Page 105 of Still Me
“Aw, mate.” Nathan plainly felt awkward hugging me while we were actually in bed together. He kept patting my shoulder and leaning in toward me. “It’ll be all right.”
“How can it be? I’ve lost my job and my place to live and the man I loved. I’ll have no references, because Mr. Gopnik thinks I’m a thief, and I don’t even know which country I belong in.” I wiped my nose on my sleeve. “I’ve messed up everything again and I don’t know why I even bother trying to be something more than I was because every time I do it ends in disaster.”
“You’re just tired. It’ll be all right. It will.”
“Like it was with Will?”
“Aw... that was completely different. Come on...” Nathan hugged me then, pulling me into his shoulder, his big arm around me. I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore and then, just as he said, exhausted by the day’s—and night’s—events, I must have fallen asleep.
—
I woke eight hours later to find myself alone in Nathan’s room. It took me a couple of minutes to work out where I was and then the previous day’s events hit me. I lay under the duvet for a while, curled up in a fetal ball, wondering idly if I could just stay there for a year or two until my life had somehow sorted itself out.
—
I checked my phone: two missed calls and a series of messages from Josh that seemed to have come through in a clump late the previous evening.
—Hey, Louisa—hope you’re feeling okay. Kept thinking about your dance and bursting out laughing at work! What a night! Jx
—You okay? Just checking you did make it home and didn’t take another nap in Times Square ;-) Jx
—Okay. So it’s now gone ten thirty. I’m going to guess you headed to bed to sleep it off. Hope I didn’t offend you. I was just kidding around. Give me a call x
That night, with its boxing match and the glittering lights of Times Square, already seemed a lifetime ago. I climbed out of bed, showered and dressed, setting my belongings in the corner of the bathroom. It limited the space somewhat but I thought it was safer, just in case a stray Gopnik happened to poke a head around Nathan’s door.
I texted him to ask when it would be safe for me to go out and he sent backNOW. Both in study.I slipped out of the apartment and down the service entrance, walking swiftly past Ashok with my head low. He was talking to a delivery man but I saw his head spin and heard his “Hey! Louisa!” but I had already gone.
Manhattan was frozen and gray, one of those bleak days when ice particles seem to hang in the air, the chill pierces your bones, and only eyes, occasionally noses, are visible. I walked with my head down and my hat rammed low over my head, not sure where I was going. I ended up back at the diner, reasoning that everything looked better after breakfast. I sat in a booth by myself and looked out at the commuters with somewhere to go and forced down a muffin, because it was the cheapest, most filling thing on the menu, trying to ignore the fact that it was claggy and tasteless in my mouth.
At nine forty a text arrived. Michael. My heart leaped.
Hi, Louisa. Mr. Gopnik will pay you to the end of the month in lieu of notice. All your healthcare benefits cease at that point. Your green card is unaffected. I’m sure you understand this is obviously beyond what he was required to do, given the violation of your contract, but Agnes intervened on your behalf.
Best, Michael
“Nice of her,” I muttered.Thank you for letting me know, I typed. He didn’t respond further.
And then my phone pinged again.
—Okay, Louisa. Now I’m worried I did do something to upset you. Or maybe you got lost headed back to Central Park? Please give me a call. JX
—
I met Josh near his office, one of those buildings in Midtown that are so tall that if you stand on the sidewalk and look up a little part of your brain suggests you should probably topple over. He came striding toward me, a soft gray scarf wrapped around his neck. As I climbed off the small wall I had been sitting on he walked straight up and gave me a hug.
“I can’t believe this. C’mon. Ah, boy, you’re freezing. Let’s go grab something warm for you to eat.”
We sat in a steamy, cacophonous taco bar two blocks away while a constant stream of office workers filed through and servers barked orders. I told him, as I had Nathan, the bare bones of the story. “I can’t really say any more, just that I didn’t steal anything. I wouldn’t. I’ve never stolen anything. Well, apart from once when I was eight. Mum still brings it up occasionally, if she needs an example of how I nearly ended up on a path to a life of crime.” I tried to smile.
He frowned. “So does this mean you’re going to have to leave New York?”
“I don’t really know what I’m going to do. But I can’t imagine the Gopniks are going to give me a reference, and I don’t know how I can support myself here. I mean, I don’t have a job and Manhattan hotels are a little out of my price range...” I had looked online in the diner at local rentals and nearly spat out my coffee. The tiny room I had felt so ambivalent about when I had first arrived with the Gopniks turned out to be affordable only with an executive salary. No wonder that cockroach hadn’t wanted to move.
“Would it help you to stay at mine?”
I looked up from my taco.
“Just temporarily. It doesn’t have to mean a whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing. I have a sofa bed in the front room. You probably don’t remember.” He gave me a small smile. I had forgotten how Americans actually genuinely invited people into their homes. Unlike English people, who would issue an invitation but emigrate at short notice if you said you were going to take them up on it.
