Follow Me(8)

“What’s with the bars?” Audrey asked, pointing to the window.

Leanne pulled open a closet door. “Did I mention this unit has a washer and dryer?”

She then proceeded to hit the rest of the highlights—dishwasher, rain-style showerhead, ample closet space—before pressing a key into Audrey’s palm and telling her to call if she needed anything. As Leanne gave us a final, cheery wave and pulled the door shut, I noticed there were three locks on the door.

“You should ask her about those other keys,” I noted, pointing to the single key Audrey held. “But otherwise this place is incredible.”

“There’s no need to be hyperbolic.” she said, laughing drily. “But it’ll do until I find something a bit more upscale . . . or, you know, aboveground.”

“You know you’re always welcome to stay with me.”

“Thanks, hon.” She threaded one of her Pilates-toned arms through mine and tugged me toward the bedroom. “Come on, help me decide where to put the bed.”

As we entered the bedroom, I noted how bright it was—even brighter than the front room. Row houses traditionally have all the windows on the fronts and backs of the buildings; the sides remain windowless because they share walls with neighboring row houses. But Audrey’s bedroom had two windows: one small, slit-like window at what was the back of the building, and one larger one to the side.

I peered through her side window and frowned. “This bedroom looks out onto an alley.”

Audrey shrugged. “Yeah, I saw it on the way in. But it’s a skinny little alley. It’s not like there are going to be cars driving up and down it all night or anything.”

“It’s not cars I’m worried about,” I murmured, pressing my face against the window to better view the alley. “At least it looks like there’s a gate on either end. But you should definitely get a curtain ASA—”

Bang!

Audrey and I both jumped at the sound of her front door whipping open. We exchanged a look and returned to the living room, where we found her skeevy upstairs neighbor standing in the doorway, his fingertips drumming an irregular beat on the can he still clutched.

“You ever hear of knocking?” Audrey demanded, hands on hips.

He looked at her without blinking. “Grandma wanted me to tell you that the dumpster and recycling are behind the building.”

“Thanks. Knock next time.”

He lifted a bony shoulder in a noncommittal response.

“By the way, can you tell your grandmother she only gave me one key?”

“There’s only one key.”

“But there are three locks on the front door.”

He barely concealed the amusement on his face as he repeated, “There’s only one key.”





CHAPTER FIVE





AUDREY


I’d never lived alone. I moved from my parents’ suburban home to a shared dorm room at OSU to a crowded sorority house to New York City, where I couldn’t have afforded to live alone even if I had wanted to. I met my first New York roommates—a pair of eating-disordered PR assistants looking for a third for their soulless, cramped Upper East Side convertible—on Craigslist, and I cheerfully abandoned them and their empty refrigerator when Izzy announced she was moving to the city. The fact that we hung sheets to partition that first apartment—a tiny one-bedroom in Chinatown—didn’t faze me at all; there was something comforting in hearing someone else sleep. I would die before I admitted it, but I was a little sad when we upgraded to our two-bedroom in the East Village.

As the movers stacked my boxes in my living room, I worried I had made a mistake and should have taken Cat up on her offer. I wasn’t cut out for living by myself. The silence alone would kill me. I thought of my Granny Wanda, who took to leaving the television on all day after my grandfather died. My mother chastised her for it, argued she was wasting electricity, but I understood. Granny Wanda had needed those soaps and game shows to keep her company; she needed their voices so she didn’t go completely mad.

? ? ?

AFTER THE MOVERS left and I’d made an inaugural trip to Trader Joe’s to stock up on necessities like cheap wine, frozen Indian food, and animal crackers (my favorite snack food, something my ex-boyfriend Nick had mercilessly teased me about, often quipping, “Can you really call yourself a vegetarian if you eat animal crackers?”), I collapsed onto the only piece of furniture in the apartment—my bed—and, too tired to locate glassware, began swigging wine directly from the bottle.

I scrolled through Instagram, double-tapping gorgeous nature shots, pictures of internet-famous dogs, and candids of my sister Maggie’s children with their chubby faces smeared with food, until I stumbled upon one of Izzy’s posts. It was a softly filtered, overhead shot of a meal for two: two plates of green salad topped with slivers of rare steak, two glasses of blood red wine, and a partially sliced artisan baguette on a wooden cutting board. I recognized the dinner plates as the mismatched blue and green ones we’d found at the Brooklyn Flea. Izzy and I had picked them out together, but she’d insisted on paying for them, later claiming that made them hers when I tried to take half of them with me. I flipped a middle finger at the image and scrolled on, seeing more celebrity pets, some gorgeous shoes I couldn’t afford, and then my friend Hannah’s attempt at an artsy shot of what appeared to be a bourbon old-fashioned. Oh, Hannah. The poor thing would never learn. She had been running a small lifestyle blog called Hannah in the City for almost four years now, and she hadn’t gained any traction or improved her skills. Most of her images were just like this one: poorly framed, poorly lit, with poor attention to detail. The stained, crumpled napkin in the corner of this shot might have read as a style choice from another photographer, but from Hannah it just looked amateurish. I’d always deflected when Hannah asked to write a guest post for my old blog or suggested that she “take over” my Insta for a day.