Free Bundle of Joy? by Ariella Papa Page A

Armando’s grip. I looked up into Fireman Torrisi’s eyes.
    “For real,” he added.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    Then all of the puffy-coated firemen climbed back into their various positions on the truck and drove away. The crowd dispersed and traffic began to move down the street again.
     
    None of us could bear to be in the apartment. The whole place smelled the way Georgia’s kitchen had when her brother Spiro decided to cook his G.I. Joe in the microwave. I had an awful hacking cough as I picked up my shoes and put on myjeans. I didn’t bother to turn on my computer. I didn’t want to think about what I might have lost.
    Nadia went home, and Armando, Kelly and I went to The Blarney Stone. It was us and a bunch of old men who looked like they’d been there drinking since the seventies. We got a booth and settled in to drink beer all night.
    “I so sorry,” Armando said to us. “I lit candle.” He looked like he might cry. His room was in the worst shape, worse than my office.
    Kelly seemed really annoyed, but I was too exhausted by the whole situation to be annoyed. I had no idea what to say. I just drank can after can of beer until I knew I could go home and pass out despite the smell.
    Even though it wouldn’t help us, we got apartment insurance the next day. Actually, I called, but I made Armando swear that he was going to deal with our management company. I wasn’t going to accept any of his excuses about not speaking English, and he wasn’t offering them.
    It was over a week before the apartment stopped stinking like smoke. All of our clothes reeked of it; the inside of the kitchen cabinets that had been closed were blackened by it. That fire had been powerful, but from what I gathered from the insurance company it could have been a lot worse.
    I was lucky that my computer was fine. It almost made me reconsider backing up stuff on disks. But then the disks could get burned. My desk was in pretty bad shape—but it had been a street find after all. A lot of old invoices and several of the magazines where my articles appeared were lost. Luckily I kept the magazine with my first paid story in my room.
    Kelly was pretty bitter at Armando for being so careless, but I thought he was beating himself up about it too much, so I went easy on him.
    I ordered in a lot that week. I didn’t want to turn on an oven. Heat and fire of any kind freaked me out. Armando told me he had trouble going into the kitchen at the restaurant. Kelly said that she was having trouble smelling matches. I guess we were all pretty spooked.
    I started fantasizing about living alone. As much as I was happy that night to have my roommates with me and to not have to be on my own, I couldn’t help but think that I never would’ve been in that situation in the first place if I lived alone. Maybe that would send me into my shell forever, completing my transformation into a hermit, but I wanted to be the one responsible for everything that happened in my life. Never again did I want to be running out of an apartment because of someone else’s negligence. I wasn’t ready to actually move, but the thought kept gnawing at me.
    I also kept thinking about the firemen running up the stairs. They had been fearless. It didn’t make any sense to me. How could you risk so much for people you didn’t know? I didn’t know anything about those guys, but because of them I still had my computer, which, while it wasn’t as valuable as my life, still meant a lot.
    I caught myself daydreaming about those firemen—good-looking men coming to my rescue in all sorts of ridiculous circumstances. I felt like a walking cliché.

7
    E very day for almost a month I stared at the Warren Tucker tape, which had survived the fire, but didn’t watch it. Then, when Jamie and I were leaning over the railing of the New London ferry, Block Island-bound, she told me that Warren had made the first cut. There would be one more cut before they brought the guys on air, which