Page 71 of Maid For Each Other
“Does he give you sage advice while looking at you through the rearview mirror?” she asked.
“Quit being a dumbass,” I said.
“Is it weird that the second you held up your phone and showed me a random New York City street, ‘Empire State of Mind’ by Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys started going through my head?”
“Somehow this does not surprise me about you,” I said, but the truth was that everything about her surprised me. She was so different from the people in my life. She chattered like that through the entire drive to my place, which was a lot more entertaining than reading email or staring out the window and barely noticing these familiar sights that were new and magical in her eyes.
When I finally reached my place, Abi squealed over the fact that it was in SoHo, that I had a doorman, at the shiny silver walls of the elevator, and the music I’d never noticed that was coming from the speakers.
Abi seemed to love everything about my place.
It was fascinating, seeing my life through someone else’s eyes.
I loved New York and this apartment—it’d always been one of my favorite places—but Abi’s enthusiasm was next level.
“Okay, so I need the entire tour,” she said as soon as I unlocked my front door. “And you can’t just saythis is my apartmentand leave it at that. I want to see everything.”
“Creeper,” I muttered as I dropped my keys on the entry table.
“No.” She laughed. “It’s not because I’m a creeper and want to see where you sleep, it’s because I want to feel like I’m there.”
“Like a creeper.”
“Again, not because I’m a creeper but because I want to live vicariously through you.”
“Still a creeper,” I said pointedly, but paused and gave her a wink. “But I’ll allow it for my biggest fan.” I slipped off my shoes and started walking farther into my apartment.
“How gracious,” she said, deadpan.
“This is my apartment,” I said, turning in a slow circle so she could see it all.
“Oh, my God, look at those windows,” she squealed, and she wasn’t wrong. One of my favorite things about the place was that it had more windows than walls. She made a noise and said, “Declan, your house isbeautiful.”
“Thanks,” I said, happier than I probably should’ve been that she approved.
She made me give her a full tour, then she made me take her out on the private terrace.
“I have to go to Benny’s now because I got called in, and that makes me so sad,” she said. “I want to force you to sit on the balcony for hours so I can just watch the street below like a dog with his head out the window.”
“Sorry, kiddo,” I said, walking over to the stack of mail on the kitchen counter.
“Hopefully my car didn’t get towed; I parked it down the street yesterday and forgot all about it.”
“Why don’t you take mine?” I asked. “You’ve got the keys and it’s in the nice, warm garage; you should take it.”
“No,” she said. “I’d feel like I was taking advantage of you, and I would die if something happened to it.”
“It’s not taking advantage of me because I’m the one who offered in the first place, and nothing’s going to happen to it. And if it does, well, that’s why we’ve got insurance.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I am constantly amazed by how little money means to you,” she said, her eyebrows all bunched together again. “You don’t care about stuff at all.”
“Stuff is just stuff,” I said, absolutely meaning it. “I told you that.”
It drove Nana Marian crazy, the way I was unfazed by money, but the difference was that she grew up without it. She still got excited by every expensive purchase she made, even after all this time, and she loved to tell me exactly how much things cost.
My grandmother said to me on a weekly basis,Can you believe how rich I am?
And she didn’t mean it in an arrogant way. She just literally could not believe, even after all these years, that she was rich.
