AUNT SUZE’S VOICE DOWN THE HALL, LOUD AND forced-energetic.
I’ve been awake for a while. I just don’t want to get out of bed. Freddie Mercury stares down at me, and his look is disapproving today. He has no tolerance for aimlessness. Frankly, I can’t blame him.
Yesterday. Everything about yesterday, running on a loop in my head.
Big E needed help with the remote control. That’s why he was in the elevator when the generator failed.
Apparently, he sat on one of the seventeen buttons that nobody ever uses. The TV went to static, and he couldn’t figure out how to get back to what he was watching. He tried to call me, but couldn’t get through.
Under different circumstances, I’d be laughing my ass off at the thought of my grandfather hauling himself out of the La-Z-Boy. Shuffling into the hallway and into the elevator, remote in hand. My father and aunt and at least three different home aides have tried unsuccessfully to get the guy to take a walk downstairs once a day. Now we know: all they ever had to do was screw with the remote.
But I don’t feel like laughing. I’m not used to letting people down. I’ve never not been there when someone needed me.
It feels fucking awful.
You know what else feels awful? Kendall’s voice. It’s the voice I hear in my head when I’m trying to be okay with this. She’d said, You’ve been doing everything you’re supposed to. And intellectually, I know she’s right. The power was on when I left. I wasn’t going far, and I had my cell phone if Big E needed me. I had no way of knowing that post-blizzard phone service would still be messed up. Or that the generator would implode. Or that my grandfather would actually try to leave the apartment by himself for the first time in an eon.
Something took place, out there in the snow with Kendall. It felt like the first honest day I’ve had in a long time.
Then I was a douche bag. Ditched her in the middle of a snowbank in Central Park. Plus, her suede boots and wool coat are still by the front door. Oh, and maybe I should have mentioned this right away, but Big E is fine. It takes a lot more than getting stuck in an elevator to dent that guy.
My phone starts buzzing.
Several messages from yesterday have finally come through. One from my mom, one from Jamie. One from Eliza.
Hope you weathered the storm. You never answered me about New Year’s, asshole.
I hadn’t even thought about New Year’s. Jamie’s coming into the city, but to be with Kendall.
I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want her to be with him and for me to be with nobody.
Hey, I type back to Eliza. Just got your message now. Storm was cool.
I pause, my thumbs hovering. Quivering, even. Eh, what the hell.
Come to the city tonight.
It feels like a low-risk proposition. She probably made other plans five minutes after she texted me.
Yes, comes her message back.
A flooding swirl of relief.
You can stay in a spare bedroom here, I write. Look at me, laying down parameters. Setting boundaries.
Suddenly, there’s knocking.
“Max? Max, it’s Suze. Are you up?”
“Yes!”
“Are you decent? I’m coming in.”
She doesn’t wait for my reply and opens the door. It’s fine, I slept in my clothes. My aunt looks more tired than I’ve ever seen her.
“Let’s say a little prayer, shall we?” says Suze.
“For what?”
“This new aide. Katherine. She’ll be here any minute.”
The aide! Holy freedom, thank God for the aide.
“So you’re hereby relieved of your duties, Max. I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done.”
Maybe she doesn’t know about yesterday.
“And don’t worry about yesterday,” she adds.
“Is it okay if I stay until tomorrow?” I ask. “I have a friend coming in for New Year’s. She’d like to crash in your old bedroom.”
Suze laughs. “Of course. Man, I wish I could be in the city tonight. New Year’s Eve . . . I could tell you some stories.”
She gets a faraway look in her eyes. Then the doorman buzzes up.
“Showtime,” says Suze.
She disappears and a minute later, I hear her welcoming someone into the apartment.
When I finally get out of bed, make myself presentable, and emerge from the bedroom, I find Suze and the new aide standing on either side of Big E.
The aide turns when I walk into the room. “Hi,” she says, her voice rough and gravelly. “I’m Katherine.”
I shake her hand. She looks like she’s been around. She looks like she could beat me up if necessary.
“Your grandfather was just telling me how much he enjoyed spending time with you,” she says matter-of-factly.
“I don’t think he enjoys spending time with anyone,” I reply. “You know he’s the biggest curmudgeon on the Upper East Side.”
“Max!” says Suze, alarmed. She shoots an apologetic look at Big E.
But Big E laughs. “He’s right, of course,” he says. “Although I hate it less with him than most people.”
“Hopefully you’ll feel the same way about me,” says Katherine, but Big E makes a growl-sigh hybrid sound.
I beckon her and Suze into the kitchen.
“Listen,” I whisper as we huddle together. “I want you to try something.”
Then I tell them. That Ezra Levine does not want us to be respectful or considerate or polite. He does not want things to go unsaid. That the uglier the truth, the louder he needs us to shout it. That he wants us to challenge and argue and call things as they are. That it was Nanny’s way, and Nanny’s way is forever.
Suze looks unconvinced, but Katherine grins. I can tell right away that she gets it. “Honey,” she says, “if all that’s true, I was made for this job.”
So I figured out this thing about my grandfather. Figured it out for him. For all of us, really. That kindness doesn’t always look or sound like kindness; sometimes it comes in disguise. Actually, it was Kendall who decoded that puzzle.
Kendall.
I’m so sure, suddenly, of how much I want to be with her. Not just right now but every day, for a long, long time. As much as humanly possible. In other words, I’m in deep shit.
“Maxie!” booms Big E. “Come here a second!”
As always, I go where I’m summoned. In the living room, my grandfather’s shuffling through the drawer in his end table.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“I forgot, I have something to give you. An idea I had.” He finally finds what he’s searching for. Holds up a sealed white business envelope. “Don’t open it now. Just . . . take a look when you get a free moment.”
He hands off the envelope casually, like he’s asking me to put it in the recycling bin. It’s light. I know what it must be: another magazine article he thinks I should read. I fold the envelope in half and tuck it into a back jeans pocket. Unless it’s a detailed guide on how to tell a girl you might be in love with her even though she’s beginning to date one of your best friends, it’s the last fucking thing I need right now.
I’m walking up Park Avenue with a shopping bag filled with Kendall’s boots and coat when I realize I don’t have her brother’s address. I start to text her, but find myself calling instead.
“Max,” says Kendall. I can’t read anything into her voice. She’s simply making a statement out of my name.
“Hey, Kendall.” I can play this game, too. Although, yeah. I’m the one who called her. So that’s stupid.
“How’s your grandfather?” she asks.
“He’s fine. The new aide starts today.”
There’s a pause.
“Jamie’s coming in later,” says Kendall. Her words hang straight and flat, like on a clothesline.
“Oh, right,” I say, as if I just remembered this and wasn’t thinking about it all morning. I’m about to tell her about Eliza, but then have a moment of intelligence. “So I want to get your stuff back to you, but I don’t know where your brother lives.”
She gives me the address, then adds, “If nobody’s here, buzz the neighbor in 3C. She’ll hang on to it for me.”
We hang up. I don’t say any of the things that might make New Year’s Eve go differently for both of us. I don’t make a grand gesture. I’m a whimper, not a bang.
So, that’s it. She’ll be with Jamie tonight and I’ll be with Eliza. Whatever that ends up meaning.
Then tomorrow, back home. Back to the call center and my parents’ house and Limbo Unlimited.
If someone told me a few days ago that I’d be sad to leave Big E’s apartment, I would have laughed my ass off.