Page 32 of Meet Me in the Garden

“I’ll earn it back.”

“I’ll give you a year. Then I’m going to need the room.”

I can tell she means it. It’s more than fair. She pours me a cup of coffee, tops it with cream, sets it on the counter. A tremor in my hand as I reach for the mug. “A year. Okay.”

We sip together, faces to the window. My car and Al’s, side by side in the daylight.

“It’s a great-looking car,” she says.

ELEVEN

IREACH THE ONE-YEAR MARKwith seven hundred dollars in the shoebox. Saving goes slower with fuel costs and insurance and repairs. Tuition money, too, now that Clément’s starting kindergarten at the Catholic school where Rudy goes. It seems like a lot of money, but I’ve worked out the figures. Once I’m paying ninety dollars in rent while maintaining the car and filling the refrigerator and paying tuition, I’ll be lucky to save a few dollars a month. I’ll need to dip into my savings for anything unexpected or extra—clothes or gifts or nights out or emergencies. Once the money’s gone, it will be nearly impossible to replenish, so I need to store it up.

Then comes a Thursday in September, sharing Ivy’s cigarette in the coworkers’ lounge.

“Just the girl I was looking for,” a voice says from above. It’s Claud. “Lawrence is moving. He has a darling two-bedroom, just a few blocks away from here. And guess what? It’s only seventy dollars a month.”

“Seventy?” I repeat. It sounds too good to be true.

“He’s moving in a few months, at the beginning of the year. He said he’d be happy to let you take over the lease.”

I find Lawrence refilling his coffee, tell him I’m interested. Bernard and Al agree to make the stop on our way home to see it.

Lawrence leads us into the building’s shared foyer first. He’s standing tall, making conversation, seeing this visit as an opportunity to get in good with the managers.

I cross to the bank of silver mailboxes along a wall, imagine a small key of my own, turning, opening. I follow up several flights to the fifth floor, to the door marked 522. Lawrence unlocks it. “Welcome,” he says to me, extending his arm, and I step in.

The living room looks out on the street, the city fascinating from above—the rows of apartments and shops, the cars going by, the pinpoint tops of people’s heads. Lawrence has a sofa and two chairs around a coffee table. There’s plenty of room for a bookshelf in the corner, even an extra chair with a reading light.

“You keep a tidy place,” Al says.

“The army trained me well. Plus, my girl has a tendency of stopping by unannounced.”

Al winks. “Good incentive.”

I wander into a short hall as they talk, end up in the kitchen. The blue-and-white linoleum floor pleases me, even though it’s a bit scuffed and old-fashioned, and there’s a little brass light fixture hanging above a breakfast table. Clément and I will sit here in the mornings over eggs and grits. Play Go Fish and Memory in the evenings while dinner warms in the oven. I move through the apartment, imagine a bright-blue quilt in the far bedroom, a modern dresser with simple lines, like the ones in Claire and Adele’s magazines. In the second bedroom, a flash of memory: Cyril’s train-covered wallpaper, his twin bed, his small desk. A boy’s room. I’ll ask Clément what he wants, we’ll decorate together.

“So?” Al asks when I finish my lap.

“It’s perfect for me,” I say.

“It’s across town from the rest of us.”

“It’s the same city,” I say. “Not so bad.”

“How are the neighbors?” Bernard asks.

“Mostly quiet,” Lawrence says. “A family with a couple kids lives at the end of the hall. You’d have friends for your son.”

I can see Clément, running back and forth down the hallway with the neighbor children. “You said you’re moving by January first?”

“That’s right. A December wedding. A house instead of a honeymoon.”

“You can take a nice anniversary trip once the finances have evened out,” Bernard says.

“As long as Al and my sister will have me for a few extra months, I’d love to take it.”

Al makes a show of thinking, and then smiles. “I’m sure we can work that out.”