screen for a minute, then start deleting slides. After the fourth one is trashed, it sounds like one person talking instead of a committee. She doesn’t need more options. She needs somebody to tell her which version is actually hers.
I move the copy around, swap the image hierarchy, rewrite a headline that’s been bothering me for two weeks, and suddenly the entire thing clicks into place.
By the time I lean back, my tea is cold. I don’t care. The work is good.
My phone buzzes across the counter.
Alex
Alive?
I laugh.
Darcy
And thriving.
Alex
Shame.
Alex
I was enjoying telling people you ran off to join a cult.
Darcy
Boston is not a cult.
Alex
Jury’s still out.
Alex and I met at a design summit in New York three years ago after accidentally hiding from the same keynote speaker in the hotel bar.
Since then we’ve spent an alarming amount of time talking each other out of bad client decisions and passing projects back and forth whenever one of us is overloaded.
My phone buzzes again.
Alex
How’s the apartment?
Darcy
I own too much drinkware and not enough seating.
Alex
Sounds like you’re winning.
Darcy
That’s what I keep telling myself.
Alex
Good.
Alex
I’ve got something for you. A skincare start up.
Alex
Beautiful branding but nothing makes sense.
Darcy
My favorite kind.
Alex
Liar.
Alex
Your favorite kind is the ones with money.
Darcy
Not untrue.
I look at the message for a second. A month ago I would’ve stared at it a lot longer. Not because I didn’t want the work, but because somewhere along the way I’d stopped trusting my own excitement. Every decision got run through a dozen different filters before it reached me.
Now all I can think about is opening the brief.
Darcy
Send it over.
Alex
That’s my girl.
The referral lands in my inbox before I can regret volunteering myself.
I open the brief and settle back against the counter. The brand is beautiful. Soft neutrals. Clean typography. The kind of packaging that ends up all over someone’s Pinterest board six months before it hits shelves.
I make it three pages before I start smiling. For all the effort that’s gone into making this thing look good, I still can’t tell who it’s for.
Alex
***
Darcy
It’s pretty…
Alex
Uh oh.
Darcy
That’s the problem.
Alex
Elaborate.
Darcy
I can tell you the color palette.
Darcy
And the font.
Darcy
And that the founder owns a pink linen blazer.
Alex
Darcy
I cannot tell you who is buying this.
The typing bubble appears immediately.
Alex
God I’ve missed this.
Darcy
You say that now.
Alex
Call me when you’ve written a six-page brand manifesto by accident
Darcy
Six?
Darcy
Amateur numbers.
Alex
And she’s back, ladies and gentlemen!
I laugh and set my phone down.
Somewhere between the skincare brief, a revision request, and a client who keeps using the phrase elevated but approachable like it’s a legally binding requirement, I stop paying attention to anything except what’s in front of me.
Which is usually how I know I’m having a good day.
When my phone finally buzzes again, I’ve sent two deliverables, answered a dozen emails, and filled three pages of my notebook with notes I’ll probably have to translate later.
My screen lights up with the name I’ve spent a quarter of a century learning to brace for.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Well.”
I smile immediately.
“Hello to you too.”
“I was starting to think you’d disappeared.”
“We literally talked last night.”
“That was yesterday.”
I close my laptop and lean back in my chair.
“That’s generally how time works.”
“Darcy.”
“How are you, Mom?”
“Fine.”
Which means she is absolutely not fine.
“How’s the apartment?”
“The apartment is…amazing.”
A smile tugs at my mouth despite myself.
“It has these huge windows and French doors that lead to the bedroom and original hardwood floors.”
My mother hums. Not impressed, but processing.
“Is it safe?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Did you check the locks?”
“I checked the locks.”
“At night?”
“That’s generally when locks are most useful.”
“Darcy.”
“I checked the locks.”
“And the neighborhood?”
I glance out the window just as a girl around my age walks past carrying a yoga mat and an iced coffee despite the fact that it’s February.
“I think the biggest threat is artisanal sourdough.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
A beat passes.
“It’s nice,” I say more quietly. “Really nice.”
Something in my voice must carry through because she softens for half a second.
“Well.”
Another pause.
“That’s good.”
The words sound slightly reluctant, like she’s still waiting for the catch.
“Have you met anybody in the building?”
My mind immediately goes to Tyler, followed by the reminder that there’s apparently an older brother downstairs I still haven’t met. Given the evidence currently available to me, that feels like a situation best approached with caution.
“There are only two apartments.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I smile.
“My landlords live downstairs.”
“Landlords?”
“Plural.”
A pause.
“Why plural?”
“Because there are two of them,” I say cautiously. “They’re brothers.”
Another pause.
Longer this time.
“Darcy.”
“Mom.”
“Do you know these men?”
“I know I’m supposed to call them if something breaks.”
“Darcy.”
I laugh.
“They own the building. They’re seemingly normal.”
“As far as you know.”
“As far as anybody knows, technically.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
I hear my dad’s muffled voice sounds somewhere in the background.
“They’re two brothers,” my mother says, clearly covering the phone with her hand and accomplishing absolutely nothing.
“Brothers?” Dad asks.
“They own the house.”
“That’s excellent.”
My mother sounds offended.
“Why is that excellent?”
“Because if her car won’t start, she’s got two people downstairs.”
I blink.
Well. That hadn’t occurred to me.
“Exactly,” Dad continues. “Pipe bursts. Lock sticks. Snowstorm. Whatever. She’s not alone in the building.”
My mother makes a noise that somehow communicates both disagreement and reluctant acknowledgment.
“You don’t even know them.”
“They’re also firefighters,” I say.
“Firefighters?” Dad repeats. “See?”
“See what?” Mom shoots back.
“That’s wonderful”
I have no idea why my father sounds so pleased about this development.
“Dan.”
“I’m just saying, I’ll sleep better knowing she has two firefighters there if she needs anything.”
I giggle at the familiar sound of them bickering.
“Darcy?”
My mother’s voice softens just slightly.
“Yeah?”
Another pause.
“I am glad you’re settling in.”
It’s probably the closest she’s going to get to saying she understands.
For now, it’s enough.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Call us if you need anything.”
“I won’t.”
“I know.”
“Love you too.”
Dad laughs in the background.
By the time I hang up, the apartment is dark outside the windows and significantly less chaotic inside.
Another box disappears. Then another. I eat my leftover Thai at the built in breakfast nook I’ve been using as a makeshift desk all day.
By the time the sky outside the windows turns black, the apartment feels a little less temporary.
Later that night, I step out of the glass shower after standing under it longer than I need to and letting the heat work the ache out of my shoulders. I’m at the bathroom sink surrounded by a cloud of steam, toothbrush halfway to my mouth, when I hear it.
At first I think it’s the pipes. Then someone laughs again. The sound carries through the old floorboards just enough to make me pause.
Low and easy, muffled by plaster and distance but familiar anyway.
Tyler—I’m already beginning to recognize the laugh after only a few days, which is either a testament to my hearing or a problem I’m not diagnosing tonight.
A second voice follows. Lower than his. Deeper. The kind you notice before you fully register it. A cabinet closes. Water runs. That has to be the brother, Mack.
Tyler mentioned that he owns the house with him, and that’s the full extent of my research, but my imagination continues to run on autopilot. If there is any genetic consistency happening in the MacAllister household, I’m going to need a chastity belt and possibly a different zip code.
The lower voice says something I can’t make out. Tyler answers, and a few seconds later the other voice comes back, the conversation drifting in and out through the floorboards in pieces too muffled to follow.
I stand there a moment longer than I need to, toothbrush forgotten in my hand.
Growing up, I got used to listening for things. The way a door closed. The way somebody said my name from another room. The difference between a good mood and a bad one before anybody had actually admitted to either.
Downstairs, the conversation rolls on without any of that weight attached to it, wandering wherever it wants because nobody seems particularly concerned with getting it right.
I find myself listening to it anyway. I let myself stand there for another few seconds before I rinse my mouth, switch off the light, and pad over to the air mattress.
It squeaks dramatically.
“You’re lucky you’re temporary.”
I pull the sage-green throw blanket up to my chin—the one that’s survived every dorm room and rough patch since I was nineteen—and settle in while the house shifts around me. Tyler’s laugh drifts up once more.
For the second night in a city I moved to alone, I don’t feel lonely.