Imaginary Lines

Page 16

  Ah. “That does make it more complicated. ”

  “Yeah,” Carlos said. “Which is why Tanya needs a drink. ”

  * * *

  I was still a little ticked off when I got home. Journalism wasn’t always as clean-cut as I wanted it to be, and I understood that. And it didn’t make sense to write an article that didn’t have any news or new spin. But given that half our pieces were fluff pieces anyway and that this was a serious issue, I didn’t really understand why I couldn’t write about a practice that hurt someone I cared about.

  I mean, I did. But it still pissed me off.

  I whipped up a batch of salted chocolate shortbread cookies. They could be crumbly and difficult to handle, but I managed to form it into a log. I wrapped it in plastic and stuck it in the fridge. They could be cut in the morning—they’d be much easier to deal with frozen.

  Of course, by the time I finished and calmed myself down, I was in no mood to cook actual food, so I ran out to the corner grocery store and spent a long, long time deliberating over frozen pizza or a salad. I picked up the salad and carried it around for a while feeling morally and nutritionally superior, but then I realized the pizza was half the price, and really, saving money was important. So I bought the pizza.

  When I returned to the apartment, the scent of heady spices wafted out. Someone had been hard at work in the twenty minutes I was gone. I paused outside the kitchen, where Sabeen stirred a large pot. “Hi. ”

  She looked up. “Oh, hey. ”

  I leaned against the door frame. “What’re you making?”

  “Kibbeh. ”

  I peered at it.

  “It’s like a dumpling. Meat and spices and fried. ”

  “Huh. Smells good. I have this theory about how every culture has a dumpling comfort food. ”

  “Yeah. I think I heard something about that on NPR. ” She smiled. “I smelled you melting chocolate so I was inspired to make something. ”

  “At least you made something healthy. I’m stockpiling the cookies and having pizza for dinner. Mind if I get by you to the oven?”

  She shifted out of the way so I could turn up the heat. “Hey, I’m going to a party in the East Village this weekend. You should come. ”

  I looked up from tearing open the pizza box. “Really? That would be cool. Your friend won’t mind?”

  She shrugged. “It’s her birthday. I’m sure there’ll be tons of people. ”

  “Then I’ll be there. I could use a place to let off steam. ”

  Chapter Eight

  We broke into a bottle of wine before heading out that Friday, so we were already halfway to happiness by the time we stepped out of the subway. I liked Sabeen; I liked her laissez-faire attitude and her unconditional friendliness. And though she’d only been here four months, she seemed to know plenty of people—friends from her private high school and from college, from her work and those she just picked up in cafés.

  I’d had no idea what people in New York wore when they went out, but I’d assumed black, like they wore everywhere else. I should dye my wardrobe like people in mourning. Maybe they were all in mourning for the temperature. It seemed a strong possibility, especially as October blustered with harsh winds and gray skies.

  Since I owned little black, I’d slung on a gray jersey dress and a clunky tangerine necklace of polished stones in many layers. To combat the humidity, I’d pinned my hair on top of my head with two hair sticks, and deemed myself ready. I was happy to find that I blended well with most of the people walking around the East Village streets.

  I hadn’t been to this part of Manhattan before, and it reminded me more of San Francisco’s Mission District than anything else; shorter buildings, everything below four stories, and lots of slightly dingy but obviously very cool pizza parlors and bodegas and comic stores. A bubble of happiness welled up inside me. This was what I had wanted back home. The chance to go out in the evenings, to be with friends, to have a disposable income that I could waste on getting wasted and to make myself cute enough that I could garner glances from cute boys. I wanted to relish being young and pretty and living in a city, feeling frivolous and light, the personification of champagne.

  The apartment we headed to was on the third floor of a walk-up, and reasonably sized. Sabeen said one of the three roommates ran his own company selling animal mittens or mittens evoking animals or something else alarmingly profitable. The other two, Sabeen’s friend and the friend’s boyfriend, worked on one of the morning shows.

  The friend’s name was Nita, and she cried out as soon as we entered. “Sabeen! You’re here!” She hugged her tightly, and then hugged me for good measure. “I’m Nita!”

  So apparently she didn’t mind me coming.

  She gestured us in. “Drinks are in the kitchen, and people are mostly in the living room. We might have to do a beer run at some point, but so far we’re looking good. ”

  For the first hour we drank rum flavored with Coke. Everyone sat around, squished on sofas and curled up on the floor, eating finger food and destroying Nita’s alcohol collection. Eventually, one of the people—there were a lot of people—asked, “Can you get to the rooftop?”

  Nita frowned and peered at her window. “I think so. ”

  So then we all grabbed beer and clamored out the kitchen window onto the roof/deck where they kept potted plants and bikes and things. A fire escape crawled up the building’s wall, a rickety, rusting metal structure that looked ready to fall apart any second. We had to walk along a little ledge to get to it, and then we scampered up the skinny steps. I tried not to look down at the slatted planks beneath my feet, but I could feel the nerves gathered in my palms and soles of my feet. With one hand around my drink, I had even less control then I normally would’ve, but I refused to slow down and let anyone see how scared I was.

  Then I was at the top, and the kid in front of me took my drink so I could haul myself onto the roof. White chalk covered my hands and part of my dress, and as I stood upright my legs felt wobbly with relief that the fire escape hadn’t collapsed and plunged us to our deaths.

  I laughed, the endorphins from released fear now pumping through me, and took my drink back from the hipster holding it. Sabeen was already over at the edge of the roof, so I headed toward her, taking in the sight of the roof and the city. Behind me, we could see the Midtown skyline, while before me there wasn’t much, just the other flat roofs of the East Villages with their squat chimneys.

  The roof itself was more interesting; at least three different groups gathered from different apartments. But then it was a nice night, the air cool but the breeze warm, and scented with greenery instead of the general stench of the city.

  One of the guys from another group wandered over and asked if we had a light, which was clearly just an icebreaker, because when we said no, he plopped down next to us anyway. I leaned against Sabeen and laughed. The adrenaline from the climb and height and the fuzziness from the drinks made the night seem endless and filled with possibilities. I could be anything on this roof, because Tamar wouldn’t be up here in the first place. She’d be down on the ground, too scared to climb up.

  I lifted my head and stared at the moon.

  Somehow, by the time I looked down, the topic had wandered to celebrity encounters, as recalled through the humblebrag. “I saw Patrick Stewart at the co-op,” Shari, one of Nita’s friends, announced. “I mean, it wasn’t a big deal or anything. ”