Without waiting for an answer, she flipped on the lights and released me from her grasp. “The electric bills are stupid in an old house, so we try to keep the lights off when we’re not in the room. I like to pretend we’re being old-fashioned and not just cheap.” She said nothing about the turned-over chair, only knelt down and set it right side up. Then she took my bag and hooked it over a rung, shutting the door behind her without bothering to lock it, a decision that made my insides twist. “Anyway, you’re just in time. The lasagna is about to come out of the oven. I hope you’re hungry!”
In the light, I took in the house, large and spacious in all the ways that my cottage was not. A beautiful staircase dominated the foyer, with a living room on one side and a dining room on the other. The smell was strong. Basil and warmth. My mom always made a casserole when it was cold out or I was sick—turkey tetrazzini, my favorite—like her mother had before her and her mother before hers. A whole line of women taking care of each other. A line that had been cut short, the umbilical cord slashed, in an instant—just like that.
I took in Vera, too. She wore a black leotard and a silky charcoal skirt that came down almost to her ankles, an evening take on the athleisure I’d seen earlier. Her feet were sandaled, toenails painted navy blue and slightly chipped. Her ponytail snaked down her back.
I glanced into the living room, where a tufted leather ottoman sat in front of an overstuffed sofa, surrounded by antique furniture, the kind you picked up at estate sales. Dark brown wooden beams stood out from the ceiling, and below me, the hardwood floors were banged up but beautiful. Her home had plenty to be jealous of but little to hate. It was imperfect, far from museumlike, with dust on the baseboards and clutter on every surface: junk mail, water glasses marked with lipstick, shoes tossed into the corner.
And books, books everywhere. Stacked in the hallway, lining the inset shelves in the living room. Art and philosophy (Warhol, Kant); high and low (White Teeth, Twilight); Ta-Nehisi Coates on top of Daphne du Maurier. Books always made me feel safe. Suddenly, I wished I’d taken more from my childhood, could read myself the ones my mother had once read to me.
“John,” Vera yelled up the stairs. “Lucy is here!” Not “Lucy, the neighbor.” Or “Lucy, the woman I told you about.” Just Lucy. She didn’t wait for anyone to bound down the stairs, but led me through the living room, where I detected the faint scent of weed, and into the kitchen in back. Unlike the rest of the house, it was small and cramped, as if whoever had designed the formal rooms in front had forgotten that people actually had to, you know, cook and tacked it on haphazardly. White tiles were everywhere—on the floor, on the backsplash—caked with grout and pasta sauce, one of them cracked all the way across, and a small kitchen island was piled on one side with even more junk mail and on the other with containers of spices and an empty tub of ricotta.
“I brought this over,” I said, retrieving Davis’s good whiskey from my oversize purse and handing it to her. “It’s already opened, which I know is a little gauche, but it’s good—promise.”
Vera’s eyes lit up. “Oh, screw gauche,” she said. “I love gauche, in fact. This is wonderful. Now I’m going to be gauche myself and insist we drink it right now.” Without waiting for my reaction, she pushed the junk mail aside and set the bottle on the island, pulled three glasses out of a weathered cabinet, and grabbed ice from the freezer with her bare hands. When she shut the fridge, I saw a whiteboard on the front, with a to-do list so different from mine, it was nuts. Only one item: Rachel.
Vera pushed a glass at me, poured tall, and I took it gratefully; I tried not to sip too fast.
“John!” she called again. Footsteps thudded from down the hall.
He walked in, and I coughed, choking as a bit of whiskey slipped down the wrong pipe.
Brown hair. Gray-flecked beard. A strong, chiseled jaw. Red plaid short-sleeved shirt, phone tucked inside the chest pocket. And that feeling, the one I’d had when I saw the displaced floorboard. That weight in my gut, telling me things aren’t what they seem. Whether nefarious or benign, I’d become a pro at knowing when there was more to the story. Not from journalism but from Davis.
I was staring at the man from the photos, without question.
“Hi there,” he said, wrapping me in a hug. It caught me so off guard, I spilled whiskey down the back of his shirt.
“Christ.” I pulled away and wiped the edge of the glass with my sleeve. “I didn’t mean to.”
Vera grabbed a linen dish towel and blotted John’s shirt, almost as if on cue. “John’s a hugger,” she said. “I should have warned you.” She leaned in to kiss her husband, but she just barely missed, her lips landing on his cheek instead.
“Guilty as charged,” John said with a laugh. The sound was big and guttural, taking up the scarce space in the tiny room, and it vaguely reminded me of my dad’s. “Is a handshake any better?”
I nodded as I took his hand, which was warm, rough, and flecked with what looked like paint. “I’m usually a hugger, too, it’s just that you caught me by surprise.”
It’s just that five photos of you are tucked away in my underwear drawer.
I gestured to the whiskey. “Please have some before I go any deeper into my hugging history.”
They both laughed. A sugary feeling, one I hadn’t had in a long time, of being appreciated by someone new.
Vera pushed the third glass into John’s hand. “To neighbors!” she cried.
“And new friends,” John said, raising an eyebrow. “Especially ones who bring us good whiskey.”
I lifted the glass to my mouth, and we all drank at once.
* * *
• • •
The lasagna was delicious, with layers of meat and ricotta and sauce and noodles, like my mom used to make. They didn’t even serve a salad, didn’t pretend to be doing anything but eating pasta.
Vera shoved a huge forkful into her mouth as we told her how wonderful the meal was, sauce spreading over her lips. Maybe that was the chink in her perfect-girl armor: She’d never been taught how to eat properly.
Unlike Vera, John was eating his carefully, slicing each noodle into neat little squares. “So Vera said you were from the city?” he said, setting his fork down momentarily. “Let me guess—Brooklyn?”
“Yeah,” I said. “How could you tell?”
“Your hair,” Vera interrupted. “All chic but unmanageable. A total Brooklyn do.” She scooped another forkful of lasagna into her mouth and chewed it fiercely, swallowing fast.
John leaned back in his chair, turning to Vera. “So let me get this straight: There’s a difference between Manhattan hair and Brooklyn hair?”