One
Elle
This cannot be said enough: Living in New York City in your twenties is nothing like Friends makes it out to be.
Man, I’m feeling cynical tonight.
I want to call Lucy. I want to tell her that at my annual review last week, I was promoted to editor.
Editor.
I’ve worked my ass off for five years at Heartwarming Romance. I made copies and got coffee as an assistant, continued to make copies and fought tooth-and-nail to acquire books as an Assistant Editor, and then Associate, and now, I am an editor. I did it. My hard work paid off.
Maybe I’ll just text her instead, in case I interrupt her cooking or watching TV with Liam, or whatever else it is couples do. I don’t want to bother her.
SLAM!
My hesitation is interrupted by a huge crash from the apartment above me.
Of all the things I’ve tried to actually manifest in my life—a boyfriend, a thousand dollars, a friend that didn’t move away—Lucy’s one statement about a noisy neighbor just had to be the one to come true.
That’s another example of how unrealistic Friends is: the gang all live in the same building, and don’t have problems with their neighbors.
Well, except for Mr. Heckles, but he only lasted a few episodes.
I can already tell that my new neighbor and I are not going to be friends. He is a self-centered ogre sent from the sixth layer of hell to torture me. Granted, I haven’t met him yet to confirm this, but I haven’t gotten a wink of sleep since he moved in two days ago.
It is almost 9 p.m., and the jerk has already done a thirty-minute session on his treadmill, dropped what I presume to be everything in his shower, and slammed the door so violently I swear dust started falling from my ceiling.
I only saw the girl who used to live there a couple times, but I really miss her right now.
For the past two nights, the guy has left the apartment around eight o’clock, and I’ve heard weird noises above me for hours afterward.
The floor is so thin that I can’t tune whatever it is out.
I’m really hoping this is not a regular thing, because I love sleep.
I live for my sleep. If I don’t sleep, I’m the most bitter, nasty version of myself.
I know New York is the city that never sleeps, but that rule doesn’t apply to me.
I haven’t met him, but so far I know this guy stays out all night and seems to love heart-pumping workouts. I don’t think we’ll get along.
I close my eyes again, trying to focus on my meditation practice. It’s not long before I hear scratching above me. Seriously, what the hell?
Scratch. Scratch. Whine. I wonder if the guy has a very needy cat. I put my pillow over my head, and focus on the sounds of the nightlife outside to try and distract myself.
It’s the crying that finally propels me out of the bed.
My apartment building is an old brownstone, so each floor is split up into either two or three apartments.
When Lucy moved out, I had to move to a smaller apartment a few blocks from our old studio, because renting in New York is absurdly expensive.
I’m in the basement where there are two other studios, so I have to walk upstairs to the entrance level to get to New Guy’s door.
I’m not really sure what my plan is as I climb the stairs to the first floor.
Maybe he has a roommate whose humanity I could appeal to?
A knot of nerves builds in my stomach, and I wrap my sweatshirt tighter around my torso and look behind me for the tenth time as I round the railing of the stairs.
I doubt any resident of the building is a serial killer.
We have to consent to a background check when applying for the apartment, so hopefully this expedition won’t end in me getting murdered.
Something a lot of people don’t realize about New York is yes, we do all live on top of each other, but we never really see our neighbors.
So I could be living next to Ted Bundy and not even know it.
I swallow hard as I approach the door to 2A. The anxious voice in my head makes me pause. What are you doing, Elle?
Avenging my lost sleep, I answer myself. I love my sleep.
I turn back around. This is ridiculous. I can’t investigate a noise if no one is home.
And then I hear the crying again.
I take a deep breath as my shaking fist knocks against the door.
It’s met with a small, yappy bark, and I jump back in surprise. Okay, definitely not a cat.
I see a shadow of the dog moving back and forth in the crack under the door. His sad little barks are clearer with just the door between us. Mystery solved. I start to back up to make my way back to the stairs when I hear the barks morph into a muffled snorting sound.
I look down and see a small black nose trying to squeeze under the inch-wide space under the door. The poor dog is squishing his nose so much that he makes himself sneeze.
“Oh, puppy,” I whine, crouching down at the door. This poor thing must have separation anxiety. My annoyance towards my new neighbor immediately turns to rage and disdain. Who leaves a dog alone all night? When will he be back? What is wrong with this guy?
I boop the dog’s nose with my pointer finger and he sneezes again. “It’s okay, buddy. You’re okay,” I coo. I give the door a once over, wondering what the chances are that he locked the deadbolt before he left, and then scoff at myself. I would need three of me to break that door down.
“But I’d do it for you, bud,” I say softly to my new friend.
The dog sticks his tongue under the door.
I can picture him in downward-facing dog, butt in the air, head turned to the side to be able to get his snout under the door.
I giggle as he licks my finger. What am I going to do?
I can’t in good conscience leave him here alone.
And it’s not like I would be able to get to sleep with all the whining anyway.
God, I hate this schmuck and I haven’t even met him.
The black nose returns to the door crack. He’s snorting like a horse. I can’t suppress the smile that spreads across my face.
When I was eight, I convinced my mom that my brother Nicky needed a dog.
As sad as it sounds, I knew my only chance of getting one was if I made it about Nicky.
I did all kinds of research on our dated desktop about the benefits of dogs for kids with Down’s syndrome.
Finally, we got Meatball. Nicky chose the name.
I wasn’t mad about it because Meatball was a bulldog with an eating problem—that is, he never stopped eating.
Food, treats, trees, grass, dirt, anything.
He once found a box of candies that he individually unwrapped before eating them.
That incident was only topped by the time he jumped up (jumped being a strong word) onto the kitchen table and ate an entire plate of bacon. I loved that dog so much.
I remember how he used to stick his nose in the corner of the back door and snort, trying to smell anything he could. My heart hurts watching this poor guy do the same.
“Wait here, I’ll be right back,” I say, presumably losing my damn mind. No, losing my mind would have been breaking the door down. This is one step below that.
When I get back down to my apartment, I quickly grab some peanut butter, a spoon, and my yoga notebook off of the counter. Yes, I’m going to sit in that damn hallway and keep the dog company, because that’s the kind of crazy I am.
I run back up the stairs with gleeful excitement, a stark contrast to my first trek up this flight earlier. Of course participating in a stakeout with a dog I can’t even see is the first thing that would make me happy since Lucy’s fleeting visit.
“Hey, bud,” I say, sitting on the floor outside of my heartless neighbor’s door. “Look what I got.” I take a spoonful of the peanut butter and squeeze the spoon under the door.
I smile when I feel a tongue pushing against the other side of the spoon.
This, my mother would say, is why you’re single.
Damn straight, Mom.