Free The Emerald Light in the Air by Donald Antrim Page A

startled by this interruption, said, “Oh, you know,” to which she replied, “No, I don’t know. You have to tell me.” And so he said, somewhat defensively, “Yes. They did. They did,” then, waving his hands in the dark, went on to announce—it was as if he were making a promise—that he could handle himself in this world. And though he was not, he further acknowledged, currently employed, neither was he concerned. He had savings, in a manner of speaking, from his last and only secure position, as an associate at a law firm where he’d realized early on that he would not have the will or the desire to make partner. What point would there have been in carrying on? he asked her without really asking. He said, closing, “I’m not worried. I can find legal temp work when I need to. Hey, life’s just one big process of elimination, right?” He shoved Siegfried aside, jumped up from the bed, and stood staring out at the bright city. Why was he so jittery all of a sudden? “How about a little air?” he suggested, raising the window an inch, letting in the sounds of sirens and car horns blaring far below.
    Over the next months, as winter turned to spring, and spring to summer, in apartments in Manhattan and a brownstone in Brooklyn, Jennifer and Christopher developed a pattern of habitation described in rough form by the weekend at Amy’s. After hauling overnight bags and specialty-shop groceries into the new house-sit, they would cook without cleaning, nose through cabinets and drawers, and fall in and out of bed, where, after screwing, they might also eat. It never took long for things to go to hell—crumbs in the sheets, ashtrays and unwashed glasses and a wine bottle or two (she liked a glass before sleep) sitting on the floor, spills drying on kitchen countertops, leftovers hardening in pans. “What a disaster,” Christopher would invariably say when the time came to tidy up, and she’d answer, rolling her eyes, “Yes, but it’s our disaster.”
    Before they made their escape, she’d scribble a note and leave gift-wrapped soap or a bottle of good olive oil (along with her leftover wine, if there was any) in a place where it would be found the minute the rightful inhabitants came through the door.
    Some places worked out better than others. Karen and Peter’s Little Italy walk-up facing the street was cluttered and dreary, and a tenant in a neighboring apartment had the music turned up loud, but Jennifer, intent on a good time, hauled Karen’s wardrobe from the closet in search of skirts and dresses to model for Christopher. Karen had fabulous clothes, in Jennifer’s size. It wasn’t long before Jennifer began pulling out the shoe boxes as well, along with Karen’s cashmere sweaters and blazers, and parading from the bedroom in head-to-toe outfits, while Christopher commented from his chair on the looks that worked and those that didn’t. That was a fun night. Less enjoyable was the brownstone, where Christopher caused basement flooding when he used paper towels instead of toilet paper in an upstairs bathroom, clogging a section of pipe, three stories below, that had been rusting away for years. The owners of the house, Sam and Beth, were away in California with their twins, Sarah and Miles, at Sam’s grandmother’s memorial service. The better part of Christopher and Jennifer’s weekend was given over to negotiations with plumbers, negotiations undertaken without consulting Sam and Beth. Finally, a man came in and sawed away and replaced the corroded pipe, and they spent Sunday afternoon laundering the towels they’d used to clean the floor and the assortment of Miles’s and Sarah’s toys that had been sitting in a pile beneath the leak. “That’s what happens when you buy instead of rent,” Christopher announced that night as he locked the front door behind them. He