They were al scrambling, Isabel a thought. Scrambling, scrambling.
She got in a cab and rol ed down the window. Harrison sent her a message that he was making dinner. Harrison knew how to make exactly two things: Manwiches and fajitas. Her phone buzzed again and she looked down. “It’s fajitas,” Harrison wrote. Isabel a smiled.
The air blew through the window, and she watched al of the people moving like ants outside. She was happy to be sitting stil in a cab, happy to be on her way home. She imagined Harrison and Winston sitting on the couch waiting for her. The cab stopped at the corner of Fifty-ninth and Eighth, and she saw a man standing there wearing al white. He was a tiny man, with a perfectly round face. “Jesus is coming,” she heard him say, and she laughed out loud. The cabdriver looked at her in the rearview mirror. “I know him,” she said. It felt lucky to her. What were the odds? She couldn’t explain it, but she was so happy to see him. She smiled at the man and waved her hand out the window. He looked up and waved back to her as the cab pul ed away, and she leaned her head back and closed her eyes and let the breeze blow over her face.
O n their second date, Mark brought Lauren a goldfish, which made her nervous. Lauren knew that the normal life span of a goldfish was about five days, but growing up she’d had one that lived for five years. And so, it seemed a big commitment when Mark gave her the plastic bag with the fish in it.
“Here,” he said, “I got you this.” He held out the baggie like he had just found it in the hal way before he came into her apartment, like it was a normal thing to do to hand a goldfish to a girl you barely knew.
“Oh,” Lauren said. “Thank you. I guess I should put these in some water.” Mark didn’t laugh. Either he didn’t get the joke or he didn’t think she was funny. She couldn’t decide which was worse.
Mark stood by the door while Lauren looked in her cabinets for an appropriate fish bowl. She final y settled on a glass mixing bowl she never used. Was the water supposed to be lukewarm or cold? She didn’t know. She settled on lukewarm so that the fish wouldn’t be chil ed, and dumped him into the water. It smel ed.
Lauren had won her other fish at the Pumpkin Festival when she was seven, and named her Rudy, after Rudy Huxtable from The Cosby Show.
Her parents were annoyed. “You won a fish?” they asked when she came home. They rol ed their eyes and warned her that it would probably die soon. They dug up an old fishbowl from the basement and bought fish food. “Don’t get too attached,” they told her. But little Rudy raged on. She swam fiercely year after year. When they final y found Rudy floating bel y-up at the top of the bowl, the whole family was shocked. It was as though they’d expected her to live forever; as though they’d forgotten that her dying was even a possibility.
Lauren watched the new fish swim around. He looked weak. Not like Rudy at al . “I guess I’l need to stop and get fish food,” she said.
“Just give it some bread crumbs,” Mark said. He sounded like he wasn’t the one who’d brought her the fish in the first place.
“I’m not sure that fish can eat bread,” Lauren said. Mark just shrugged.
“What are you going to name him?” he asked.
Lauren considered this. Should she name the fish Rudy as a good-luck gesture? Maybe it would help strengthen the little guy.
“Wil ard,” she final y said. “After Wil ard from Footloose. ”
“Where?”
“Footloose. The movie?”
“Never heard of it,” Mark said. He looked at his watch and then back at Lauren.
“Wel then, we’l have to watch it,” Lauren said. “It’s amazing.”
“You ready?” Mark asked. Lauren nodded and put her coat on.
“Good night, Wil ard,” she said to the bowl. She left the light on in the kitchen so that he wouldn’t be disoriented.
Mark was odd. Lauren knew that. She knew from the time that he approached her in the deli that he was not normal. He interrupted her while she was putting Equal in her coffee. “Hel o,” he said, and she jumped in mid-stir.
“Hi,” she said. She was running late to meet a client and didn’t have time for pleasantries with a stranger.
“I’ve seen you here before,” he said. “Every morning around this time, I see you here getting your coffee and sometimes a bagel.”
Lauren stared at him. She had never noticed him before. “Real y?” she asked. It didn’t occur to her until later that she should be nervous.
“Here’s my card,” he said. “Cal me. I’d like to take you out.”
Lauren took the card, but didn’t look down at it. “Okay.”
“I look forward to hearing from you,” he said. Then he turned and walked out.
Lauren thought that was sort of cocky. He was very handsome. She could give him that. But stil , people didn’t just approach other people in the middle of their morning coffee to ask them out. Did they? No, they did not.
Lauren thought about him al during her appointments that day. She was escorting a young Kansas City couple around. They were relocating to the city and wanted to find a place immediately. The wife had blond hair and wore a pastel minidress. She complained about every place they saw.
“I don’t know,” she kept saying. “It’s so smal . It’s just so smal .”
“This is pretty standard for a one-bedroom in New York,” Lauren said. The wife glared at her.
“We want to have children soon. Babies,” the wife said. Lauren nodded.
“Right. Wel , a lot of people in this building put up a wal for a second bedroom. It’s a pretty nice size, so you wouldn’t feel so tight for space.”
The wife looked at Lauren’s hand. “Are you married?” she asked.
Lauren shook her head. She reminded herself to be nice so that she wouldn’t lose a good commission. This couple had to move soon. They were against renting. They were a guarantee buy.
“I’m not married,” Lauren said. “But one of my best friends lives in a building very similar to this one, and they put up a wal to make a bedroom for their little boy. It might be hard to imagine what it would look like, but if you picture it over there you might get a better idea.”
“I think that would work nicely,” the husband said. “Don’t you?” He put his arm around his wife and squeezed her shoulder. He had been chipper al day. He felt guilty for making them move and was trying to make it up to his miserable pastel wife.
“If you want to see some bigger places, we could look in Brooklyn or maybe Hoboken,” Lauren offered.
The wife shook her head. “No,” she said. “We want to be in Manhattan. We told you that. Didn’t you listen?” She walked away and stood facing the wal with her arms crossed. Her husband gave Lauren a little smile and went to stand next to his wife. Lauren waited quietly while the couple stared at their imaginary baby’s imaginary room. Sometimes, she knew, people just needed a little time to be able to picture themselves in a new place, to see possibility in a blank space. And so she waited.
Lauren cal ed Mark that night. She didn’t even mean to. Not real y. She was eating take-out sushi and saw his card in her purse. She dialed before she could real y think about it.
“Hi,” she said when he answered. “Mark?”