Free Will You Won't You Want Me?: A Novel by Nora Zelevansky Page B

off the couch, grabbed her acoustic guitar and woven backpack, and sprinted for the door.
    “Wait! Where are you going?”
    “I owe you big time! I’ll text you the address.”
    “Address? For what?”
    “For the tutoring session. They pay in cash, so if they let you stay once you tell them you’re not me or part of the program, you’ll make money at least. Make sure you tell them that this time slot won’t work for me going forward, so they can request a replacement.”
    “Wait, Fred, seriously?”
    “Please! I can’t tell you how much I’d appreciate it.”
    “What about the apartment?”
    “You can move in whenever. Just call me and we’ll work out the details. My ma says you’re kinda broke, so I can help you move with my band’s van.” She paused. “Oh, I mean, assuming you want to move in.”
    Marjorie hadn’t even seen the room, but what choice did she have? “I’m in. In, in, in.”
    “Great, great, great!” Fred bounded back over to Marjorie, crammed a set of keys into her hand, and surprised her with a hearty hug. “This is going to be amazing!”
    “But Fred! I don’t even know how to get to Park Slope.”
    “Follow the quinoa crumbs!” Fred slammed the door behind her.
    Marjorie stood shocked for a moment, then trotted up the steps to see the extra room. Judging by the absence of Fred’s clothing heaps, hers would be the one at the end of the corridor. It was small but clean, and had a window overlooking the garden. Marjorie felt mildly relieved. It would do just fine.
    She walked back down the stairs, grabbed her own bag, and headed out to cover this strange girl’s tutoring session.
    Maybe this would work out after all? Marjorie had her doubts.

 
    10
    A text from Fred—a mess of undecipherable typos and fragments—listed where and whom to meet but ignored the purpose of the tutoring session, which was likely to go poorly regardless since Marjorie couldn’t stand kids.
    Precious shops lined 5th Avenue; up side streets sat idyllic brownstones, inside of which Marjorie assumed residents were home brewing beer and pickling vegetables for wild composting sessions.
    As instructed, she waited outside a vegetarian café. Gatherers, watching thirty-something women push enormous strollers past, trailed by pasty men with offspring strapped to their fronts like kangaroo pouches. Telltale dead eyes—puffy with sleep deprivation—confirmed that the babies had finally won.
    Their uniform attire suggested limited primping time: Women marched in Crocs (a feat never before realized) toward yoga classes to fight emergent hips. Men wore “Brooklyn” T-shirts, alerting themselves to their current location.
    On the corner, a woman huddled over her screaming infant in his stroller, repeating, “C’mon, Davis, C’mon, Davis!” as if he might listen to reason. Engrossed, Marjorie did not notice an eleven-year-old girl and her mother sitting inside by Gatherers’ window, staking out the entrance, until the elder—a stocky woman with a chest like a shelf in her sports bra—walked outside and tapped Marjorie on the shoulder. “Excuse me! Are you the tutor?”
    It would occur to Marjorie later that the mother, Harriet, never asked her name, a surprising oversight by someone so protective of her only daughter. For now, Marjorie sized the woman up, as she began rattling off instructions. Harriet was an older parent—early fifties. Wiry gray hair bordered her makeup-free face in haphazard squiggles.
    “Let me introduce you,” she was saying, “so you can get started and I can get to my chiropractor appointment. We live around the corner, so Belinda can walk back alone. Just please remind her to look both ways before crossing the street!”
    Marjorie shook hands with Belinda, hovering tableside. The girl’s long dark hair was pulled back in a flowered headband, and her big green eyes peered suspiciously from behind tortoiseshell glasses. She wore a nonsensical T-shirt that read HAPPY DANCE!