Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

“Have a good day,” says Emily as she does every morning while pulling on her Ugg boots by the door. “See you after school.”

“See ya,” says Maddy from the couch.

“Have a good one!” says Tim as he waves to her over his shoulder, ahead of Emily as they leave the apartment.

Maddy’s been living with Emily and Tim for almost a month. They’re in a one bedroom on the second floor of a six-story postwar building on East Thirty-Fifth Street in Murray Hill. The apartment is spacious for what they pay in rent by New York City standards, but it wasn’t meant for more than two people. Yet it only ever feels crowded on the weekends when all of them are there during the day. During the week, Emily and Tim are out the door at 6:50, and Maddy leaves shortly after. Tim works late and is often just arriving home when Emily and Maddy are about to go to bed.

Dressed and ready, Maddy sits on the couch a bit longer, sipping lukewarm green tea with honey from a mug, her eyes strolling the room. Thriving on organization and routine, Emily keeps the apartment tidy. Keys go in the white bowl on the skinny table in the hallway by the door. Shoes go under the skinny table. Coats hang on the hooks. Maddy’s hook is to the right of Tim’s. Mail goes in the basket. Dishes in the sink. The TV remote resides on the coffee table next to the coasters. Everything has a home.

Their furnishings are modern and new. Tim makes bank, so they can afford nice things—a fancy espresso machine, giant flat-screen TV, leather couch from Restoration Hardware, matching dishware. Their bath towels are plush and monogrammed. T&E . Real adults live here. There are framed photographs of the two of them scattered about, the largest of which hangs in their bedroom. Tim is on one knee, Emily is standing, her mouth open and her palms on her cheeks like the kid from Home Alone , the beginning moment of their happily-ever-after life together.

Like clockwork, Maddy’s phone buzzes. She doesn’t need to look at the screen to know who it is or what it says.

M

MOM

7:00 AM

Good morning! How are you today?

Provoked, Maddy gets up and sets her mug in the sink next to the dishes used for the eggs and avocado toast Emily makes every morning. She puts her coat, hat, and shoes on by the door. She slings her backpack over her shoulder, walks out of the apartment, shuts the door, and locks it. She stands on the welcome mat, ready to leave but unmoving, glaring at her phone.

Even though her mother can track her location on the Find My app, she will text Maddy again in an hour to make sure she has arrived at Starbucks. She’ll text her at two when Maddy’s done with her shift and again around three thirty to confirm that Maddy has made it back to Emily’s apartment. Then she’ll text once more at nine forty-five to say good night, to confirm that Maddy has taken her evening meds, and to ensure that Maddy is going to bed, her fragile daughter alive and safe for another day.

And then she’ll text first thing tomorrow.

Her thumbs over the keypad, Maddy clenches her teeth. She’d love to tell her mother to stop treating her like a child or a criminal out on parole. She’d love to pretend she didn’t see the text, to stonewall her by not answering for a few hours. She types Fuck off and immediately deletes it.

Any of those responses would feel oh-so-juicy-good right now, but she doesn’t want to do anything that might make her mother call Dr. Weaver or jeopardize Maddy’s living arrangement. And she definitely doesn’t want to do anything that causes the text monitoring to escalate. She knows her mother means well. She breathes forcefully through her nose while she counts to ten.

M

MADDY

Good

M

MOM

Did you remember to take your morning meds?

M

MADDY

Yes

M

MOM

:) Have a great day! I’ll talk to you later. Love you.

Morning check-in complete, Maddy slides her phone into her coat pocket and takes the stairs one flight down to the lobby. She tosses a polite nod to the doorman and walks outside. The day is low-lit gray like a black-and-white movie, typical for early March. The chilly air makes her eyes tear and smells of weed and curry.

Even when it’s cold like this, she likes to go for a walk in the neighborhood before setting off to work. Murray Hill is home to a lot of recent college graduates with professional jobs, people who are her age within a handful of years but are dressed like real adults in suits and wool coats. The streets are tree-lined, lending to its residential feel, but there are also plenty of restaurants and hip bars.

She walks toward Lexington, like she does every morning. Her days and evenings are structured, predictable, and on a schedule. Her nervous system appreciates having breakfast at six thirty with Emily, a morning walk, working eight to two, eating an early dinner with Emily, watching TV on the couch, and going to bed at ten, day after day after day. But a part of her also feels dead, like a zombie or a robot or an actor in the world’s most boring play.

She wonders what the living are doing right now. She imagines Adam still sleeping in his dorm room at Columbia, Sofia drinking coffee in a dining hall at Tufts, her brother surfing in Australia.

As she approaches the entrance to the Thirty-Third Street subway station, an urge for improvisation overtakes her, and she follows her impulse down the stairs. She hops on the 6 train, gets off at Astor Place, and walks five minutes to Washington Square.

She pauses in front of the Washington Arch. NYU upperclassmen warn all the first-years to avoid ever passing under it, else they’ll be cursed and won’t graduate in four years. Maddy’s not superstitious but, like all her classmates, went along with the tradition. Not officially an NYU student at the moment, she technically should be safe to walk beneath it. But she’s already dealing with a different kind of curse that might prevent her from graduating, and she doesn’t need any additional bad luck working against her, so she decides not to chance it and steers herself around the arch.

She finds an empty bench near the fountain, which is drained and dry this time of year, and sits down. In the fall and spring, the square is bustling with activity—a man playing piano, skateboarders, vendors selling art and cheap jewelry, street dancers, people vaping and smoking weed, and the usual mix of students, tourists, and New Yorkers. But today is an uncomfortably cold winter morning, and not much is happening here. It still smells like weed, but there are no musicians, dancers, or artists selling their work.

She watches the NYU students walking to class. They’re easy to spot—her age, hauling backpacks, wearing designer sneakers and puffy black coats, walking in a hurried clip. They need to get to class on time. She doesn’t see anyone she knows. No one recognizes her. That’s not surprising. After a year and a half, she hardly knows anyone.

She wonders who Manoush is living with now. She texted Maddy shortly after Thanksgiving weekend. R u coming back? Hope ur ok. Maddy replied the week before Christmas. Thx I’m ok. Not sure when. And she hasn’t heard anything more from her since.

“Don’t fuck around, you fuckin’ bitch!” yells a woman alone on the bench opposite Maddy, a cluster of pigeons an audience at her feet. She’s wearing an LA Dodgers winter hat and a Kansas City Chiefs T-shirt meant for a person twice her size, her coat unzipped. An army-green wool blanket and a plastic grocery bag full of empty soda cans sit at the top of a cardboard box next to her. The woman looks young and old all at once, making it hard for Maddy to place her age. Thirty-five maybe?

“Stupid girl! The system is SET UP!” she yells at the pigeons or someone she imagines or possibly Maddy, although the woman never noticeably looks at her.

Her voice is nasal and hoarse, her eyes unfocused. She’s riled up, her face and hand gestures animated, her words exploding out of her mouth. The pigeons continue to peck at the ground by her feet, unbothered, as if they know her deal and are used to her tirades. Here she goes again .

Maddy assumes the woman is homeless. Is she bipolar, off her meds, manic and psychotic right now? Maddy imagines her own meds holding her together, an after-school crafting project of string, glue, and staples. But what if she misses a dose or goes off them, or they stop working? She imagines being this woman’s age, on a manic bender, spending a shit ton of money on stuff she can’t afford or return, losing her job, in debt over her head, unable to make rent. Her mom and Phil would probably rescue her, but what if they grow tired of being her safety net, of shelling out thousands of dollars to keep bailing out a lost cause, and they draw a hard line?

A few months ago, it would’ve been unfathomable for Maddy to imagine winding up on a bench in Washington Square like this woman. Now, it’s almost easier for Maddy to picture herself as this woman than as an NYU student walking to class.

She shivers and rubs her arms with her mittened hands to warm herself, but the chill running through her isn’t caused by the temperature. She checks her phone, and thankfully, it’s time to go to work. As she gathers her backpack and rises to her feet, her father pops into her consciousness, and she wonders if he, too, is rambling to pigeons in donated clothes on a cold park bench somewhere. For both of their sakes, she really hopes not. She walks fast, hastening to leave the ranting ghost of Christmas future she can still hear behind her, and it’s not until she’s a block beyond the square that she realizes she exited under the arch.