BUT THAT WAS SIX YEARS ago. Now she had this too-light basket of laundry and this dark, chilly stairwell on Christopher Street, painted in gray and moist against her skin. Only blocks away from the sleek SoHo loft conversion she had shared with Patrick, which had its own washer and dryer and required no stair-climbing of any kind, except on the row of StairMasters in the residents’ gym: eternally occupied, unlike the building stairwells, because you weren’t climbing those steps to go anywhere. My God, of course not. Just to stay skinny. (Sorry, to keep fit.)
Of course, in the cold light of reason, Ella should have been the one to kick Patrick out. Damn it. He should have been the one cramming his belongings into a studio apartment in the Village—It’s charming, Mumma said last Sunday, picking her way between the boxes to peer out the window, into the asphalt garden out back—while Ella, crowned by a nimbus of moral superiority, enthroned herself on one of the egg chairs inside the two-thousand-square-foot loft on Prince Street.
He should have been the one bumping a laundry basket into a damp basement in search of a rumored laundry room, while she flicked her sweaty running clothes into the washing machine off the granite kitchen and sipped an espresso from the De’Longhi. (Not that Patrick would ever do his own laundry, even if he knew how; in his bachelor days, he sent it out for wash-and-fold.)
He should have been spending his weekend unpacking boxes and contemplating the miniature kitchen in the corner. The way you had to step around the toilet to exit the shower. The way you had to open said shower door and prop your foot on said toilet in order to shave your legs. (Not that Patrick shaved his legs, either; at least not since his brief but expensive flirtation with a carbon-framed racing bicycle.)
But she’d been too shocked and angry to consider her rights as the Wronged Wife, hadn’t she? No, wait. That wasn’t right, shocked and angry. Not visceral enough. She’d felt as if a loud steam whistle were blowing inside her skull. As if her insides were melting. As if her legs and arms had no nerves. And how could you think straight when your body was in such disarray?
So instead of waiting to confront Patrick, send Patrick to the doghouse as he deserved, she’d fled into the bedroom—trying not to look at the bed itself—and packed a few things into a gym bag and rushed to Aunt Viv and Uncle Paul’s apartment in Gramercy. Stammered an explanation she didn’t fully comprehend herself. Spent the next week in their guest room, searching the classifieds for no-fee apartments and fending off her friends’ sympathy and her parents’ advice. Fending off the manic trill of her cell phone every few hours, which she refused to answer.
And now here she stood, instead of Patrick, in a Christopher Street basement before a metal door labeled laundry, at six thirty in the morning.
Balancing the basket on her hip while she fumbled with the door handle.
Thinking, At least I’ve got the jump on everyone else, washing clothes this early on a Manhattan Saturday morning. The one time when the damn city actually does sleep.
But as the door cracked open, and Ella stuck in her shameful shearling-lined foot to push it out the rest of the way, a wondrous and unexpected noise met her ears.
The sound of four industrial washing machines and two industrial dryers, all churning in furious, metallic frenzy.
NOT ONLY THAT. EACH MACHINE bore a basket of laundry on top, claiming dibs, waiting to pounce at the end of the cycle. Ella’s eyes found the clock on the wall, just to make sure that she hadn’t somehow missed daylight savings time.
Nope. Six thirty-four.
She let the basket slide down to the concrete floor. Put her hands on her hips. “What the hell?” she wailed. “Who are you people?”
“Oh, hello,” said a male voice behind her, appallingly sunny. “You must be the new one.”
Ella turned so quickly, she kicked over the basket. Jogbra spilled out. Sweaty running shirt. Seven days’ worth of lace panties in various rainbow hues. (Patrick scorned boring underwear.) She bent down and scooped desperately. “Yes, I am. Four D. Moved in last weekend.”
A pair of legs strolled into view, clad in blue jeans and a battered pair of nylon Jesus sandals. “Geez, I’m sorry! Didn’t mean to startle you. Let me—”
“No! I’ve got it.” Ella scooped the last article back in the basket. Tried to find something innocuous to go on top. Something without lace. Something that wasn’t hot pink. Something that didn’t smell. She straightened at last and looked up. “I just wasn’t expecting … wasn’t expecting …”
The man laughed at her dangling sentence, as if he had no idea what had scattered her train of thought, no idea at all that he was young and dark-haired and wore a force field of tousled happiness that fried away the dampness in the basement air. “Not expecting all the washing machines full at this hour of the morning? Sorry about that, too. Just one of the quirks about life inside Eleven Christopher. I’m Hector, by the way. Top floor.” He held out his hand.
Ella transferred the basket to her opposite hip and grasped his palm. Firm, steady, brief. “Hector?” she said.
“My mom’s a classics professor. Was.”
“She’s retired?”
“No. Died a few years ago. Breast cancer.”
“Oh, my God! I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.” He turned away and moved to the second washing machine, which had just finished a thunderous spin cycle and now sat in stupor. “Tell you what. Special deal for the newbie. You jump the queue and take over my machine, and I didn’t see a thing.”
“That would be so unscrupulous. What if I get caught?”
Hector tossed her a luminous grin. “In that case, I guess I’d just take the blame. Pull rank. I have seniority around here. Well, except Mrs. McDonald on the ground floor. She’s been here since the Second World War. Gets an automatic laundry pass.”
“Sounds like you all know each other.”
“We are kind of a tight crew, you might say.” He moved away with his basket of wet clothes. “All yours, Four D.”
“Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.”
“So, that was your cue, by the way.”
“My cue?”
“You’re supposed to tell me your name. Unless it really is Four D.”
“Oh! Sorry. I’m a little slow on weekends. It’s Ella? Ella Gilbert.”
“Nice to meet you, Ella Gilbert. Welcome to the neighborhood.” He set his palms on the edge of the folding table along the opposite wall and hoisted himself up. “Don’t mind me. Just waiting for that dryer to finish up.”
Ella looked at the two machines, clunking in hypnotic circles.
“So what if the owner doesn’t turn up in time? Is there a protocol?”
“Oh, you know. We just take the load out and fold it.”
“No, seriously.”
“Seriously.”
“We, as in the other tenants? You fold each other’s laundry around here?”
“Like I said. Tight crew.”
“I guess so.”
“Once you get to know everyone, I mean.”
To this, Ella made a noncommittal hunh—get to know everyone? What was this, college?—and studied the instructions on the lid of the washer. Realized she was supposed to add the soap first. Started to unload.
“What’s up? Something wrong with the washer?” Hector