Page 10 of Wish I Were Here
Sal settles in next to me, and although I’m tempted to close my eyes and take a nap, the older man did just ply me with candy, and I feel like I should at least attempt to make some polite conversation.
“Are you a resident of the DeGreco building, too?” I ask him.
He nods. “The missus and I moved into the DeGreco when our kids were grown. So I’ve probably lived there for about thirty years.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful.” The idea of that kind of permanence fills me with an unexpected longing. When I was ten, I started writing a list in the front cover of my journal of all the different apartments where Dad and I lived. I’ve kept it updated ever since, and so far, I’ve moved fifteen times in twenty years. Dad’s chaos came—ironically—like clockwork. He’d lose his job because he was juggling boxesinstead of unloading them or because his boss wouldn’t give him the time off to go to the Ren Faire. We’d get behind on bills, and then the letter would arrive saying we had thirty days to move out. Dad never minded it. In fact, he thrived on the uncertainty, like it was all some big adventure. And he never seemed to understand how hard it was on me—constantly packing our things in boxes, leaving our home behind, finding a new apartment we could afford on the salary of whatever job I managed to talk him into taking.
And then there were the times wecouldn’tfind an apartment we could afford, and we ended up crashing at Dad’s friend Ginger’s place. Ginger always took us in when Dad and I showed up on her doorstep, and she even fixed up a little closet under the stairs with a reading chair and some fairy lights just for me. Sometimes I thought about begging Ginger to adopt me so I could stop moving and juststand stillfor a little while. But Dad needed me, and I worried about what would happen to him if he were on his own.
But this time around, Dadsworehe’d work hard at his job, follow the rules, and above all,not get fired. I really hoped this was finally my chance to settle down. That the DeGreco would give me the stability I’d longed for my whole life. A real home, one where I could be happy living for a long time, just like Sal. But in light of Dad’s latest resistance to gainful employment, I wonder if I’ll even make it another month before I end up back in with him because I can’t afford the rent on two places.
My heart aches just thinking about having to pack up and move on again. Leaving the DeGreco behind would be apainful blow. I can’t imagine finding another place that’s so perfect for me.
When I first applied to live in the building, Luca told me that most of the other residents are older people in their eighties and even nineties who’ve lived there for decades. He mentioned it a couple of times as he gave me the tour of the apartment and showed me around the shared spaces, almost as if he really wanted to make sure I knew what to expect. I guess there aren’t too many almost thirty-year-olds clamoring to live among the octogenarian crowd, and maybe he wanted to warn me the building would be a little sleepy. But sleepy is exactly what I love about it. A building full of older people means no loud parties spilling in the halls, no music shaking the walls, nobody shouting at midnight.
Mrs. Goodwin and her Carolina shag notwithstanding.
But I remember her blowing me a kiss earlier—wishing me luck at my meeting—and I look down at the black trousers covering my legs. Mrs. Goodwin is a sweet lady, and I’m lucky to have her as a neighbor. Besides, I can’t help but feel like the doorman and his devil-may-care attitude were the real culprits behind the coffee incident this morning. Dancing lessons in the lobby seems like an idea that would come straight from the mind of Luca Morelli.
I really can’t fathom how the owner of the building would put a guy with absolutely no regard for rules or order in charge of running the entire complex. But then I remember Luca’s gaze in the rearview mirror and the irresistible grin tugging at his lips.
I guess Luca does have his charms.
I peer through the gap in the front seats to see if I can spot him and Mrs. Goodwin inside the store again.
“You seem anxious to get going,” Sal observes, leaning back against the seat and crossing his legs with the opposite of urgency. “Are you late for something?”
“Well… not specifically.” But my to-do list is a mile long, and I hate wasting time. I have to finish my syllabi for the four different classes I’ll be teaching, work on my own research, and should probably start looking for new jobs for my dad, too. Clearly, grocery stores aren’t a good fit. All that shiny, round fruit just ripe for juggling. We’ve already exhausted fast food since french fries are too hard to catch and they tend to end up all over the floor. And clothing retail was a total disaster—it turns out that Gap T-shirts arenotaerodynamic. “I just need to go home to get some work done for my new job.”
“Are you entering the clown industry?” Sal inquires.
My head jerks up. “What? No.”God, no.
“Your new boss seems to be some sort of juggler.”
Sal must have noticed me on the lawn when the Town Car pulled up. “Oh, that wasn’t my boss. You probably saw me with my dad.” That shaky feeling radiates out to my limbs. “He’sa clown.”
“That sounds like a fun job,” Sal says mildly.
I remember Dad holding out the clubs earlier, asking if I wanted to give them a go. It’s been years, but I could have juggled at least five of them. With a little practice, I bet I could even get up to six. Juggling is one of those things that comes back to you, kind of like riding a bike. Or, in the caseof my family, a unicycle. I used to love juggling and Hula-Hooping and learning all of Dad’s tricks.
Itwasfun when I was a little kid who didn’t know that bills needed to be paid, or kids should show up to school on time. Before I missed field trips because Dad never sent in the permission slips, and I failed math tests because Dad decided to take us to a music festival instead. It was fun before I understood that clowning isn’t a career, especially if you have a daughter to support entirely on your own. “He seems to enjoy it. But it’s not for me. I’m a mathematician.”
“Ah, I see.” Sal nods, his bald head catches the sunlight slanting in through the side window, and it almost seems to glow. “Well, I’m glad things went well with your boss today, especially after the difficult morning you had.” Sal probably heard all about the coffee catastrophe and trouser exchange from Mrs. Goodwin. I hope she didn’t tell him about my underwear, too.
“The meeting actuallydidgo well,” I say. “But then…” Sometimes my life feels like those clubs Dad was juggling. As soon as I manage to grab one thing, the next gets lobbed into the air. I clench my jaw, crunching down on the flat butterscotch disk with extra force. That familiar anxiety rises up, and I try to swallow it along with the bits of candy. They’re both sharp going down.
“Sometimes I wish I could just… I don’t know. Be someone else.” I mumble that last part under my breath.
Through the pharmacy window, Mrs. Goodwin holds up an uncapped tube of hand cream for Luca to smell. He shakes his head and points to a different brand on the shelf. I feel a strange surge of jealousy at Luca’s ability to be soutterly unconcerned with his responsibilities. He was supposed to be back at the front desk hours ago. He probably wasn’t supposed to leave at all. My dry cleaning is still missing, the elevator is on the fritz, and I’m certain that as we speak, residents are placing illegal flowerpots on the fire escapes and FedEx drivers are roaming around looking for someone to sign for packages. And Luca is calmy choosing lipstick colors and debating the merits of having your hands smell likelavender and coconutversusrose water orange blossomor whatever they are.
What if instead of always grabbing for the juggling clubs, I just let them drop? And left them where they landed? The classes on my roster, the academic papers I’m on my own to write, my dad’s considerable lack of employment. What if, like Luca, I simply wandered off whenever I felt like it?
No, it’s not that I want to besomeone else. It’s that, some days, I’d simply like to be…
Nobody.
No commitments. No one expecting anything from me. I can’t remember a time when I experienced that kind of freedom, even in childhood. By the time I was six years old, I was the responsible party in our household. While Dad was justthe party.
