Page 81 of The Fire Captain's Unexpected Baby
I think about telling her that at least it takes the edge off the scent of piss that permeates the subway car, but it’s safer to keep my mouth shut and my head down.
“I don’t care how much it costs, Roland!” another woman, sitting opposite, hisses into her cellphone. “You made promises to me, and if you can’t keep them, then maybe we ought to rethink this.”
She’s about my age, give or take, with a rock on her ring finger and a polished poise that you either have, or you don’t. Her blonde hair is slicked back in the sort of low ponytail that would makemelook like a founding father, her clothes refined but not flashy; someone with a good, high-powered job and most of her ducks in a row.
I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge meeting the ghost of what could’ve been, if I’d taken a different path in life. So many people warned me that you don’t get into writing to be rich, that there’s a good reason for the starving artist cliché, but I was at least comfortable before I messed it all up.
Miserable and increasingly aware of that wet dog smell, I get off at my stop and head for home. At least there, I’ll be able to burrow in and hide from my own humiliation for a while.
Home…
The moment I turn onto the street of brownstones, where the stark branches of the plane trees will soon bud and sprout again, a tiny chunk of weight breaks away from my slumped shoulders. These aren’t the brownstones that tourists come to take pictures of, belonging to millionaires and celebrities; these are a little more rustic and lived-in, and one small, fourth-floor studio belongs to me.
I pass a young couple walking two Italian greyhounds dressed in puffer jackets; a woman pushing a stroller; three older men speaking in animated Greek who leave the trace of cigarette smoke in the air; and a group of teenagers who blow out plumes of fake mango vapor that makes me feel like I’m on some game show as I walk through it.
Thisis where I’m happiest.Thisis where New York doesn’t seem so big.Thisis where…
There’s a notice on the main door that wasn’t there when I left this morning. Four of them, actually, slicked on with paste, saying the same thing:Final Notice for All Tenants.The smallprint is brutal and to the point, informing me, informing all the people who live here, that we have until February 24thto get out due to the sale of the property as a whole. Twenty-one days from now.
“No… no, that can’t be right,” I mutter, heart racing. “That can’t be legal.”
My mind travels upstairs to the mail I’ve been ignoring, stuffed into a little basket by the door: overdue bills, takeout menus, credit card statements, pleas from my editor when all other modes of communication have failed. It’s entirely possible that I’ve missed the notices that have come before this one.
Fishing my keys out of the debris at the bottom of my bag, I sprint up the stairs of this sanctuary, all the way to the top floor. I let myself into the cozy warmth of my studio apartment, the rainy afternoon light making it so heartbreakingly beautiful, and tip the entire contents of the basket onto the floor.
Right there on the welcome mat, I rip the Band-Aid off, tearing into months’ worth of mail like a woman possessed.
There have been four notices about the sale of the property, stretching back to Halloween, which seems fitting. And I’ve missed them all, too afraid of opening my own mail to know that the apartment I love so much, the place I call home, has been rented on borrowed time.
Of course, it’s being taken away. Why wouldn’t I lose my safe haven on the same day I’ve lost everything else? Why not this shitty cherry on top of a cupcake of crap?
The shock of this hits harder than the shock of being kicked out of Connor’s office in shame, and I sit there on the floor, surrounded by a flock of letters all bearing varying degrees of bad news, as if I might never get up again. They can sell this place with me in it, sitting right here, a statue of misery.
By the time I muster the energy to crawl to the bed that doubles as a couch, and nudge open my laptop, the rain hasstopped. If only I’d opened my laptop a few more times over the past three years, maybe my credit card statements and overdue bills wouldn’t be so damning.
“Studio apartment, Brooklyn,” I murmur as I type.
The results are eye-watering. So are the neighborhoods and boroughs I try after. There are some house shares that I could afford, if the landlord overlooked the credit check and the whole being unemployed thing, but I’m thirty; I can’t live with roommates again, not after living alone these past five years.
It’s not even a matter of pride, but of habit. I’m used to my own space, and I couldn’t imagine having to navigate the quirks of new roommates, of strangers, who’d probably be a whole lot younger than me based on my teeny-tiny budget.
New York doesn’t want me here anymore.The funny thought pops into my head with the certainty of a smoke alarm, warning me that there’s not much time to get out before I’m in an even more dire situation.
Losing my job and my home in one day is a fairly clear statement, as is the discovery of the sickly condition of my finances. According to these property sites, I couldn’t afford to stay even if I wanted to, and I do… desperately.
I close the laptop and stare at the raindrops that are chasing each other down the windowpane, the dreadful truth squeezing a whisper out of my throat, “I have no choice.” I suck in a tense breath. “I have to go home.”
Chapter Two
Summer
Two Weeks Later…
The Roscoe is quieter than I’ve ever seen it, but then I’ve rarely seen it in daylight before. It was a nice surprise to find it was still in business, an even nicer surprise to discover that it serves good coffee when it’s not filled with the evening crowd, four-deep at the bar.
“It’s so nice to have you home, sweetheart,”Dad kept saying last night, after I arrived back with three suitcases and my tail between my legs.
“It’ll be great to have you here for a good length of time for once; I can’t remember the last time you stayed for more than a couple of days,”Mom joined in, as if I’m just here for a vacation and haven’t been unceremoniously uprooted from life as I liked it.
