Change Places with Me(3)

Evelyn nodded, getting up and gathering dishes.

Rose reached out, put her hand on Evelyn’s arm. “I’ll do that.”

Evelyn looked down at Rose’s hand. “You usually just wash. I clear.”

“It’s okay—leave it.” Rose took her hand back. “So what do you like about it?”

Evelyn still gazed at the spot where Rose’s hand had been. “Well . . . I like finding the right space for people.”

“How do you know when the space is right?”

Now Evelyn glanced up, at the low ceiling. Their two-story apartment house had low ceilings, except the living room was sunken so it felt more spacious—and Rose realized that she appreciated Evelyn’s nice way of taking a generic Queens living room and giving it a certain polish. Mounting a quilt on the wall, draping a colorful piece of silk on the cozy big blue armchair, reupholstering the couch herself with thick, flowery Italian fabric, putting down an old rug with a diamond pattern that was so big it was like wall-to-wall carpeting. She used to hate that rug and tried to avoid stepping on the diamonds, but there were too many of them. So dumb!

“All these questions, Rose,” Evelyn said. “I’m not used to it.”

Was she bringing this up again? “Isn’t it better than not talking?”

“Yes, it’s—it is better. So. I get to know the client a bit, and then try to imagine a good fit in terms of space. If clothing is said to be a second skin, a home is a third skin.”

“I’m comfortable in all my skins! Did my dad ever go with you?”

“No—he worked such long hours, remember?”

“Yeah.” Her dad had been a camera operator for a TV production company. “One time I said he came home at two billion a.m. He thought that was funny.”

“Rose, I’m so sorry, but this client is meeting me—”

“That’s okay! I’m good.”

“I didn’t sign it,” Evelyn said.

“Sign what?”

“The petition. To get rid of the buses. Just so you know, I’m not against everything new.”

Rose sat on the stoop—not a real stoop, just a few brick steps that led to the door of her redbrick apartment house in a long row of two-story apartment houses that were all connected—which, it occurred to Rose, made them truly neighbors, people who should care about one another, even if they were all squished together like houses on a Monopoly board before you traded them in for a hotel. She remembered playing that with her dad, how he always made bad trades on purpose to let her win.

Rose looked up; the October sky was the color of concrete. So the sidewalk matched the sky. Maybe it wasn’t the most vivid or gorgeous color, but there was something harmonious about this, like the universe was in balance. She heard Mrs. Moore’s Dobermans scuffling on the stairs behind her, and she got up. As soon as the dogs saw her, Rose knew, they would be on top of her, leashed or not.

“Oh, I didn’t see you!” Mrs. Moore said. “You’re never out here! Down, Cocoa! Down, Fudge!”

“They’re really sweet,” Rose said, though she’d almost gotten knocked down. “Which one is Cocoa? Which one is Fudge?”

“It doesn’t matter. They don’t listen to their names anyway.”

Rose patted the dogs’ strong backs, and they licked her hand. It turned out Cocoa was the one with ears that stood straight up while Fudge’s drooped. She gazed into their eyes—so gentle and trusting! Some people, not Rose, might only see their size and power. Then she wondered about Mrs. Moore, who’d always lived alone. Rose wanted to reach out to her—Because that’s the kind of person I am, she thought, as if describing herself to someone she didn’t know. “Can I walk the dogs for you?”

Mrs. Moore looked at her. “I thought you were afraid of them. Just last week, you seemed so alarmed—”

“I’m not scared now, and I’d like to keep you company.” Rose, at nearly six feet tall, towered over Mrs. Moore, who was tiny and stooped with a swirl of hair like white cotton candy. “I really want to try things I’ve never tried before.” As soon as Rose said it, she knew it was true, and decided that for the next week she was going to do exactly that, every chance she got—starting today, Sunday, October 21, 2029.

“I’d be delighted,” Mrs. Moore said, tilting her head up at Rose while handing over the leashes. “A word of warning—they pull.”

Rose held a leash in each fist and got a good grip on them, but the dogs gave her an immediate demonstration of their strength. Basically they carried her along.

“We’ve never had a proper sit-down chat, have we, my dear?” Mrs. Moore said, still gazing at Rose and walking quickly to keep up. “Not that we’re sitting down! But I’m so pleased. I always tried to talk to you—you never said a word.”

Evelyn had brought this up, too. Why mention something from the past if it was no longer true in the present? Such a waste of time, Rose thought, as if you moved to a new house and someone kept pointing out, “You used to live over there,” like you didn’t know.

At dinner Rose told Evelyn about taking Mrs. Moore’s dogs to Belle Heights Park. “The park looked amazing,” she said. “Some leaves are turning already, burnt orange, the color of fire. I don’t think the leaves have ever been this beautiful. We sat in the dog run. I got so dusty—good thing I had on overalls, though you know what? I’m getting sick of wearing them all the time. When I was walking Cocoa and Fudge, they were all over the place. I thought dogs were supposed to heel.”