Part 30 (1/2)
”Yeah, I've seen your record,” he said. ”It's pretty interesting.”
”I like living here,” I said again, looking around the room, which was quite cozy now with the collection of little pieces I had pulled together to make a home for myself. ”I'll be sorry to go.”
”You don't need to be in such a hurry,” he said. ”It's going to take years to get this through the legal system.”
”No, I'm being kicked out. The co-op board is kicking me out. It's part of their big plan to get the apartment.”
”How is kicking you out going to accomplish that?”
”I don't know, I'm getting all my information thirdhand. Presumably they have more shenanigans up their sleeves.”
”Who's behind this?”
”I don't know. They keep saying 'the building,' like it has a mind of its own.”
”Yeah, they used to do that to us too,” he remembered. ”They'd get all bent out of shape about something or other, send notes to my dad signed 'The Building.' It really p.i.s.sed him off. My mother screaming all the time, seriously bloodcurdling s.h.i.+t, horrible, and loud, and then we'd get these messages from The Building about appropriate noise levels. I think they threatened to kick us out a couple times-and her family built the place. a.s.sholes. It was always presented in such a creepy way, too. Like, that woman who married beneath her is a little loud when she has her psychotic breaks, but the real problem is those Irish guys who are being rude. They're a bunch of 'f.e.c.kin' bigots'-that was Dad's phrase.”
”Wait a minute,” I said. ”You mean he was really Irish? Like, Irish Irish?”
”He grew up in Galway. But he was legal, at least after he married her. That was another one they kept tossing around: he married her for the green card. Somebody, or maybe it was 'The Building,' tried to argue that he wasn't allowed to inherit when she died. Our lawyers dug into it, because if he couldn't inherit it, then he couldn't leave it to your mother, and that meant it would come to us straight from her. But there's no legal standing for that one. They may go there anyway, who knows.” He looked around the little room, thinking about all this, then he grinned as a thought occurred to him.
”That why you're trying to give it away?” he asked. ”To stick it to all of them? If you can't have it, why not me?” This idea pleased him.
”I wasn't trying to stick it to anyone. I'm trying to do the right thing.”
”The right thing.” He laughed. ”You're a criminal.”
”Oh, please,” I said. ”I'm such a dumb criminal. I am the lamest of criminals.”
”You have your points,” he said. Then he leaned back, considered the stars above, and stretched his arms over his head, happy. He really was one of those guys, the truth made him happy. I had never seen him so relaxed. ”I like criminals,” he admitted. ”I mean, some of them are jacka.s.ses, and some are truly bad people who should not be on the street. The rest of them-they're people who want things. I respect that. I mean, they go too far, they don't understand rules, but they want life. I get it.”
There wasn't any point in waiting for more of an invitation. Sitting next to him on that little bed, I felt the same as I had the moment I first saw him, like I could just leap on that guy at any second. So that is what I did. Or at least, I reached over, took his face in my hands, and kissed him.
”Well, h.e.l.lo, Tina,” he said when I let him come up for air.
”I was getting tired of waiting for you to kiss me,” I said. And then I kissed him some more. For about fifteen minutes we made out like teenagers on his bed that was also my bed, which is when he stopped for a moment, pushed my hair out of my face, and considered me.
”I'm not sure I want to do this here,” he said.
”Oh, yeah?” I said. ”When will you know? Because like I said, they're kicking me out any minute now.”
And because neither one of us was all that interested in living in the past, we went ahead and did it, and didn't let the death all around us take the day.
29.
WE SPENT THE WEEKEND IN THE APARTMENT, GOING OUT ONLY once to buy more scallops, which I cooked, and we got drunk on red wine and picked through Sophie's treasures. We lay together in the dark and told stories about our dead mothers, what we knew of them, what we didn't know, how they failed us, how we failed them.
Reality eventually rea.s.serted itself; on Monday morning Pete took a shower in the bathroom with the good water pressure and then put his clothes back on so he could go off to his precinct. As he disentangled himself from me at the front door, he stuck his hand in his pocket, looking for his car keys, and his fingers curled around something he found there. ”Oh, yeah, I thought you might want this,” he said, and he handed me a little black perfume bottle.
”So,” I said, ”you knew all along that it was mine.”
”I did know that,” he admitted. ”That's why I wanted it.”
I looked at it. It was cool in my hand, like a big pebble, but black, unknowable. The word that had once scrolled across the opaque gla.s.s was long gone. I opened the bottle, smelled it for a moment, shook out a drop of the precious oil, and touched the back of his neck with it.
”Oh, great,” he said. ”Now I'll hear about that all day.”
”I want you to,” I told him.
After he was gone, I went back to bed. I woke up to the sound of that throwaway cell ringing away.
”It's been four days. Have you heard from Vince?” Lucy started.
”Not since we had dinner, no.”
”Have you called him?”
”No”
”Tina, you have to follow up! And push a little! Have you met his father yet?”
”No,” I said.
”Well, that needs to happen. You can make sure he understands our position and supports it, and then, if he does, maybe we can enlist him to speak to other board members on our behalf. Call Vince right now and let me know what he says.” Then she hung up. Twenty minutes later Alison called.
”Hi, how are you!” she chirped.
”You know, I'm pretty good, Alison,” I started. ”I had a terrific weekend and I learned quite a bit about this place.”
”About the co-op board?” she asked. ”Lucy said you were calling Vince, have you talked to him?”
”No, I haven't really called him yet.”
”Well, then, what good was it?” she started, almost crying with frustration. ”It is so important to just work with the building! It's what Mom would have wanted, I know it.”
”Mom told you specifically that it wasn't what she wanted,” I reminded her.
”She wouldn't want them to have it!”
”No,” I agreed. ”That's not who she wanted to have it.”
”So you're going to call him, right?”
”Who?” I asked, getting confused again.
”Vince,” she said, almost crying again. ”For heaven's sake, Tina! This is no joke!”