Her mother offered a quiet gasp. Her father shook his head sadly.
Ashley took a sip of the ice water. She hadn’t really wanted anything, but her mother was one to always offer and expect someone to take something. Still, she found her throat had gone dry and was grateful for something to drink.
“So yeah, it’s pretty awful. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do something like that. Obviously he was having issues. But still … it made me realize I need to see you guys more.”
Her parents smiled at each other.
“We’re happy to see you whenever we can,” her mother said.
There was a brief silence, and Ashley began wondering why she had even made the trek uptown. Yes, she loved and missed her parents, but she could have called or Skyped with them when she got home. Had her meeting with Tom and Eric jarred her so much? Or had it really been her lunch with Melissa, or, rather, the truth about how Melissa’s father had died?
“So, dear,” her mother said, a mischievous grin signaling her next question, “are there any male suitors you’d like to tell us about? Because you know Marybeth’s son just recently became single.”
Ashley groaned inwardly. “Didn’t he just graduate college?”
“Medical school,” her father said. “Rheumatology.”
“I appreciate the thought,” Ashley said, “but I’m not really dating right now.”
“Dear,” her mother said, “you’re almost thirty years old.”
“Seven more months.”
“As I said, you’re almost thirty years old. You’re bright, attractive, you have a great job-you have a lot to offer.”
Ashley forced herself to keep smiling. She set her glass back down on the coaster, leaned back in her seat, and said, “So, what’s new with you guys?”
nine
Gunfire and mortar shells exploding are the first things I hear when I step into the apartment.
Duncan is on the couch, his hands glued to a controller, his full attention on the 75-inch plasma and the ongoing war raging from all those thousands and thousands of pixels. Despite the TV’s volume turned up high, he’s wearing a headset, which means he’s playing Call of Duty or some other multiplayer war game.
I drift into the kitchen, pull a bottle of water from the fridge, twist it open and down it in only a few swallows. I don’t realize until I set the bottle aside that I’m shaking. When did that happen? Obviously this day has been one fuck up after another, so it’s not surprising my nerves would be shot.
“You okay, man?”
I blink and turn to find Duncan strolling into the kitchen, the headset hanging around his neck. He goes straight for the fridge, pulls out a beer, flicks the cap in the sink. Just another thing for me to clean up later, along with the dishes and wiping down the counters and the laundry and the vacuuming and everything else I do around here.
“Bad day at work.”
“No shit?” He takes a swallow of the beer, squints at me over the bottle. “You don’t look too good.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I got time.”
“I lost a package.”
“No shit?”
“And someone jacked the wheels on my bike.”
“No shit?”
“And I fell off the platform and nearly got hit by a train.”
He sets the bottle aside, places both hands on the counter, and leans forward slightly. “Are you fucking with me?”
I shake my head.
“Man, that’s fucked up.”
“Yeah, well, the craziest part? They bring my bike back to the office and it still has its wheels.”
Duncan’s hair is long and curly. He shakes it like a dog, then tilts his ear at me. “Say what?”
“I swear those wheels were gone earlier. People had to have seen it. I know one woman did, the one who was behind me when we were evacuating the building.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Duncan holds up a hand. “Evacuating what building?”
“It doesn’t matter. But there was a fire, so everyone was outside, everyone saw my bike without its wheels.” I pause, thinking about it. “You know, if we could track down that woman, she could confirm I’m not going crazy.”
“But the wheels were back on the bike?”
“Yeah.”
“How is that possible?”
“I’m not sure. But someone is obviously trying to fuck with me.”
“Who’d you piss off this time?”
“I can’t keep track anymore.”
Laughing, Duncan grabs his beer and starts toward the living room. He pauses in the doorway. “Hey, you want to come out with me tonight? There’s a concert in Tribeca that’s supposed to be pretty cool.”
It’s nice of him to ask-he never invites me to anything anymore-but I shake my head. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
“Your loss, man. Can you check to see if my black shirt is clean? I’m going to want to wear that one.”
Duncan has about a dozen black shirts. I don’t even think he knows which one he means, but I tell him no problem and he gives me a thumbs-up and heads back to his virtual war. He’ll probably play for another hour or two before finally taking a shower. Then he’ll leave and won’t come back until sometime in the middle of the night. He’ll probably hook up with some hair-dyed chick, either get a blow job in the bathroom or find somewhere dark and private to fuck her, or maybe, if the girl’s stupid enough, she’ll take him back to her place. Not that Duncan is any kind of threat, but a girl’s definitely not thinking if she takes some stranger back to her place for a fast lay. Anyway, he’ll return to the apartment by three, maybe four in the morning, crash on his bed, and sleep until noon when he’ll get up, grab himself a bowl of Froot Loops, watch some TV, then play video games for roughly five hours.
That’s Duncan’s regular schedule. That’s all he ever does. Which leaves it to me to do the rest: the dishes, the laundry, the grocery shopping, the cleaning, everything. But really, I can’t complain. It’s all just part of the deal, though when I first moved in with Duncan five years ago, it hadn’t been this way.
We met while I was over in Europe doing my backpacking thing. We were staying at the same hostel and really hit it off. He was funny, easygoing with the ladies, and a blast to be around. He learned I was into extreme sports and said he wanted to do something fun, so we ended up skydiving-both of us our first time, me not scared at all, while Duncan was scared out of his mind. Still, he loved it or at least said he did. He mentioned he was from New York, and we exchanged email addresses in case I was ever in the city and then went our separate ways. It was a year later when I was back in the States, broke, that I ended up in New York and sent him an email and we met for a beer. I told him how I was having a hard time making ends meet and he offered to let me stay at his place. I told him I didn’t want to put him out, he said it was no problem, and so I moved in with my one bag of clothes. I offered to help pay rent but he waved it off.
As it turned out, Duncan had struck it big before the dot-com bubble burst. He actually used to run his own company at twenty-three. But he saw the way things were going and cashed in his chips before it was too late, and after making the right investments, he claims he’ll never have to work another day in his life. What he doesn’t like to do, however, is take care of his place. So that became my job, little by little, cleaning a few dishes here, picking up a few things off the floor, scrubbing the toilets and bathtubs, until it finally dawned on me he had hired me as his live-in butler. The only thing I don’t do is make his meals, but that’s because he’s fine with a bowl of cereal in the morning, then he grabs dinner after he leaves at night.
So the money I make from being a courier and the part-time stuff I do at the bookstore? Yeah, that certainly wouldn’t give me the option of living in this part of the city, in this apartment, but I can’t complain.