Part 8 (1/2)
”Well, I'm not saying it will work. But if she can convince a developer to put down the money up front in exchange for right of first refusal to buy the place from her estate when she dies, that might be of interest to any number of speculators.”
”People do that?”
”That's actually a fairly tame and sensible scenario. For instance, it doesn't involve homicide, although if Delia made it into her nineties I am sure there would be some discussion of poison. Even in the most catastrophic of markets, a twelve-thousand-square-foot apartment with park views on the Upper West Side will never depreciate. It's win win win win win for everyone. Oh yes, I'm sure all of these options have been considered by now. And not merely by her.”
”Who else?”
”It's an old and elegant building, Tina. People have lived here a long time.”
”What does that mean?”
”It means it's an old and elegant building and people have lived here a long time,” he repeated mysteriously.
”Well, if any of these 'people' want to buy our apartment they should call Sotheby's. Why is this woman sucking up to Pete Drinan in the middle of the night if what she really wants is to buy the stupid apartment?” I was getting a little peevish. I turned back to the cappuccino machine, thinking I'd make another round, even though I was so caffeinated I thought my head was going to explode.
”Is something wrong?” asked Len.
”All these rich people make me nervous. She has a zillion rooms herself, and she wants our place too? But she doesn't want to pay for it? That's just incredible. Plus you should have heard her going on about how horrible it all was, we're horrible, Mom was horrible, like we're just crazy s.k.a.n.ks from Jersey or something-and meanwhile she wants to take over our apartment just because she's lived on the same floor for a bunch of years. That's cla.s.sic, it really is.”
”It wasn't your place at all, I might remind you, until three days ago.”
”It was my mom's. When she died, the deed was in her name, was it not? Was it not?”
”So I'm told,” said Len.
”So I'm told too. By lawyers. My mom lived there, oh and by the way, she died there too. That doesn't give us rights?”
”I don't imagine that Delia Westmoreland thinks so, no. I don't believe the Drinan brothers think so either. And I have a suspicion that the co-op board will not feel that it gives you rights.”
”Well, they don't get to say, do they? The law says. The LAW says we own, it's ours by law.”
”That's not going to do you any good if you can't sell it, Tina. And if you can't sell, how will you pay the inheritance tax? Have you asked yourselves any of these questions?”
”We are going to sell it.”
”Not if the co-op board can stop you.”
I truly didn't know what he was talking about, but it had that peculiar sound of a true thing. ”Okay,” I said, trying not to get too worked up. ”Okay, so tell me what the problem is with the co-op board. I don't even know what a co-op board is.”
”They are the twelve residents of this building who will inform you and your sisters-repeatedly, I am afraid-that even if the courts decide that you do own the apartment and that you very much have the right to sell it, in fact they will not permit you to sell it.”
”They can't do that.”
”Alarmingly, yes they can.”
”Why would they do that?”
”Because they don't know you. You're an outsider. Your mother was an outsider. It's an offense to everyone here that you and your sisters think you can just come in and take over that beautiful old apartment. You and your sisters can talk to Sotheby's all you want; every offer they put on the table will be rejected out of hand until someone, or more than one person, in the building has been permitted to make an offer.”
”They can't do that. They said, that lawyer said, there isn't a cloud on the t.i.tle. It means, that legally means-”
”I know what it means, Tina, and I'm afraid there is very much a cloud on the t.i.tle, whether it is a legal cloud or not.”
”I have to call Lucy,” I said, digging into my pocket for my cell phone.
”She knows all about this, Tina, I'm sure.”
”No, she doesn't, she didn't yesterday-”
”Does she tell you everything?” he asked me pointedly. I looked at him. He was considering me like I was some kind of interesting plant that was growing in odd directions, or my leaves were drooping and gray, and he couldn't quite understand why.
”Why-why are you telling me all this?” I finally asked. Truly, none of this was good news, but it wasn't like he was trying to scare me off. If he had had a watering can, I was pretty sure he would have been pouring it over my head.
”Well,” said Len, looking around. ”You did fix the cappuccino machine. Besides which, I had pneumonia last year, and I ended up in the hospital for two weeks, and your mother took good care of my moss. There aren't many people who would have bothered.”
”You're nice to me because my mom saved your moss?”
”There are worse reasons, Tina Finn. She was a nice woman. She was a caretaker at heart. I'm sorry you didn't know that about her.”
”I did know it,” I said.
”Well, then you should have visited her more,” he replied, turning away and putting our dishes in the tiny sink. The air from the greenhouse drifted through the kitchen, a little chill now, and he looked up as if someone had spoken. ”Oh, the rain-drip mechanism is off again in the deciduous room, I'm sorry, you'll have to go,” he told me.
”But-”
”I have a lot of work this afternoon. Thank you for coming up and telling me about the spring bolt; when I need to come down, I'll be sure to check with you first, so I don't startle you.”
”You don't startle me,” I said, a little confused at the change in him. ”I just-”
”I'm sorry, but I really do have work to do-is there something else you need?” He was seriously impatient with me now. I had no idea what had happened. We had been doing so well.
”Why are you mad at me?” I said.
”I'm not angry-I have no feelings at all,” he said, like that was going to make it better. ”Are you crying?”
”I just don't know what to do,” I said, and the fact is, I had most definitely teared up. It was really mortifying. ”If everybody hates me just because I'm here, what do I do?”
”Oh, for heaven's sake. Get a grip,” he said. ”If n.o.body likes you, the thing you need to do is make friends.”
8.
THE WHITES' APARTMENT WAS ON THE NINTH FLOOR, DIRECTLY above me. Like mine, it had way more hallways and rooms than you could figure out or follow, but unlike mine there were people in all of them. There was Mrs. White, who wore really cute jackets and skirts and panty hose and short heels, so she looked great while she ran around like a lunatic, shouting at everyone and carrying books and piles of laundry and stuffed animals and spoons and forks and empty juice boxes everywhere. Then there was a cook-actually two cooks, who came on different days-and a Polish woman named Anna, who was always doing laundry, and a Hispanic woman, Magda, who seemed to clean the bathrooms constantly, and there were lots and lots of girls, little girls and big girls, mostly wearing pleated plaid skirts and dark green cardigans. The Whites had six kids, all girls. It took me more than a few days to learn all of their names: Louise, Jennifer, Gail, Mary Ellen, Katherine, and a two-year-old named Barbie. They actually called the kid Barbie, which I thought was a mistake, but I figured she would grow up and tell them to cut it out, and that would be the end of that.
A week after Len gave me my instructions, when I went up to 9A to introduce myself to the chaotic Whites, I had no idea what I might find there. After he had kicked me out, I went back to my apartment and poked around the kitchen and the laundry without knowing what I was looking for. I put a call in to Lucy, but her a.s.sistant told me she was in meetings all afternoon and would not be able to return calls until the next day. I thought about arguing with her and telling her there was an emergency at the apartment, but I was pretty sure Lucy would not consider my musings about the devious co-op board and the greedy Mrs. Westmoreland an emergency, so I said thanks and hung up. I thought about calling Alison, but that didn't seem likely to calm me down, and then I picked up the clicker for the television and thought about channel flipping for a while. In previous times I had spent entire days aimlessly trolling basic cable for traces of common sense or answers that never appeared. Then I considered throwing the f.u.c.king clicker against the wall but decided just to set it down on the coffee table, which is where I found the card for Stuart Long, Esq. And when I got up the nerve to call a couple days later, he actually got on the phone as soon as his receptionist told him I was on the line.
”h.e.l.lo, Tina, how are you?” he asked, all kind and concerned. ”Are you still in the apartment?”