Sunlight streams through the windows of the Tribeca apartment. Even after five months, it’s hard to think of it as mine. Ours, really. Every morning the ample light and space surprise me anew when I walk out of our bedroom, like maybe it was all a lovely dream.
I moved here with David, our first apartment together, after Priya announced her plan to move out of Orchard Street. “You’ve lived in the same apartment since you were twenty-two, Hannah. Don’t you think it’s time for a little upgrade?” she nudged. “Wouldn’t it be nice not to be on top of each other? To have closets that fit more than five outfits? To have a living room with windows? A dishwasher? And with this new job, I’m finally making enough to get my own place.”
Of course those things would be nice, but Orchard Street was my home, mostly for lack of other, better options to claim.
Plus, I loved living with Priya. It was the college roommate experience I never had. Saturday nights doing our hair to a soundtrack of Lana Del Rey and Lorde in the apartment’s Pepto-Bismol-pink-tiled bathroom, nursing mugs of cheap white wine. I’d gotten used to her sounds (her marimba alarm tone and her favorite podcast, Call Your Girlfriend, which she listened to while getting ready for work) and her smells (the expensive Diptyque candles that were her most-cherished beauty editor perk and the rooibos tea she left half-full mugs of around the apartment). After almost six years living together, Priya was fully ingrained into the fabric of my days.
With her moving out, David suggested we move in together. The idea was as intriguing as it was terrifying. Even though I already spent most weekends and an increasing number of weeknights at David’s Flatiron apartment, living together felt like a huge step. What if he was turned off by my apathy toward basic housekeeping, or found me annoying when there were no breaks? After all, Finn and I had only lasted two months as roommates.
“I already know that you have awful dragon breath in the morning and that you prefer the crappy one-ply toilet paper to the good stuff, and I still love you,” David joked. “I want all your quirks, Hannah. Bring ’em on.” And just like that, his exuberance melted my resistance.
Rather than moving into his apartment, David suggested we find something that was ours instead of his. I was a goner the second I saw this apartment with its oversized factory windows, exposed brick walls, and a top-of-the-line kitchen straight out of a Food Network set.
But better than the apartment itself was the man I got to live here with. We’d been dating for a little over a year by then, and I felt like I’d gotten away with something by getting his tacit agreement we’d stay together at least the duration of a twelve-month lease.
“What’s wrong with this place?” I asked as I poked my head into the walk-in closet in the primary bedroom. If it was in our price range, there had to be a catch. Cockroaches? Professional tap dancers for upstairs neighbors? Ghosts?
It turned out I was right, I couldn’t afford this place, but we could. David had a huge grin on his face when he showed me the Excel formula he made to calculate how much rent we should each pay based on our relative salaries. My heart swelled seeing his nerdy excitement over a spreadsheet. “I really don’t mind,” he explained. “Please let me do this for us. I want us to be a team.” Instead of answering, I backed him against the closed door of our would-be bedroom and pressed a kiss to his lips.
“Is that a yes?” he asked when we came up for air.
“Definitely yes,” I confirmed.
I wasn’t used to having someone take care of me. Finn once called me violently self-sufficient when I failed to tell him about a two-day stomach flu until after I recovered. He meant it as an insult, but I took it as a compliment.
But here, David had a point: he shouldn’t be made to suffer through the real estate atrocities my salary could afford. It wasn’t his fault the radio industry paid peanuts, although technically I made the jump to podcasts two years ago. But my employer is still a chronically underfunded public radio station. I have a cabinet full of canvas pledge-drive totes to prove it.
This morning, I’m camped at the kitchen island getting a head start on my inbox when David emerges from our bedroom in blue-striped pajama pants and a white undershirt with a stretched-out collar. His light brown hair is mussed from sleep and he’s wearing an old pair of wire-rimmed glasses he only wears first thing in the morning or last thing at night.
Morning David is the version of David I like best. The private version, just for me, before he pomades his hair, puts in his contacts, and dons his suit for his job at the law firm. Although he doesn’t look bad in a suit either.
He wore the glasses on our first date, which I later learned was unusual and only because he ran out of contacts. “I have a really early morning,” he said after two glasses of wine at the Immigrant, the dimly lit wine bar in Alphabet City he’d suggested. I thought our date was going well, certainly the best I’d ever been on, but it seemed the feeling was not mutual.
I braced myself for a brush-off. After only a month on the dating apps, I’d learned to read the signs. I chastised myself for daring to get excited about him. But then he surprised me. “Would you mind if I just got a water?” he asked. “Because I’m really enjoying talking to you and I’m not ready for the night to end yet.” In that moment I fell a little bit in love with him, and the tally of tiny special moments added to his chart of accounts has only grown since.
“Morning,” he mumbles. “Why do you look like someone kicked your puppy? It’s barely seven thirty.” He shuffles over to me and plants a kiss in my hair. Butterflies flip in my stomach at the sweet, comforting gesture, and for a few seconds I forget about the email at the top of my inbox. I lean into him and can feel the heat of sleep radiating off him. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Mitch,” I groan.
“What did he do now?” David asks.
“He’s threatening to shut down the whole project if we don’t lock in talent for the pilot episode soon.” He marked the email letting me know with an urgent flag, the same way he does every single one of his other emails. Even the completely benign ones.
“How could he do that? I can’t believe he doesn’t see what a good idea this is.”
I’m working on a pitch for a music history podcast called Aural History, which I think is a pretty clever name. It would be my first solo project. Each episode would tell the story of a different song. Some chart toppers, other deep cuts with sentimental meaning to the artist, some one-hit wonders. We’d interview everyone involved, from the artist to the songwriters, producers, and session musicians about how the song came to be. I picture it as a hybrid of Pop-Up Video and Behind the Music, both staples of my teenage TV diet.