“Being with you,” she said when we reached the address of the apartment building, “is like reliving my youth. Good luck, Emma. Just keep telling yourself, ‘I can do this. I can do it.’ And before you know it, you will.”
“Thank you,” I said.
The driver pulled to the curb and got out to open my door and get my suitcase out of the trunk. She slid over to wave. I took my suitcase, smiled and thanked her, and then turned to look at the doorway to my new home.
The building was nothing like I had envisioned. It was a narrow brownstone about four stories high, with a short stoop to a small gray concrete platform with black pipe railings. The street itself was quite busy with traffic and pedestrians. No one gave me much more than a passing glance as I carried my suitcase to the steps. It was obviously a busy rush hour. Everyone was hurrying to get somewhere, and the taxi drivers and other drivers on the street were impatiently pressuring one another. Someone double-parked and caused a cacophony of horns and shouts. When I looked at the faces of those upset, I thought I saw a dozen potential serial killers. The double-parked driver emerged indifferently and opened his car trunk to take out someone’s luggage, moving at his own slow pace. The horns grew louder.
Patience is obviously not a virtue here, I thought. The driver glanced back at the traffic behind him with indifference and moved casually into his vehicle. When he pulled away, it was like watching a clogged pipe empty out. How different from the traffic in Guildford, I thought.
Get used to it, Emma Corey, I told myself. This is going to be your new world.
I started up the stoop. At the side of the door was the directory. I saw there were eight units, all having names beside the buttons. Which one was going to be mine with whoever I talked into sharing the cost with me? I wondered. The bottom slot listed Leo Abbot, manager, so I pressed that button and waited, expecting him to come to the door to greet me, but instead, I heard a buzzer, which I understood to mean the unlocking of the front door. I stepped into the short entryway, where there was a second door opening to the hallway. I quickly realized there was no elevator.
A door on my right opened, and a short, balding gray-haired man, with glasses that had lenses so thick that they looked like deep-sea goggles, stepped out. He was about my height, very slight in build but with large hands. He impressed me as someone who had shrunk with age, every part of him except his hands. He was wearing a well-worn dark-brown leather vest over a faded white shirt and black slacks, with a pair of what looked like black, furry leather slippers.
“Emma Corey?” he asked.
“Yes.”
When he smiled, he looked more like someone’s granddad than a landlord. There was warmth and delight in his eyes. I never knew how important it was to have someone look and see you when he or she spoke to you. Most of the people along the way were practically robotic. This was like a warm embrace, and with the way my heart was pounding, I needed that.
“You got here faster than I thought. Good for you. C’mon. I’ll show you the apartment. I put some water, bread, eggs and butter, and some coffee and milk in the kitchen for you. Donald Manning sent it over earlier today from his restaurant. He also sent over some fresh bedding and some towels and hand towels. Soap, too. Someone’s looking after you. Donald’s a good guy, heart o’ gold, but he ain’t no pushover when it comes to working for him,” he warned. “I eat dinner at his place on occasion and see how he cracks the whip.”
He paused and looked at me more closely.
“You don’t look much more than sixteen. You’re eighteen, right? You’re gonna need proof of it at times.”
“That doesn’t bother me, sir,” I said.
He smiled. “Oh, you can call me Leo.” He leaned toward me to speak in a loud whisper. “ ’Course, there are a few tenants here that have other names for me, names that would dirty your ears. Let me carry that for you,” he said, reaching for my suitcase.
“I’m fine, thank you.” I did think I was stronger than he was.
“Always take advantage of people who want to do something for you,” he advised. “This here is New York. It’s as rare as a two-dollar bill.”
“Oh, I don’t wish to take advantage of anyone, Leo.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Eager and trusting. Youth is wasted on the young,” he declared, and smiled. “You’re on the third floor. You ain’t gonna gain weight here.”
He started up. I followed behind. The walls, the stairs, everything looked well worn and in need of some good repainting and polishing. There were apartment buildings in Guildford that were twice this age, I was sure, that looked much newer, but one of the things Mr. Wollard warned me about was the overall grittiness of New York compared to what I was used to seeing.
“New and well-kept-up places are way out of your league right now, but you’ll be comfortable enough. You’ll be out working and pursuing your career anyway. Where you live, as long as it’s safe, is incidental,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons the song about New York says, ‘If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.’ ”
However, the moment we entered the apartment, I could see my mother crying for me. It was much smaller than I had envisioned. The furnishings weren’t inexpensive so much as they were worn and looking more like things from a secondhand shop. The kitchen had a small dark-wood table and four matching chairs, two in particular looking stained and chipped. There was a living room with a brown sofa and two chairs with cushions, an oval wood coffee table, and two lamps with shades that looked discolored by something I didn’t want to imagine. A television set on a table that seemed too weak to hold it was in the far right corner. A splash of a dark-brown area rug was in front of the sofa.
The bathroom was between the two bedrooms. Each had a double bed. One was totally stripped. The mattress looked okay, but without bedding, the room looked very depressing. I hoped it wouldn’t keep someone from moving in to share the rent. Both rooms had dressers and closets with mirrors over the dressers, but the furniture here, too, needed a good polish, and there were nicks and scratches on everything. The wood floors were worn down to the stone or tile beneath them in places. Area rugs would do well to cover the blemishes, I thought. I’d have to do a lot to make it look warm and cozy.
As I gazed at it all, I had a flush of sadness and regret, thinking about the beautiful bedroom Julia and I shared in Guildford. I visualized the flowery pattern of our wallpaper, the Wedgwood-blue floor siding and cornices, and our beautiful silk curtains. Everything in our house was always sparkling clean. And it was certainly ten times quieter. Right now, even though the windows were closed, the traffic sounded as loud as it did on the street.
“In New York ’specially,” Leo Abbot said, perhaps because of the expression on my face, “it ain’t so much what the apartment looks like as it is about location. ‘Location, location, location,’ that’s the song the real estate agents sing here.
“You can walk to the restaurant and to Broadway from here quickly. You don’t even hafta ride the subway. There’s a supermarket ’round the corner and a drugstore on the same street, as well as a bank. Everything’s at your fingertips, which is why you should have no problem findin’ a roommate. In fact, Donald Manning told me he posted the openin’ in his restaurant for you today.”