Page 17

Jude

The morning after the party, Jude slept in.

When she finally did get up, it was nearly nine. She dressed without showering and went outside.

The West Village was beautiful in the mornings.

Even though the streets were filled with greasy paper pizza plates and crushed beer cans from the night before, the sunlight glinting off shop windows and beautiful brownstones made Jude feel like the main character in a movie.

The sidewalks were deserted—nine a.m. on Sunday might as well be dawn in the West Village.

Jude walked uptown to the better bagel place, Murray’s, and ate her bacon-egg-and-cheese in Washington Square Park.

It was warm enough not to wear a jacket but cool enough to make Jude’s skin tingle.

She felt alive. Had the fountain ever leapt so joyfully?

Had the big white arch at the park’s entrance ever been this beautiful in the morning light?

She was still smiling to herself as she went back into her building, scooping up a few packages waiting in the lobby and dropping them at various apartments as she made her way up to the fifth floor.

Jude had lived in this building since she was thirteen, and while most of the renters moved out after a year or two, several of the tenants had been there for decades.

Vera, the old woman across the hall, liked to invite Jude over for tea, and Joe, a tall man with a bushy mustache who was usually smoking outside the front door, had helped Jude install a new faucet last year.

In return, Jude carried up everyone’s packages and lent Vera books and fed Joe’s cats when he went away on vacation.

It was special to live in a community where people cared about one another, especially in New York where so many people didn’t know their neighbors.

Jude climbed the last flight of stairs to the fifth floor, where a gray-haired man was climbing down from a ladder, lightbulb in hand.

“George!” Jude called out. “Didn’t your wife tell you not to climb ladders alone anymore?”

“Pah!” George dropped the lightbulb in a cardboard box. He had a slight stoop to his stance that put his eyes just below Jude’s. “Someone’s got to climb them.”

“I’ve told you a million times,” Jude said, “when you need to change the lightbulbs, just call me and I’ll do it for you.”

George waved his hand and mumbled something dismissive. He was far too proud to call Jude to help change the lightbulbs, but whenever Jude caught him at it, he could be convinced to let her take over—as long as she consented to having him shout up “helpful” advice from the base of the ladder.

“All done today,” George said. “Only had a few to do.”

“Let me carry the ladder down for you.” George made a brief show of protest before consenting to follow her down the five flights of stairs to the basement, urging her at every corner not to scrape the walls.

“How’s your son?” Jude asked. “Still liking college?”

“Pah!” George said. “He changed his major again. Now he wants to study biology.”

“Well, that sounds useful, at least.”

George made another dismissive noise. “It won’t stick. First math, then English, then drama. Mind like a goldfish, that boy. Besides, what good is a biology degree for running a building?”

“Let Ivan decide what he wants to do for himself.” Jude tucked the ladder into the storage room and dusted off her hands. “Anything else I can help you with while I’m here?”

“No, no.” George ducked his head and shuffled his feet around a little. “Look, hon, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“What’s up?”

“Look, I like you, and you’re a sweet girl.”

Jude resisted the urge to raise her eyebrows. With her short haircut and men’s clothing, it was hard to see herself as a “sweet girl.” But George was a good guy, so she didn’t let it bother her.

“But costs of everything are up right now, and we need to fix the boiler before next winter. It barely made it through this one.” George did the weird foot shuffle again, and Jude’s stomach twisted in on itself.

“I’ve been trying to give you a pass. I know how hard it was on you when your mom was sick, and now, with you not having any other family…

I didn’t want you to have to leave the place.

But it’s been six years since I raised the rent. ”

Jude tried to control her face, but she could feel her horror showing through. George avoided her eyes.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, I really am. But I’ve got four rent-controlled units in this building. And with the NYU students these days? I could be getting double what I charge you for that apartment.”

“ Double? ”

“I won’t do that to you.” George patted her arm and Jude resisted the urge to yank it away. “You’re a good kid. But I gotta raise it at least a little.”

“How much is a little?” Jude dug her nails into her palms as she waited.

“A thousand,” George said.

“A thousand dollars a year?”

“A month,” he said grimly.

Jude stared at him. She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. A thousand extra dollars a month? How could she ever pay that?

“When?” she finally croaked.

“You’ve got four months until the lease is up,” George said. “Plenty of time to figure this out, right? You’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” Jude said automatically. “Thank you.”

She stepped around him and headed back up the stairs. She lifted her hands as she climbed to inspect the five deep white crescents pressed into each palm. Her head felt like it was floating above her numb body.

When she opened the door to her apartment, it looked different than it had earlier. The morning light splashing through the window no longer felt cozy and warm. Instead, it felt like a spotlight, shining invasively down on Jude’s life.

She sat on the couch and stared around her.

The living room was cramped: a squishy pale blue couch with one arm faded almost to white from the sun, next to a small rainforest of potted plants.

A clunky TV that was many years out of date.

A tall wooden bookshelf that Jude’s mom had painted with sunflowers, stuffed with books.

A small table with two chairs shoved against the wall.

The turntable Jude’s mom had loved so much, next to two wooden crates full of records.

Framed Beatles posters on the walls, adding pops of color to the already bright room.

Jude stood up and picked out a record from the second crate. The first crate held mostly Beatles records, and Jude didn’t play those. Without her mom singing along, they made the apartment feel too empty.

She put on Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Water. Their soft voices filled the apartment as Jude walked through her room and opened the closed door to the railroad-style second bedroom.

It didn’t smell like her mom anymore. That was the first thing Jude noticed.

She didn’t think it had been that long since she’d last been inside, but sometime between then and now, the rosewater scent of her mom’s favorite perfume had faded.

Jude had braced herself for the scent, for the way it conjured the softness of her mom’s cotton sundresses against Jude’s cheek when they hugged.

The absence of the smell she’d been expecting felt so much worse, somehow.

She was really gone.

Jude sat down on the bed. Dust had settled on the dresser, coating the jewelry box and the bottles of perfume.

It covered the desk crammed into the corner and frosted the stack of books on the bedside table.

Jude wanted to sit there, not moving or thinking or feeling, until the dust coated her, too.

She’d been living alone in a two-bedroom apartment for three years because she couldn’t bring herself to dismantle her mom’s room.

It would be financially smarter and probably emotionally healthier to move out.

Jude’s mom would never have expected her to keep all her stuff in place like some kind of shrine.

But if Jude did move out, then she would never be able to come home again.

Kids were supposed to grow up and move out and go places. But they were supposed to have a home to come back to. If not a place, then a person. A family.

But Jude was alone. Her grandparents were dead. She’d never known her father. This apartment was all she had.

She couldn’t move out of here in four months. She wasn’t ready. She needed more time.

Which meant she needed a lot more money.

Jude got up, shutting the bedroom door behind her, then went into the living room and threw herself onto the couch with a groan.

She could get a roommate. But in a railroad apartment like this, she’d have to find someone she didn’t mind traipsing through her bedroom every time they wanted to go in and out of theirs.

And the thought of watching someone else move into the room that had been her mom’s… that felt worse than leaving.

That job at Gala Literary would probably come with a huge pay bump. Maybe if she took it, she could afford to stay in this apartment.

But if she took that job, she’d be giving up her chance to buy the bookstore back. Either way, she’d lose something. Why was it that no matter how hard Jude tried to hold on to things, she was always being forced to let go?

This day had started out so well. She’d actually felt happy for a moment, before life had yanked her right back down like it always did. Being with Kat had made her feel hopeful. Like maybe she was the kind of person who could add good things to her life, instead of just losing them all the time.

She’d liked the way that had felt.

She would figure out what to do about her apartment later. For now, she took out her phone and texted the number Kat had given her last night:

So when do I get to see you again?