I can’t tell if she’s talking about New York or Planet Earth.
We take the F to Brooklyn in silence. June was right. It’s early yet. Other than a small cluster of school kids in desultory costumes, it’s manageable. The one nice thing about Halloween on a Monday is that the hardcore weirdos are partied out from the weekend.
The train rises aboveground at Smith and Ninth, and even though I’m still aggravated, the ride is calming. The atmosphere’s electric, all the surfaces gilded at the edges. I love New York on crisp days like these. It’s magic hour, and I can’t help but feel grateful. I read on a new age blog somewhere, probably while perusing supplements, that there are places on earth that are a vibrational match for you. That certain energy vortexes thrum along yours. I want to say that the fine print claimed it was a thing with Native Americans. Or Australian aboriginals. Hawaiians maybe—something that makes white women hawking powders and elixirs seem like they have any kind of history. But I’m sold on there being a home for your soul. New York feels right to me in moments like these. When I take a second to look out and remember where I am.
“See the Statue of Liberty?” I point her out on the other side of the train. She’s the size of a thumb on the horizon, a pale-green queen, arm raised high out in the water. To me, Lady Liberty’s like the moon, the way she can look bigger even from the same spot.
“Jesus,” says June. Marveling at the skyline. “You live in Butt-Fuck Egypt.” There are six more stops to go.
“It’s chill.”
And cheap.
I check on my rubble piles when we coast by.
“How long does it take you to get to school?”
“Hour.”
“Damn. That’s a hike. Takes me ten minutes to get to work.” She’s sitting in the seats facing me and crosses her legs at the ankles, looking out the window. Then she cranes down and tugs at the edge of her sock. “Look at this shit.” The bright-blue lip of fabric bites into her fleshy ankle. That’s when I notice that her other sock is lighter, with a scalloped white edge. “I’m losing it.” She looks at me stupefied. “I don’t think I’ve ever done this before.”
“You should get all the same socks.” Mine are uniformly black, from Uniqlo. I stick my toes out at her. Shaking my feet so she sees, but when she doesn’t say anything, I look up. That’s when I realize, to my horror, that June is crying. Again. The expression on her face is unchanged, but there are fat droplets coursing down her cheeks and falling onto her hands, which are lying in her lap like upturned bugs.
“June…” They announce our stop. I get up and she follows.
We walk the three blocks to the apartment. I beep the fob on the door, and we march upstairs, her behind me, our footfalls matching.
“Is he gone?” June asks, even before I’ve opened the door. She’s clearing her throat and blotting her eyes. I unlock the door and switch the light on. We remove our shoes.
At first glance I can’t tell. There is, however, an enormous dead cockroach right in the center of the living room.
I rush into the bathroom, bundle up some toilet paper, and throw it out. My face burns. I can’t stand to look at her.
The sunken West Elm love seat off Craigslist is still there. Same with the bookcase and the particle-board café table and chairs that I use when I’m doing homework. The house smells the same. Lightly floral from a candle that sits in the kitchen. Not a hint of ylang-ylang shower cleaner. My bedroom door is ajar, and as I approach it slowly, I feel a crawling dread, as if I’m the final girl in a horror movie. I peek in.
The curtains are drawn. I feel my way in the dark, turning on the bedside lamp on the floor inside the closet since the overhead bulb shorted out ages ago. The bed’s been stripped. He could be out. Just as I say “He’s not home,” I’m shoved from behind onto the mattress.
“BWWWAAAGH!” screams June, standing over me.
I flip around, heart pounding. “You’re such a dick!”
June laughs in my face, pinning me to the bed. “Why are you scared? It’s your house,” she says. Then she looks around the room. I see it through her eyes. This is precisely why I didn’t want her coming. I watch as she registers the mattress that’s flush to the walls. The bubble of condensation trapped under the white paint above the window. I brush the crumbled pieces of ceiling plaster off the bed and grab a fitted sheet from a shelf to put on. The bare mattress suddenly seems obscene. June reaches out to tame the bottom of the elasticated clump of fabric. She has to stand in the hallway to do it.
I eye a yellowing hexagon on the white terry surface of the mattress. I don’t remember the last time I changed the sheets. It looks like the outline of France.
“Is this the mattress I bought?” She pulls the quilted corner away from the wall to hook it into the sheet pocket expertly. “Didn’t I tell you to get a full?”
“I paid you back.” I do the same from atop the bed. “And a full didn’t fit.” I’d love, just once, to live in an apartment where I had my own full bed.
June smooths out the sheet. “Jesus, haven’t you heard of a mattress protector? This is a year old.”
“Two and a half.”
She glares at me. “I just hope these cum stains are yours.”
I drag her onto the stain and when she falls, she laughs so hard it makes me laugh.
“I hate you,” I tell her.
I check the bathroom. And the coat closet and the cabinets. From what I can see, he has every intention of coming back. Most of his stuff is still here. I immediately change my Netflix password and delete his profile. Fuck him.
June’s in my fridge. “Jesus, he doesn’t eat food either?” she says, flinging the door open, causing condiment bottles to clang. She pulls out a crusty jar of honeyed yuzu from the shelf, so I put the kettle on. She holds her palm above the radiator and looks at me with concern. Then she puts her coat back on. It’s cold in here.
“I don’t think he’s gone,” she says.
“I have no idea,” I tell her, noncommittal.
“Mom would shit if she found out you were shacking up with some dude.” She turns on the kitchen faucet and holds her hand under the water. Then she turns the hot water on full blast.
“Jayne,” she says.
I watch her fingers wriggle in the stream.
“You can’t be serious.”
“What?” I glare at her.
“Look around, asshole,” she says. “You can’t live like this! You have black mold on your bedroom walls.” She points accusingly. “It smells like cats have been peeing in here for centuries. Please tell me you withheld rent this month—you don’t have hot water.”
“You can’t tell Mom I’m living with a dude,” I tell her, nudging her out of the way to open the cupboard by her head. I might live in a hovel, but at least I want her to see how normal people store their mugs.
I make our tea.
“Jayne.”
I give her the good mug, offering it to her with the handle facing out, burning the shit out of my fingertips.
She takes her sweet time reaching for it and walks over to the couch. For a split second I see her wrinkle her snobby nose before perching on her seat. I sit down next to her, squishing in.