"Believe it. It's ours-twenty-foot ceilings, bad plumbing, and interest
rates from hell." On a quick laugh, Emma did three spins. "We're
property owners, Marianne. You, me, and Chase Manhattan."
"We bought it." Marianne sat down on the scarred wide-planked floor. The
rattle and hum of downtown traffic echoed up from three stories below.
Something crashed outside, and even through the closed windows they
heard the shouts and swearing. It was like music.
The loft was a huge square of space, banked by a band of windows in the
front and a towering panel of glass on the right.
A sound investment, Marianne's father had grudgingly called it.
Complete insanity, had been Johnno's verdict.
Investment or insanity, it was theirs. Still dressed in the tidy suits
they'd worn to settlement, they each studied their new home, the fruit
of weeks of search, endless calls to realtors, and numerous bank
interviews. It might have been a huge, empty space with spotted
ceilings and grimy glass, but for them, it was the dream they had shared
throughout childhood.
Then they studied each other, their faces mirrors of giddy terror. It
was the laughter that broke the last strain. It bubbled up from Emma
first, then echoed off the high plaster walls. Grabbing each other,
they did an impromptu polka up and down the length of their new home.
"Ours," Emma panted out when they teetered to a stop. "Ours." They shook
hands formally, then laughed again. "Okay, co-owner," Marianne began.
"Let's make some decisions."
They sat on the floor with Marianne's sketches, warming Pepsis, and an
overflowing tin ashtray between them. They needed a wall here, the
staircase there. Studio space above, darkroom space below.
They arranged, rearranged, constructed, destructed. At length Marianne
waved her cigarette. "This is it. Perfect."
"It's inspired." Emma took the cigarette out of self-defense and
rewarded herself with a puff. "You're a genius."
"Yes, I am." She shook her spiky hair as she leaned back on her elbows.
"You helped."
"Right. We're both geniuses. A space for everything and everything in
its space. I can't wait until we-oh, shit."
"Shit? What do you mean, shit?"
"There's no bathroom. We forgot the bathroom."
After a brief study, Marianne shrugged. "Screw the bathroom. We'll use
the Y."
Emma simply put a hand on Marianne's face and shoved.
PERCHED ON A sTEPLwDER, Marianne painted full-length portraits of
herself and Emma between two windows. Emma had taken on the more
pedestrian chore of marketing and was storing food inside their
reconditioned Frigidaire.
"That's our buzzer," Marianne called out over the boom of the radio.
"I know." Emma balanced two grapefruits, a six-pack of Pepsi, and a jar
of strawberry preserves. When the buzzer sounded again, she dumped all
of them on a shell Beside the elevator, which opened up into their
living area, she pushed the intercom. "Yes?"
"McAvoy and Carter?"