“No, I’m okay. Thanks.” I didn’t want to push my luck.
The furniture was motley but plentiful: overstuffed bergères, an epic dining-room table, a stray armchair done up in pink roses. Paperback novels and old New Yorkers littered the table, along with a sewing machine, a woodworking clamp, and a glass jar of colored pencils. On the mantel, a stack of old Paris Reviews, a tiny lamp with beaded fringe, and a faded photograph of a Merce Cunningham dancer mid-plié.
“It’s a mess,” she said when she returned, handing me a glass of water.
“No, I love it.” I meant it. “It’s so warm.”
She curled like a cat on the couch beside me. I wanted to say more about the jars of sequins and buttons, the careless heaps of books, the opened Moleskines marked with coffee rings, but I was distracted. She looked at me so expectantly that I knew I had to speak.
“Hi.”
She laughed. “I can’t believe you hunted me down at the farmers’ market.” I startled, but she was smiling, kidding. “Twice in one week, after so many years,” she added softly.
“Yeah.” I coughed. “Where’s Ian?”
“What do you mean, where’s Ian?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe you guys lived together.”
She laughed and blushed at the same time. She was pretty when she blushed. “Oh, no, we really just started dating. It’s all new.” She looked at me shyly. “You guys were together…on this island?”
“Well, Long Island. But yeah. It was like this residency thing.”
“Ian said you worked really hard. He said you were the best one there.”
Now I laughed and flushed. “That’s not true,” I declared. “I didn’t work that hard.” But I was pleased. Ian was like a sore tooth I kept pressing with my tongue.
Another silence. “Well. Do you want the tour?”
When we stood, the little gray cat rose and trotted with us down the hall, like a dog. Briefly I glimpsed her bedroom: a swell of calico comforter, more books and journals, half a dozen glasses shimmering in the morning light.
At the end of the very short hall, there was a closed door like a door in a dream. “Here,” she said, and flung it wide to reveal a room narrow and white, with a desk of heavy wood pushed beneath the window.
The room was immaculate. Pristine, studious, radiant. With it, the rest of the apartment suddenly made sense, chaos and creation anchored by clean simplicity. I loved it. Except: “What’s that?” I pointed at a giant wooden contraption.
“It’s a loom.” She laughed. “I know. It’s definitely the most ridiculous thing I own. It’s like the beast in the corner.” She scooped up her gray cat and kissed the top of its head. “My poor little beast. Totally neglected.”
“What do you mean? You don’t use it?”
She dropped the cat. “Not really. Not enough.”
“It’s so cool.” I stepped toward it tentatively, as if it might snap to life.
“Yeah, I’m lucky to have it. And I have all these great ideas for projects, but when I get home at night”—she flung her hand out and expelled an exasperated puff—“I’m so tired I just sit on the couch.”
“Oh. Well, you should work on your projects.”
I realized as I said it how harsh I sounded. But these were familiar roles for us: I had always been the one to ringlead our school projects, to say we should just do it, that it was easy, no big deal.
She laughed.
“No, I’m serious. You should feed the beast. No, you know what you should do? You should move this whole thing into the living room”—a bark of incredulous laughter—“so you have to look at it, and then it’ll annoy you so much you’ll start using it. Really.”
“And then what would I do with this room?”
“Let me live in it.”
As soon as I said it I knew it was a step too far. We both blinked.
Quickly I added, “I’ll help you move the loom.” Theatrically I rolled up my sleeves. “Really. Let’s do it right now. There’s space in the living room.”
“Ha-ha. It’s a disaster out there right now.”
“Oh, come on. There’s space.”
We were both grinning. I was ready for action; I wanted to skate over how sad it made me to think she had some big expensive piece of equipment she didn’t even use. When we had been friends, she was always doing arts and crafts.
As we strolled back, I saw the living room differently. Maybe it wasn’t humming with life. Maybe all the jars of sequins and woodworking clamps were only the detritus of stalled projects. Was there dust on the sewing machine? I had a sudden instinct to check.
As if reading my mind, Lacie said, “Yeah. Lots of good intentions, but I’ve got no follow-through these days.”
“Hmm.”
“But look. I’m happy for you. You’re making art. You wrote a novel.”
“Well, I’m writing a novel. Don’t get too excited.”
“I’ve always admired your dedication.”
That was so unexpected that I really had to examine the carpet. When she was a teenager she never would have said something so heartfelt.
“No, really. In high school? You wrote that play on your own. How many kids would do something like that?”
“You made those amazing costumes.” Embarrassed for both of us, I blushed.
“Oh,” she waved me off, but I could tell she was pleased. “They were all right.”
“No, they made the play! They completely made it.”
And there we were, on the lip of the past. I almost asked. I almost said the name Leo Kupersky. But there was the cutting board with a golden boule, the cat sleeping on the chair, the mint growing in a clay pot. In me, a small motor of need. Rather than starting out in some anonymous, cramped box, I could have this. I could have Lacie. I wanted it; I wanted this neighborhood, and this house, and her.
Was it possible? I snuck a glance at her. She was taking a sip of water and avoiding my eye. The trick, I thought, would be to help her forget what I had done. And so I changed the subject. I stopped us from diving deep. I decided: not today.
Ms. Keener, who wore her breasts around her waist like an incomplete inner tube, had decided it was too cold for outdoor sports, so she cued up the tape deck and divided us into groups of eight.
We were spindly ten-year-olds, fidgety squirrels. Jesse Grogan made farting noises while Leo Kupersky pretended to barf. Lacie, the new girl, was in my square. Solemn, tiny, all dark eye and bony shoulder, she rarely spoke, yet wore to school every day a pair of shorts, an audacity for which she was mercilessly teased.