City Love(8)

A second wind strikes me when I get back to the apartment. I grab my packed wheely hamper, detergent, and the card that operates the washers and dryers in the laundry room. Then I begin the long haul down four steep flights of stairs to the basement. I knew I was lucky growing up in a second-floor walk-up on the corner of Grove and Bedford—a sweet configuration with a sweeter location. Some of my friends from high school lived in crazy walk-ups with superhigh ceilings, rickety staircases, and halls that would be broiling in the summer. From the way I’m already sweating, I can tell our halls will be merciless by August.

Arriving at the laundry room is a huge relief. It will take an unprecedented feat of strength for me to haul my laundry back upstairs. But it could be worse. At least we have laundry in the building. This is way better than maneuvering a heavy laundry bag outside when it’s raining or freezing or a hundred degrees. I find two washing machines next to each other: one for lights and one for darks. A cute boy in a UNY tee comes in carrying an Ikea bag filled with rumpled clothes while I’m loading a washer.

He smiles at me. I smile back.

Right around the corner . . .

“Hey,” he says. “You here for summer session?”

“I have an internship. What about you?”

“Full course load.” He extends his hand for me to shake. “Glutton for Punishment. Nice to meet you.”

“Laundry Procrastinator. A pleasure.” We shake.

“Are you new?”

“I moved in yesterday.”

“Welcome. This is my third summer in the building.”

“Did you get to have the same apartment?”


“Let’s just say I’m lucky to not have the same apartment. Wildlife should be restricted to the great outdoors. Not under my bed like last summer.”

“Ew. What was—no, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

“Don’t worry. They fumigated last summer. The exterminator comes once a month now. You should be good.”

I shudder as I bend down to take more clothes out of my hamper. I pull out a fistful of panties. Glutton for Punishment looks at them. I fling them in the washing machine so hard a wayward one with flowers and peace signs flies onto the floor. Right in front of the washing machine he’s using.

My panties have landed at his feet. And I don’t even know his real name.

He picks up my panties. He holds them out to me. “You should probably take me to dinner first,” he jokes.

My face gets hot. I try to laugh. The laugh sounds more like I’m choking. This is one for the Of Course file. Of course I threw my panties at a cute boy I just met. Why wasn’t I more aware that I was grabbing up panties? Why didn’t I wrap a shirt around them before I took them out of the hamper? And why is this so freaking embarrassing?

I snatch the panties and throw them in the machine. Maybe if I pretend this never happened, he’ll forget that my panties came flying at him by the next time we run into each other.

“My girlfriend has ones like those,” he says. “With little peace signs? They’re cute.”

The Of Course file is seeing some serious action today. Of course he has a girlfriend. Boys that cute are rarely single. Or if they are, they’re usually single for a reason. Of course he felt the need to bring her up. There’s no way anything could ever happen between us after the Mortifying Panties Incident.

“So what floor are you on?” he asks.

“We’re in 4A. I’m dreading the walk back up with all this laundry.”

“Let me know if you need any help. I’m in 3A.”

“Thanks.”

We stuff the rest of our clothes in the machines in agonizing silence. After he’s gone, I realize I never got his name. Not that it matters. New York City social interactions work in mysterious ways. You could live in the same building with someone for years and never see them. Or you could run into the same person twice in one week. There’s a good chance I won’t ever see him again, even though he lives below me.

By the time Darcy swings by my room when Rosanna’s ready to go out, my laundry is all neatly folded and put away. The Mortifying Panties Incident has faded from critical intensity to moderate embarrassment. The boy in 3A is cute, but there’s no way he compares to Austin. I haven’t stopped thinking about Austin since the second I first saw him. I’m still trying to get a grip on my initial reaction to him. What was that? It wasn’t just the heart-skipping-a-beat thing. My whole body reacted the second I saw him. I felt flushed. There wasn’t enough air in the room. Every time he looked at me my heart pounded so hard I could hear blood rushing in my head. Who has a reaction like that to someone they don’t even know? And what does it mean?

Right around the corner . . .





FIVE

DARCY


“BLEECKER STREET HAS CHANGED SO much,” Sadie says. “That overpriced chain tea store we just passed? Used to be an herb shop. My parents remember it from back in the day when they moved here after college. It was a West Village institution. But rents keep getting more and more outrageous. The mom-and-pop stores can’t afford to compete against all these obnoxious chains.” Sadie stops in front of an ice cream parlor called Cones to look around. “At least Cones is still here. I don’t recognize half of these other stores. And I’ve lived here my whole life. Really with that tea store? There’s an amazing teahouse around the corner on Morton Street that’s empty most of the time. But this store always has customers. How is that fair?”