I wonder who they will be? Maybe students from Arizona or Cape Town. Maybe young medical students visiting from France over Halloween. Or three sisters from Ontario here to see the museums in the daytime and the club scene at night.
I approach the building and it is imposing. I read people here call it the Y. It’s a fourteen-storey building right on the park, opposite the ballpark where Violet and I talked that time. Apparently this place has a pool and a fitness centre and a hangout lounge with imitation fireplace. It looks perfect.
‘You play ball?’ asks the guy who checks me in.
‘Sometimes,’ I say.
‘That’s cool.’
He tells me I’m on the eighth floor. Room 812.
I get to the room and I have butterflies. This is how American cheerleaders would live in some Midwest college. I’m about to have my authentic dorm experience. The experience I missed out on.
I unlock the door.
Nobody.
Empty room. Two bunk beds: three messy, and one, mine, made up.
Suitcases by the window, wet towels hanging on hooks, the faint smell of hairspray and cheap perfume.
I unpack some of my things but leave most of the self-defence items either inside my bag or inside my pockets. I make sure my valuables are kept on my person. Until I meet my roommates I must remain ultra-cautious. No wrong moves.
The view is of a brick wall. But it’s still perfect. My fantasy come true. I lie on the bed. They left me the top bunk, which I appreciate, it shows they’re good people, empathic. I inspect the room. There’s an air vent up by the ceiling. Legionnaires’ disease. There’s a heater. Carbon monoxide poisoning. The window looks loose. No risk of an intruder at this height but there is the risk one of us could fall through if the frame failed. Eight storeys is certain death, statistically speaking. On the wall is a screw head where a picture used to hang. Tetanus. Potential head injury. The wire leading from a standing lamp has duct tape wrapped around it. Electrocution. You wouldn’t even have to be the one touching the cable to get the shock; you could be the one touching the person who touches the cable.
But I’m here. No one else chose this place, I chose it myself. No one else is paying the rent, I’m paying. They don’t even know I’m here. Nobody does.
My blood surges around my vascular system like it has extra energy, extra vitality, fresh red cells, more plasma than before, stronger platelets. I want to hang out with KT’s friends. I also want to watch Scott Sbarra at rowing practice, not just see him walk out of the boathouse; I mean I want to watch him physically pull oars. Later I might walk past KT’s apartment again in Morningside Heights. I’m almost in the same part of Manhattan now. Almost the same life.
A bang from a nearby room. I sit up on my bunk. I take my phone and check through the contacts. There aren’t many.
I’m so relaxed I almost drift off to sleep. Not sleep, but a deep sense of being at peace with the world. Thoughts of Scott drift into my consciousness. His shoulders. The way he has a dimple in his chin and one on each cheek, a perfect triangle framing his full mouth. I imagine stroking my fingertip over his upper lip, dragging it slightly until my skin makes contact with the moist underside. I imagine placing a pearl in each dimple and them just resting there until he reaches closer to me, and places his hand behind my head and moves my mouth closer to his, and . . .
The door opens.
Three Asian women walk in, each one holding a clutch of shopping bags. Gap, H&M, Macy’s, Zara.
They look at me.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’m Molly Raven.’
Chapter 26
Unfortunately I won’t be getting much of a dorm experience from my roomies as none of them speak much English. They’re all from Shanghai, schoolfriends, and they speak more of my language than I do of theirs – they’re more cosmopolitan than I am – but they don’t seem interested in hanging out. Nice of them to let me share their room, though.
The problem with having no fixed return flight is it makes budgeting ten times more difficult. I need money for living, but also for supplies. I need to right certain wrongs. Restore balance. Maybe the need to maintain balance is a twin phenomenon? I need to put the world straight before I leave this city. There are a few people who wronged KT very seriously, and those injustices must be corrected before I fly away.
I step outside into the warm October sunshine and pull on the Yankees cap I bought last week from a souvenir store on Fifth Avenue. I walk a block west to Broadway and locate a Best Buy store. I place one Polaroid camera in my basket. I place extra film in with it. I choose one fully prepaid mobile phone. I pay cash. I leave.