Mental note: Give Mike’s cat extra food before bed. It’s impossible to look like a criminal when there’s a well-groomed calico rubbing against your calf.
“Yeah, we’ve really hit it off these last twenty-four hours,” I said. “I’m already dreading our good-byes.”
“You’re a little cutie, aren’t you?” she said in that strange voice girls reserve for animals and small children. I watched her scratch down by the cat’s tail. She was wearing an old, beat-up sweatshirt, ripped jeans, and Ugg boots, but I could still tell she came from money. This gave her a certain power over me that I was nowhere near schooled enough to understand.
She stood back up, and when our eyes met this time, my stomach growled so loudly I had to cover it up by faking a small coughing fit.
“You okay?” she asked.
I straightened up, nodding. “Yeah. Wow. Excuse me.”
“Anyway,” she said. “I have a little situation upstairs. When I try and turn on the water in the shower, nothing comes out. Like, not even a drizzle. Do you know about stuff like that?”
“A little bit.” Lies! “Need me to take a look?”
“Would you?”
“Lemme grab the keys.” I darted back into Mike’s living room trying to call back all the times I’d seen my old man go at the plumbing underneath the kitchen sink with his trusted wrench. I could still picture him lying on his back, halfway in the cabinet, twisting and turning things in a chorus of clanging metal.
Why hadn’t I paid more attention?
Fake Espinoza
Her place smelled like tomato sauce and garlic bread and Parmesan cheese. As she led me through the kitchen, into the long hall, my mouth started watering its ass off. Maybe I was better off staying in Mike’s pad, where I’d been able to convince myself that the entire borough of Brooklyn was participating in a Christmas fast.
“I’m Haley, by the way.”
“Shy,” I told her.
She glanced at me, still walking. “Like, S-H-Y?”
“Exactly.” I’d been through this exchange dozens of times since landing in New York. Which I found strange. Nobody back home even thought twice about my name.
Haley shrugged and we shook hands awkwardly on the move, and then she stopped in front of the bathroom door and motioned me inside. “This is it. It’s the same thing with my roommate’s shower, too.”
Her bathroom smelled of perfumed soaps, and there was a framed poster of a couple kissing in front of the Eiffel Tower. Her sink was covered with makeup and eyelash curlers and this fancy circular vanity mirror that made my face look three times its normal size. There were pastel-colored towels in two sizes stacked neatly beside the black polka-dot shower curtain, which Haley swept aside. She turned both valves all the way on, but nothing came out. “See?” she said.
“Interesting,” I told her, staring at the faucet and rubbing my chin. I turned on the Hot valve again, then the Cold. They didn’t work for me, either. Then I ducked my head under the bath spout and stared up into the matchbook-sized hole, pretending to be studying God knows what.
I knew my old man was proud of me in certain ways. When NYU called from across the country offering to pay my entire tuition—as well as a monthly stipend for living expenses—he even threw a party to celebrate. My aunties, uncles, a few cousins, and my girl at the time, Jessica, all came over with home-cooked dishes and booze, and just before we sat down to eat, Pops held up his can of Tecate to say a few words (in English out of respect for Jessica). “I never believe this was possible,” he said, looking around our small living room. “A college boy is an Espinoza. But it happens. Congratulations to my son, Shy!” Everybody clinked glasses and drank and patted me on the back and told me they always knew I would do something special.
But at the same time, all of us were aware that I’d failed to learn the one thing that defined Espinoza men: the ability to work with one’s hands. Pops had tried to show me how to change the oil in his truck, how to strip shingles off an angled roof and lay hot tar, how to rewire a dead outlet, but it didn’t take long for him to realize I was a lost cause. My one talent in life? Filling in those little bubbles on Scantron sheets. That was it. Honest to God, I had a gift for those damn bubbles.
“I wonder if it has something to do with this weather,” Haley said, as I continued turning the valves back and forth. “Like, maybe the pipes froze.”
“I was just thinking that.” I looked up at her. “It would explain the lack of water pressure.” I had no idea what I was going to say next until I said it.
“Great,” she said, sarcastically. “My shower doesn’t work, and the super’s upstate until after the holidays. I guess I’ll be growing some holiday dreadlocks.”
“Seems weird the pipes would freeze in a brand-new building,” I said.
“Right? And why does the toilet still flush?” Haley pushed down the silver handle to prove it, and we both watched the water swirl and suck down the bowl in a gurgling crescendo before slowly rising again. “Maybe they’re on different lines or something?”
“They’re definitely on different lines,” I said, because it sounded pretty logical. Plus, I would hate to think my shitter was connected to the faucet I used to brush my teeth.
“The kitchen sink works,” Haley said, “but not this one.” She turned those two valves as well and nothing came out. She shook her head. “I should be back home in Portland right now, standing under a scalding-hot shower. But like an idiot I waited until the last minute to book my ticket. And then, you know, they canceled all those flights.”
“You’re welcome to use Mike’s shower,” I said.
Haley looked at me for a few long seconds, like she was thinking. “That’s sweet, but I’ll be all right. Isn’t it supposed to be good for your skin to occasionally skip showers?”
“I’ve heard about that.” But I knew the real reason. I didn’t strike her as the trustworthy type. I was wearing ripped jeans and an ancient-looking T-shirt. I had my home area code tattooed clumsily onto my knuckles on both hands.
Don’t ask.
I was only fifteen and tequila was involved.
“Something about the natural oils or whatever.” She shrugged. “Anyway.”
I turned back to Haley, who was obviously waiting for me to leave now that I’d proven useless. “Well, I should probably get back downstairs to feed the cat. Sorry I couldn’t help.”
“No worries.” She led me out of the bathroom and back through the hall and kitchen, where my empty stomach sounded like the Fourth of July.
She held open the front door.
“Happy holidays,” I told her.
“You too.” She smiled. “And I appreciate you coming up here to take a look.”
As I walked toward the elevator, I listened for the click of Haley’s door behind me. When I finally heard it, I felt crushingly alone.