Page 10 of Honey, Honey
Rain had only made it all worse. Rain in the city always made things inconvenient, toss in a couple of shitty shifts I’d picked up on BaristApp and it was downright exhausting. These gigs hadn’t been the highest paying, but I’d been desperate. Usually my week was filled out with a nice selection of shops and shifts to pick from, but for whatever reason today had been a straight up bust.
It hadn’t been the weather. Rain always meant people calling out of work while potential customers looking for a cozy place to wait out the rain went up. I usually made bank on rainy days, but today hadn’t gone to plan. I grimaced looking down at my shoes. Black sneakers with a heavy sole. Perfectly sensible attire for being on my feet all day, but terrible in the rain. They squished with every step, my socks soaked through enough that I wondered if I’d have blisters from my long walk back from my subway stop.
The tips hadn’t even been worth it. Between four shops I had barely managed to pull in sixty dollars, which was unheard of. Sixty dollars was my usual take from one shop on a slow day. Today hadn’t just been slow though. Today had sucked. I shoved my key into my door and turned it with a jerk of my hand.
“I just want to lay down,” I murmured, shouldering open the door and slipping inside with a sigh of relief. I kicked the door shut and slid the lock home before I started yanking off my shoes. I kicked them aside and stripped off my soaking hoodie, tossing it onto the coat rack by the door.
“I need tea.” I made a beeline for the kitchen, hopping out of my jeans as I went and before long I was standing in my kitchen in my underwear and putting on a kettle to boil. “I need to get dry,” I whispered a second later when I had gotten the kettle nice and piping hot. In my hurry to get dry, I hadn’t exactly thought about staying warm. I turned, dashing towards the thermostat and flipped it on, the ancient furnace kicking to life with a rumble that told me I’d soon enough have a semi-warm apartment.
I was luckier than most with an apartment as old as I had, the damn thing had been built in the early thirties as tenement apartments but had been thoroughly renovated, not enough to give me creature comforts like central air, shiny appliances or floorboards that didn’t creak and groan with every step, or you know windows that weren’t prone to drafts—but I did have a pretty reliable and powerful heating system that went beyond wall radiators. So what if the crown molding was missing in some spots or if the paint was a little chipped here and there? Scuffed floorboards and doors that didn’t quite shut when closed were small potatoes when it came to living in this city. What my apartment did offer me was a warm and dry place---asafewarm and dry place where I could rest easy knowing my neighbors weren’t going to break in and take what little valuables I did have.
There was a sweet older Mexican woman, Juana Mendoza, that had lived in these apartments since she was a young newlywed. She always kept a watchful eye on me when I was late coming home and I could always count on her coming round to invite me over for coffee or fresh tortillas when she was cooking on a Sunday. Juana helped alleviate the touch of homesickness I hadn’t really realized I carried with me. My mother might have never given me a home, but I did miss South Texas from time to time. Then there was the nice family at the end of the hall that always had a friendly smile and chit chatted while we used the common laundry room. I loved their pre-teens Molly and Evan, and Elaina, their mother, always ate up whatever gossip I could offer her. She worked long hours at the nearby hospital as a RN and would take any sense of a little normality she could vicariously live through.
“You’re young. You should be out partying and dating every good looking man within 15 city blocks,” she had insisted one day.
It was a nice place to live, even if it was older, and I was glad to have it. Hell, it was even a decent sized space for the rent. I made a decent amount on my current work schedule but rent in New York was not for the faint of heart and for what I was paying I should be living in something more around the size of a postage stamp. Instead, I got a sprawling-ishloft with drafty windows and semi-decent heating. I even had neighbors I liked. For New York City, I was practically living in the lap of luxury. The size of the apartment wasn’t even a huge deal to me, It wasn't like I had a ton of possessions to store anyways.
I glanced around my apartment while I waited for it to warm up. It was sparsely furnished, something I insisted was because I was a minimalist and definitely, not at all, because I was afraid as hell to set down any kind of roots that would require me to actually have to plan and coordinate a move. I liked knowing I could grab a bag, stuff it with essentials and be gone before anyone even thought to wonder where I’d gone.
You are your mother’s daughter.
The ugly whisper came before I could stop it and I squeezed my eyes shut, sucking in a deep breath through my nose. We’d moved around a lot when I was a kid, even more when I was a teenager, and it had become second nature for me to keep a bag close by my bed. My thoughts were always leaving my present situation, always skipping ahead to the next thing or place. How I might start over in whatever new place my mother dragged us to—how it might, if I was lucky, be the last place we moved.
Except that it was all hopeful wishing. It was never the last place. We never stopped moving. And somewhere along the way I picked up the habit of always having an escape plan. Ready to go, even when I had exactly zero plans to leave the life I had built behind. I wasn’t going to be moving. Not today, not tomorrow, not at all.
This was home.
“No, I am not. I am not like her,” I whispered, eyes still closed. I had to shut that little voice down and I had to do it now. If it took hold...if it took hold, there was no telling where I would go, and I was not about to tempt fate.
The room was big and open, the windows that normally flooded the space with light showing me the dark and gloomy silhouette of the city. A television was at one end of the room, against the wall and a nice modern couch that I had picked out one day while wandering around the swap meets in Brooklyn, sat opposite of it. There was a bookcase that was filled to the brim---I had always thought about getting another one, but instead had just started stacking books on the floor beside the bookcase instead. I had a few stacks at about hip height leaning precariously against the wall. A small two person dining table and a pair of matching teal chairs were behind the couch in a makeshift dining room that spilled over into the kitchen. My tea kettle was rattling merrily along on the stove and I swallowed hard looking at the small kitchen that was cute, homey, but still didn’t possess the same lived in quality that Elaina and Juana’s kitchens did. Those spaces were alive and warm, while mine was just occupied.
A gust of wind threw another wave of rainwater at the windows and I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. The rain had been nearly knocking me sideways before I’d managed to get inside. I hurried into my bedroom to grab a hoodie and socks. Standing around in my wet underwear was doing absolutely shit for keeping me dry. I dressed quickly and went to the bathroom, splashing warm water on my face and drying my hair out in a towel.
I stopped and looked at myself in the mirror. “You are not your mother’s daughter. This is home.” I insisted once more, staring at my reflection as if I could will it to come to life and agree with me, agree with me or I didn’t know, fight me. Argue and tell me I was lying. Anything to fill the quiet of the apartment and the words that sounded too thin on my lips.
If this was home then why did I refuse to put art up on the walls? I had lived in this place for two years and so far had only managed to buy one small print that I had hastily taped to my fridge, because no place in the apartment seemed right. My bedroom was just a bedroom, not a place to rest, it was where I slept, nothing more.
It wasn’t right. None of this was right. When was I going-
EEEEE!!!
The shriek of the tea kettle made me jump and I turned on my heel, striding into the kitchen to turn it off. I was grateful for the distraction and set about making myself a cup of tea--cherry blossom plum--to settle my nerves. I turned off the stove and reached for the cupboard to the left of it. The second I pulled open the heavy wooden cupboard doors the scent of flowers and herbs hit my nose and I smiled, taking in a deep breath. I might not have a lot in the way of furniture or art, but tea?
Oh, I had that.
Green, black, herbal. Bitter, sweet and savory. Caffeinated and not, It didn't matter, I wanted to try it, and had even begun blending my own teas. I’d found an apothecary in town that offered classes and made sure to take as many as I could, usually one a month to keep learning about the herbs and teas available to brew. I liked learning the different temperature requirements, how to store and care for the prettiest rolled flower teas and what might happen when I added a dash of citrus to some--the answer was that sometimes it turned blue like a potion out of a fairytale, and sometimes it was just a mistake I couldn’t drink.
It was an art, a ritual that worked to calm my mind, chase away that voice I hated. That infuriating voice that I carried around. The one that surreptitiously reminded me that it didn’t matter how many places I moved, or didn’t move, how many days and years I spent trying to be someone else. That I would, inevitably, slip up. I frowned, grabbed down the jar I wanted to use and flipped open the top, taking a deep breath of the familiar floral and tart smell the cherry blossom and plum mixture offered me. I had worked on this one just last weekend and it was my current obsession when I was feeling a little tense, which apparently right now I was.
I sucked in another deep breath and held it for a beat before I released it and opened my eyes. “That’s better, now unlock your damn jaw,” I ordered myself while I forced my shoulders down from around my ears. I never failed to get twitchy whenever my thoughts got away from me. But that didn’t matter. Because I was here, and I was happy. Or at least, I was okay. I was definitely okay. I looked back up at the tea on the shelves in front of me and ran a finger along the glass jars that held the blends and herbs I had stocked my home with.
“No one can be unhappy with this kind of tea hoard,” I said, nodding at my words. It was true. You just couldn’t be unhappy with this kind of stash, and this wasn’t even counting my coffee collection. I had a whole other cupboard dedicated to that. Beans of different origins and roasts, my fancy little drip cold brew maker, my Aeropress, the beautiful espresso machine I had sprung for was all neatly tucked away on the corner of the counter and I ran a hand over it lovingly. No, I might not have a ton of possessions but if I ever had to leave I’d mourn the loss of my tea and coffee hoard.
This kind of beverage power just left a woman blissed out and happy.
“And Iamhappy,” I told myself, pouring the water over the tea leaves with a nod. The gentle floral smell of cherry blossoms wafted up to me, and I smiled. Yeah, this was better, much fucking better all right. I leaned a hip against the counter and rolled my shoulders and stretched my arms over my head with another deep breath.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
