Chapter 3 #3
I’m so distracted thinking about every possible scenario, I don’t realize there isn’t an elevator until I step forward to press the button. There’s only a door to the stairwell.
I don’t know why I’m shocked. There wasn’t supposed to be an elevator in our Beacon Hill apartment, either.
Matt and I had even joked about what a fantastic workout it would be, climbing three flights of stairs every day.
But here, it feels necessary. Sure, this building might not have Beacon Hill’s window boxes or cobbled street or crown molding, but at least an elevator would help explain why I chose it.
Apparently not, I think as I start up the stairs.
As I pass the second floor, I hear ABBA’s “Waterloo” ringing out from one of the apartments, but the song fades when I get to the third story.
There seem to be two apartments on each floor of the building, and apartment 3A is the one on the right.
A small welcome sign hangs by the door, and a knot-weaved doormat lies out front, which I quite like.
Then it hits me: Of course I like it. I probably bought it.
I have to try a couple of keys before one slides into the lock. I turn it and carefully push open the door, craning to peek inside.
“Hello?” I call out, half hoping, half dreading a reply from some unknown roommate.
The fluorescent bulb from the hallway illuminates the threshold and the line of coats hanging on the wall. A pair of boots and two pairs of running shoes—one of which I recognize—are on the hardwood floor below them.
It’s enough evidence to step forward. It’s a small entryway, not much more than a short hall, and beyond it is a long living room with a kitchen taking up the wall on one end and two tall windows overlooking the building across the street on the other.
The morning sun hasn’t quite hit this side of the building yet, so the light through the gauzy curtains is soft and hazy, falling across a worn vintage rug.
Plants crowd the windowsills, and a short bookcase with a small television on top sits opposite a long sofa, its navy blue cotton upholstery slightly faded.
Curiosity quickly eclipses my caution. I don’t bother taking off my coat; instead, I just drop my bag on the hardwood floor and continue inside.
There’s a set of French doors just past the television, across from the sofa, and I push them open to find a barely made bed, its pink-and-white gingham duvet thrown haphazardly across the sheets and half covering the pillows.
A Marnie special, Matt used to call it. He’d say the same thing about the stacks of books on the nightstand, the piles of random papers on the small desk in the corner.
My old laptop sits there, too, and I’m honestly surprised it survived the move.
A few years ago Sara had insisted I buy it—All professionals need one, she had said—but I’d never used it much.
I tentatively lift its screen, not sure I would even have it charged.
It turns out I do. But when I type in the last password I remember, and the computer immediately denies it, I shut it again.
There’s only so much rejection I can handle in one day.
I can hear the muffled chorus of “Waterloo” playing downstairs as I head back out to the living room and look around again. There’s just one other door by the kitchen, and it appears to lead to a small bathroom. Does that mean I live alone?
I’ve never lived on my own before. At thirty years old—wait, thirty-one—that feels almost embarrassing.
Like up until this point, I’d missed some key milestone in life.
It wasn’t that I avoided it, only that I had so many plans when I was younger, it didn’t seem like living alone needed to be added to the list. It would just happen, an inevitable outcome of everything else I wanted to do.
Move to New York and pursue photography.
Learn to sail and get a job aboard a ship traversing the Atlantic.
Paint in Italy, and bake in France. The list went on and on.
But it always ended in the same place: Malibu, where my grandmother and I would turn her bungalow into a bed-and-breakfast and share stories of our adventures with whoever came to stay.
Follow your dreams, Marnie, my grandmother always said. The universe will handle the rest.
So I had. Or, at least, I tried to. Then she was diagnosed with dementia my freshman year of college.
Suddenly, moving out of the dorms and back into our bungalow to take care of her felt like the only option.
Four years later, as the medical bills piled up and I was taking on more and more temp work to keep them at bay, accepting a full-time position with Probus Recruiting after graduation hadn’t felt like part of any cosmic plan, either, just a necessary evil.
And on the bright side, I met Sara in the break room on my second day.
We bonded over our shared hatred of inspirational quotes in our colleagues’ email signatures, and over the next year, our friendship grew so strong that when I finally had to move my grandmother into assisted living—and sell our bungalow to pay for it—Sara didn’t hesitate to offer me the spare room in her apartment.
Then, when she got engaged to Garrett, it seemed obvious that I would move in with Matt.