by Ariella Papa
“Have you ever been here before, Eve?”
“No, have you?”
“No.” He enunciates every word like he’s my preschool teacher. Maybe he’s really stoned or just used to talking to four-year-olds. He is so repulsive, but I’m bored and I’m kind of enjoying just toying with him. I guess correctly that he is from Staten Island and I think he thinks I want to go home with him.
“You know it smells there. Do you know where the bathroom is?”
“No,” he tells my chest. “I said I was never here before. Why would I lie to you?”
“I don’t know,” I say, adding, “Moose.” And then he just stares, blatantly stares, at my boobs. I look around for Tab, but she is cuddling with Jaques. She is to blame for my lack of bra. But wait! No matter what, I don’t deserve this. Why should I be gawked at or talked to like a child, by the likes of Moose? I’ve had enough.
“So, Moose—” I crouch down to crotch level and speak to his fly “—are you having fun?” I’m not quite sure Moose gets it. He would most likely swear I was seconds away from giving him a blow job. Tabitha must think the same, because she and Jaques rush over and decide to send me home in Jaques’s car. They are going to go to some party for a designer that will certainly be more star-studded. I protest that I want to go too, but Tabitha will not listen. I wave goodbye to the dickhead Moose, who is still trying to guess my tits’ address. I only hope Kevin didn’t see my display.
At work the next day, I don’t hear from Tabitha until she calls at noon (when she finally rolls in) thinking I am going to be a wreck, but, it is she who is moving slowly. I ask her about the rest of her night. Despite the presence of several “fabulous celebs,” she is really most excited about the Kevin meeting and his kind compliments. Of course, she has to take some credit.
“Remember when I told you how to shape them better?”
“Yes, Tabitha, I owe it all to you.”
“Well, it really all goes back to Kevin. I mean, I got the idea out of his book. But, you know I can’t help feeling a bit envious. First you meet Prescott and now this. Two of my personal heroes you manage to charm.”
“I didn’t exactly meet Prescott, or charm anyone. It’s really thanks to you that I know who both of them are.”
“Well, I guess you’re right.” Everyone feels a lot better now.
I was so undrunk last night that I had a long talk with Roseanne when I got home. She had waited up for me after her short-lived disaster date. Apparently her breasts also were in the spotlight. She had just sat down for a nice dinner with Brad (okay so the tipoff should have been when he took her to a midtown tourist trap) when, feeling a little hot, she slipped off her blazer.
“Wow,” he gasped. “What a set of jugs.” Needless to say, Roseanne considered getting a doggie bag for her dinner and bailing, but she stuck it out through Brad’s leerings and boring descriptions of his ad accounts, specifically a tartar control toothpaste and how they made the tartar look especially gross.
“Yuck,” I said.
“Worse, when I got back, I wanted to go for a run, but your mom was up and she forced me to discuss portobello mushrooms.”
“How bizarre. Poor you.”
Just as we were falling asleep, we realized that we only had four more days until we moved in and became true New Yorkers.
I have to deposit the check Roseanne gave me. She handed it over a little nervously; apparently she’s down to her last three hundred dollars after I cash it. We have to send in our first month’s rent and deposit. Somewhere along the line Mrs. Yakimoto raised the rent to fifteen hundred and in all the excitement, I agreed. I am keeping this from Roseanne until she gets a job. Not fun.
I head to the bank at lunch and hand the bank teller my money and the deposit slip. She’s a really attractive British woman. I wonder why she’s working in a bank.
“Eve Vitali?” She looks up at me, questioning.
“Yes, what?”
“That’s your name.” I nod. She smiles at me, a perfect tartar-controlled smile.
“Well, that’s a grand name—a telly name. I’m charmed by it. Absolutely.” Wow! I love British people.
I walk back to the office. It’s cool out, really perfect weather, and I just feel like everything is working. Ever have one of those days when you just feel perfect, unsinkable, nothing can touch you, because it’s just going to roll right off? It’s all going to fall into place finally. The apartment, my job, everything. I wanted the apartment and I got it. Didn’t Kevin say I had nice eyebrows? I feel like I’m floating. A telly name? Imagine that. Thanks, Mom and Dad, you’ve made me destined for greatness, just by choosing the perfect name.
When I get back to the office Lorraine looks at me strangely. I am so cheery, so far from being fake. I am a strong woman, I can do anything.
“Um.” She looks so uncomfortable. “Lacey Matthews got the job.”
“How wonderful,” I say. Not great, wonderful, and I mean it. We walk together to my desk. Good for Lacey Matthews. Nice name, not a telly name, but I wish her all the success in the world.
Lorraine still seems uncomfortable, she should just relax. She’s awkwardly holding a stack of napkins. “Herb took her out to lunch.” Lorraine takes my arm firmly before I get to my desk. “She brought Max in. You know, the dog?” She looks down and I follow her gaze.
For the rest of the afternoon, me, my perfectly shaped eyebrows and telly name mop up the floor and try to ignore the disinfectant smell mixed with the dog piss.
November
I race up the stairs the moment we get the key, early Saturday morning. Roseanne follows behind me (she can usually run faster, but she is giving me the lead). We both kind of take a deep breath before I open the door.
I was expecting a palace, but what I find is just a really nice average-size apartment. Anywhere else it would be worth less than half of what we are paying. Here in New York, it’s a place I want to call home. The floors are amazing. Roseanne, seeing that I don’t hate it, starts pointing out more features. I follow behind her, looking at the windows, the bathtub, the brand-new stove.
“So?” she asks.
“Wow!” I grab her arm. “Good job.”
“Dusty,” says my mother, before sneezing.
“Where should I put these?” asks Phil, one of my dad’s buddies, holding up a box of my clothes. My dad says nothing.
The room I get is pretty big. It’s a washed-out dingy white, which eventually we will have to change. The closets are huge. Rosie’s cranny, as we call it henceforth, is a smaller alcove next to the kitchen with a sleep loft above the kitchen. In the alcove, she has space for a desk and maybe a bureau. It’s actually kind of cute.
I’m really happy that my dad’s friend Phil is helping out, even though we see a lot of his butt crack. My dad is still on hyperspeed, he’s rushing up the stairs with everything, but thanks to Phil, there is a lot less for him to take. My mom cleans the whole time. She brought her super-duper vacuum and vows to buy us a small vacuum so we can be “on the ball about cleaning.” The thing about my mom is she keeps giving me these hugs and saying “my little girl” like I’m getting married or something. My father stands on the fire escape, which we will henceforth call either the balcony or the veranda, and smokes.
The whole process takes about two and a half hours. Phil goes to the store and gets a bunch of sandwiches and some beer. Then, we sit around on the hardwood floors eating. I look at my dad to make sure he is not going to have a heart attack, but he is happily gnawing away at his pastrami and swiss with mayo.
“So,” asks my mother as she leaves, “are you coming home for Thanksgiving?”
“Mom! I’m not living in Alaska! Of course I will, it’s only an hour train ride.”
“Okay, honey! Remember you can always come home.”
“Okay, Ma, okay.” As my father leads her out, I hear her start questioning whether or not the lock is safe.
Rosie and I work steadily for a while. We put up sh
elves, hang a few posters, unpack clothes, arrange the bathroom. By the time we get the apartment closer to the way we want and make a list of the things we need, it’s almost nine o’clock.
We stand out on the veranda and look out over 7th Avenue. If we turn to the right we can see all the way up to the lights of Times Square. “Tired?”
“A little—” Rosie leans against the stairs “—but I wouldn’t mind a drink.”
We don’t even bother to shower. We (I) invite Tabitha, who agrees to go out with us, but informs us that she is “not in the mood to excess.” Adrian declines because he has a date.
Tabitha arrives with puffy eyes. She refuses to talk about Jaques. He left for Paris a few days ago. She surveys the place. “Not bad. This is a loft.”
“Thanks, we knew that,” Rosie says, getting up to finish putting on her makeup. You’d think in their times of need they could be nice to each other. Wrong.
“How do you plan to fill your days?” Tabitha yells toward the closed door.
“C’mon on, now,” I plead with her. Tabitha looks like she might start crying again at any minute. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
“I’ve got a tennis lesson.”
“Tennis?”
“Yeah, I need something to fill my time away from Jaques. The circles I want to run in are full of people who play tennis. I would encourage you to look into it.”
“No thanks, I like to be sedentary.”
“Even with Ms. Jazzercise, here?” Ms. Jazzercise herself opens the door to the bathroom and emerges with an obvious foundation line. There is no way she needs to wear this much makeup. Maybe I should buy the Kevin book and leave it open to a page that talks about minimalism. I look at Tabitha and shake my head.
“Okay let’s go, ladies.” I clap my hands together like my mother.
Tabitha wants us to go to this lounge all the way over by the river.
“C’mon, there’s so many other places. Both of us are a little weary. We just want to sit and drink and not have to worry about anyone looking at our breasts.” Roseanne nods in agreement, probably too scared to say anything.
“Why not?” Tabitha is confused.
“Tabitha, at least think of Jaques. We don’t want a meat market.”
We wind up at Peter McManus. It’s an Irish pub with a kickass jukebox. This is the type of place that I would think Tabitha would hate, but she gets up and puts at least two dollars in the jukebox. She keeps telling us we are going to love her selections. When each song ends we pause and look to Tabitha for a word on whether the new one is one of her choices. It’s always a good one, but never one of the ones she picked.
We drink a lot while waiting for her songs to come on.
While Rosie is in the bathroom, I ask Tabitha if she’ll call Johann, the German banker.
“Eve, what about my feelings? I’m just getting over one European.”
“Tabitha, you don’t have to date him, just give him a call.”
“You never tire of testing me. Oh, God.” She gets up. “Shit, shit. This is it. My song.” I leap up, too. It’s “Suspicious Minds” by the King himself. We start dancing and dancing and when Roseanne comes out she starts dancing, too. Some of the regulars look over at us and laugh. They sing along, but it’s just kind of us, fucking up the words, making up dance moves. It’s a good drunk.
Next is Marvin Gaye singing about getting it on and we make up some serious Motown moves. I’ve never seen Tabitha shake her ass so much. Her selection surprises me: the Stones, Men at Work, Aretha Franklin, Blondie. We dance to them all and she warns us about a “song for Jaques.” It’s that “Michelle…ma belle” song from the Beatles and we sing it to Tabitha, twirling her around. Then we collapse at the table and order another drink.
This is probably the most unhip bar I’ve ever been to. There is not a single guy I want to hook up with, there’s barely a guy under thirty-five, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not that kind of night. The bartender buys us some drinks.
“I gotta go,” says Tabitha finally. “I have to call Jaques. He went to a party tonight, but he should be in by now.” We walk her out. The cab is waiting and she leaps into it like she’s making a getaway, but she rolls down the window before she goes.
“Auf wiedersehen,” she shouts, and winks at me.
“That was actually fun.” Roseanne is surprised. I nod and we both smile the whole way home.
After we get back and wash up, we call to each other from room and cranny. “Good night,” we say like the fucking Waltons. The room is spinning, but it’s my very own spinning room right here in the heart of New York.
When the room finally stops spinning, Roseanne is shaking me awake. I have no idea where I am, but then realize that something has to be wrong. “I found something. Come look.”
It’s 11:00 a.m. I need more sleep than this on a Sunday. I did physical labor yesterday. I follow her into the kitchen, cursing. It smells really good in here. She has obviously gone shopping and was making some really awesome breakfast treat when tragedy struck. She points to the floor by the oven.
“I was so happy because I found this terrific little gourmet shop and I was going to make a portobello goat cheese omelet and surprise you, but then I found this.” I have no idea what it is. It looks like dirt. I shrug.
“Eve, it’s a turd, a rat turd. We have rats.”
“You’ve obviously been brainwashed by my mom.”
“Eve, what if we have rats? I’ll be sick if we have rats.”
“We don’t have rats. It’s just dirt.”
“No, it’s turd.” I look closely at the “turd.” I’m not convinced. Roseanne begins talking crazy. “We should call your mother. She would know what to do.”
“We are not calling my mother! It is day one of New Apartment. Of New Exciting Life and you want to call my mother?”
“Well—” Rosie swallows “—yes.”
“Look, let’s just eat this delicious-smelling meal you made and calm down.”
Rosie sighs. “Fine, let’s eat, but I can’t just close my eyes to this. I won’t live with rats.”
“Don’t worry, Scarlett, you’ll never go hungry again.”
Even though we have an EIK (once again, Eat In Kitchen), we opt to eat on the couch in the living room. Roseanne also made Cajun homefries and turkey bacon. It’s a small feast that I would like the pleasure of enjoying in my happy home, but Roseanne keeps sighing and looking over into the kitchen.
“Okay, after breakfast we’ll get some traps.”
“I won’t touch them. I’ll be sick.”
“Jesus Christ, Rosie! We don’t even know if there’s a fucking rodent. Can’t we just enjoy the first day in our new home!” Roseanne slumps into the chair, muttering about how she is the one who is going to be stuck at home with the rats.
Begrudgingly, I dress to go hunt for rattraps with Roseanne. There’s a deli right under us that seems a little dirty, but it’s got this funky lighting. We christen it the “Dirty Disco Deli.” We decide the only safe thing to buy from there is sealed beverages. We head over to the river and down to Chelsea Market. The cool food shops temporarily distract Roseanne. We sit on the docks. It’s just starting to get chilly, but it’s still warm enough to hang out. We stop for coffee and people watching. Rosie keeps reminding me that we have to get the rattraps, but at least she is not mentioning my mom anymore. I remind her how lucky we are to even have a place to live.
“I won’t share my life with rats.” She stares at me over her latte.
We make our way up to K mart and buy some sponges, a bath mat and so much rat poison that the cashier asks me if I am planning on killing someone.
“You see,” I say to Roseanne, who apparently does not, so I point to her and nod at the guy, who might take me seriously.
“That isn’t very nice, Eve. I’m protecting you.”
Roseanne suggests we get to know our neighbors. She really just wants to find out if they have rodent problems, but I’ll all
ow her to think she is being friendly. Our first stop is the woman below us. Her name is Marie. She seems a little spacey. She works in a public relations firm. She tells us that we should make sure we have a covered garbage can and though she hasn’t seen any rats, she also has three cats so maybe that’s why.
“Are you two students?” It’s a loaded question; Marie is trying to gauge how much trouble we’ll be. Most people don’t want to live with students.
“No,” says Roseanne. “We’ve been out for two years now. I work in finance and Eve is in the publishing industry.”
“Oh.” Marie is now trying to gauge if we are together.
“If you ever hear us making too much noise, just let us know.” We head up to the top floor.
“Maybe I should have made something.”
“Like what? A pie. Forget it, Ro.” We knock a couple of times, but no one answers. It seems we will have to wait to uncover his rodent experiences. So far, it’s looking pretty good for the case against rodent presence.
“Let’s just tend to the matter at hand. Shall we?”
When we finish covering the edges of the kitchen floor in poison, Roseanne makes a delicious pineapple barbecue chicken. I am going to gain about ten pounds just from living with her.
“I’ll sleep much better knowing that we are fighting the furry ones.” Great.
“I do not want to go to work tomorrow.” I feel kind of bad for saying it because I know Roseanne wishes she had a job to dread, too.
“I wish David Letterman was on tonight.” Okay, here’s something I haven’t mentioned. Roseanne has this strange (dare I say?) obsession with David Letterman. Anywhere she goes, she buys Top 10 Reasons shirts (University of Michigan Top 10, Top 10 Reasons to Love New York, Top 10 Reasons Fishing is Better Than Marriage, Top 10 Reasons to You Name It). Thank God Tabitha has not seen these! In college, Roseanne would always recite the actual Top 10 the day after they aired.
Once when we were especially drunk, she explained to me her fascination with David Letterman. I guess when Roseanne’s parents got a divorce, she had a lot of trouble sleeping. She used to creep downstairs to her basement and watch his show. She’d have to sit really close to the TV, because she didn’t want to turn it up too loud. She said he always made her feel better, and a lot of times she’d wake up on the floor in the basement. Sweet story, right? Definitely is, but, it gets a little strange.