Authors: Ariella Papa
“Well, as I’ve always said, alcohol often leads to babies… How was your workweek?”
“Awful. A four-day week only means longer workdays.” She looked at me and shook her head.
Statements like that made me glad I worked from home. Jamie thought that just because I worked from home, I didn’t really work. Sure, I got away with a fair amount of procrastinating, but the truth was, I was good at buckling down when I needed to.
“Did you even change out of your pj’s once this week?”
“Actually, three times,” I said, laughing. “Hey, smells good in here.”
“Thanks. I made some cheesy veggie lasagna.”
“Awesome. I’ll take some wine. So how was your mom’s postmortem of the weekend?” I asked. I wondered if Maura played favorites with everyone, if she said things about Jamie to Mike and Ana the way she gossiped about them. I wondered if she said stuff about me.
“As usual, she doesn’t know where Mike comes from. Didn’t he seem completely horrified playing Trivial Pursuit?”
“He likes to have that air of having something better to do.”
“It’s like he gets mad because I don’t understand the kernels of letters or whatever. But why should I? I don’t ask him to try on makeup.”
“I believe it’s called kerning. And I only know that because I listen to him sometimes.”
“Kiss-ass,” Jamie said, and stuck her tongue out. “And Crystal—Jesus. I can’t. I just can’t.”
During dinner, Jamie told me that she was certain that Warren Tucker had made the cut. “So that means one way or another, he’ll be at the wrap party and you’ll see him. Maybe he can be
your
Mr. Right Now. Did being on Block Island bring back any memories?”
I didn’t tell her that it always did. I had spent, all told, maybe thirty hours alone with Warren Tucker and I could pretty much tell you everything we ever said to each other. In fact, I could bring myself back to those moments on the jetty whenever I wanted. I suspected that was the reason I never really cared about anyone else or wanted to be set up. My memory, my vision of Warren Tucker was just too good.
“Not really,” I answered, and blew on the lasagna even though it was pretty much cooled off.
“What did you think of his hair?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“Come on, Voula, you watched the tape, didn’t you? You’ve had it for weeks.”
“Remember the fire?”
“Yeah,” she said, getting more excited, or perhaps the lack of drinking was lowering her tolerance. “I don’t think your VHS got burned.”
“I have to rewire when I watch DVD,” I said, reaching for an excuse. “I haven’t had a chance.”
“Well, what have you been doing?”
I didn’t want to talk about Warren Tucker anymore. I didn’t want to learn anything. I didn’t want details on why I should note his hair. I pined for him and I didn’t want watching the tape, seeing the real him, to show me I had wasted time thinking about him, comparing all the people Jamie tried to set me up with to him. I didn’t want to find out that Warren Tucker wasn’t worthy of all the thought I had put into him. But I knew that saying it wouldn’t get her off my case. I knew she would never believe me.
“I’ve been looking at places,” I said.
I hoped it was a dropped bomb, like her “trying.” It was high time I had some news other than domestic disasters. I could see the shock spread across her flawless skin. I tried to put it in the most sensational
E! True Hollywood
story way.
“I’m in the market for some real estate.”
Then we both exploded with laughter.
“I can’t believe it,” she said as she served me more lasagna.
She looked around her apartment, and I thought I saw a strain of envy cross her face. When she and Raj first got engaged they talked about moving out of Raj’s rent-controlled apartment in the West Village. They looked at places, but in the end their jobs got too busy. Jamie told me they were going to hold off until they decided to move out of the city.
“That’s big. That means you’ll actually own something? Do you have enough for the down payment?”
“Well, I don’t know. I haven’t done all the research yet. I’ve been saving.”
“You should talk to Alice.”
“Why?” I had no idea why I should talk to one of the Olsen Twins. I had heard enough about their perfect lives while Jamie was in college with them.
“Voula, do you ever pay attention? She’s a mortgage broker.”
“Oh, right. I knew it was something with money.” It’s true I had a tendency to tune people out when I didn’t think they were saying something I could use as a story.
“She could totally help you figure out what’s what.”
I wasn’t sure I felt comfortable asking a favor from someone I secretly mocked so much. Also, I didn’t know if I wanted her telling Jamie how fiscally responsible I was or wasn’t.
Jamie got up from the table and went across to the cordless phone. “Let’s call her right now.”
“Jamie, don’t worry, I’ll call her when I figure things out a little better.”
“No, this way you’ll know what you really want to do. It’ll be great.”
“It’s Friday night. I don’t think she wants to hear about my issues.”
“C’mon, she’s married. What the hell else would she be doing?” Jamie started dialing the number.
Our roles were switching and she was living vicariously through me.
“Doesn’t she have a summer house or something?”
“Voula, that’s Morgan. They are two different people, you know.” She shook her head at me.
“Alice, hey, it’s me,” said Jamie. “I wanted to ask you— You were? Why? Oh, really, what? What? Wow! I didn’t even know you guys were— That’s awesome. When? Wow! That’s great.”
Jamie’s face didn’t match her tone of voice. She left the kitchen and walked into the living room. I wondered if I should follow her. I picked at a little bit more of my salad and
stared at the kitchen clock. After about ten minutes, Jamie returned to the kitchen. Her eyes were red like she had been crying.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s stupid.”
“What?”
“Ugh.” Jamie sighed and sat back down. She put her head in her hands. “I should be happy about it, but—”
“What’s up?” Alice could be a little self-righteous at times, but I didn’t think Jamie ever really noticed.
“Alice is pregnant.”
Jeez, was everybody on this baby kick now?
“I know, I know I should be happy for her, but— Oh, I’m such a bad friend.”
“Why?”
“Well, they weren’t even trying. She got off the pill—you know, because of the mood swings—” oh was that the excuse they were giving now? “—but she was using condoms mostly. She said they drank too much when they were away and she didn’t get up to pee after they did it. That’s what she thinks caused it—can you believe it? The next thing she knew she was late and she didn’t even really think about it. You see. I mean, how could she not think about it?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re going to have a baby soon.”
“Thanks. It’s just so tough. I mean, I think maybe I’m doing this all wrong.”
“Maybe you’re just too stressed out about it.”
“We’ve been trying for almost eight months.”
“Yeah, but maybe you need to relax.”
“I know, but it feels like I’m a total loser if I can’t do it. How can it come so easy to some people?”
I had felt that way about so many things throughout my life, but I had never in my wildest dreams expected to hear that sentiment from Jamie.
“T
he thing about buying apartments in Manhattan is that they can charge whatever they want and someone’s gonna pay,” Diane said in her thick Staten Island accent as she bent in front of my face and ripped the hairs out of the bottom of my left brow.
Diane was one to talk about overcharging. It cost me forty bucks (fifty with tip) every six weeks to get my brows reshaped. That was a discount price I got because I had referred her to Jamie, who had referred her to Raj’s co-workers and her own, and now all kinds of makeup executives, television producers and C-level reality-TV stars were charged triple what I was to have their brows arch just right. Diane believed, as I did, in networking. She referred me to beauty editors who came to her through Jamie’s co-workers’ friends and they referred me to features editors at the magazines they worked for. It was all one big happy circle.
I knew I was lucky for my bargain. No matter what she charged me, I would have kept coming back to Diane. I didn’t really wear a lot of makeup. I occasionally threw on some lip gloss if I met with an editor. But whenever I got my eyebrows
done just right by Diane, I felt attractive. I felt more put-together, almost sexy. Now, she was advising me on what I should be looking for in an apartment. Maybe I should be listening to her.
Apparently, most places in the city required you to put down twenty percent. She said you could get away with putting down less, but you would have to pay more in interest. A lot of places wouldn’t even show you something without a preapproval letter, and a lot of mortgage companies wanted to know more specifics about the place you were buying before they worked out your preapproval. Diane told me about how she wound up losing the first place she bid on, to someone who paid in cash.
“Can you believe that?” she asked, ripping, then taking out the tweezers to get the tiny hairs that hadn’t come out in the wax strip. That was my least favorite part.
“No,” I said, and winced.
“The thing I would do is figure the absolute top you can spend. And look for places much lower in case you have a bidding war. A lot of those places— Are you okay?” she asked, seeing the way my hands gripped the spa chair.
I nodded. I wanted her to hurry up and get it over with.
“Let’s say it lists for like 299 or 349, you know what I mean, they do that so they can just make it into some people’s budgets. Like if it was 300 or 350, some people might think it’s out of their range.”
“Uh-huh,” I grunted, still bracing. That certainly wasn’t my budget, but what she was saying made sense.
“And then you have a bidding war and then—” she was back to waxing and ripped a little too hard to emphasize her point “—it’s over.”
“That would suck.”
“Yeah, you won’t believe how stupid people are until you buy a place. Well, you’ll see.”
I couldn’t wait, although the thought of it was daunting.
“You should write about it.”
“I think I probably will.” People said stuff like that to me
all the time. Once they found out I made my living writing, they thought that any story they had would make a good story for me. Sometimes they were right, but usually I just smiled and nodded. If it’s a good idea, chances are I have already pitched it.
“You’re all finished, hon,” Diane said, and held out the mirror for me to inspect her work.
I smiled at my reflection. I spent the six weeks between visits trying to clean up my own brows with tweezers, but only Diane had the magic touch. “They look beautiful. I don’t know how you do it. You’re an artist.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
I handed her the envelope of money.
“Listen, I’ll give you the name of my girl. She can help you find a place. I’ve got her card right here.”
“But I was thinking more West Village/Chelsea.” Diane, though she kept her accent and her terms of endearment, had long ago moved out of Staten Island and on up to the Upper West Side.
“They all get the same listings. Sometimes they try to push their exclusive stuff on you so they won’t have to share the commission, but she’s good. She’s just got a mouth on her. Tell her I sent you.”
As soon as I got home from the spa, I pulled out the card Diane had given me. It said: Maureen Soltero, Senior Experienced Realtor. Well, I guess that was comforting. I called and left a message about meeting up for some info on available apartments. Maybe before I got all crazy with mortgage brokers and how much money I had, I needed to see what was out there.
I checked my messages. I had missed a call from Eve Vitali, an editor at
On the Verge
magazine. I was anxious to pitch my idea about friends being pregnant, but so far Jamie still wasn’t knocked up. It didn’t really matter, because I played constant phone tag with Eve. I knew she liked my pieces, but she was so busy all the time.
I was okay, though in terms of work. I was paying the bills.
Financial Woman
had liked my pitch about searching for real estate in New York City. They were kind of a stuffy magazine that wanted to hook a younger reader. Fortunately, the editor-in-chief was an overweight white guy who would have believed me if I told him that women my age liked to have their toenails pulled out. It was another instance of the editors of a magazine not really being in touch with the intended reader. But it worked in my favor.
I called the stuffy editor and talked the talk. I was hired to write the series as soon as I finished another one for them on car insurance. I considered the insurance assignment quite a score because I didn’t own a car and had only driven maybe five times in my life, all of them in Block Island. I never even got my license, but growing up in the city meant I never really had to drive: I took the subway everywhere. So basically the article involved a lot of running around and phoning the DMV and various insurance companies. I threw in some gory tragic accidents for the readers to salivate over. Between that and another article for the in-flight magazine that kept calling me, I stayed busy for a few weeks.
I had moved back into my office, and kept spraying it with air freshener to get rid of the smell. I still refused to light candles. And because it was summer and my apartment was already as hot as an oven, I didn’t cook.
Diane was right about Maureen: she was a talker. After our initial conversation, where she revealed to me how difficult it had been to get pregnant—mind you, I had said
nothing
about being interested in pregnancy—she called me every other day.
Because I needed to finish the research on the car insurance article, it took me two weeks to be able to even go out with her. And then, it was as if I’d signed on to some kind of roller coaster I couldn’t get off. In about four weeks, I saw at least fifty apartments. I saw one-bedrooms that were way over my price range, but I got talked into going because they had fireplaces. I saw studios the size of broom closets that somehow had really expensive kitchen appliances. I learned that a junior
one-bedroom is really just a studio that someone separated with a cheap wall or partition. I wondered whether I could really sleep in a loft or whether I would break my neck on the ladder when I went for my nightly pee.
Maureen Soltero talked the entire time. She was exactly what I imagined she would be. She wore blazers and long beaded necklaces. Her hair was a red not found in nature. She talked constantly about her triplets and gossiped about her nanny. She said things I would not have tolerated from anyone else. When I said I didn’t have a boyfriend, she awkwardly suggested I might like women. She wondered aloud when I said space was important to me if I might be a spinster for the rest of my life. There were times I almost gave her my mother’s phone number so that they could just gossip about what a failure I was.
So why did I tolerate Maureen’s incessant chatter as I tried to imagine myself putting groceries into various cabinets all over town? That’s easy: I was hooked. From the moment I stepped into the first apartment I realized that I was in the real estate game. And I liked it. I’ve never been a gambler, but with each new apartment I imagined the life I might have there. It was hard to decide which place would suit me best. There were too many possibilities.
“You just have to have vision,” Maureen said whenever I questioned some feature of an apartment.
But I didn’t have vision. I didn’t think that I was going to move into a place and turn it into something it wasn’t. I wanted a place to speak to me. Like the way they say you just
know
about a man. I wanted to just
know
about the apartment.
“I don’t know,” I said to Maureen again and again.
“Well, I know they probably have a bid,” she said sometimes, trying to force me to action. Or, “A place like this isn’t going to be on the market forever.”
Things did move quickly, though. The studio on West 18th with the dressing alcove, for example, went quick and for twenty thousand more than the asking price. I didn’t like it because it had no closets. But the duplex on Grove Street that
was cool looking, but not practical at all, stayed on the market and even went down twenty-five thousand. I worried that it didn’t have enough light with the bedroom in the basement. I felt like Goldilocks.
I didn’t think I knew what I was looking for, but Maureen was confident that she did. She would say things like “you are adverse to basement apartments,” “you prefer places that have fireplaces or at least decorative fireplaces,” and my favorite, “for you a kitchen need only be functional, you’re the type who likes to eat out.” I wondered if that was another poke at my sexuality. I was amazed that someone was keeping track of what I wanted. It would be fantastic if I could have someone like Maureen for every aspect of my life, someone whose job it was to listen to what I said, tabulate it, and then clue me in to what I wanted. I said as much to Maureen as we huddled together in a tiny apartment after opening a dusty Murphy bed.
“Well, I guess that would be a therapist, dear,” Maureen said.
It was one of those times when I wondered if I seemed like as much of a freak to the outside world as I felt to myself. Then she sneezed and it echoed through the small room, and we laughed and went to our next apartment.
Miraculously, I was told by a mortgage broker that I would be approved for a mortgage of $250K. Of course if I went that high I would have to pay PMI, which was something you had to do when you couldn’t afford twenty percent, although I had seen the rare place that would let you finance for only fifteen percent.
The whole thing seemed over my head at times, but I enjoyed having this project. I liked announcing to Jamie that I was in the real estate game. She was busy at work and we barely had time to talk, but I could still sometimes make her laugh. They hadn’t “succeeded” yet. Her voice had started sounding frayed around the edges.
As I saw what seemed like every one-bedroom and studio in the city, the summer slipped by me. It was the end of July, seven weeks since I’d last seen Diane, and my brows were a mess. I tolerated her scolding and then updated her on my out
ings with Maureen. She squeaked when I told her about the triplets. She had just pressed the wax down. I felt it start to harden. I hoped she was going to pay attention.
“So, she
did
do the in vitro. Wow! That’s big.”
“Yeah,” I said. I felt my hand gesturing up toward my eyebrow to remind her, but Diane seemed really shocked about the turn Maureen’s pregnancy had taken.
“Can you imagine—you want one, you get three? And what do you do?”
Her accent was so strong I almost heard the landfill.
“Mmm,” I said. It was definitely time to pull off the strip.
“Oh,” she said, looking down at me.
It was not something I wanted to hear from my aesthetician. She ripped the strip off and it hurt more than ever.
“Sorry,” she said.
“No problem,” I lied, feeling my eyebrow start to shake a little.
Minutes that felt like hours later, when I got out of Diane’s, I pulled out my compact. Sure enough, the skin under one of my brows was bright red. What was it about pregnancy and babies and all that shit that made grown women lose track of what they were doing? I just didn’t get it.
As if her ears were ringing, Jamie’s work number came up on my cell phone.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey. What are you doing?”
“I just got my eyebrows done. Diane ripped the shit out of them.”
“Yuck, but it’s cool that you are up here. I was calling to see if you wanted to meet me in Central Park. Raj worked all night last night and has the day off. He’s playing soccer in the park and I want to get the hell out of here and enjoy a summer night for once. Want to go watch them with me?”
“Sure,” I said. And then I hesitated. “You’re not— This isn’t going to be a setup, is it? Is there going to be some surprise guy that you happen to think I should hook up with?”
“You know, it isn’t easy trying to set people up with someone so positive.”
“So stop trying, I’m perfectly content being on my own.” It was the truth, sort of. “Besides, don’t you find my cynicism and negativity refreshing?”
“Unfortunately, I do,” Jamie said. “It just doesn’t make it easy to get you matched.”
“Like I said, stop trying. This isn’t one of Raj’s dating shows. Who else is going to be there?”
“I don’t know, honest. It’s a pickup game. I know two of his associate producers are going to be there. One is gay. One is engaged, so calm down.” Jamie started talking to me in a matter-of-fact tone that betrayed her annoyance. “I just wanted to hang out with you. No setups, just me and some food. I’ve learned my lesson, believe me.”
The last time Jamie had tried to set me up with someone was a disaster. I had gone over to her apartment expecting a normal dinner party and preparing to laugh at whatever the Olsen Twins said. But later that evening Jamie’s colleague’s brother, my prospective paramour, had decided it was funny to make loud grunting noises while he was in the bathroom just off Jamie’s kitchen.
“Fine, I’ll see you there.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” she said, and hung up.