With Friends Like These: A Novel (2 page)

“Hold on,” Talia said. “We’re probably numbers fifty and fifty-one on the wait list.” The sound of a trumpet drifted toward them. Wynton Marsalis? Miles Davis? Only since she’d moved to Manhattan two months ago had Talia discovered jazz; although she knew she should be saving every nickel, she bought a CD each time she deposited a check.

She and Chloe returned to the living room, where Quincy had arranged a wedge of pale cheddar, sliced apples, water crackers, and a fourth food—small, circular, and brownish—on a wooden tray. There were tall glasses filled with ice and sparkling water. “Want to see the kitchen?” Quincy asked, and led her guests through a portholed door. “You cook?” she asked.

“Learning, and so is Chloe,” Talia answered, addressing Quincy’s back. She would keep to herself that, inspired by a copy of
The Moosewood Cookbook
unearthed at the Strand, she was on the cusp of turning vegetarian and that Chloe rejected every vegetable except corn on the cob. “You?”

Quincy smiled, barely. Talia decided that the gap in her teeth was, on second look, an asset. “My boyfriend did the cooking, but he’s history.”

Please, God
, Talia prayed,
don’t let this be Heartbreak Hotel
, because she liked Quincy Peterson, and she liked the apartment even more. “My condolences,” she offered.

Quincy waved her hand as if to brush away an insignificant memory. “When he let me keep an eight-room, rent-controlled apartment I knew for sure he cheated. Guilt’s the ultimate motivator, don’t you think?”

In years to come, both women would reconsider this question, but for now it was all about the apartment. The kitchen was roomy and plain, with an avocado green refrigerator and glass-fronted cabinets that reached the ceiling. Chloe slid into a nook fitted with pine benches. “I’ve wanted a kitchen like this since I read
The Three Bears
,” she said, her tone now as cheery as a daisy.

Jeez, is this cocker spaniel of a girl for real?
Quincy wondered. She shepherded the pair to the living room and gestured for them to sit on the couch. Quincy was looking for three independent roommates, not a matched set. What if Salt and Pepper did everything in tandem? On the other hand, these women seemed more approachable than any of the unfortunates she’d welcomed at last weekend’s open house—when it was over, she’d tossed every phone number, including the Iowa cellist’s. “Here’s the deal.” She chose her words with reserve, a trait despised by the man who’d moved out, who’d accused Quincy of not having displayed an act of spontaneity since they’d met. “My room is the big one at the end, with its own bathroom. To make things fair, I expect to pay more than the other three renters.”

“Fair enough,” Talia said. The rent was forty dollars less than anything else she and Chloe had seen. In order not to grin, she popped one of the small brown nibbles into her mouth. Talia had never tasted an oyster, smoked or otherwise. She liked it.

“I’ll be honest: when I’m here, I need quiet because”—Quincy weighed how she would be perceived—“I’m trying to write a book.” Definitely haughty, she decided. “Don’t worry. It’s not even
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
. I’m an assistant at
People
,” she added, as if that explained everything. “Most nights I don’t get home until ten. By
ten-thirty, I’m dead.” The apartment hunters stared at her, unreadable. “I’m also universally described as a neat freak.”

Talia was stuck on considering how it would feel to have a job where you were important enough to be required to work well into the evening. She’d have liked to know that feeling, but what she said was, “Define ‘neat freak,’ please.”

“I promise I won’t wax a floor or wash a window more than every few months, but I cannot live with food rotting in the fridge or the drain.” Quincy had narrow fingers with short, square nails, which she tapped on the table as she spoke. “I especially hate rugs that get crunchy.” Talia stared at the bare wood floors. “There used to be rugs. He took them.”

“My parents promised me some old Orientals,” Chloe said. “My dad could drive them down from New Canaan.”

Quincy wondered if she had misjudged the blonde, about whom there was a sweet eagerness. Quincy was twenty-five. Chloe, she thought, must be younger. “I also can’t live with drinkers.”

“We’re definitely not that,” Chloe laughed. She’d worked up to a sociable Chardonnay; for Talia, it was a weekend beer, two at the most.

“And while I don’t mind a joint at a party, I can’t abide cigarettes. Neither of you smokes, do you?”

“Absolutely not,” Talia said, feeling Chloe’s eyes. She knew she could quit. Tom hated her habit as much as Chloe did.

The three waited for someone to speak. “I assume you’d know better than to let boyfriends hang around in boxers.” Quincy stopped and—what the hell—declared her fantasy. “But one thing I do care about is having dinner with my roommates, at least every Sunday. Not that it’s a deal breaker.”

Chloe jumped in, although she would later wonder how she’d found it in her to be so bold. “We’re hoping to find a house share where we could all be friends.” Quincy might be another Talia, a woman who could help unlock the city.

Quincy wondered the same. Could she be friends with these women? She’d never had female confidantes, never wanted to be part of a sorority,
Greek-lettered or otherwise. By the time she decided she liked another woman enough to hope to befriend her, that person had generally dismissed her as too midwestern, too anal-retentive—two
too
’s her boyfriend had liked to list. “Okay, I’m prattling,” she said. “Your turn.”

“I graduated from Trinity last spring, majored in art history,” Chloe began. They heard a buzzer.

Quincy walked to the intercom. “Sure, send her right up.” She returned. “You were saying?”

Chloe did a quick climb through her family tree. Her father was a pediatrician; her mother grew orchids; her only sibling, Jack junior (she chose not to refer to him as Jack Off, the nickname of which he was proud), played lacrosse. Chloe moved on to her love of tennis and museums and skipped her college boyfriend. A woman fresh from a breakup didn’t need to hear about Xander.

The foyer door opened. A woman strolled toward them as if she were taking center stage at the Metropolitan Opera. The first thing Chloe noticed were her fingernails—impossibly long, in a shade of orange that matched Quincy’s Zabar’s bag. The first thing Talia noticed was the woman’s hair, as curly as hers. The first thing Quincy noticed was the lavender roses, which convinced Quincy that her prospective tenant must be in sales. All three women stood to meet her.

“I’m Julia de Marco.” She presented the bouquet.

“Quincy Peterson, and this is”—she considered it promising that she was able to remember the other names—“Chloe and Talia.” They smiled at the woman, all of their eyes widening that on a Sunday afternoon she was wearing an ankle-length black velvet skirt.

“Call me Jules.” Her voice was sultry, musical.

Quincy nodded. “You talk while I find a vase.”

Jules sat heavily in the armchair. She was not a small woman. “Do you two know each other?” she asked.

“Barbizon Hotel escapees,” Talia explained.

“Is it true that Grace Kelly’s ghost waltzes down the hall wearing a white negligee?”

“That was Chloe.”

Talia swept her hand toward Chloe in thanks. Jules laughed and picked up a glossy magazine on the coffee table, opened to a butter churn photographed with the reverence usually given to a Louise Nevelson sculpture, and examined the cover. “Who’s Martha Stewart?” The women facing her only shrugged. She stopped turning pages and looked up. “This neighborhood—junkies, no?”

“Junkies?” Chloe said, as if a rat had leaped from Jules de Marco’s bulging purple suede tote. “We’d better ask about that.” When Quincy returned, she did.

“The simple answer is I wouldn’t linger in the park after dark, but as long as you stick to the promenade during the day, near the dog walkers, it’s safe.” Years later, when the neighborhood had become studded with sidewalk cafés selling pomegranate martinis, this building would be converted into condos—wine refrigerators! six-burner stoves!—and every one of the women except Chloe would wish she still lived there. Quincy, especially, would regret that she failed to keep her name on the lease and receive a vastly discounted insider’s price when the apartment was presented for sale. When this happened, she would know she had become an official Manhattan cliché.

“Mind if I snoop?” Before Jules got an answer, she’d abandoned Martha’s magazine and shot down the hall. “Well, aren’t you coming?” The others fell into step.

“Are you from around here?” Quincy asked Jules.

Isn’t that obvious?
Talia thought. She knew the accent was indigenous; eventually she would take pride in being able to tell Jersey from Brooklyn, though she would never be able to distinguish Brooklyn from the Bronx.

“Staten Island,” Jules answered. They wandered through every room; when they entered the dining room she stopped and put her hand over her heart. “Holy crap. My ma’s whole fucking house could fit into this corner. But when was it painted, 1975?”

“The landlord won’t discuss it—not at this rent.” Again, Quincy quoted the number.

Jules whistled. “Good thing I know a contractor who could do the job in a weekend, no sweat. And you’re also obviously hurting for furniture, but I’ve broken up with my scumbag boyfriend and I’ve got a shitload because I sell antiques on the side.”

On the side of what?
came to the others’ minds. “You’re coming off a breakup?” Quincy asked.

“Big drunk, which I failed to notice on account of his big you-know-what. But I’m over him. How about you?” Before Quincy could answer, Jules continued. “Not a bad kitchen,” she said, circling the room, opening cupboards and letting her fingers caress the stove. “My nonna taught me everything on a Royal Rose like this.”

“You cook?” Quincy asked.

“Does the Pope wear a party hat?”

“I believe it’s called a miter,” Chloe offered, which, out of politeness, the others ignored. From the foyer, the intercom rang—once, twice, three times. Quincy walked toward it, reaching a finger toward the answer button. Jules followed and topped Quincy’s hand with her own. “Hey, Quincy Peterson, what do you say you tell whoever’s coming up that this place is rented?”

Isn’t this my decision?
Quincy thought. But Jules de Marco wasn’t finished. “I have a feeling about us.” She stepped back and drew all three women toward her, half huddle, half hug. It made Talia laugh, Quincy stiffen, and Chloe blush. “Something,” Jules declared, “tells me we’re all going to be great friends.”

For ten years, they were.

  
Quincy

“A fax hit my desk for an apartment that isn’t officially listed yet—you must see it immediately.” Horton’s voice was broadcasting an urgency reserved for hurricane evacuation. But in 2007, anyone who’d ever beaten the real estate bushes would be suspicious of a broker displaying even an atom of passivity. Shoppers of condos and co-ops in Manhattan and the leafier regions of Brooklyn knew they had to learn the art of the pounce: see, gulp, bid. Save the pros and cons for picking a couch.

Several times a week Horton e-mailed me listings, but rarely did he call. This had to be big. “Where is it?” I asked while I finished my lukewarm coffee.

“Central Park West.” Horton identified a stone pile known by its name, the Eldorado, referring to a mythical kingdom where the tribal chief had the habit of dusting himself with gold, a commodity familiar to most of the apartment building’s inhabitants—marquee actors, eminent psychotherapists, and large numbers of frumps who were simply lucky. With twin towers topped by Flash Gordon finials, the edifice lorded it
over a gray-blue reservoir, the park’s largest body of water, and cast a gimlet eye toward Fifth Avenue.

“I couldn’t afford that building,” I said. If Horton was trying to game me into spending more than our budget allowed, he’d fail. While the amount of money Jake and I had scraped together for a new home seemed huge to us—representing the sale of our one-bedroom in Park Slope, an inheritance from my mom, and the proceeds from seeing one of my books linger on the bestseller list—other brokers had none too politely terminated the conversation as soon as I quoted our allotted sum. What I liked about Horton was that he was dogged, he was hungry, and he was the only real estate agent returning my calls.