“Twenty-seven fifty-eight,” says the clerk.
I blink, look down at the counter and shove aside a big fruit basket that’s sitting there in shrink-wrap. “Oh, this isn’t mine,” I tell her.
“I know.”
Then why did you add it to my bill? And would it kill you to crack a smile?
Wait a minute. The fruit basket alone would have to be at least fifty bucks.
“How much was it?” I ask again, gesturing at my stuff, because I thought she said—
“Twenty-seven fifty-eight.”
Jeez. Can this measly little pile of groceries possibly cost that much?
Yes, it can, and Unsmiling Cashier is waiting for her money.
I open my wallet again, wondering why I’m surprised. I mean, after all these years of living in Manhattan, I know things are superexpensive. Yet every so often, I still find myself caught off guard at cash registers.
All that’s left in my wallet are two ones and a wad of receipts.
With a sigh, I pull out my American Express card. As Unsmiling Cashier runs it through the machine, a quick mental calculation tells me that in my hometown, this would run me ten bucks, maybe twelve. Tops.
Back out in the monsoon, I make my way to the doorman building that seemed like such a luxury when I first moved here from my dumpy little studio in the East Village.
As luck would have it, Jimmy, my favorite doorman—who actually flew up to Brookside for our wedding a few years ago—isn’t on duty tonight. He always cheers me up.
Unlike Gecko. He’s on duty tonight and always has the opposite effect. He’s the ultimate pessimist. I swear, you could win the lottery and he’d immediately list every past lottery winner who ever went on to get divorced, go bankrupt or commit suicide. He’s just that kind of guy.
“What a crappy night, huh?” he comments as he opens the door and I blow in on a gust of frozen precipitation.
“Yes,” I say.
“I mean literally.”
Uh-oh.
I know what he means by that.
“The M.C. has struck again,” Gecko informs me.
“Where?” I hold my breath.
“Third floor.”
I sign in relief. That’s six floors away from ours.
The Mad Crapper has been terrorizing our building for over a month now. He never strikes in the same place at the same time, so he’s been impossible to catch. Some tenants want to band together and organize a twenty-four-hour surveillance team with mandatory participation.
I really hope it doesn’t come to that. Because really, the last thing I want to do after a long, exhausting day at work is lurk in a shadowy corridor waiting for some stealthy figure to come along, squat and deposit a steaming pile of fresh crap before my very eyes.
Anyway, who’s to say the Mad Crapper isn’t living right here among us?
Sharing much T.M.I. about the latest strike, Gecko follows me to the mailroom, where I retrieve a stack of bills and catalogs from our box, along with an envelope addressed to Resident.
Uh-oh. Is this from the Citizens Vigilante Group?
No, thank God.
Even better.
“Building’s being fumigated again on Monday,” Gecko informs me as I open the envelope and skim the super’s note telling me just that.
“Again? Why?”
“Roaches,” says the perennial bearer of bad news. “Seventh floor’s infested.”
Infested. Now there’s a word that can’t possibly have a positive connotation under any circumstances.
“Uh-oh,” I say, making a face.
“Uh-oh is right. They’re probably crawling around in your place, too. Keep an eye out when you turn on the light.”
“Believe me, I will.”
It’s not like I’ve never seen a roach. Just about every apartment in New York has them at some point or another. But I freak out every time one scuttles past.
Going back to the Crapper’s latest M.O.—the culprit apparently signed his most recent offering with a fecal flourish—Gecko follows me toward the elevator.
“Have a good night,” he calls after me as I step in.
“You, too.”
“I doubt that,” he replies dourly as the doors slide closed.
For once, I’m right there with him.
On our floor, I make my way to apartment 9K, the tiny Ikea-furnished one-bedroom where we’ve been living for—is it almost five years now?
Five years. No wonder.
After unlocking three dead bolts, I step inside and promptly crash into a chair.
Not because somebody left it practically in front of the door, but because that’s where it belongs. There’s just no other place to put it.
I drop my barbell—I mean, bag—on it.
Ah, relief.
Rubbing my aching shoulder with one hand I turn on a lamp with the other, and check to see if roaches are scurrying into the corners.
No. But they’re probably there, tucked away into the cracks, watching me.
Just to be sure none has invaded our space, I give the apartment a good once-over. That takes all of four or five seconds, because there’s not much to it. Two boxy rooms—living room and bedroom—plus a galley kitchenette and bathroom.
Maybe the place would seem more spacious if we got rid of some of this clutter, I think, trying to be optimistic.
Like what, though? Our toothbrushes? The television set?
A booming sound overhead makes me jump, until I remember that a family of circus freaks moved in upstairs last month.
Seeing them in the elevator, you’d think they were a perfectly respectable Upper East Side family of four: Dad in suit with briefcase, Mom in yoga pants pushing designer stroller, one older kid who’s invariably plugged into something handheld with earphones, one younger kid placidly rolling along in said designer stroller.
The second they get home sweet home, though? Sideshow, full swing. Our ceiling shakes so violently you’d swear there are elephants, giants and fat ladies stomping around up there. Jo-Jo-the-dog-faced-boy scampers to and fro in an endless game of fetch, and there must be at least a couple of klutzy Wallendas who regularly fall off their trapeze onto the uncarpeted floor.
I’m betting a full-time live-in decorator is there as well, because furniture is rearranged as regularly as most of us pee. And I think there’s a resident carpenter, too—that, or a serial killer, because I hear what sounds like a hammer and a buzz saw at all hours. (Jack claims it’s just high heels and a blow-dryer, but he has a high noise tolerance. I could be standing right over him, talking to him, and he doesn’t hear me. I swear, it happens all the time.)
Oh, and I don’t know what happens to Older Kids’ ubiquitous earphones when he crosses the threshold of his bedroom—which has to be right above ours—but he’s not using them there. Our room vibrates day and night with the audio from his television and iPod speakers and arcadelike video-game system.
Valentine’s