Adult Assembly Required, page 4
What on earth is wrong with you? You’re allowed to be here. You’re not twelve.
The man walked along the row of tomatoes and then turned away to crouch and look at whatever was growing in the next raised bed.
Laura was forced to admit the guy did nice crouching work, with a very pleasing set of muscles and adorable pajama pants that were wearing a little thin over the butt. Christmas pajamas, Laura noted, Snoopy and Woodstock with holiday lights, a timeless classic. When he stood again and turned to walk back into the house, she found herself reluctant to look at his face.
But she did.
Huh. Laura turned away and listened to the sounds of the man coming in, talking to the dogs, and heading into the room down the hall from hers.
The door closed.
Laura stood and considered. You didn’t need to be Sherlock to work out he must be Bob the gardener guy. Identification wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he was absolutely, in every single way, her type.
It was really the face that was the problem. No one that good looking could possibly be available / interested / not a douchebag. Wide cheekbones, dark hair and eyes, a ridiculous dimple on his chin. No. Not happening. Been there, done that. The fact that he spoke to the dogs was anomalous. He couldn’t look like that and be a nice guy.
She looked in the mirror and reminded herself she wasn’t interested in romance. You’ve had quite enough of that, she told herself, you’re here to focus on your studies, your life, and your independence. The last thing you need is some guy swanning around and telling you what to do. Plus, she thought, regarding herself critically in the mirror, he’s out of your league. Laura wasn’t pretty, as she was reminded every time she went online. She tried not to care about this and was sometimes successful. She knew she wasn’t hideous—it wasn’t like children screamed at the sight of her—but she was well informed about the ways in which she could be improved upon.
She read numerous articles on how to dress better and apply makeup more skillfully (or at all), and had a vast Pinterest board of girls who had the same coloring as she did but somehow managed to make it pop. It was easy to see where she and they diverged: They were waifish, she was muscular. They braided their hair in interesting ways, she had a ponytail. They had symmetrical faces, she had one eye 2 percent larger than the other and a nose that was eleven degrees from perpendicular. (She knew these last two facts thanks to a helpful app that allowed you to map your face in excruciating detail—sponsored by a plastic surgery company.) She’d also discovered her waist was too low and her measurements a little bottom heavy to be ideal. She was glad to know these things, though she couldn’t do anything about them except be painfully aware and self-conscious. She’d purchased a variety of clothes designed to make the most of her “good bits,” but always ended up back in leggings and T-shirts, feeling colorless, uninspiring, and comfortable.
Every so often she’d try one of those apps that sent her daily affirmations and genial encouragement, but she found their friendly typefaces and hand-drawn platitudes easy to ignore. She knew she wasn’t the only young woman to feel disappointing, because social media was filled with badasses insisting all bodies were good bodies and urging her to reject the patriarchy, but then she felt ashamed of not being stronger and shallow for caring what other people thought. It’s hard to love yourself while simultaneously striving to become the best you you can be, which implies your current version could use some work. Laura couldn’t decide what was worse—the mental contortions needed to balance these competing self-images or the emotional pretzeling required to feel happy about it.
She heard Must-Be-Bob go into their shared bathroom down the hall and then, later, the front door open and close. She scuttled down the hall herself, clutching her new towels with their tags still attached. The bathroom was still slightly steamy, with some droplets of water on the shower door and a faint scent of cedar and lemon. The room itself was very simple. White subway tile, a gray stripe, a built-in shower tiled in the same gray. A large mirror hung above the sink, with glass shelves on either side. One side was empty; Laura assumed it was for her.
She wasn’t going to look at his stuff.
She looked.
There wasn’t much to look at. Ibuprofen, still with a seal on it. A razor that looked old and battered. One of those actual shave brushes with a bowl. Laura concluded either he was old-fashioned or his grandpa had given it to him and he was sentimental.
She looked at the things she’d bought for herself at Target. Toothpaste, toothbrush, shower gel, shampoo, conditioner . . . etc. None of it purchased with the thought it might be on display. Fortunately, she’d also grabbed a big pouch to keep it all in, so she’d leave the shelves bare and remain a mystery to him. Her mouth twisted wryly at her assumption he’d give her more than a passing thought.
She showered and dressed, pausing to look at herself naked in the mirror. She looked better; a little roundness was coming back, softening the lines of muscle. She ran her fingers over her scars, which covered the side of her torso, with others on her hips and knees. There were more on her back she couldn’t see, and several under her hair, but she didn’t need to see them to know they were there. For a while now she’d been able to look at her scars and be grateful, but some days her grasp on gratitude was slippier than others. She leaned forward and examined herself closely in the mirror.
“You could be dead, and you’re not,” she whispered to her reflection, “so quit your bitching and get on with it.” She stood back up. “Whatever it is.” Then she grinned at her reflection and stood like Superman—she’d seen it on a TED talk—and threw her toiletries in the big sack.
Once she was dressed, Laura sat down at the patio table to sort out her life, at least that part she’d thought to cover with renter’s insurance. She called her insurance company and spent an hour on the phone with a very nice lady (or possibly gecko) named Amanda who helped her list her losses and start the claim. Laura prayed the check would come before her credit card bill. She called the utility companies that hadn’t even sent her a first bill yet and closed those accounts. She called her credit cards and changed her address. She called her student loan people. Finally, having fetched herself a fresh cup of coffee and taken three deep and cleansing breaths, she called her mother.
Laura’s mother, Dr. Eleanor Costello, taught at Columbia and lectured at home. She had been wrong on maybe three occasions in Laura’s childhood, and each time she’d blamed it on erroneous source material. She was a woman of deep intellect and cast-iron certainty, who never went farther south than Forty-Second Street if she could help it, and believed that pigeons held the secrets of the universe. Those last two parts were unique to her; the other attributes are found in most mothers.
One of Laura’s brothers answered the phone.
“Hey, doofus,” he said on hearing her voice. It was Jake, the brother just above her in age. He was married, lived as far downtown as he could, and taught at NYU. Laura was literally the only noneducator in her family, a mysterious exception frequently discussed in her presence.
“Hey, loser,” she replied, because he was her favorite brother. “What are you doing there?”
“Nice,” he said. “Can’t a man check on his aging parents from time to time?”
“Not if he normally never wants to come within twenty blocks of the apartment. What’s up?”
“Actually, it’s your fault I’m here, sort of.”
Laura rolled her eyes. “Explain yourself.”
“Well,” replied Jake, “Mom has taken to texting all of us to ask if we’ve heard from you, although I bet she hasn’t reached out to you at all.”
“Not a word,” said Laura. “That’s why I’m calling. Is she OK?”
“Well, you know . . .” said Jake, and then his voice changed. “Here she is. Bye, goober.” And then he was gone.
“Laura! Baby! Are you OK?” As always, her mother sounded concerned.
“Hey, Mom,” said Laura, taking a deep breath and reminding herself she was thousands of miles away. “I’m totally fine.” She paused, closing her eyes. “But I have a new address to give you . . .”
“Why?” her mother’s voice went up into a higher register. “What happened to the other place? Did you get thrown out?”
Laura frowned. “There was a little fire, so I moved into a friend’s house, the landlord lives on-site, there are plenty of people . . .” She waited for her mother’s reaction. She didn’t have to wait long.
“A fire?” Her mother’s voice would soon only be audible to dogs.
“I wasn’t there, no one was hurt”—Laura hoped this was true—“and I found another place immediately.” It was always best, people had discovered, to present Dr. Costello (female, senior; there were four other Dr. Costellos in their family, all male, three of them younger) with a problem that had already been solved, as otherwise she was inclined to freak out and demand to be involved.
“Who started the fire?” Her mother’s tone was a familiar one to Laura, a combination of concern and imminent judgment.
“No idea,” said Laura. “Maybe it was electrical, you know.”
“Hmm,” said her mother, clearly preferring a team of highly trained arsonists. “Is the new place in a safe neighborhood?”
“Yes, very,” replied Laura. “Hancock Park.”
“Never heard of it,” her mother sniffed. “Is it near Beverly Hills?”
When Laura had decided to move to Los Angeles for grad school, her parents were mystified, then concerned, and then irritated. Born and raised in New York, neither had ventured far outside of the state, though both traveled abroad every year for fieldwork. Her mom was a professor in the psych department, specializing in pigeons. Not that pigeons need a lot of therapy— they’re actually very self-actualized—but they are excellent subjects for behaviorists to study and tend to be easily obtained and generally willing to give it a go. Laura frequently wondered if her mother liked pigeons better than people, but never plucked up the nerve to ask.
“Yes,” lied Laura, “pretty close. Anyway, I’m not alone, so that’s good.”
“Yes,” said her mom in her teacher voice, “solitude isn’t good for social organisms.”
“We’re flock animals,” said Laura, patiently anticipating her mother’s next point.
“We’re flock animals,” said her mother, rolling over her. “We need the company of our own kind, particularly members of our immediate family grouping.” She hesitated. “Who is this friend, anyway? You don’t have any friends in Los Angeles.”
Ouch. “Her name is Polly. I met her in a bookstore.” Laura changed the subject. “How’s Dad?”
“Fine, I think.” Her mother’s voice went in and out slightly, and Laura could imagine her looking around vaguely in case her husband was lurking nearby. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”
This was also par for the course. Laura’s parents had met on literally the first day of college, when they got roped together as lab partners in their mandatory dissection class. Laura’s dad taught in the biology department, not the psychology department, and his area of specialization was smaller: hummingbirds. But her parents’ fascination with feathered creatures drew them together, and after falling in love, they quickly got married in order to get back to their labs and keep working. They were a strange combination of total commitment to each other mixed with utter disinterest in the other’s daily whereabouts or activities. If you asked one about the other, they would look around and shrug if they weren’t immediately in sight, and almost as quickly forget the question. When they ran into each other around the apartment, or even on campus, they would start talking as if they had literally been in the middle of a sentence not two seconds earlier, rather than hours or even days apart. It wasn’t a very traditional marriage, but it worked for them, even as it confused everyone else.
“And Grandma?”
“Great,” replied her mom shortly. There was a pause. “I’m fine, too, thanks for asking.”
Laura rolled her neck from side to side and then all around, trying to prevent herself from tightening up. “That’s good to hear, Mom. How’s work?” This was a safe question to ask, and Laura and her brothers had learned early on that the best way to deflect their mother was to ask her about her work. For her brothers this had led naturally to their own teaching careers, but though Laura had been a strong student, she’d never loved sitting in a classroom.
“Excellent,” replied her mom. “One of my grad students is up for an award, and we got funding for another remote camera. Plus Morris and Ethel have a new clutch of eggs, it’s very exciting.”
Morris and Ethel were a four-year-old bonded pair who lived on the roof of their apartment building, in an aviary her mother had had since before Laura and her brothers were born. Pigeons mate for life, and Morris and Ethel had raised several sets of chicks together. Her mother had once witnessed Morris literally bringing Ethel a flower while she sat on their eggs. Admittedly, Ethel had eaten it, but still, couple goals.
“That’s awesome,” said Laura. “Look, I have to go now, but I’ll email you the new address. Say hi to Dad for me, alright?”
“You’re still not going to change your mind about grad school?” asked her mother incredulously, ignoring Laura’s clear desire to end the call. “How do you know the fire wasn’t the universe’s way of telling you to come home?”
Laura sighed. “Mom, there were fifteen apartments in that building, the message could have been for anyone. And yes, Mom. I’m already enrolled, I’m going to grad school here.” She paused. “Nothing’s going to change.”
Her mother became fractious. “Everything already changed! You had your whole career mapped out, you showed such promise, there were so many fields open to you.”
Laura didn’t say anything because she was tired of repeating herself. Besides, she knew her mom wasn’t finished. The first line of attack was always the originally planned future, the road not taken. If that didn’t work, her mom would zig and bring up the recent past, still hoping this change of direction was a blip and Laura would return to her previously scheduled programming.
As predicted, her mom changed her tone, doing her best to sound gentle and caring. “Maybe you need to take more time? After all, it hasn’t been very long since the accident. You’re still, you know . . . unstable.” Laura’s mom was not a bad person, but she wasn’t naturally gentle or caring, and her tone wasn’t convincing. A couple of years earlier Laura had been involved in a very serious car accident, and although her mother accepted the accident itself wasn’t Laura’s fault, responsibility for subsequent changes of life plan and a variety of embarrassing mental health problems landed squarely in Laura’s court. Her mother had found the whole thing deeply irritating.
“It’s been nearly two years, Mom. Please can we stop rehashing this?”
Her mom made a noise Laura was all too familiar with, a click-tongued hissing sigh that conveyed several different emotions in one sound, none of them positive. Third and final plan of attack: Laura’s stubborn irrationality. “You can go to grad school here, Laura. Why must you leave the nest in such a dramatic fashion? What’s wrong with Columbia? I’m sure it has an excellent program for whatever it is you’re doing. Plus here you can take public transportation, which is so much easier for you. God knows how you’re planning to get around out there.”
Laura closed her eyes. Her mother knew exactly what program she was doing, she just didn’t approve of it, and anything her mother disapproved of became magically inexplicable. The public transportation dig was simply her mom being bitchy. Laura stood up and walked over to the kitchen door. Knocking on it, she said, “Mom, someone’s at the door, I have to go.”
“Make sure you see ID before you open the door . . .” said her Mom immediately.
“Yes, Mom, I’ll call you later.” Laura hung up, then leaned her forehead against the wall and stayed there, banging it gently.
FIVE
Having gotten that out of the way, Laura stole two of Bob’s ibuprofen and headed to Larchmont. Stepping off the bus, Laura felt . . . happy, despite her mother’s best efforts. Larchmont Boulevard reminded her of the Upper West Side, the bustle of cafés and stores and people. Laura realized she was hungry and headed to the bookstore to see if Polly was there.
“Roomie!” said Polly, looking up when Laura came into the store. “Have you come to whisk me away to lunch?” She paused. “I think we’re too old to call each other roomie.”
“I agree, but yes, lunch.”
Nina was standing there, gift wrapping a book for a waiting customer. Polly looked at her and raised her eyebrows. Nina grinned and nodded.
“We’re not busy right now, off you go.”
Laura spoke up. “Thank you again for last night, I’ll bring your clothes back tomorrow.”
Nina waved a hand and grinned again. “You left one of your socks in the office, it’s still wet, amazingly. Did you know raindrops aren’t actually raindrop shaped, but more like tiny, watery hamburger buns?” She made a lifting gesture with her hands. “They start out as spheres, but their bottoms flatten out as they fall.”
“Probably true for all of us,” said Polly cheerfully. “Come on, I’m hungry.”
Outside she turned to Laura. “What do you feel like eating? Burgers, sushi, pizza, salad, Italian, Greek, bagels, vegan, poke, Thai?” She shrugged. “There’s even American-style home cooking, if you want to go a little farther north.” She was wearing bells somewhere on her person, because every time she hopped from foot to foot, she jingled. “Hurry up and choose, I’m hungry.”
Laura laughed. “All of that’s here on this street?”
Polly nodded. “I forgot Mexican.”
“Ooh, Mexican it is.”
