‘Oh, ask the wretched girl. She started it.’ Mrs De Witt scooped Dean Martin up in her thin arms again, then wagged a finger at Mr Gopnik. ‘And don’t you dare lecture me on noise in this building, young man! Your apartment is a veritable Vegas casino with the amount of to-ings and fro-ings. I’m amazed nobody has complained to Mr Ovitz.’ With her head high, she turned and shut the door.
Mr Gopnik blinked twice, looked at me, then back at the closed door. There was a short silence. And then, unexpectedly, he began to laugh. ‘ “Young man”! Well,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘it’s a long time since anyone called me that.’ He turned to Nathan behind him. ‘You must be doing something right.’
From somewhere inside the apartment a muffled voice lifted in response:
‘Don’t flatter yourself, Gopnik!’
Mr Gopnik sent me in the car with Garry to get a tetanus shot from his personal physician. I sat in a waiting room that resembled the lounge of a luxury hotel, and was seen by a middle-aged Iranian doctor, who was possibly the most solicitous person I had ever met. When I glanced at the bill, to be paid by Mr Gopnik’s secretary, I forgot the bite and thought I might pass out instead.
Agnes had already heard the story by the time I got back. I was apparently the talk of the building. ‘You must sue!’ she said cheerfully. ‘She is awful, troublemaking old woman. And that dog is plainly dangerous. I am not sure is safe for us to live in same building. Do you need time off? If you need time off maybe I can sue her for lost services.’
I said nothing, nursing my dark feelings towards Mrs De Witt and Dean Martin. ‘No good deed goes unpunished, eh?’ Nathan said, when I bumped into him in the kitchen. He held up my hand, checking out the bandage. ‘Jeez. That little dog is ropeable.’
But even as I felt quietly furious with her, I kept remembering what Mrs De Witt had said when she had first come to my door. He’s all I have.
Although Tabitha moved back into her apartment that week, the mood in the building remained fractious, muted, and marked with occasional explosions. Mr Gopnik continued to spend long hours at work while Agnes filled much of our time together on the phone to her mother in Polish. I got the feeling there was some kind of family crisis going on. Ilaria burnt one of Agnes’s favourite shirts – a genuine accident, I believed, as she had been complaining about the temperature controls on the new iron for weeks – and when Agnes screamed at her that she was disloyal, a traitor, a suka in her house, and hurled the damaged shirt at her, Ilaria finally erupted and told Mr Gopnik that she could not work here any more, it was impossible, nobody could have worked harder and for less reward over these years. She could no longer stand it and was handing in her notice. Mr Gopnik, with soft words and an empathetic head-tilt, persuaded her to change her mind (he might also have offered hard cash) and this apparent act of betrayal caused Agnes to slam her door hard enough to topple the second little Chinese vase from the hall table with a musical crash, and for her to spend an entire evening weeping in her dressing room.
When I appeared the next morning Agnes was seated beside her husband at the breakfast table, her head resting on his shoulder as he murmured into her ear, their fingers entwined. She apologized formally to Ilaria as he watched, smiling, and when he left for work she swore furiously, in Polish, for the whole time it took us to jog around Central Park.
That evening she announced she was going to Poland for a long weekend, to see her family, and I felt a faint relief when I gathered she did not want me to come too. Sometimes being in that apartment, enormous as it was, with Agnes’s ever-changing moods and the swinging tensions between her and Mr Gopnik, Ilaria and his family felt impossibly claustrophobic. The thought of being alone for a few days felt like a little oasis.
‘What would you like me to do while you’re gone?’ I said.
‘Have some days off!’ she said, smiling. ‘You are my friend, Louisa! I think you must have a nice time while I am away. Oh, I am so excited to see my family. So excited.’ She clapped her hands. ‘Just to Poland! No stupid charity things to go to! I am so happy.’
I remembered how reluctant she had been to leave her husband even for a night when I had arrived. And pushed the thought away.
When I walked back into the kitchen, still pondering this change, Ilaria was crossing herself.
‘Are you okay, Ilaria?’
‘I’m praying,’ she said, not looking up from her pan.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Is fine. I’m praying that that puta doesn’t come back again.’
I emailed Sam, the germ of an idea flooding me with excitement. I would have rung him, but he had been silent since our phone call and I was afraid he was still annoyed with me. I told him I had been given an unexpected three-day weekend, had looked up flights and thought I might splurge on an unexpected trip home. So how about it? What else were wages for? I signed it with a smiley face, an aeroplane emoji, some hearts and kisses.
The answer came back within an hour.
Sorry. I’m working flat out and Saturday night I promised to take Jake to the O2 to see some band. It’s a nice idea but this isn’t a great weekend. S x
I stared at the email and tried not to feel chilled. It’s a nice idea. It was as if I’d suggested a casual stroll around the park.
‘Is he cooling on me?’
Nathan read it twice. ‘No. He’s telling you he’s busy and this isn’t a great time for you to come home unexpectedly.’
‘He’s cooling on me. There’s nothing in that email. No love, no … desire.’
‘Or he might have been on his way to work when he wrote it. Or on the john. Or talking to his boss. He’s just being a bloke.’
I didn’t buy it. I knew Sam. I stared at those two lines again and again, trying to dissect their tone, their hidden intent. I went on Facebook, hating myself for doing so, and checked to see whether Katie Ingram had announced that she was doing something special that weekend. (Annoyingly, she hadn’t posted anything at all. Which was exactly what you would do if you were planning to seduce someone else’s hot paramedic boyfriend.) And then I took a breath and wrote him a response. Well, several responses, but this was the only one I didn’t delete.
No problem. It was a long shot! Hope you have a lovely time with Jake. Lx
And then I pressed ‘send’, marvelling at how far the words of an email could deviate from what you actually felt.
Agnes left on the Thursday evening, laden with gifts. I waved her off with big smiles and collapsed in front of the television.
On Friday morning I went to an exhibition of Chinese opera costumes at the Met Costume Institute and spent an hour admiring the intricately embroidered, brightly coloured robes, the mirrored sheen of the silks. From there, inspired, I travelled to West 37th to visit some fabric and haberdashery stores I had looked up the previous week. The October day was cool and crisp, heralding the onset of winter. I took the subway, and enjoyed its grubby, fuggy warmth. I spent an hour scanning the shelves, losing myself among the bolts of patterned fabric. I had decided to put together my own mood board for Agnes for when she returned, covering the little chaise longue and the cushions with bright, cheerful colours – jade greens and pinks, gorgeous prints with parrots and pineapples, far from the muted damasks and drapes that the expensive interior decorators kept offering her. Those were all First Mrs Gopnik colours. Agnes needed to put her own stamp on the apartment – something bold and lively and beautiful. I explained what I was doing, and the woman at the desk told me about another shop, in the East Village – a second-hand clothes outfit where they kept bolts of vintage fabric at the back.
It was an unpromising storefront – a grubby 1970s exterior that promised a ‘Vintage Clothes Emporium, all decades, all styles, low prices’. But I walked in and stopped in my tracks. The shop was a warehouse, set with carousels of clothes in distinct sections under homemade signs that said ‘1940s’, ‘1960s’, ‘Clothes That Dreams Are Made Of’, and ‘Bargain Corner: No Shame In A Ripped Seam’. The air smelt musky, of decades-old perfume, moth-eaten fur and long-forgotten evenings out. I gulped in the scent like oxygen, feeling as if I had somehow recovered a part of myself I had barely known I was missing. I trailed around the store, trying on armfuls of clothes by designers I had never heard of, their names a whispered echo of some long-forgotten age – Tailored by Michel, Fonseca of New Jersey, Miss Aramis – running my fingers over invisible stitching, placing Chinese silks and chiffon against my cheek. I could have bought a dozen things, but I finally settled on a teal blue fitted cocktail dress with huge fur cuffs and a scoop neck (I told myself fur didn’t count if it dated from sixty years ago), a pair of vintage denim railroad dungarees and a checked shirt that made me want to chop down a tree or maybe ride a horse with a swishy tail. I could have stayed there all day.
Mr Gopnik blinked twice, looked at me, then back at the closed door. There was a short silence. And then, unexpectedly, he began to laugh. ‘ “Young man”! Well,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘it’s a long time since anyone called me that.’ He turned to Nathan behind him. ‘You must be doing something right.’
From somewhere inside the apartment a muffled voice lifted in response:
‘Don’t flatter yourself, Gopnik!’
Mr Gopnik sent me in the car with Garry to get a tetanus shot from his personal physician. I sat in a waiting room that resembled the lounge of a luxury hotel, and was seen by a middle-aged Iranian doctor, who was possibly the most solicitous person I had ever met. When I glanced at the bill, to be paid by Mr Gopnik’s secretary, I forgot the bite and thought I might pass out instead.
Agnes had already heard the story by the time I got back. I was apparently the talk of the building. ‘You must sue!’ she said cheerfully. ‘She is awful, troublemaking old woman. And that dog is plainly dangerous. I am not sure is safe for us to live in same building. Do you need time off? If you need time off maybe I can sue her for lost services.’
I said nothing, nursing my dark feelings towards Mrs De Witt and Dean Martin. ‘No good deed goes unpunished, eh?’ Nathan said, when I bumped into him in the kitchen. He held up my hand, checking out the bandage. ‘Jeez. That little dog is ropeable.’
But even as I felt quietly furious with her, I kept remembering what Mrs De Witt had said when she had first come to my door. He’s all I have.
Although Tabitha moved back into her apartment that week, the mood in the building remained fractious, muted, and marked with occasional explosions. Mr Gopnik continued to spend long hours at work while Agnes filled much of our time together on the phone to her mother in Polish. I got the feeling there was some kind of family crisis going on. Ilaria burnt one of Agnes’s favourite shirts – a genuine accident, I believed, as she had been complaining about the temperature controls on the new iron for weeks – and when Agnes screamed at her that she was disloyal, a traitor, a suka in her house, and hurled the damaged shirt at her, Ilaria finally erupted and told Mr Gopnik that she could not work here any more, it was impossible, nobody could have worked harder and for less reward over these years. She could no longer stand it and was handing in her notice. Mr Gopnik, with soft words and an empathetic head-tilt, persuaded her to change her mind (he might also have offered hard cash) and this apparent act of betrayal caused Agnes to slam her door hard enough to topple the second little Chinese vase from the hall table with a musical crash, and for her to spend an entire evening weeping in her dressing room.
When I appeared the next morning Agnes was seated beside her husband at the breakfast table, her head resting on his shoulder as he murmured into her ear, their fingers entwined. She apologized formally to Ilaria as he watched, smiling, and when he left for work she swore furiously, in Polish, for the whole time it took us to jog around Central Park.
That evening she announced she was going to Poland for a long weekend, to see her family, and I felt a faint relief when I gathered she did not want me to come too. Sometimes being in that apartment, enormous as it was, with Agnes’s ever-changing moods and the swinging tensions between her and Mr Gopnik, Ilaria and his family felt impossibly claustrophobic. The thought of being alone for a few days felt like a little oasis.
‘What would you like me to do while you’re gone?’ I said.
‘Have some days off!’ she said, smiling. ‘You are my friend, Louisa! I think you must have a nice time while I am away. Oh, I am so excited to see my family. So excited.’ She clapped her hands. ‘Just to Poland! No stupid charity things to go to! I am so happy.’
I remembered how reluctant she had been to leave her husband even for a night when I had arrived. And pushed the thought away.
When I walked back into the kitchen, still pondering this change, Ilaria was crossing herself.
‘Are you okay, Ilaria?’
‘I’m praying,’ she said, not looking up from her pan.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Is fine. I’m praying that that puta doesn’t come back again.’
I emailed Sam, the germ of an idea flooding me with excitement. I would have rung him, but he had been silent since our phone call and I was afraid he was still annoyed with me. I told him I had been given an unexpected three-day weekend, had looked up flights and thought I might splurge on an unexpected trip home. So how about it? What else were wages for? I signed it with a smiley face, an aeroplane emoji, some hearts and kisses.
The answer came back within an hour.
Sorry. I’m working flat out and Saturday night I promised to take Jake to the O2 to see some band. It’s a nice idea but this isn’t a great weekend. S x
I stared at the email and tried not to feel chilled. It’s a nice idea. It was as if I’d suggested a casual stroll around the park.
‘Is he cooling on me?’
Nathan read it twice. ‘No. He’s telling you he’s busy and this isn’t a great time for you to come home unexpectedly.’
‘He’s cooling on me. There’s nothing in that email. No love, no … desire.’
‘Or he might have been on his way to work when he wrote it. Or on the john. Or talking to his boss. He’s just being a bloke.’
I didn’t buy it. I knew Sam. I stared at those two lines again and again, trying to dissect their tone, their hidden intent. I went on Facebook, hating myself for doing so, and checked to see whether Katie Ingram had announced that she was doing something special that weekend. (Annoyingly, she hadn’t posted anything at all. Which was exactly what you would do if you were planning to seduce someone else’s hot paramedic boyfriend.) And then I took a breath and wrote him a response. Well, several responses, but this was the only one I didn’t delete.
No problem. It was a long shot! Hope you have a lovely time with Jake. Lx
And then I pressed ‘send’, marvelling at how far the words of an email could deviate from what you actually felt.
Agnes left on the Thursday evening, laden with gifts. I waved her off with big smiles and collapsed in front of the television.
On Friday morning I went to an exhibition of Chinese opera costumes at the Met Costume Institute and spent an hour admiring the intricately embroidered, brightly coloured robes, the mirrored sheen of the silks. From there, inspired, I travelled to West 37th to visit some fabric and haberdashery stores I had looked up the previous week. The October day was cool and crisp, heralding the onset of winter. I took the subway, and enjoyed its grubby, fuggy warmth. I spent an hour scanning the shelves, losing myself among the bolts of patterned fabric. I had decided to put together my own mood board for Agnes for when she returned, covering the little chaise longue and the cushions with bright, cheerful colours – jade greens and pinks, gorgeous prints with parrots and pineapples, far from the muted damasks and drapes that the expensive interior decorators kept offering her. Those were all First Mrs Gopnik colours. Agnes needed to put her own stamp on the apartment – something bold and lively and beautiful. I explained what I was doing, and the woman at the desk told me about another shop, in the East Village – a second-hand clothes outfit where they kept bolts of vintage fabric at the back.
It was an unpromising storefront – a grubby 1970s exterior that promised a ‘Vintage Clothes Emporium, all decades, all styles, low prices’. But I walked in and stopped in my tracks. The shop was a warehouse, set with carousels of clothes in distinct sections under homemade signs that said ‘1940s’, ‘1960s’, ‘Clothes That Dreams Are Made Of’, and ‘Bargain Corner: No Shame In A Ripped Seam’. The air smelt musky, of decades-old perfume, moth-eaten fur and long-forgotten evenings out. I gulped in the scent like oxygen, feeling as if I had somehow recovered a part of myself I had barely known I was missing. I trailed around the store, trying on armfuls of clothes by designers I had never heard of, their names a whispered echo of some long-forgotten age – Tailored by Michel, Fonseca of New Jersey, Miss Aramis – running my fingers over invisible stitching, placing Chinese silks and chiffon against my cheek. I could have bought a dozen things, but I finally settled on a teal blue fitted cocktail dress with huge fur cuffs and a scoop neck (I told myself fur didn’t count if it dated from sixty years ago), a pair of vintage denim railroad dungarees and a checked shirt that made me want to chop down a tree or maybe ride a horse with a swishy tail. I could have stayed there all day.
