The Cloisters(49)

“They wanted to pay you?”

“More like they wanted to be less supportive if I continued. Financially, of course. Life after parents is like a clean slate.”

“But at such a high cost.”

Rachel nodded and turned her attention across the lawn toward the lake. I wondered if every time she saw this view she could see the broken boat, the storm that blew her life open. But I knew that time made it possible to revisit even the hardest places.

Just as we finished eating, the sheet of rain marched closer to the house, the damp downdrafts whipping the pages of our books. The storm came upon us quickly, the branches of the larger elms scraping against the shingled roof of the house. And although Rachel and I took shelter inside, we both knew the storm would pass swiftly, swiftly enough that there would be no problem when our floatplane landed in an hour to take us back to the city, through the orange spray of sunset.



* * *



Looking back, it would have been wise to have ended my summer at The Cloisters then. To have never gone back to the city, to have packed my bag and left what remained in my subleased studio. But it’s clear to me now that it wasn’t my choice to make.

As the floatplane landed on Long Island, Rachel turned to me and said, “Why don’t you stay the rest of the summer with me?”

And so, because it seemed like we weren’t just in this, but in everything together, I said yes without hesitation. And after all, why would I have declined? To stay in my cramped apartment when Rachel was offering me a way out?

“I have plenty of space,” said Rachel, as we slipped into the waiting town car, “and we’re going to the same place every day for work. I’ve seen your building, you know. It looks like you don’t even have air-conditioning. I know it’s already August and I should have asked you earlier, but—”

Rachel didn’t need to sell me on the decision. In many ways, we already felt like roommates, like twins who had been through the same experience, thousands of miles apart.

“Take the car and grab what you need,” she said, looking at me. Behind her head, the West Side Highway unspooled. “I’ll have our doorman make you a set of keys.”

Even though we had only known each other for a little over two months, it struck me that I had spent more time with Rachel than I had with anyone outside my own family. Family that I would have happily spent less time with if I had been able to afford living in the dorms. And friendships throughout college had always been elusive, particularly when it became clear I’d rather spend more time learning languages that were of little use than going to parties or gathering in claustrophobic dorm rooms, ten girls to a bed. Rachel didn’t care about that. Because we were the same. We were different, in so many ways, but the things that animated us were the same.

And so, I took the car north to my studio, where I packed my clothes and books into the duffel I had brought with me from Walla Walla and slipped the rest of my father’s translations into a notebook. I threw out the remaining food in my dorm-room-sized fridge, slipped the key in my pocket, and, then, I stood in the hallway under the flicker of the fluorescent lights, not sure if I would ever return.

When the driver deposited me back at Rachel’s apartment, an Upper West Side two-bedroom, I was reminded again of what I had experienced at Long Lake: Rachel was rich. There were sweeping views of Central Park, a terrace with overflowing planters, parquet floors, and a light blue glossy refrigerator with vintage pulls. The space wasn’t enormous, but it was still large enough. And she lived alone.

I appreciated that she didn’t make excuses for the place. She didn’t say, Oh, don’t mind the mess, I didn’t have time to clean up, or, I know it looks like a lot but it was my grandmother’s. She let me into the apartment and simply pointed me to the dish where I could drop my keys and the spare bedroom where I could drop my bag.

The kitchen and living room were both part of one large, open entertaining space divided by the dining table, an older wooden piece with intricate inlay and more than a handful of scratches. I appreciated that even though everything in the apartment looked immaculate, there were a few places where imperfection was welcome. I found myself letting my hand linger on the materials: the smooth wood, the soft leather, the delicate silver of her picture frames—everything cool to the touch. Until I arrived at the glass windows that looked out over the park. Below, I could see the ever-present line of taxicabs and people making their way in and out of the green canopy of Central Park. The air-conditioning in Rachel’s apartment hummed quietly.

“Before you ask,” she said, “my parents lived in the same building. On the top floor. I grew up here. And, no, I didn’t buy it myself. They bought it for me when I was still in grade school. As an investment.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

“People usually want to know.”

“It’s up to you, Rachel, what you want to share.”

“I know,” she said, and then, crossing the space between us, she reached out and hugged me, harder than she had the first time we met. Almost desperately. “I just don’t want us to have secrets from one another.”





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


The next morning was my first visit to the Morgan Library on Madison Avenue, a nineteenth-century brownstone mansion whose gilded interiors housed rare manuscripts, original drafts of Mozart’s symphonies, and drawings by Rubens. In 2006, a major fundraising campaign had paid for the addition of a contemporary building behind the brownstone, including a glass atrium and auditorium. That day, the atrium was crowded with a mix of academics and art world figureheads for the Morgan’s annual symposium, which this year was titled Art and the Occult: Divination in Early Modern Europe. We had come together, Rachel and I, after Patrick told us he would meet us there.