Very Nice

by Marcy Dermansky

  “It did not feel good to go home,” I told her. “I can’t say why. I was supposed to stay much longer, another month, but I changed my ticket. Home, Pakistan—it isn’t my home anymore. North Carolina is not my home. Brooklyn is fine, but I have a subletter living in my apartment. Which makes me think I don’t have a home. I don’t know where I belong.”

  I wondered how much wine I had drunk to be speaking so honestly. Only two glasses. I realized I needed to eat. I cut into my chicken. It was perfectly grilled.

  “Is this tarragon?” I asked Becca, and she nodded, pleased, I think. “It is very good,” I said.

  “This is how I grill my chicken,” she said. “Salt, pepper, tarragon and lemon juice.”

  I’d had no idea that complimenting Becca on her chicken would please her so much. She was holding her wine glass, smiling, as if I could not see her. This mother, beautiful and charming, was not helping the situation. If Becca knew what I had done to her daughter, I would no longer be welcome. I had to be careful not to flirt.

  I had not meant any harm. I had not meant anything at all. It had seemed, at the time, as if I was being given a gift. A kindness. I was in need of kindness.

  Anyway, what did it mean? Rachel was of the younger generation. A millennial was what they were called. She was hip, she was educated. She was the master of her own body. Girls her age hooked up all the time. Every day. She was in college. She had a summer job. She had this house to come home to. She was fine.

  And was I really to blame?

  She had kissed me. Not once, not twice. She had unbuttoned my shirt. She had been wet when I entered her.

  I wished I had not remembered that.

  Khloe

  My babysitter was fifteen minutes late. She brought a friend, a younger woman, blond, wearing cat’s-eye glasses and a long-sleeved blouse, even though it was ninety degrees.

  Jane handed me flowers and a bottle of wine.

  I had not told her she could bring a friend.

  “Wait,” Jane said. “I thought this was a dinner party.”

  I shook my head.

  “Dinner,” I said. “I invited you over for dinner.”

  “Oh gosh,” Jane said. “I guess this is awkward then.”

  The blond friend blushed. She looked aristocratic, like she was from a wealthy family. She was not my type. She had a nose that was thin, straight, sharp. A perfect nose. Maybe it was a plastic surgery nose. She was thin. Her hair was long and shiny. This was who Gwyneth Paltrow aspired to be. Jane was Jane, short and sturdy, mousy brown hair. Maybe it was strange that I was still fixated on her. There were so many good-looking women in Brooklyn. Jane was my type.

  “It is awkward,” I said. I did not feel the need to smooth things over. “I invited you over for dinner. I may not have enough food.”

  “Can we come in?” Jane asked. “Make up your mind. We can leave, if you want. Say the word.”

  “Fuck,” I said. “What the hell? Of course. Come in.”

  “That was not convincing,” Jane said.

  “Do you want us to take off our shoes?” the blond asked me, still standing in the hallway. It was the weirdest question. Did I look fucking German? Take off your shoes?

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want you to take off your shoes. I would have had to vacuum the floors. Who are you? I don’t even know your name. What is your name?”

  “Winnie?” the blonde said.

  It seemed that I scared her.

  “What kind of name is Winnie?” I asked.

  “It’s short for Winifred,” Winnie said. “It’s a family name.”

  “Of course,” I said. “No one in my family is a Khloe. My mom thought it was pretty. And fancy-sounding.”

  “We will leave if you are going to be rude,” Jane said.

  I sighed.

  “Come in already,” I said. Winnie looked like she wanted to bolt. Jane was just pissed. I had never been much of a host. “You can keep on your shoes. What do you want to drink? I have beer. I could mix drinks. We could start off with the wine you brought.”

  “Let’s do that,” Jane said. She was, at least, used to me. I led them into Zahid’s apartment. “It smells good in here. What is that wonderful smell?”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t cooked anything. It still smelled like the lentils Zahid had cooked the day before. I had eaten them for breakfast and then heated them again when I got back from work, crazy hungry because I had worked through lunch.

  Anyway, I was not planning on serving day-old dal. I had bought a ton of food at the gourmet store: a baguette and cheese, fancy salami, olives, quinoa salad, grilled vegetables, marinated artichokes. Expensive and easy. I did not cook. Kristi, of course, cooked. My perfect sister. Fuck her. She had started making jambalaya, dishes with okra, going on about our African American heritage, a grandmother we could not remember from Louisiana.

  Jane walked over to the pot and took off the lid.

  “Ahh,” she said.

  “Zahid made the lentils,” I said.

  Jane actually gasped.

  “So is he back? I heard a rumor,” Jane said. “I thought he was in Pakistan.”

  Fucking Zahid Azzam.

  That was why Jane had texted me.

  I took the bottle of wine, it was a rosé, it felt like everyone was ordering rosé this summer, and I opened it. I found two wine glasses. I was not a wine drinker. There were too many kinds to contemplate, it was too expensive, too ridiculous. Wine. Even this bottle of wine made me angry. Rosé. I needed to get control of the anger in me; it rose so quickly that I felt the need to spit. I swallowed it back down. Jane looked much too excited. This was the first time she had been here. Her eyes darted all over the apartment, scanning the living room, the closet door, the bedroom, there was a glass door that opened up to a teeny tiny yard. Maybe she thought Zahid was magically outside, smoking a cigarette. I had gotten rid of him, fast as I could.

  Jane wanted to see the apartment where Zahid Azzam lived. She couldn’t believe that I was subletting his apartment. Her publisher had published his first book and was waiting on his second—as if he were the next Salman Rushdie. Maybe Jane thought she would be able to get information out of me. Dinner was a ploy on her part, a way to get her inside.

  Jane could keep on fooling herself, because I had no doubt that Jane actually had feelings for me. She was having trouble realizing it. She had placed me into the wrong category. To her, I was still a kid. The girl she had tucked in. Those had been sweet bedtime kisses, lingering. But I knew how I felt, even when I was seven.

  And Jane understood.

  That was why she brought Winnie.

  So, maybe, I would seduce Winnie instead. Why not? She was hot. It would make Jane jealous. It might make her take me seriously. I wouldn’t mind being with a girl like Winifred. In fact, I sort of liked the idea. I could hear what Kristi would say: You are not a nice person, Khloe.

  I didn’t know if it was a twin thing, Kristi always talking to me, though she said that that wasn’t true for her. I didn’t necessarily believe her.

  It was a relief that my sister had turned out straight. We had been in competition our whole life, for grades, making sports teams, the attention of our parents, but not—thank fucking God—for lovers. There was nothing alike about us except for the fact that we looked alike, though not as much anymore since I cut my hair. We were also both good at tennis and I beat her at tennis, almost every fucking time. I loved my twin sister but she was a judgmental bitch.

  That was something Zahid had said, too, when he first talked to me about subletting his apartment.

  “Your sister,” he said, “is more judgmental than anyone I know.”

  But we kept on calling her. Both of us.

  I realized that I had already begun to drink the glass of wine I had poured for Winnie.
I got another wine glass. I didn’t pour Jane her wine. She had pissed me off.

  Anyway, I was glad to be drinking what Winnie drank, even if it was a fucking rosé. It tasted like fucking fruit punch. All the guys at work, they would wet their pants for Winnie. Danny Tang, the only guy on the team I could remotely deal with, said none of the guys knew what to do with me. My co-workers were all pricks, literally, but it didn’t matter. I was kicking ass at my job.

  “I like this wine,” I told Winnie.

  I don’t know why I had thought that tonight would be the night for me and Jane. Why did I think that? I had thought that. I had spent so much money on all that stupid prepared food.

  “It’s good, isn’t it?” Winnie said.

  I could tell that my gaze was making her nervous.

  “Zahid is in Connecticut,” I said. “Checking in on his dog.” I poured Jane her wine after all. I was not going to be a total ass. “Let’s go sit at the table,” I said.

  There was a nice round table in Zahid’s kitchen. It was a nice apartment. It made sense that he couldn’t afford it. I had all the food spread out. Plates. Napkins. A bowl for the olive pits. Classy. I did not understand the necessity of hosting people when there were so many good restaurants. But Jane had wanted to come over and so I’d bought this food. I was angry. I was more angry than the situation warranted. Fuck Jane Aronson, fuck her with a broomstick. That was what I thought. I took another slug of wine and brought the bottle over to the table.

  “I am going to serve the lentils, too,” I said. “Just for you, Jane. They’re from a recipe his grandmother used to make.”

  I had no idea if this was true. I figured I would give them what they wanted. Winnie’s eyes actually lit up. Kristi had told me Zahid was famous in the literary world but I had never heard of him. I also realized this did not actually mean anything.

  “Winnie works with me,” Jane said.

  “I’m a publicist,” Winnie said, drinking her wine.

  “Are you two a thing?” I asked.

  Winnie blushed again.

  Jane sighed.

  I was sure she already regretted coming over. Fair enough. She had totally fucked up. She shouldn’t have brought Winnie. It was like a chess match between us. The question was how long I would be interested in playing. It was not like I would wait forever.

  “We work together,” Jane said.

  “You could still be a thing,” I commented.

  “We are sort of a thing,” Winnie said, shyly. “Only no one knows about us.”

  “Winnie also has a boyfriend,” Jane said.

  “Not a boyfriend,” Winnie said.

  “Someone you have sex with?” I said.

  Winnie turned pink. It was adorable.

  She would be easy to seduce.

  Ridiculously easy. I was like no one else she had been with before. I felt tired all of a sudden. I had left for work at seven a.m., got home at seven-thirty p.m., bought the food, cracked open a beer to drink with Zahid’s lentils, drank another waiting for Jane. Now it was almost nine o’clock. I had work tomorrow.

  “This is a very nice apartment,” Jane said.

  “Fine,” I said. “Look at whatever you want, Jane. You can go through his drawers, for all I care.”

  “Are you serious?” Winnie said.

  They wanted to go through his drawers. Read his letters. Maybe they would find a journal. Jesus fucking Christ.

  “It’s not unethical,” I said. “This is my apartment for the next two months. If Zahid Azzam had anything to hide, hopefully he hid it. I seriously doubt you are going to find a drawer with a finished manuscript in it.”

  “Is he writing?” Jane asked.

  I sighed. How the fuck would I know that? I was his tenant. I was sure he didn’t have any idea that I was in love with an editor who worked at his publishing house. That his apartment would be open to this kind of scrutiny. But at that moment, I felt less in love with Jane. You are blowing it, that is what I wanted to tell Jane, who maybe thought she could bask in my adoration indefinitely.

  Winnie did not seem to be aware of any tension in the room. She ate the food that I had bought for Jane. “This is all so delicious,” she said. “I really like this cheese.”

  Winnie, in fact, ate all of the goat cheese.

  “Seriously, tell us the scoop, Khloe,” Jane said, which told me that she was as stupid as her little friend. She did not know how to read a room. She didn’t know how close I was to smashing my empty wine glass. She refilled my wine glass. “Zahid made these lentils. Which, as you said, means he is back from Pakistan. This is big. He has been so erratic lately, we were afraid he wouldn’t come back. He has stopped responding to our e-mails. Friendly e-mails. Supportive e-mails.”

  “He’s back,” I said. “I bought him shots. Tequila.”

  “Khloe,” Jane said.

  “What? I am not his babysitter,” I said. “I am his tenant.”

  “When is he coming back from Connecticut?” Jane asked.

  I stared at her. It was as if he owed her money.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He doesn’t keep me informed of his schedule. I am not sure I would tell you anyway.”

  “Is he coming back here anytime soon?”

  “Jane,” Winnie said. “Ease off.”

  “But he has to come back,” Jane said. She was not easing off.

  “I have this place rented through August,” I said. “So I would guess September. I’m apartment hunting, if you hear of anything.”

  “All right,” Winnie said. “What neighborhood are you interested in?”

  “He’s not coming back before then?” Jane asked.

  “Of course not,” I said. “I am renting the apartment. He actually wanted to stay here. He wanted me to keep paying rent while he slept on the couch.”

  “And you told him no?” Jane asked.

  The distress on her face was real.

  “Don’t you care about literature?”

  It was such an odd question. “I actually don’t give a shit about literature,” I said. “I work in finance. Sometimes, I guess, I need a good book to take to the beach, but then again, honestly, I don’t end up reading it.”

  “Zahid’s editor took a job at another publishing house,” Winnie explained to me. “She can’t take Zahid with her, and so Zahid is officially now one of Jane’s writers. It’s a big honor. It’s a really big deal.”

  “No one else wanted him,” Jane said. “This could be the end of my career. If he doesn’t produce.”

  “So we have come to the truth,” I said. “This is a work dinner.”

  Jane shook her head. “You know that isn’t true, Khloe. We have been meaning to get together.”

  Jane grimaced. Maybe she knew that it had come out all wrong. I didn’t want her to think I was pining for her, even if I was pining for her. I had been pining and pining for her. And now this. I could feel something shifting. I had followed her to Brooklyn, I had found an apartment blocks away from where she lived, but it turned out, I genuinely liked it here. This was where I belonged. I was surprised by the tears in my eyes. I blinked them away.

  Winnie smiled at me, concern in her eyes.

  She seemed to understand that something had happened.

  Winnie had a girlfriend. She had a boyfriend. Why not add another person to the mix?

  “You are nice,” I told Winnie.

  “Thank you,” Winnie said.

  I poured the rest of the bottle of wine into her glass. No more for Jane. I looked at her and shrugged. I did not think I would be taking her out for drinks anymore.

  “Anyway,” I said. “I am sad to report that your author is a motherfucking mess. The other night, he had way too much to drink and he puked all over this apartment. He has no money. I wouldn’t expect much from
him. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a fast downward trajectory.”

  “How would you know?” Jane asked.

  “I am telling you what I have witnessed. That is why you came here,” I said. “To find out what I know. Obviously, I know more than you do.”

  Winnie looked worried. She was one of those types who could not bear conflict. Kristi was like that. She was always trying to make everything better.

  “Do you know how Jane and I met?” I asked Winnie.

  She didn’t. Jane shifted in her seat. I did not think I was drunk. Two glasses of wine. Two beers. That was a regular day after work.

  “Jane was my babysitter,” I said.

  “Seriously?”

  “In Minnesota. I was five years old when she started taking care of me.”

  “She never told me that,” Winnie said. “That is adorable. And now you are all grown up.”

  “Hard to believe,” Jane said.

  “No, it’s not,” I said. “Everyone grows up at some point.”

  What was the point? I wanted that out there. I was mad, again. Jane had said that they were seeing each other. Winnie was too pretty. I realized I was in competition with Winnie. I was confused. I was a little bit drunk after all. I had found a love poem Zahid had written in a drawer on the bedside table, a poem torn in two. I had taped it together. Kristi had said it was probably to the fiancée who dumped him. I wondered if Jane would want to read that. That would probably put me right back in her favor.

  Winnie wanted ice cream.

  There was a gelato place nearby.

  I was grateful.

  It got us out of Zahid’s apartment. We walked down the block, a cool breeze in the air. Jane was holding Winnie’s hand. I could not bear to have Jane angry at me. This was what Jane still did not understand about me, what I was realizing about myself. I could play the long game. It would never work with Winnie. Winnie was a kid. She was experimenting. I took Winnie’s other hand and that made her grin, just like a little kid. She swung both of her arms, as if we were her parents, and we lifted her up into the air. Jane and I smiled at each other, and in that moment, I understood that everything was still possible. It was magic.