Change Places with Me(2)

“I’m glad,” Evelyn said, but didn’t sound either glad or sad.

“You get up on the wrong side of the bed or something?” Rose asked. “Dad used to say that, too. I never understood it, because I sleep next to a wall. What could I do, fall into the wall? He had some really corny expressions, like, I’ll be ready in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Why would he say that? He didn’t grow up on a farm—and I know I never visited one with him—we hardly ever left Belle Heights.”

“He . . .” Evelyn blinked a few times. “He had a grandmother who said it.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hmm. She actually did grow up on a farm. Your father adored her.”

“What was her name?”

“Clara.”

Rose laughed—a laugh that just burst out of her. It felt a little strange, as if someone else was laughing and she happened to be close by. But who else would it be?

Evelyn blinked again, then got up. “Would you like some eggs, Rose?”

“That would hit the spot! Something else Dad would say.”

Evelyn left. Rose looked out her window at Belle Heights Tower, the building across the way that used to be five stories and then, seemingly overnight, got ten more stories added to it, and now it loomed over all the others. She’d always hated the extra floors, having grown up with the older view. An old friend of hers had moved in there and she’d never even visited her. Now Rose glanced up and noticed, for the first time, a rooftop garden bursting with leafy trees against a white sky. What a great place to be a plant, she thought. If I were a plant, I’d want to live there.

Rose got up and took a shower. In the soap dish, Evelyn’s oval, lavender-scented soap always battled for space with her own undyed, fragrance-free soap, which sat there like a block of wax. That had been her dad’s kind of unscented soap, too. Now she found herself reaching for Evelyn’s. This is what you should do, she told herself. Grab things, exist at the center of your life, not the edge.

But it felt, oddly, as if someone else had told her this and she was only repeating it.





CHAPTER 2


“Mm,” Rose said as she ate. “These scrambled eggs are fantastic—so rich and creamy. I love the cheddar cheese. It’s like I never had them before.”

“Same old, same old,” Evelyn said.

“Have I told you lately you’re a terrific cook?”

“No,” Evelyn said, “but thank you.” She was finishing up a soft-boiled egg in a special eggcup made of thin white porcelain and using a tiny silver spoon, smaller than a teaspoon, which she’d found long ago at a flea market.

Rose remembered how, as a kid, she’d thought it was gross that Evelyn got things from flea markets, but now she admired Evelyn’s resourcefulness. The round kitchen table was near the window, overlooking a few trees and the sidewalk that led to Belle Heights Drive. A light breeze blew in, rustling blue curtains, and the air smelled sweet. Rose had put on overalls and a flannel shirt and found herself feeling uncomfortable, as if she had on too much fabric. She took a bite of some rye toast. “What’s with these planes? That’s the third one in fifteen minutes.”

“There are always a lot of planes.”

Which was true—Belle Heights, Queens, was between two big airports. “Is it extra noisy today?”

“Not particularly.”

Rose also heard a blaring sound, like an elephant’s trumpet. “What is that?”

“A tow truck, picking up another hydro-bus. There’s a petition going around to get rid of them and bring the old buses back.”

“I hope you didn’t sign it. I like how they look, all red and sleek, with that ladder in the middle and the elevator for handicap accessibility.”

“Those elevators never work.”

“I know. But Belle Heights is never the prototype for anything, and now we’re the first place in the whole city to get buses with hydrogen drives.”

“I wasn’t sure you liked them. When we took that one to Spruce Hills, it kept stalling—you didn’t seem too pleased about that.”

“Well, I should’ve realized—new things take time. There are always kinks to work out.”

Evelyn tightened her lips as if she was about to say something but then didn’t.

“It’s all these steep hills in Belle Heights, that’s the problem—ouch!”

“What’s the matter?”

“I bit the inside of my cheek.”

“You’re not used to talking so much.”

Evelyn didn’t really need to call attention to the fact that they usually ate in silence, did she? Especially since they were having such an enjoyable, relaxed talk now. Anyway, that wasn’t the problem. Rose had recently bitten this same spot before, and nothing hurt so much as biting the inside of your cheek twice. Except that there was also a spot on her jaw just beneath her left cheek that hurt, too; a dull, throbbing ache.

“So, Rose, I need to go to work now,” Evelyn said. “Is that okay?”

“Of course,” said Rose. Why wouldn’t it be? “What will you be doing today?”

“I have a client interested in a condo in Spruce Hills.”

“Do you like showing places to people?”