Free I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron Page A

coming upon you in the hallway and making you feel guilty even if you were entirely innocent. She was, in short, a character from a nightmare—so much so that she instantly became a running character in mine: I began to dream that I had accidentally moved out of the Apthorp, realized it was the worst mistake of my life, and couldn’t get my lease back because of Miss Ross.
    Meanwhile, the unthinkable happened. The state legislature passed a luxury decontrol law stating that any tenant whose rent was more than $2,500 a month and who earned more than $250,000 a year would automatically be removed from rent stabilization. I couldn’t believe it. I was stunned. I could understand the new law applying to new tenants, but how on earth could it apply it to those of us who had lived in the building for years under the implicit bargain involved in rent stabilization? I had never even gotten a paint job from the building, I’d never even asked for one, and now the landlords were about to treat me as if I were living in a luxury apartment. It was practically unconstitutional! It was totally unfair! It was completely unjust! It was wrong! It was also, of course, not remotely compelling to anyone in the outside world. I made a very decent living. I was going to have my rent raised. What’s more, I was going to be the very first person in the building to undergo the experience. And no one cared. Even I wouldn’t have cared if I hadn’t been me. On the other hand, I wasn’t exactly me. I was in love. I was a true believer, just like one of those French villagers in the Middle Ages who come to believe they’ve seen the tears of Saint Cecilia on a scrap of oilcloth; I was a character in a story about mass delusion and the madness of crowds. I was, in short, completely nuts.
    And so I went to see Miss Ross. As I recall, I gave a tender speech about my love for the building. It was incredibly moving, if not to her. She informed me that my rent was going to be tripled. We negotiated. She dropped the price. She dropped it just enough for me to believe that I had managed a small victory. How much did she drop it to? I can’t possibly tell you. I’m too embarrassed to type the number. Even if I assured you that in the context of New York rents it wasn’t even that outrageous, you’d never believe me. The point is, I agreed to pay it. I signed a new lease.
    I signed because I had enough money to pay rent but not nearly enough to buy an apartment nearly as nice anywhere in the city.
    I signed because my accountant was able, in that compelling way accountants have, to convince me that the money I would pay in rent was less than I would pay in monthly maintenance plus mortgage interest on a co-op apartment.
    I signed because I was, as you already know, an expert in rationalization, and I convinced myself that there were huge savings involved in my staying in the building. The cost of moving, for instance. The cost of new telephone service. The cost of the postage required to notify my friends that I would be living at a new address. The cost of furniture, in case I needed new furniture for the apartment I hadn’t found and wasn’t moving into. The hours and days and possibly even weeks of my time that would be wasted trying to reach the cable company—during which time I might instead write a great novel and earn a small fortune that would more than pay for the rent increase.
    But as I said, this isn’t a story about money. This is a story about love. I signed the lease because I wasn’t ready to get a divorce—from my building.
             
    Many years ago, when I was in analysis, my therapist used to say, “Love is homesickness.” What she meant was that you tend to fall in love with someone who reminds you of one of your parents. This, of course, is one of those things that analysts always say even though it really isn’t true. Just about anyone on the planet is capable of reminding you of something about one of your