“I think so. I mean, I got the keys.” I drag my eyes away from her and reach inside my coat pocket.
“From the attorney’s office? Oh, good. I mean, I would have given them to you myself, but I guess we’re doing things all official now. Although”—she glances up toward the house, gestures at it like it might be overhearing us—“I don’t really know what exactly is going on. I mean, at the moment.”
“No,” I agree. No one seems to.
“So maybe I should leave you alone, and you can go in and figure things out? Or do you want company?”
“Well. I guess I’ll . . . just unlock the door . . . maybe . . . and go in?”
“Okay!” she says brightly. “And then, if you need anything later—well, you can always call me. I might be able to cast a little light if . . .”
“Sure.”
She follows me up the steps.
“Blix never did like to use the newer lock,” she says. “She didn’t like locks at all, actually. I was always coming over and finding the place wide open. One time the UPS guy came by—I think it was UPS—and he opened the door and called out her name, and she sings out, ‘It’s okay! Come in! I’m in the bathtub!’ That was our Blix.”
The door does not open when I turn the key. I look through the ring of keys I have, and start trying different ones. Some don’t go in at all, others go in but stay stuck in place. There’s a noise from inside, footsteps walking toward the door.
“Oh dear,” says Lola in a low voice. “So he is here. Now we’ve probably disturbed him.”
“Him?”
“You don’t know, do you?” She leans closer to me and cups her hand. “Noah is here.”
“Noah?”
Just then the door flies open, and damned if Noah isn’t standing right in front of me, looking from me to Lola with shock on his face, although it would be hard to guess who’s more shocked, me or him. I feel my knees wobbling just the slightest bit.
“Marnie? What the hell are you doing here, girl?” He’s smiling, his eyes crinkled up into little slits.
I cannot seem to find words, so I simply stare at him like he’s a mirage. He’s wearing jeans and a black sweatshirt and holding a bottle of beer and a guitar, of course.
This is going to ruin everything, everything. All of my recovery, all of it.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I manage to say. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Africa?”
Just then Lola, who turns out not to be the bravest human on the planet, touches my arm and says softly that she might have something boiling over on the stove and she’ll be available later, in case I need her. I hear her saying, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear” as she heads to her own house.
And then I look back at Noah, who is smiling at me like the proverbial cat who is about to swallow the canary.
“It’s so good to see you!” he says. “I’m afraid, though, that if you’ve come to see my Aunt Blix, you’re too late. But maybe you know that already.”
“I do,” I say softly, putting down my suitcase. “I was so sorry to hear.”
He is rambling on and on. Blah blah blah. He wants to know why I’m there and not in Burlingame, and I tell him that I’ve actually been living back in Jacksonville for a while now. (Which he could have known if he’d so much as even looked at my Facebook feed. I mean, who doesn’t do that with an ex? I would know everything about him if he ever bothered to post anything. The last time he posted it was to say that the African sun is hot. And that was right after he left.)
So he goes on and on, and I’m frankly having an out-of-body experience. How is it that just the day before, I was safe and in love and getting engaged again, and now I am standing on some steps in Brooklyn, looking into the face of Noah? Noah, whom I now realize I have missed—and still miss—with a desperation beyond all reason. Which is a horrifying thing to realize.
Meanwhile, he’s kept talking and now, from the way he’s staring at me, it’s apparent that he’s asked me a question that he’s waiting for the answer to. I review the last few seconds of the tape in my head and realize he wants to know why I am living in Jacksonville.
“Complicated reasons involving certain financial obligations of an overpriced apartment, I believe,” I say.
“But you had three months! I paid my portion of the rent for three months.”
“Yes, but as you may be aware, those months ran out.” I am smiling.
“Yes, and then you were supposed to find a roommate.”
“Well, I didn’t. Do you really want to stand here in the doorway and discuss the problematic roommate situation in Northern California, or may I come in?”
“Of course, of course!” he says, stepping aside and flattening himself against the wall so I can get past him. When I brush against him, several of my more alert cells notice that he’s something we all once liked. They have conveniently and traitorously forgotten that we are not Team Noah anymore. We are Team Jeremy.
“You brought a suitcase, so I guess that means what—that you’re planning to stay? I get to enjoy your company for more than just an afternoon?”
“For a few days, I thought.”
“That’s wonderful,” he says. “If I’d known you were coming . . .”
“Well, I couldn’t very well let you know when I didn’t even know you were here!”
“No, no. I’m not saying you should have. It’s just a surprise, is all. A very nice, wonderful, amazing surprise. Here, go through that door,” he says, motioning with his head. “Blix has the first and second floors.”
I feel like I have jet lag, even though technically I’m still in the same time zone. Maybe I’ve somehow gone into a kind of weird time warp. As we go into Blix’s living room, I’m struck by the parquet oak floors, the exposed brick walls, the light from the bay windows, the art everywhere. It’s beautiful, in a rundown, funky, Blixish way. I exclaim over it, and he says, “You want the tour? You’ve never been in a Brooklyn brownstone before, have you?”
“I’d love a tour.”
He keeps stealing little looks at me as he shows me around her apartment—the living room and two bedrooms are on the first floor, and the large eat-in kitchen is upstairs along with a study and a hallway and staircase leading to the roof. Also off that hallway, he tells me, is another two-bedroom apartment. A woman lives there with her son, he says. She’s quite attractive. Amazing curly hair, nice body. (He always has to comment on women’s bodies, because, he says, that’s what life is about: noticing the beauty around you.)
“There’s also a guy in the basement,” he says. “Sort of a recluse. Something wrong with his hands and face. Blix collected characters, you know.” He tilts his head charmingly. “Perhaps, now that I think of it, you were even one of them.”
Was I? “There’s so much light in here,” I say. The kitchen is astonishing, with two huge windows looking out onto all of Brooklyn—buildings, rooftop gardens, condominiums under construction blocks away. Outside I hear sirens, crashing sounds, voices, car horns.
“So, wanna go up on the roof?” he says. “We could grab a beer or something, and then maybe you can finally manage to explain why you’re here to see my old auntie who happens to be dead.”