The Party Upstairs

by Lee Conell

  But she also often felt, despite decent grades, like she herself was an intruder, about to be discovered and kicked out. The other students, most of whom came from homes with far more money, spoke with so much easy confidence, even (and sometimes especially) the ones who loved to talk about their anxiety issues. “Did you know,” they’d say in class, like Caroline, and then would spout out some esoteric insight or fact. They wore brand-name clothes and the ones who didn’t wear brand-name clothes made the choice look intentional and thoughtful and cool. Ruby took a few sculpture classes, a few painting classes, but couldn’t shake her shyness around the kids who called themselves artists so effortlessly, as if they were simply sharing their first name. Whatever former boldness had made high school easy enough for her began to shut down. When she was in college, it was only on the phone with Caroline, for whatever reason, that she felt comfortable enough to talk about her love of dioramas, to talk about how she hoped to do something with the form someday. It was only with Caroline that she could say “do something with the form” and not feel stupid. She even felt a little superior: At the time, Caroline’s own art was limited to a series of sculptures she was making of her own hands. One of her male professors had told her that the hand sculptures were “self-indulgent and the outstretched fingers suggest, I hate to say, a most painful priapism.”

  “I had to look that one up,” Caroline told Ruby on the phone in tears. “I think he’s saying I made penis fingers.”

  “That’s so sexist,” Ruby said. “I’m pretty sure that’s sexist.”

  “I’m going to take a break from the art classes, I guess.”

  And then, to make Caroline feel better about the penis fingers, Ruby had confessed to her how lonely she was at college, and Ruby also had begun to weep, and they’d both hung up a full hour later, thrilled by their shared near-synchronous sobbing.

  Of course, Ruby wound up making a couple of decent friends at college, too. She had a work-study job at the campus coffee shop, and became close with the other student workers there. In between semesters, Ruby used the experience at the campus coffee shop to get a summer job at a far fancier coffee shop in SoHo, which paid better than the summer internships she found and which made her looming debt seem less daunting. She had assumed she would get some decent full-time job with benefits once she graduated. In the meantime, she had regular customers who tipped well. When she told Lily about her coffee shop job, Lily had been proud. She had said, “Your real education will be at that job.”

  “It’s just temporary,” Ruby had told Lily. “Just for when I’m in school.”

  “The school of life is eternal!” Lily sang.

  When Ruby first graduated, she had avoided applying for jobs in the service industry. But she couldn’t find anything other than part-time gigs or babysitting or internships with tiny stipends. At last she had found a low-paying office job nominally attached to a nonprofit that placed art therapists in hospitals and seniors’ centers. The job paid almost nothing. She stayed there a year and then went back to the coffee shop where she’d worked summers, figuring she’d make some sort of a lateral move or go to graduate school soon. Or maybe she’d get a job at a fancier coffee shop still. Or maybe she’d learn to make drinks at an upscale bar where drunk people tipped even better.

  John had been concerned she was getting stuck in the wrong direction. “I see this with the Hover Up kids all the time,” he said. “They stay where they feel safe. You should apply to some places with an actual career path. The coffee shop’s cute, but it’s not totally real.”

  And then even the cute coffee shop had shut down when the owner sold the building and rent skyrocketed. Once she was unemployed, John decided Ruby, too, was not as cute as she had seemed. She’d realized over the last couple of weeks how easily she herself could wind up like the woman in the foyer, trying to get a moment’s rest. How easily some man like her father—now meditating in front of her so serenely—might show up and tell her to leave, please, ma’am. Only a few months ago, she had dropped a dollar into the cup of a man sitting outside the coffee shop and had joked to another barista, Jane, “I’m not being charitable. I’m networking in case this place goes under.” She’d thought she was just being funny.

  Her throat had gone dry. She went to the kitchen for a glass of water, but stopped at the intercom that hung just to the right of the sink. It had felt so strange, watching her father and Lily’s cousin inside that video screen. For a moment, the woman had stared at the camera and Ruby’s father had stared at the woman. A frozen instant, which had produced in Ruby the same tenderness the Museum of Natural History’s dioramas often did. Like she was simultaneously gazing at a private moment and invading a biome that soon would cease to exist. That tenderness was much better than the fury she felt now as her father sat in the next room breathing in and out mindfully, after being so mindless with Lily’s relative, so small-hearted.

  She leaned into the intercom and pressed a button so that the camera would go on again. The foyer, translated by the crappy camera into black-and-white, did not look so glamorous as it appeared in person. There were the mirrors, yes, but their gilt frames looked gray. There was the wood paneling, but it could have been bare drywall. There was the—

  There was the woman.

  Lily’s cousin. In the building again. Right there, right there, on camera. She had come back, must have guessed Ruby’s father would be gone by now. She was still trying to get inside the building. She came right up to the intercom and jabbed her finger at the button that must have connected to apartment 5A. Her eyes darted around the small space. She then blew her nose into a fistful of tissues.

  On impulse, Ruby picked up the receiver, which rattled against the intercom’s tiny microphone. The woman jumped and dropped her tissues. “Hello?” the woman called into the emptiness of the entranceway. “Is someone there?” She jammed her finger at the button again.

  Ruby should call out to her father. The woman’s here again, she should say. Dad? The woman who yelled at you, she’s back.

  But he wouldn’t hear her. Not through his headphones.

  “Hello?” the woman said. She lifted up her tissue packet, blew her nose, then said again, “Hello?”

  Ruby could have said anything into the receiver. Like: What can I do for you? Or: Never yell at my father again. Or: I’m sorry my father kicked you out. Or: I’m calling the police. Or: I loved Lily, too. Her mind wobbled among these options.

  But all she wound up saying was: “Hi.” She said the word very softly, like Hi was a curse she was too young to utter.

  The woman’s head jerked up. “Who’s there?” Her voice now low. “Lily, is that you?” She smiled. “I knew that asshole was lying to me about you. They said you were dead just to get me to leave! These vile fucks. Let me in. Hello?”

  Her voice was what did it. Her voice was exactly like Lily’s.

  They have no place to go.

  “Lily, let me in. Do you know what I’ve been through? You were right about Hal. Look, I’m sorry about the money.” Her voice softening again. “Let me in. Please. Let me in.”

  Ruby pressed down on the button with the key icon. The woman heard the buzzer and started. Looked around.

  Then she opened the door between the foyer and the lobby hall.

  Ruby had done it. She had buzzed the woman into the building. She stepped away from the intercom and got a glass of tap water. She drank it all down standing right there by the sink. Then she walked by her meditating father, into her own room, where a few of her dolls still lived, halfway hidden behind old textbooks. They smiled at her while the exposed heating pipe hissed out warmth.

  3 YOU WILL FEED HER FISH

  Martin’s second meditation session of the day was more constructive. This time, he got into a zone, existing almost solely in his breath for over an hour. Lily’s voice remained silent. Every now and then the image of Ruby glaring at
him would surface. When that happened, he tried to do what Neilson called, during their meditation sessions, “dropping the storyline.” He would simply let the image of his glaring daughter exist in his mind, without attaching any feelings to it, and then Ruby would melt away. Eventually, he felt relaxed and centered. He and Ruby both wanted the same thing: respect from the other. He decided he was not angry at his daughter at all. Just eager, once more, to help her, to earn back her respect.

  But how? Meditation had not seemed to calm her down. Neither had feeding the pigeons. Maybe the problem was both those activities fell into the whimsical New Age Quirky Dad territory. What he needed to do was provide her with some kind of practical task that would make her feel valued in their family, but that wouldn’t require much effort on either of their ends. What task? He waited for a light bulb to go off in his head, like he was a cartoon character, and then remembered that yesterday 7B had left a message about a dead light bulb at the building entrance.

  He rose from the meditation bench, went through their bedroom—Debra, snoring—and knocked on Ruby’s door, seeing the thin line of light filtered beneath it. When he walked in, she was sitting at the desk, which, since she’d gone away for college, had become Martin’s reading territory. His books—mostly tomes on meditation, rodent extermination, and North American birds—were piled all over. But Ruby had made room for her sketchbook. He looked at the piece of paper beneath her right arm and saw only a few rectangles with a human-shaped blob in the center. Ruby quickly covered the paper with her hands. “It’s a plan for a diorama about Lily,” she said to Martin. “I’m going to start making my dioramas again. As soon as I get money for materials, I’m going to present her old apartment as sort of an endangered habitat. I think she’d like that. Right?”

  Ruby didn’t seem interested in resuming their former argument about the intruder, which was a good sign. In fact, she looked a little guilty. She must regret what she’d said to him earlier. “Lily would love the diorama idea,” Martin said, brimming with fatherly forgiveness that made him feel not old so much as sage. Then he cleared his throat. “There’s a building problem I thought you should know about.”

  Her face went pale.

  “Nothing serious. Just a light bulb out in the entranceway.”

  “A light bulb.”

  “I’ve been meaning to fix it. You want to help?”

  “You want me to change a light bulb?”

  “It’s a specialty bulb. It’s good for you to learn how to change stuff like that. Those dioramas at the museum? They use all sorts of specialty light bulbs.”

  Ruby looked up at the overhead light. She had not yet changed for her interview. She was still wearing the baggy jeans and the charity run T-shirt.

  “Changing these bulbs, it’s a useful skill,” Martin continued. “And I always feel less nervous when I learn a good useful skill. But maybe you have better things to be doing with your time.” He tried to say the words not defensively, but like they might be a simple fact that he’d forgotten.

  She stood. “I don’t have anything better to do with my time. Let’s go change a bulb.”

  * * *

  —

  When he and Ruby walked into the foyer, Martin noticed that a bunch of the intruder’s pink tissues were scattered on the floor like dirty flower petals. He’d missed them somehow, earlier, when he’d first asked her to leave. “Your new best friend left me a mess,” he said. Ruby looked away. He didn’t stop to pick up the tissues. Instead he walked through the front doors and Ruby followed. Outside, the sun had kept climbing the sky. They both blinked into the brightness of the day. It was supposed to rain later, but you wouldn’t know it.

  He put down his multitiered toolbox. The toolbox accordioned out and he ticked off a quick inventory for Ruby’s benefit: A drop cloth, a breakaway knife, Channellock pliers, three screwdrivers, duct tape, fingerless gloves, latex gloves, a small bucket, a folded apron, power tools. And the specialty bulb.

  “What’s that?” Ruby said, pointing at two pieces of turquoise cloth scrunched up in the corner of the toolbox.

  “Those are shoe covers,” Martin said. “When I go into people’s homes, I slip them on over my sneakers so I don’t scuff the floors.”

  “God forbid.”

  “No, Ruby, listen. It’s one of the most important things you can do. More important, sometimes, than fixing what’s broken. It shows people you understand that you’re in their home. It shows them you respect their space.” He placed the ladder against the wall by the awning, where a black wrought-iron lantern hung. Inside the lantern were frosted incandescent candelabra bulbs meant to look like gas flames.

  “Very Victorian,” Ruby said.

  “That’s the idea,” Martin said. “Climb up the ladder.”

  “And now I’m being forced into child labor! Even more Victorian. Lily would have a field day.”

  “You’re not a child.”

  “I’m joking around, Dad,” Ruby said.

  The little kids from 3A and their nanny exited the building, the kids waving carrot sticks and screaming. 6B exited the building, nodded to Martin, then began to shout something in French into his cell phone as he walked toward the subway. Ruby mimed covering her ears and Martin smiled. Then she climbed the ladder. “Any more calls this morning?” she asked, with a lightness that convinced Martin she truly had forgiven him for their earlier fight. “Any more intruders?”

  “No,” Martin said. “Some people asking me to look out for their UPS packages. That’s it.” He handed her a screwdriver and tried to explain how she had to open the bottom half of the lantern to get at the burned-out bulb, but she had already figured it out on her own.

  There was actually nothing very special about this specialty bulb. An extra swivel to get it screwed in right. Some specificity about securing the sconce again. But little he really needed to show Ruby. Why had he decided this was something for her to behold, then? This was not a true learning experience. This was just installing an expensive light bulb.

  Right as Ruby screwed the bottom half of the fake lantern into place, a voice called out, “Oh, my! Is that Ruby?”

  Heading out of the building was Christine, or, as Martin thought of her, 2D. She wore yoga pants that looked like a tropical-parrot pelt and a workout shirt with many straps. Martin tried to hide his dread of her by bellowing out, “Beautiful morning!”

  “My gosh!” 2D said, looking not at Martin, but at Ruby, who climbed down the ladder. She pulled Ruby close to her and began to holler. “This one I’ve watched grow up! This one is like a niece to me! Ruby, you’re exactly my height! How did I never notice? How are you? Visiting the family?”

  Ruby’s eyes darted toward Martin. “Actually, I lost my job,” she said. “And broke up with my boyfriend. So I moved back in with my mom and dad.”

  “Wow!”

  “It’s kind of embarrassing, I know.”

  “It’s not embarrassing! The key to success is saying ‘heck no’ to shame. Life is full of ups and downs, highs and lows. Your dad got you doing his job for him now?” She pointed to the ladder and then laughed before either Ruby or Martin could respond. “Look,” 2D said, “I have a seminar to go to for work today, but why don’t we set up a consultation session for later this week, Ruby? The first ten minutes are free.”

  “A consultation session?”

  “I’m a life coach now.”

  “I don’t know if I need a life consultation. I just need a job.”

  “You need a life consultation, sweetie, to know what job you need. But look, okay, I do actually have some employment for you. Why don’t you feed my clown fish? Could that be a nice micro-job?”

  “Feed your clown fish?”

  “Sure. Like I said, I have a seminar all day and then I’m spending the night at a friend’s. I thought I’d have to run back here to feed them, but you can just ste
p in instead. They’re very relaxing. Your blood pressure, watching these fish? It plummets. Not in a dangerous way. In a very positive way. I’ve cut out caffeine and I’ve gotten these fish and I feel better than I ever have before!” 2D smiled. “Come by anytime this afternoon.”

  Martin knew what 2D was doing. Oh, he knew how this all worked. A favor for a favor. Entangling his daughter in the exchange. If Ruby fed 2D’s fish, Martin in turn would owe 2D for the kind deed. Surely Ruby understood this.

  “Well.” Ruby looked at Martin. “Okay, I guess.”

  All those student loans, and still no awareness of the way traps of debt opened up in this world.

  “Wonderful,” 2D said. “You can get the key from your father. Right, Martin? And maybe while you’re taking care of the fish, your father might take care of those birds on the ledge in the courtyard?” And there it came. 2D had perfected her glares so that they seemed not just like facial expressions, but like actual words, a torrent of finely articulated accusations. “Martin,” she said. “I know you’ve seen them. They nest on the ledge right across from my apartment. Which means those birds are constantly flying over my terrace and dropping little presents behind. I’ve left you message after message. The birds—”

  “The thing about the nest is—”

  “It’s a public-health hazard! Martin! There’s pigeon shit all over my terrace and I? Listen. I cannot handle shit. I have people coming over on Sunday, I have my sister coming over, with her child, and there’s flying-rat crap all over my terrace, they’re bombing me every hour of every day, and I’ve got this seminar today, I mean, there’s just a lot going on? Martin?”