Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [73]
The summer before, when Alison had been living with her parents in Bluestone after college, writing obituaries for the local newspaper and wondering what she was going to do with her life, Claire came home for a visit and persuaded her to move to New York. “If you really want to be an editor, New York is where you have to be,” she declared. “And I know exactly how to do it. You start as a temp at a magazine or a publishing house, and then you charm your way in.”
“I don’t even know anybody up there,” Alison said doubtfully.
“You know me,” Claire said.
“But you’re going to England.”
“Exactly. So here’s my brilliant idea. Why don’t you take my spot in my apartment when I go? Then I don’t have to sublet to some stranger, and you have a place to live. Honestly, Alison,” she added, “you have to get out of Bluestone. Otherwise you’re going to end up here forever, like everybody else we know from high school. And trust me—you’ll love New York.”
But Alison had hated New York at first—the cacophony, the trash in the gutter, the miles of concrete, the closed, expressionless faces of people on the street. As the months passed, though, she began to understand its appeal. She learned something about herself she’d never known before: she liked to be alone. Wandering around the Union Square farmers’ market or Central Park on a Saturday morning, she was dependent on no one; nobody knew where she was. It was a strange and magical feeling. After work she’d walk slowly back to her apartment, forty-seven blocks, watching the day turn to evening and the city light up like a Lite-Brite board.
“I’ll be frank, Al,” Renee was saying. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”
There’s a tiny room full of boxes beside the kitchen that’s just big enough for a futon, Claire had written. There’s a restaurant down the street called Tatties that serves only baked potatoes. I’m eating sausages and grilled mushrooms for breakfast. And the rain is fabulous for your complexion. Tell that to your beauty editor!
“I don’t think I can bring you with me, at least not yet,” Renee said. “So I guess it’s okay for you to make an appointment with H.R.—I’ll be telling them soon enough. I don’t know anyone who’s looking for an assistant right now, but of course I’d be happy to give you a reference. I’m sure something will come along.” She smiled. “You might want to work on your word-processing skills in the meantime. And hey, like I said, mum’s the word.” She looked at Alison quizzically, her head cocked to one side. “Where the hell does that expression come from, anyway?”
The “Yanks” (anyone with an American accent is a Yank here—what an insult for a Tar Heel!) tend to cluster together, I’m sorry to say, to reminisce about things like college football and decent Mexican food. Ben and I have been hanging out with this one guy, a Kansan on a Fulbright named Charlie Granville, who’s funny and charming and smart. A little midwestern for my taste, but not bad to look at. I thought of you. … How’s your love life? Come over and take him for a test drive. What do you have to lose?
Alison left her soon-to-be-nonexistent job that day with Claire’s letter in her black tote bag, an appointment with H.R., and the number for an obscure discount airline she’d found in the newspaper tucked into her day planner.
Chapter Three
For the whole afternoon before Charlie got home from Atlanta, Alison’s stomach was upset. She couldn’t eat; her hands were cold. She moved aimlessly around the house, picking up toys in one room and setting them down in the next, separating laundry into darks and lights and leaving the two heaps in the