Not that Chloe's rent wasn't cheaper than a New York apartment of similar size. It was rent-stabilized, which meant that her landlord would raise her rent every year to the maximum allowable percentage, in the effort to finally reach the magical two grand mark, at which point rent stabilized apartments are allowed to go to market rate. But the percentage per year wasn't too high, and she hoped that by the time it got anywhere near two grand she would be long gone to the Carolinas or some other mild-weathered state.
It was 6 pm and Mildred was late, due to a shoe shopping trip gone awry. She really didn't want Mildred to come over, but invited her over out of habit, or boredom, she wasn't sure which. Mildred had become sort of scrappy lately, succumbing to the societal pressures to get married and have babies before she hit forty and taking it upon herself to make sure she didn't "fall behind the pack." She had started wearing high heels and going on dates with guys like "Aaron from the art gallery" and "Tim from the coffee shop." She used to be more unexpected. Now she did the boring things everyone else in New York did, like go to Sheep's Meadow on Saturday afternoons and the Meatpacking district at night. It made Chloe sick to her stomach, and she had almost had enough.
At 6:25, the small bell rang outside her bedroom window. She had rigged it up when, after moving in, she realized there was no buzzer in the 100-year-old tenement building. So she hung a brass ringer from the 99 cent store on the rail outside on her fire escape, and attached a long, inconspicuous string that blended in with the parasols sold by the vendor in the downstairs storefront.
She ambled down the two flights of stairs, tipsy having now drunk half of the bottle of wine that she and Mildred were supposed to share.
"Hiiiiiiiii Chloe! How are you?," shrieked Mildred, giving her a hug.
Poor Mildred. She was well-intentioned, but offensively girly. Chloe faked a smile.
"Come up. Would you like some wine?"
"Sure!," she said. Hiking back up the stairs, Chloe wondered how to tell her, how to break it off.
Inside the door, Mildred plopped down on the couch with a large sigh, while Chloe resumed her place on the chaise. "So, how did the date go?"
"Oh! It was so lovely! The whole time I was thinking, This might be the one!"
Chloe set down her wine glass and felt she might gag. But she attempted a feigned excitement. "Ohhh, that's wonderful, what happened?," she forced out of herself.
Couldn't she tell she was faking it? That she didn't give a shit about this guy who seemed hideously boring. That she thought Mildred herself was hideously boring.
"Well! So he took me to Central Park and he had a picnic basket! He even thought of the blanket. So we sat there, in sheep's meadow, having a lunch of lemon curd and toast. I do love lemon curd. Just as soon as he brought out that jar, I knew he was the one."
There was a pause, with which Chloe didn't know what to do. It was awkward. She could tell her feigning was fading. Certainly Mildred couldn't actually be this superficial.
Well, enough was enough. Plus, the wine bottle was empty. Chloe stood up and announced that she was so sorry, that she must leave to pick up her Peking Duck for tomorrow night's feast at the mah jong parlor.
They gave each other kisses on the cheek, and after closing the door, Chloe heaved a sigh of relief, purging Mildred's putrid words out of her system. She changed out of her clothes and slipped on her silk Chinese robe. There was no feast tomorrow, and there certainly was no Peking Duck.
1 comment:
Your writing is beautiful. Please write book as you've talked about.
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