Free Twelve Rooms with a View by Theresa Rebeck Page B

done that yet?” she asked me.
    “No, of course not—why would I write it down?”
    “Well, we’re going to need a paper trail on everything, Tina, this isn’t a joke. I want it established that we are keeping records. Things are going to happen really quickly, and obviously the Drinan brothers have no compunction about playing hardball. We need to be prepared, as much as we can, for whatever they throw at us. What the hell is this?”
    We had stepped into the front room, now filled with light from top to bottom. In spite of the hideous wall-to-wall shag, and all the crazy trouble with Doug Drinan, that room was really gorgeous, so I got distracted for a minute just staring at it and didn’t know what she was talking about.
    “Tina, hellloooo,” Lucy said, waving her hand in front of my face and snapping her fingers.
    “What?” I said.
    “What,” she asked, impatient, “is this?” With her toe, she nudged a small wooden toolbox, placed neatly against the wall beside the doorway to the mossery.
    “Oh, that’s Len’s,” I said.
    “Len,” she repeated, looking at me as if she knew that once again I had slept with someone I shouldn’t have.
    “He was a friend of Bill’s and Mom’s, that’s his moss in the kitchen. They let him grow it there, he’s some kind of botanist person, he lives in the building,” I explained. “He was here when the phone got cut off, and he, you know, he said I should go get a cell phone.” Lucy flipped the light switch. Nothing happened.
    “Yes, I see,” she sighed. “And what did you do once you bought the cell phone? Did you call me at work, as I asked you to, and say, Lucy, the phone has been cut off and they’re probably going to try to cut the electricity as well and maybe change the locks, could you come over and help me handle this? Did you do that?”
    “No, I didn’t do that,” I started.
    “No, you didn’t,” she said, continuing to flip the useless light switch for effect. “You went shopping.”
    “Why would I assume this guy was going to do all that stuff you said? We don’t even know these people.”
    “Tina, honestly, would you try to
think
for once? Hello, Monica, hi.” She was on her cell now, firing on all jets. “I’m going to need you to call Keyspan
and
Con Ed, the gas and electric got turned off in my mom’s apartment and we need to get it turned back on right away, and I mean now. My sister is living here, and she obviously can’t stay if there’s no gas or electricity, so if you need to run down to their offices, then do it. I left three copies of the will on my desk, take them with you so if they give you any trouble you can prove we have the right to put the accounts in my name. You can also give them the number of the building, tell them the doorman can verify that we’ve taken possession. What’s his name?” she asked me.
    “Frank,” I said.
    “Frank,” she said to the phone, and then she rattled off the Edgewood phone number, which of course she knew even though I did not. She finished up the call by snapping her cell shut and then continued to explain things to me as if there had been no interruption at all. “I checked in with Stuart Long, the lawyer, from yesterday?”
    “I remember, Lucy, could you not talk to me like I’m an idiot?”
    “Don’t get snippy, Tina, you almost completely blew it today—”
    “I told you, I didn’t know.”
    “No, you didn’t
think;
you just took off for three solid hours on a
shopping
spree, and I’m not going to ask where you got the money because I don’t care. But while I don’t think Doug Drinan has any sort of legal claim on this apartment, I don’t necessarily think he is a
liar
. Did you find money here?” She waved her hands idly at all the shopping bags I had dumped on the floor.
    “I didn’t have anything to wear,” I said, trying to get to the beginnings of a defense. She was not interested.
    “You listen to me,” she snapped. “If I hadn’t gotten