One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell [85]
“You could go back to your apartment,” he’d suggest.
“But your apartment is so much nicer than mine.”
“Your apartment is so much nicer than most twentysomethings’,” he’d point out. “Some of them live in the outer reaches of Brooklyn. Or New Jersey. They have to cross the river by ferry.”
“What are you saying, Philip? That it’s my fault? Am I supposed to feel guilty about other people’s lives? I don’t have anything to do with their lives. It doesn’t make sense.”
He tried to explain that one ought to feel guilty about other people’s hardships and struggles because that was how decent people felt about the world, it was called a conscience, but when pressed by her, he had to admit that feeling guilty was a legacy of his generation, not hers. She was, she explained, a child of choice—her parents chose to have her. Unlike previous generations in which parents, like his mother, didn’t have a choice about having kids, and therefore made their children feel guilty about coming into the world. As if it were the kid’s fault!
Sometimes it was like trying to argue with someone from another planet.
He got up and opened the door again. “Lola!” he said.
“What is wrong with you?” she said. “I haven’t done anything. You’re in a bad mood because your writing isn’t going well. Don’t you dare blame that on me. I won’t tolerate it.” She got up.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“Out.”
“Fine,” he said. He shut the door. But now he did feel guilty. She was right, she hadn’t done anything wrong. And he was in a bad mood. About what, he didn’t know.
He opened the door. She was carefully sliding her feet into ballet flats. “You don’t have to go.”
“I’m going,” she said.
“When are you coming back?”
“I have no idea.” And she left.
In the elevator, Lola checked her Facebook page. Sure enough, there was a message from Thayer Core. He left her messages regularly, although she rarely responded. From her Facebook page, he’d found out she was from Atlanta and, from the photos she’d posted, seemed to think she was a party girl. “Hey Southern Girl,” he’d written. “Let’s hook up.” “Why?” she’d texted back. “Because you’re crazy about me,” he wrote. “All girls are.”
“IDTS,” she responded. Which meant “I don’t think so.”
Now, however, might be a good time to take Thayer Core up on his offer. The best way to get back at a man was to make him jealous, although she wasn’t sure Thayer Core would make Philip squirm. Still, Thayer was young, he was hot, and he was better than nothing. “What are you doing?” she texted Thayer.
A reply came back immediately. “Torturing the rich.”
“Let’s hang,” she wrote. He texted back his address.
His apartment was on Avenue C and Thirteenth Street, in a low brick building with a dirty Chinese restaurant below. Lola rode a narrow elevator to the third floor. The hallway was tiled with large squares of brown linoleum. A door opened at one end of the short hallway, and a bristled man in a stained wifebeater stared at her briefly and went back inside.
Another door opened, and a pimply-faced kid stuck his head out. “You here to see Thayer?” he asked.
“Yes,” Lola said. “What was that about?” She indicated the occupant of the other apartment.
“Pay no attention. The guy’s a drug addict. Probably jonesing for his dealer to bring him a fix,” the kid said casually, as if thrilled to be in possession of such knowledge. “I’m Josh,” he said. “Thayer’s roommate.” The apartment was all that Lola had been expecting and worse. A board atop two plastic crates made a coffee table; in one corner was a futon with eggplant-colored sheets, barely visible under a pile of clothes. Pizza boxes, Chinese food containers, bags of Doritos, a bong, dirty glasses, and a bottle of vodka littered the counter that separated the tiny living room from the kitchen area. The place smelled of dirty socks, nighttime emissions, and marijuana.
“Are you Thayer’s new girlfriend?” Josh asked.