Charlotte shrugged. “I have no problem with putting the farm out-of- bounds. It was just a stopgap measure.”
The others were relieved to hear her say this. There were five of them there now that Alexandra had arrived, and they ran down the items listed on the schedule. Complaint about noise, priority in the boathouse, desire for a bigger freight elevator (Vlade rolling his eyes at this, mentioning size of elevator shaft, wondering if a taller elevator car would satisfy the complainer), dispute over the dues/work credit formula as applied to someone who thought cleaning the hallway on their floor was work deserving of a work credit. Relations with the LMMAS, pronounced “lemmas” or “lame ass,” depending on mood, the Lower Manhattan Mutual Aid Society, which was the biggest of many downtown cooperative ventures and associations, a kind of umbrella for all the rest of the organizations in the drowned zone. Exchange rates between the dollar and the Lame Ass blocknecklace currency were so divergent between official and unofficial rates that LMMAS had proposed they do away with the official rate and just let it float. Had to try to keep the wet currency as strong as possible, if it was to succeed at all. And they needed it. So: currency policy. Just another building issue.
On it went like that, as they ran their little city-state. Apartment 428 was empty because of the death of Margaret Baker, no heirs who wanted to move in, they lived in Denver and wanted to sell. Marge’s contract with the co-op was rock solid, Charlotte knew this because she had helped write it, and so the Denver family was going to have to sell to the co-op for one hundred percent of Marge’s buy-in. Very fair. The co-op had a reserve fund dedicated to reacquisitions, so it seemed like it would be okay.
But then Dana said, “If we bought it from them and then rented it to nonmembers, we could make the buyout price in about ten months and then go on raking it in from there.”
“Ten months?” Charlotte asked.
Alexandra and the others nodded. Rents in lower Manhattan were shooting up. People were enjoying the SuperVenice, and that was causing housing prices to rise. Intertidal aeration, they said it was called.
“Aeration,” Charlotte said in the way Vlade would say mildew. “Don’t they just mean inflation, or speculation? I thought the Second Pulse had spared us all that.”
Not forever, she was told. Canal life was looking exciting. Hassles of daily life not evident to tourists, or to people so rich they could buy their way out of the hassles.
“One of the rich people who wants to buy in here is Amelia Black,” Vlade mentioned. “Her room and a parking share on the blimp mast. She said it would be a bit of a stretch for her, which surprised me, but she said she wanted a place in New York, and she likes it here.”
“Would she work the co-op?” Charlotte asked, feeling skeptical. “Isn’t she away a lot?”
“She said she would work the co-op. I’m sure she’d pitch in, she’s that kind of person.”
“But wouldn’t she be away a lot?”
“Sure, that’s her job. But if we have a member who works the co-op when they’re here, being away a lot is not the worst thing, from my point of view. Less stress on the building, less water-power-sewage. More food left for others.”
Charlotte nodded. Vlade thought the building’s thoughts, and she valued that. “The membership board can work that out with her,” she said.
“Membership sent her to us with a yes recommendation.”
“Okay then. Let her buy in, if they say so.”
“I’ll tell her,” Vlade said.
“Where is she now?”
“The Arctic. She’s going to fly some polar bears to the South Pole.”
“Really?”
“That’s what she told me.”
“I don’t know about this one. She sounds like trouble to me. But the membership committee has spoken.”
They moved on to other business, running down the schedule as fast as they could. All of them had been on the board long enough not to want to prolong a meeting. Vlade wanted his cathodic protection systems replaced on every steel beam in the building, and a new sewage processor to better capture and process their shit into fertilizer for the farm’s soil, and more say on the bacino’s aquaculture board. He also wanted an upgrade in their electrical connection to the local power substation. The building’s photovoltaic paint generated most of the electricity they needed, but there was a lot of back-and-forth electrically between them and the substation, and an upgrade would help. These were the main items on his wish list, he said in conclusion.
The last item on the schedule had been added by Dana at the last minute, he said: there was an offer to buy the building.
“What?” Charlotte said, startled. “Who?”
“We don’t know. They’re going through Morningside Realty and prefer to remain anonymous.”
“But why?” Charlotte exclaimed.
“They don’t say.” Dana looked down at his notes. “Emmerich guessed it’s a company from the Cloister cluster, but that may just be because Morningside has its offices up there. They’re offering us about twice what the building was last assessed at. Four billion dollars. If we took it, we’d all be rich.”
“Fuck that,” Charlotte said.
Silence in the room.
“We probably have to bring it to a vote,” Mariolino said.
Vlade was scowling. “You have to?”
“Let’s research it first,” Charlotte said.
They got up and briefly mingled near the window, mulling things over. Coffee for some, wine for others. Charlotte poured a stiff Irish coffee for herself, wanting both stimulation and sedation. It didn’t work, in fact it backfired, making her antsy but confused. An anti-Irish coffee, must be an English coffee. “I’m going to go to bed,” she said grumpily.
When she got to her room, which was actually just a bed and desk in one of the dorm rooms, separated from the rest of her roommates by soundquilts, she found a message from Gen Octaviasdottir on her screen. She tapped and Gen picked up.
“Hi, it’s Charlotte. What’s up?”
“Getting back to you about those missing persons in the building.”
“Find anything?”
“Not much, but there are some things I can tell you about.”
“Breakfast tomorrow?”
“Sure, let’s.”
Maybe a mistake to put something else on her calendar and in her head right before bedtime, with an Irish coffee in her no less. It was quite possible her brain would ramp back up and begin a spin cycle on this stuff, jazzing wearily through another night of insomniac pseudo-slumber, in and out until the light of dawn relieved her of the pretense of sleep. But in the event she crashed and slept well.
I love all men who dive.
said Herman Melville
h) Stefan and Roberto