I HATEDthe subway.
It wasn’t the heat, stale air, smell of piss and garbage, or that the rats were big enough to wield knives. The tunnels were over a hundred years old and the system was in use 24-7.Thatwas an impressive feat of engineering which I tried to always marvel when I was underground.
And it wasn’t the lack of personal space that bothered me either—I was a born-and-bred New Yorker. If I didn’t have someone’s armpit in my face during rush hour on the Uptown 6, I’d be concerned I’d gotten on the wrong train. It was the lighting inside the train cars that I despised. The newer ones were so goddamn bright that even with sunglasses, the world was washed out to white and the faintest of grays. If I was alone, it meant having to rely on my walking cane.
Usually I’d have opted for a taxi, but after first and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit on the new apartment, let alone Calvin and I basically buying all new furniture, I was dead broke. So the choice between using my MTA card, which had a balance of nine dollars on it, or paying upward of thirty bucks for a taxi to take me seventy blocks to the Upper East Side… it was sort of a no-brainer.
But still.
I hated the subway.
I hiked the stairs out of the Seventy-Seventh Street station, collapsing my cane as I did. I walked toward Seventy-Eighth Street, stuffing the stick into my messenger bag. The smell of a halal food cart at the end of the block made my stomach growl painfully loud, reminding me it was now after 1:00 p.m. I gave the street meat a longing glance, sighed, and turned right to Third Avenue.
I came across a row of brownstones between avenues and consulted the address on my hand. In my rushed conversation with Mr. Robert, I’d actually written down “red door.” Helpful. I scanned the million-dollar homes for addresses.
31…S. It was probably a five.
Or was it a six?
I was too far away, and hiking up the stairs to each door to read the numbers would get old real quick.
I looked around, backtracked, and approached a teenager standing under a tree, texting away on his cell phone. “Excuse me?”
He glanced up, reached inside his hoodie to remove an earbud, and asked, “Yeah?”
I pointed to the brownstones. “Do any of these have a red door?”
He immediately pointed over my shoulder to a door I’d walked by twice now. “That one there.”
“Second one down?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure.” He returned to texting.
I went to the house in question, opened the gate, and hurried up the steps to the stoop. I hit the buzzer to the right of the frosted glass door and waited. I shoved my hands into my pockets and rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet. I’d been to plenty of these gorgeous old homes since opening the Emporium—whether as part of an estate sale or because the client was far too old to deal with the hassle of transporting antiques—but I still got excited. I’d never be able to afford such a property, so I lived a bit vicariously through my customers when I was offered such invites.
Frowning, I pressed the buzzer again.
I should have asked Mr. Robert for his telephone number.
Cupping my hands around my face, I leaned into the glass but couldn’t make anything out through the texture.
I tried the buzzer a third time.
“I fucking hear you!” an angry voice suddenly answered, crackling through the intercom.
I jumped and looked at it. “Uh—sorry, sir.”
“Who’re you? You’re not a delivery man.”
Nice. Jim Bob the Grouch had a camera system.
“No. I’m Sebastian Snow. You called me earlier—I own the Emporium in the East Village.”
“Oh right. You. Hang on.”
