On The Verge. Ariella Papa
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Brad’s (of course) employment history out. It figures he works in advertising. Rosie is into it. I can imagine Tabitha smirking as we are in the process of picking up the cheesiest men in the bar. That is, Rosie is. I am not interested in Paul, the fat friend.
“So you work for a publishing company,” Paul asks, smiling at me with bad teeth.
“Yeah.”
“You girls got an apartment here in the city?”
“No, we are visiting from Tulsa, and we’ll be leaving tomorrow.” Roseanne shoots me a look. It’s amazing that she can hear me so clearly with her back to me yet she needs to lean so close to Brad’s lips to understand him. I correct myself, for her sake. For the sake of love, if you will.
Anyway, we imbibe quite a bit. So much so that at one point I must mistakenly give Paul the go ahead to kiss me (maybe it’s just the example set by face sucking Roseanne and Brad), but I quickly put a stop to that.
Roseanne walks away with a business card and a date for next Thursday night (props to her). Luckily, it’s the night I’m going to the Fashion Awards with Tabitha. Once again we are back on the bus, but this time we get to pass out. I wake up just in time for our stop and note that Rosie has a smile on her face as she sleeps. It warms the cockles of my cold heart.
“I found it!” Roseanne says when I pick up the phone. Herb happens to be standing near my desk, talking to one of the writers.
“What’s that?” I try to sound professional.
“The most wonderful apartment!” Let me just say that ever since her date prospect, she’s been a little happier, but finding the perfect apartment is nothing to joke about. I feel my heart start to beat. This could be the new beginning.
“Where?”
“Chelsea. Right on 7th Avenue. It’s amazing. The landlady’s cousin showed it to me. She says they’re making their decision tomorrow. Eve, there were like thirty other people there.”
“How much?”
“Only fourteen. Only? Gosh, I never thought I would say that. Shit, I’m becoming a New Yorker. Eve, I am serious, we have to get this apartment. Have to. Call the landlady and schmooze her. You’re good at that.” Really?
“Okay, give me the number.” She gives it to me. Her name is Mrs. Yakimoto. “How many bedrooms?”
“Well it’s just one bedroom with this alcove and a sleep loft. The bedroom and the loft aren’t that big, but the living room and everything else is huge. It’s unbelievable, it’s amazing. Eve, I haven’t seen an apartment this nice. Oh, shit.” Roseanne is getting real accustomed to this cursing thing. She is loving her new New Yorkness. It’s actually rubbing off on me and I find myself wanting this apartment sight unseen.
I hang up the phone. I smile up at Herb, who just sort of stares at me, like I am somehow representative of a generation of young women that he would never want to attempt to understand.
“Searching for an apartment,” I say.
“I hear it’s tough these days.” I smile and nod, hoping he will go away so I can make personal phone calls.
“Can you send this out for me, Eve?” He hands me a big puffy envelope full of stuff. Now as I said, Herb is a very self-sufficient man, but little things like “sending stuff out” are beyond him. This man has published books and had honorary and real degrees from all over but can’t figure out the Prescott Nelson mail system. Basically, our mail system entails just dropping it in a bin for someone else to come and take care of postage. It’s wonderful. My mother gives me care packages to send to my sister all the time. No one questions anything. All it takes is a Bicycle Boy or Prescott Nelson label. Since Herb has already written out the address, all I have to do is put the package in the mail bin next to my desk. It’s easy enough, and the nice thing is it makes both Herb and I feel like I am earning my title as “assistant.”
I take the package from him. I ooze efficiency. “Great. I’ll do it right away.”
I call Mrs. Yakimoto. She lives on Long Island. Her son answers the phone. He can’t be more than six. He screams for his mother to get the phone. She answers and speaks in slightly accented English.
“Mrs. Yakimoto, my name is Eve Vitali. My roommate Roseanne looked at the apartment today.”
“Yes, I think my cousin mentioned her. There have been so many calls today.” Mrs. Yakimoto sounds a little stressed. I can hear her kids in the background.
“Well, we are really interested in the apartment and we are really hoping to get it.”
“I know, but I wasn’t expecting to rent to two people and you haven’t even see the apartment yet. I never expected to even have this apartment to rent. My cousin decided to get married and now she wants to move uptown. She said she would handle it, but I still have to talk to all these people. Do you believe people are offering me six months’ rent?”
“Yes, I do. It’s really tough to get an apartment in the city.” I hear one of Mrs. Yakimoto’s children bawling and she yells at them in another language and gets back on the phone with me.
“Are those your kids?”
“Yes, I have four.”
“Well, Mrs. Yakimoto, I’m sure the last thing you want to do is worry about all of this. I just want to tell you how great my roommate Roseanne thinks the apartment is and how much we would really love it.”
“Well, I have to talk to my husband about this. You girls seem very nice, but it’s a lot to decide. I will call you back tomorrow.”
“Okay, but Mrs. Yakimoto, we are really interested in the apartment. We’ll be great tenants. Really.”
When we get off the phone, I get an idea. I call Adrian.
“I was wondering if you had any extra Little Nell toys lying around.”
“We’ve got tons. Come down and get some. I could use a visit.”
It’s always nice to visit Adrian, because he notices things that most men wouldn’t. Today he said my lipstick was glam and very New York. He’s so cute. I can understand why Rosie had her little crush on him.
Not only did he give me a bunch of Little Nells, he gave me all kinds of cartoon T-shirts and some promotional toys from Little Nell’s advertisers. I look up Mrs. Yakimoto’s address on the Net and FedEx all the stuff to her with a note telling her (again) how much we’d like to live in the place and hoping her kids enjoy the stuff.
I can tell Tabitha is impressed with my cunning and maybe a tad jealous that I will live in a much cooler area plus be closer to Adrian and Krispy Kreme donuts. I neglect to tell her about my night out at the bar and the guy Roseanne kind of picked up. I am too tired to go out tonight, but I promise to go out tomorrow night, Friday, to kick off what might be one of the last warm weekends of the year.
She bugs me again about what I am going to wear to the Fashion Awards next Tuesday. Again, I say the same black Bebe sweater and some skirt I got in Soho for really cheap. I can tell Tabitha isn’t all that excited about it. All we are doing is seat filling. She finds the whole thing a tad beneath her. She wishes we had actual tickets instead of having to hop around from seat to seat whenever someone vacates. She is also dying to find a post event invite, but the Big C only got one.
“Eve, you’re a real peach today.”
“I’m just worrying about the apartment thing.”
“I’d worry, too, especially if only Roseanne has seen it. You’re giving her an awful lot of responsibility, don’t you think?”
“Well, I trust her, Tabitha.”
“What are you gonna do if she can’t get a job?”
“She’s been looking for three weeks. Only three weeks. She’ll get one.”
“As