Bundle of Joy?

by Ariella Papa

  I laughed. “Has he seen it yet?”

  She shook her head.

  “It looks pretty damn good. I think he might forget about his hair issues.”

  “Well, I’m going to be strong. A rock. I need a men break. I’m going to join your convent.” She winked.

  “Actually, I have a date tomorrow,” I blurted. I was superstitious about the date. In the same way I worried I shouldn’t talk too much about Jamie’s baby, I worried I shouldn’t even think about this date before it came to fruition.

  Kelly pulled back from the table and gasped. “You!” She feigned horror. “What kind of Greek girl are you?”

  “A shitty one,” I said, smiling, and put my head in my hands. This had not been the typical blue black buggie cycle. I was having too much fun.

  “Hello,” a voice said.

  We looked up to see two guys standing behind us.

  “We noticed you ladies dancing and wondered if you wanted to go do some more dancing with us. We’re going to Bongo. Care to join us?”

  Guys always came up to me when I was out with Jamie, but they were usually after her. These two were looking at both of us. It was absurd. I didn’t even know what to say. Kelly handled it.

  “You know, thanks, but we’re just sort of having a girls night.”

  “That’s too bad,” the one with the long hair said. He was cute, but about five years too old for the Ashton Kutcher look. “We have a feminine side.”

  “I bet you do,” Kelly said, “but I don’t want to waste your time. I’m done with men and she is in love.”

  I felt myself blushing, and the guys laughed. They wished us well in a sort of cynical way and were on their way to find other women to dance with.

  “And you were worried about the hair,” I said, smirking.

  “And you were worried about being a spinster.”

  “Let me tell you something,” I said, pointing in the direction of the door the men had left through. “That stuff never happens to me. It’s just because you were here.”

  “C’mon, they were totally looking at you, too.”

  “Yeah, as a way to get to you.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Trust me. I don’t date. I don’t know the lingo. It isn’t me.”

  “There’s nothing to know, Voula. It’s just that you don’t really put yourself in that situation. And you’re probably better off. Trust me.”

  It was confidence. That was it. People responded to her confidence. The same way they did to Jamie’s. No matter what happened to Kelly on the “dating scene,” she didn’t give up. She was resilient. She just stayed herself. I had spent so much time hiding behind my hang-ups that I didn’t realize that none of it needed to be such a big deal.

  When I met Maureen the next day in front of the building on Mulberry Street, she didn’t look happy.

  “The other Realtor is habitually late,” she said as a greeting. “I should have told you three-thirty.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. But it wasn’t really. I was sort of dressed up because of my date with Paul. I had to run a bunch of errands after seeing this apartment and the one in Union Square and I hadn’t been sure I would have time to go home. It was a hot August day and I wished I could strip off the summer skirt and espadrilles with the slight heel. I could feel myself sweating through the modest button-down shirt I was wearing. I wanted to look good, but not like I’d given it too much thought, lest there be any confusion between me and a casual dater.

  “You look very nice, Voula.”

  I smiled. “I have a date tonight.”

  “How nice. Don’t be too picky.”

  It amazed me that she would take such liberties with me. She once questioned my biological clock when we looked at an apartment that was being sold because of a baby.

  She added now, “You might want to think about a little lipstick.”

  She didn’t know that one of my errands was to stop at Sephora for a new gloss. Lipstick wasn’t really my thing, but a nice lip gloss looked good with my naturally tan skin.

  “Maureen,” the seller’s Realtor called out as she came down the block. They “kissed” hello, but Maureen closed her eyes in pain as she pressed her cheek against that of the other Realtor, Sandy Firestein. We shook hands, and as we walked up the stairs Sandy talked up the place in a way that only real estate agents can.

  “Now it’s a real charmer,” she said, meaning too small.

  “The building is prewar.” Old and run-down.

  “It needs some TLC.” A complete shithole.

  “The board is very cool.” Most likely made up of degenerates who will bring the property value down and ruin your quality of life.

  “You can’t beat the price for the area.” The neighborhood is the only plus.

  “It was just reduced.” No one else liked it.

  What she didn’t say and what became abundantly clear as we walked up the stairs was that it was a six-floor walk-up. No one had told me this and apparently no one had told Maureen, who was short of breath by the third floor, but that wasn’t going to stop her from trying to co-broker a deal with this other optimistic jackrabbit.

  “You’ll certainly get some exercise going up these stairs,” Maureen said brightly.

  “Yeah, that’s one of the great things about it. And what you aren’t paying for in an elevator really makes a difference,” added Sandy.

  I was doomed. There was no hope of finding an apartment or looking at all presentable on my date. The area behind my knees was sweating.

  The apartment was a lot bigger than many of the places I had seen. It had a definite sizable bedroom attached to a good-size living room. This wasn’t a junior one-bedroom; it was for real.

  “You don’t find space like this for the price.”

  What she didn’t say was that the place was a mess. There was trash everywhere. The cabinets in the kitchen had patches where the wood showed beneath the paint. The bathroom was missing a sink.

  “They’re going to replace the sink before you move in,” Sandy shouted. She had been narrating throughout the apartment as if we were looking at two separate places. “All it takes is some vision.”

  I knew that Maureen was probably cringing. She knew that I didn’t have vision. She said it to me all the time—“have vision.” My vision was that for the amount of money—hard-earned money—I was going to be spending, I wanted to be able to move into my apartment and not have to do any work on it.

  The light in the bathroom flickered and went out. Great. Not even the electricity worked. I went back into the living room. It was dark in there, too. I tripped on a stack of papers that was inexplicably in the center of the room.

  “The owner’s out of the country. I’m sure he’ll be taking some of this stuff with him.”

  I could see Sandy’s white teeth in the darkness.

  “I guess we had a short,” Maureen said.

  It seemed only she wanted to deal with the elephant in the room.

  Sandy flicked the lights on and off. “Well, you can always come back if we can’t get the lights to work. I’m sure they’ll come on in a minute.”

  “I think I’ve seen it, thanks,” I said. I was anticipating the long walk down the six flights of stairs. But when I opened the door, the lights were out in the hallway, too. Luckily, Maureen had a flashlight key chain that seemed to double as a whistle, and Mace.

  We walked cautiously down all six flights as a few people in other apartments peered out into the hall. The lights were out in the entire building.

  If only the blackout had stopped there.

  12

  I learned from a car radio on the street that the whole city and most of the Northeast was blacked out. A crowd was gathered around it looking for the same kind of information I was.

  At first, Maureen and I thought it was just the apartment building; we said goodbye to Sandy at the subway stop and then realized that no trains were running. We feared the worst. Maureen immediately tried
to call her nanny but couldn’t get a signal on her cell phone.

  I had about two hours at that point until I was supposed to meet Paul in the West Village, so I decided to walk up to Gramercy Park with Maureen to make sure she was going to be all right. We stopped at a street vendor on Broadway so I could buy some flip-flops; my feet were blistered from the trek up the stairs. The sandals didn’t exactly go with my outfit, but I didn’t think I would be able to get the buckles of the espadrilles back on my feet without some serious body rebellion.

  “It could be a terrorist attack,” Maureen said tearfully.

  I calculated that she had been pregnant during 9/11. She seemed on the verge of an anxiety attack.

  “They said it isn’t. I think they would be doing things differently.” I didn’t believe that it was. I didn’t want to believe that it could be.

  “Keep smiling, ladies,” a guy said to us as he motioned a car to stop so we could cross.

  This wasn’t a policeman. I could tell by his backpack and the bike I saw resting on a non-working traffic light across the road that he was a messenger who was just doing this to help.

  “We will,” I said, smiling more broadly than I usually did for strangers. There were definitely police around and they were sort of grinning too. I wanted to believe there would be some anti-terrorist plan put into effect if it was an attack. Everyone around us appeared equally confused, but not particularly scared. It would have been so like me to be scared, but what I felt was, I’m wide awake, it’s still daylight, I just wanted to take in the scene.

  “Five dollars, five dollars. Cold water. Get your water. The fridge is broke!” People were selling water out of coolers. I was parched, but five dollars was out of my budget.

  “It’s worse than a one-bedroom in the village,” I said to Maureen, who finally smiled.

  We stopped at a bus stop, but the bus was packed so we kept walking. Throughout our trek, Maureen kept trying to get in touch with her nanny. She was petrified that something was going to happen to her triplets. She started listing outlandish worries.

  “What if Leona just ran out to get something while they were napping? What if she locked herself out?”

  “What if they fall in the hallway because there’re no lights?”

  “What if she can’t find the flashlights? Did I even put batteries in them?”

  I had never seen this side of Maureen. She always seemed so confident. Her fears were irrational, but I wondered if that was what happened when you had kids. I wondered how Jamie was handling all of this, and hoped she was okay, but I couldn’t get in touch with her. My cell phone wasn’t working either. I tried from a pay phone, but it seemed her side was out of service.

  Finally, we got up to Maureen’s place and I saw that she lived in one of those great buildings right on the park. Despite her irrational-mother fears, she managed to tell me that hers was a key apartment—she had one of the coveted keys to Gramercy Park. She had won the real estate game. Her doorman told us that the elevator was out of service, so I found myself once again walking up too many flights of stairs.

  I guess I had expected Maureen to have an illegal alien working for her, but the woman who opened the door was a few years older than Maureen with a sweet smile and a bun. Her name was Leona, and she put her finger to her lips and pointed.

  I peered into Maureen’s giant, tastefully decorated living room at three tots asleep on the couch. Outside people were panicking and worrying, but in there all was right with the world.

  Maureen’s face lit up when she saw her three cherubs. She thanked Leona and asked how she was going to get home. Leona lived in Long Island and we had heard that the trains weren’t running.

  “My husband drove in today. He’s been driving in since he got the operation,” she said ominously.

  Maureen nodded, but didn’t take her eyes off her kids. Leona left for the long walk down the stairs.

  “I’ve got some champagne in the fridge,” Maureen said. “It’s still cool. Why don’t we drink it before it gets warm.”

  Maureen actually had an eat-in kitchen. I hadn’t seen one of those in a while. All the appliances were stainless steel. It was the kind of kitchen you had if you were a serious chef, although I remembered that when I told Maureen how I’d been afraid to turn the oven on since the fire, she said she hated to cook.

  Maureen poured champagne in crystal goblets. Then she found a cooler to fill with the slushy ice left in her freezer. She filled it with cartons of formula. I hadn’t even thought about food spoiling. I wondered if the restaurant I was supposed to profile was open, how I was going to get in touch with Paul, or if he would have to work tonight.

  “What time is your date?”

  I looked at my watch. “In about an hour. Who knows if he’ll even be there.”

  She winked at me. “I think he’ll be there.”

  “Why, did you hire him to seduce me?” I joked, and Maureen laughed. “Is this some sort of romantic comedy?”

  “You are quite a character.”

  This from a woman with triplets who downed her second goblet of Moët like water.

  “I wish I was young again. Don’t waste it with silly doubts.”

  “Okay,” I said. I finished my champagne. “You know, you have a great apartment.”

  “Don’t worry. We’re going to find one for you.” She kissed my forehead.

  I decided that it was time for me to go.

  I made my way down the dark stairwell, across town and down. The vibe was even more chill. They seemed happy. It was still sweltering, but the sun was lower in the sky. There were people hanging out talking and drinking beer from brown bags. I saw a group of businesswomen in the same multicolored sandals stopping to help an elderly couple.

  I caught a look at myself in a store window and saw what a wreck I was. The heat had deflated my look, if I’d ever had one. I prayed that Paul was either standing me up or working. I was not going to make a good impression.

  When I got to the restaurant it was closed. It was just six p.m.—a little early for when I liked to eat, but Paul had suggested we meet early. I wondered briefly if he had double-booked the evening and had another date at nine. You might think that’s paranoid, but in her heyday Jamie used to do stuff like that all the time.

  There was a gourmet food shop next door and they were handing out organic rice-cream sandwiches. They were never going to be able to keep them frozen. I took two (in case Paul was hungry if he showed up) and leaned against a mailbox. I figured I should give Paul a few minutes. I ate my faux dessert and shifted from foot to foot, watching people pass. Occasionally a fire truck went by and I wondered if Paul had been called in to work.

  I tried to turn my cell on to see if he’d phoned, but it kept “searching” and never found a signal. As a shadow passed over me I felt a reprieve from the sun. I looked up to a fire truck and Paul clad in all his Ghostbusters gear, smiling.

  “You’re not going to have much luck with that,” he said, climbing down.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “I didn’t really dress for dinner,” he said.

  “That’s okay, the place is closed.”

  “Along with every other restaurant in the city.”

  “Well, here,” I said, handing him a rice-cream bar as he got off the truck. “In case you’re hungry.”

  “Thanks! How’d you know I’m lactose intolerant?” He smirked and took the bar.

  I was aware of the entire truck full of firefighters watching us, sizing me up, and if I had known any of this was going to happen I would have planned on going home to change before dinner—really I would have.

  “Looks like you have to cancel anyway.”

  “I’m beat,” he said. “I was getting ready to leave and come meet you and this happened. We had a false alarm and luckily I convinced DiPaolo to make a detour.”

  For some reason I waved at DiPaolo, whom I assumed was driving. I don’t know why I did and I immediately regretted it.

&
nbsp; “So listen, I guess we can reschedule for when the lights go on.”

  “Yeah, I hope my deadline gets pushed back,” I thought aloud. Did that make it seem as if I wasn’t excited about our date?

  “I’m sure you’ll work it out.”

  He must have been boiling in that outfit, but he held my gaze for a moment.

  “C’mon, Torrisi,” one of the guys called.

  “Well, I’m gonna catch hell for not getting a kiss, but seeing as we haven’t even shared a meal I won’t be presumptuous. Unless, of course, you want to count this bar as a meal.” He smiled at my expression. “Didn’t think so. Be careful getting home.”

  “I will.”

  “Make sure you have enough water, and here—take this.” He handed me a flashlight that he had pulled from some hidden pocket in his space suit.

  I took it as if it were a bouquet of roses.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “No problem.”

  Then he was back on the fire truck waving goodbye to me. I stood to finish my rice cream and imagined how much it would suck to be lactose intolerant. Maybe if I pitched that article I would be able to interview him and force him to hang out with me even after the rest of the fire squad had pointed out what a sweaty messy awkward girl I was.

  I stopped at Jamie’s on the way home, but she wasn’t around, then I walked up 8th Avenue. As I got close to Penn Station, I noticed the crowd was thicker. I guess people were starting to accept that they were stuck in the city. All over the place groups were just sitting on the street fanning themselves with newspapers. There was really no choice.

  As I walked down my block I saw Kelly and Armando out on the street with some of the other people from our building. Someone was pulling a hibachi out of the basement storage area. Kelly waved as I approached them.

  “Just in time,” she said, and handed me a bottle of lukewarm white wine I recognized as wine from the restaurant. “The apartment is an oven. We’re going to have a cookout.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Si, bella, I make barbecue,” Armando said. He smiled at me.