Page 16 of We Could Be So Good
“I didn’t say I was poor—”
“Right, you’re middle class. Like plumbers and accountants.”
“Like... a very fortunate accountant, maybe.”
Nick snorts.
“Emilyis rich,” Andy clarifies. “Her father owns a bank and her mother’s family doesn’t work at all, as far as I can tell.Myfather owns a newspaper that hasn’t turned a profit since 1946. I have my mother’s apartment, a closet full of clothes, and a salary that would barely pay for Emily’s hats.”
He thinks, maybe, that this is one of the reasons he felt safe with Emily—she would never have needed to depend on him.
It’s going to be fine, though. He already feels the edges of the wound closing up. On a squashy couch, as his best friend goes on a rant that would probably get him put on the FBI’s radar, if he isn’t there already by sheer virtue of working for theChronicle, as he balances a whiskey in one hand and a half-smoked cigarette in the other, he knows he’ll be fine.
***
“Come on,” Nick says, gently slapping the side of Andy’s thigh. “Time for bed.”
“S’early.” Andy has sunk deep inside Nick’s sofa. He’s a part of the sofa now. He’s never getting up.
“Your eyes are already shut.”
This is true. He still isn’t getting up. A hand wraps around his wrist and tugs. “Up you go. Your room’s at the end of the hall. Dresser’s empty, if you want to unpack.”
“Bossy,” Andy mumbles, but he gets to his feet and stumbles toward the spare room.
When he opens the door, he has to blink to make sure he’s seeing clearly. It’s tiny, hardly bigger than the bed, but it’s freshlypainted and the narrow bed has cheerful yellow sheets and a couple of blankets folded at the bottom. His suitcase leans against a small chest of drawers, beside which is a battered bookcase that’s empty except for a stack of dog-eared comic books.
Andy has a spare room, too. It’s a repository for out-of-season clothes, luggage, magazines he might read one day, about seventeen boxes that belonged to his mother and that he has no intention of dealing with, a record player that needs to be fixed, and various other items that don’t belong anywhere else. This room has none of that attic quality.
It is, in other words, a guest room. But for who? Nick’s family lives in Brooklyn and would hardly need a place to stay just across the bridge. And Nick never mentions any out-of-town friends. The fact that there are things about Nick that Andy doesn’t know makes him feel oddly jealous.
He opens the suitcase and finds two stacks of neatly folded clothing, his toothbrush and razor, and the book that had been on his nightstand. His glasses are even in there, and Nick must have gone digging through the nightstand in order to find them—Andy’s been looking for them for weeks and had almost given up hope. He dumps it all into one of the dresser drawers and goes to find Nick.
“Thank you for getting all my things. I don’t think I thanked you yet.”
Nick looks up from the copy ofSports Illustratedhe’s reading. Nick’s the kind of person who reads an entire magazine, cover to cover, then throws it away. It’s amazing what some people are capable of. “You thanked me half a dozen times.”
“There aren’t any pajamas, though.”
“Shit. You can borrow some of mine.”
Andy glances up and down Nick’s body. If Nick believes Andy can fit into anything of Nick’s, he has another think coming. “I mean, I can try.”
Nick looks at him oddly but disappears into his bedroom. He emerges a moment later with a pair of striped pajamas. “There’s a clean towel in the bathroom and the shaving cream’s in the medicine cabinet. And if you need anything else, just ask. Oh, and drink this before you go to bed.” Nick goes into the kitchen and Andy follows, watching Nick fill a glass of water at the sink. “Aspirin’s in the medicine cabinet.”
“You realize I’m a grown man, yes?” Andy rolls his eyes, but he drinks the water. A draft of cold air makes him turn to find the source, and he sees that the kitchen window is propped open. “Do you want me to close that?”
“It has to stay open,” Nick says.
“To make it enticing for burglars?”
“This is the fifth floor. Nobody’s coming in the window. No, it’s for... ventilation.”
There’s a distinct pause there beforeventilation. “For ventilation,” Andy repeats, raising his eyebrows. But Nick doesn’t elaborate, so Andy lets it drop and gets changed into his pajamas.
Andy climbs into bed and drifts off before he even knows he’s shut his eyes. When he wakes, the door to Nick’s room is already shut with no light coming from beneath it.
***
