Part 5 (1/2)
”What?” I said.
”What,” she asked, impatient, ”is this?” With her toe, she nudged a small wooden toolbox, placed neatly against the wall beside the doorway to the mossery.
”Oh, that's Len's,” I said.
”Len,” she repeated, looking at me as if she knew that once again I had slept with someone I shouldn't have.
”He was a friend of Bill's and Mom's, that's his moss in the kitchen. They let him grow it there, he's some kind of botanist person, he lives in the building,” I explained. ”He was here when the phone got cut off, and he, you know, he said I should go get a cell phone.” Lucy flipped the light switch. Nothing happened.
”Yes, I see,” she sighed. ”And what did you do once you bought the cell phone? Did you call me at work, as I asked you to, and say, Lucy, the phone has been cut off and they're probably going to try to cut the electricity as well and maybe change the locks, could you come over and help me handle this? Did you do that?”
”No, I didn't do that,” I started.
”No, you didn't,” she said, continuing to flip the useless light switch for effect. ”You went shopping.”
”Why would I a.s.sume this guy was going to do all that stuff you said? We don't even know these people.”
”Tina, honestly, would you try to think for once? h.e.l.lo, Monica, hi.” She was on her cell now, firing on all jets. ”I'm going to need you to call Keyspan and Con Ed, the gas and electric got turned off in my mom's apartment and we need to get it turned back on right away, and I mean now. My sister is living here, and she obviously can't stay if there's no gas or electricity, so if you need to run down to their offices, then do it. I left three copies of the will on my desk, take them with you so if they give you any trouble you can prove we have the right to put the accounts in my name. You can also give them the number of the building, tell them the doorman can verify that we've taken possession. What's his name?” she asked me.
”Frank,” I said.
”Frank,” she said to the phone, and then she rattled off the Edgewood phone number, which of course she knew even though I did not. She finished up the call by snapping her cell shut and then continued to explain things to me as if there had been no interruption at all. ”I checked in with Stuart Long, the lawyer, from yesterday?”
”I remember, Lucy, could you not talk to me like I'm an idiot?”
”Don't get snippy, Tina, you almost completely blew it today-”
”I told you, I didn't know.”
”No, you didn't think; you just took off for three solid hours on a shopping spree, and I'm not going to ask where you got the money because I don't care. But while I don't think Doug Drinan has any sort of legal claim on this apartment, I don't necessarily think he is a liar. Did you find money here?” She waved her hands idly at all the shopping bags I had dumped on the floor.
”I didn't have anything to wear,” I said, trying to get to the beginnings of a defense. She was not interested.
”You listen to me,” she snapped. ”If I hadn't gotten worried about not hearing from you, and showed up, what would have happened?”
”I don't actually care what would have-”
”You'd be locked out. We all would be locked out. We would not have access to the apartment or the building, for that matter, for months. We'd have to go to a judge to get an injunction for permission to even look at the place, and by that point the Drinan brothers would have filed to legally contest their father's will, which, depending on how long that took to get through the courts? Would cut us off for years. Years. I checked this out with Daniel's friend the real estate lawyer, who a.s.sured me that contrary to what that idiot told us yesterday, a scenario like that leaves us with virtually no standing whatsoever. If they can prove that Bill was of unsound mind and Mom was of unsound character, and none of us had ever met Bill and had never set foot in this apartment, it is not that far a leap to claiming that Mom tricked him into changing his stupid will and that we have no right to this place. And that is what they are going to try to do. So do me a favor and don't make their case for them, would you? We put you here for a reason. Stay put.”
”You expect me to never leave.”
”Not unless you pick up your handy new throwaway cell phone and call me first and let me know that you have to go out for two hours and that Alison or I need to come by and be on site while you traipse about.”
”Well, so how long-”
”As long as I say! If you don't like this deal, let me know. Let me know, and you can go back to Darren and the trailer park and the Delaware Water Gap now instead of later. Because if you don't help me make this work? That is where you're going to end up anyway.”
I really thought Lucy was overreacting and being a total nightmare, but her argument made an impression on me. Even though I couldn't follow all the dastardly legal turns she had worked out about where this situation could go, it was pretty clear that if we didn't pull this off, it was in the cards for me to get booted out of there and back to cleaning houses in New Jersey.
”Okay okay okay,” I said.
”Not okay okay okay!” she snapped. ”I don't want to hear some sort of snotty okay! I want to hear, Yes, Lucy, I Will Do Whatever You Say.”
”Well, I'm not going to say that,” I snapped back. ”I'll do it, but I'm not going to say it.”
”Fine,” she said, clearly sick of me. ”Now, what's the story with all this moss? This is actually here for a reason?” Look, I find it impressive when she does that. In the middle of all that arguing, she remembered the one thing I had told her about the moss.
”Len, it's Len's moss, he lives on the top floor.”
”Well, Len is going to have to get his moss out of here,” she said, shoving his little toolbox with one of her slick black heels.
”I don't have his number,” I said. ”But I could go downstairs and get that doorman to buzz up and see if he's there.”
”That's a good idea,” she said, only half paying attention.
”Maybe I should get the keys copied while I'm down there.”
”Now that, actually, would be useful,” Lucy noted. She dialed her cell, then popped it to the side of her head while she held out the keys, which I took. ”Listen, don't panic, there's nothing to get upset about,” she said, so I knew she was talking to Alison. ”But I'm over at the apartment. There's a lot going on.”
Now, you do have to wonder why someone like Lucy believes people like me when we suddenly cave and agree to all sorts of nonsense in the middle of an argument. Because really, I had no intention of calling Len and telling him he had to move his moss. Instead I went downstairs, waved to Frank, walked over to Columbus and found the one bodega that inexplicably hovers there, and I bought myself a box of Dots. Then I walked around the block, ate the Dots, and thought about what I was going to do next. I wandered around the Upper West Side until I found a crummy little hardware store, where they made some new keys for me. While I was there I bought a few more choice items. Then I went back home, feeling more and more that I had every right to think of it that way.
5.
”THE MOSS GUY ISN'T IN. FRANK BUZZED HIM ABOUT EIGHT TIMES, but he didn't answer,” I told Lucy. ”So I asked for his phone number, but it's unlisted and the doorman isn't allowed to give it out. Anyway, I left a message with the doorman for Len to call as soon as he gets in, and I'll tell him we need him to move all that stuff. Here, I got a set of keys for you and also an extra one, in addition to the ones I have.” Soaring right through the lie about Len, I started fumbling with the keys. She didn't even look up as she took them from me.
”You didn't leave my number as well?” she asked, pecking away at her laptop, which she had set up on the coffee table back by the TV. There was a whole mess of doc.u.ments and file folders falling out of her briefcase on the couch, so I knew she had decided to spend the rest of the day there. I felt like I had been invaded.
”He and I got kind of friendly, so I thought it would be better for him to call me,” I said.
”You thought it would be better if I let you handle it,” she said, making this sound like a stupendously idiotic idea. I looked at the floor and acted like I was really sorry that I was such a stupid person, which worked, because that's what she thinks I am anyway. It's easy to fool smart people about really stupid things. It's all about the a.s.sumptions.
The door to the bathroom behind the laundry room swung open, and a woman appeared. I just about jumped out of my skin, but Lucy kept on tapping at her keyboard.
”Fantastic,” the woman said, smiling at me like we were old friends. She had blond hair very close to her head and she was exceptionally tan. She was wearing a tight beige microsuede pantsuit-pants and a jacket made out of synthetic beige polyester-and actual panty hose and boring-looking low brown heels. I'm sure that everything she was wearing cost more than I made in a month of cleaning houses, but frankly I don't understand why people dress like that.
”This place is fabulous,” she informed me, striding over and holding out her hand for me to shake. ”Hi, I'm Betsy Hastings. Did I hear you saying something about the moss in the front kitchen?”
”We haven't been able to get hold of the guy who owns the moss,” Lucy announced, ”but it's being handled.”
”No worries, no worries,” said Betsy. As opposed to my sister, she couldn't have been nicer. ”This whole place is amazing. It's incredible when a place like this comes on the market. Just thrilling.”
”You're the real estate person,” I said, guessing.
”A lot of people are interested, Tina,” Lucy informed me. ”And a lot of questions need to be answered. Things are very preliminary at this point.”
”No question, no question,” Betsy agreed. ”I would love it if you would let me handle this. I have a number of corporate clients who would pick it up immediately, as is. I don't think you need to worry about anything-the moss, the carpets, the appliances-you can let the buyer take care of all that. Even in this market, which, as we know, has cooled considerably in the past couple years. But you don't have anything to worry about; this place is amazing.”