“Yeah. Exactly,” Katya said. “He’s my boss, you know. It’s not, like, the most straightforward thing to just say no to him. I mean, he’s probably the person you should be confronting. Not me.”
Sabrina nodded. “I know.” She seemed, suddenly, miserable. She took another drag on the cigarette, and coughed. “Damn,” she said. “I haven’t had one of these in ages. They’re so delicious and gross.”
“That is a perfect description of a cigarette,” Katya said. “Where are you headed? I can walk you.” Even if she wasn’t going to take the whole rest of the day off, she could at least take a break from work.
“I was actually on my way to Isabel’s apartment,” Sabrina said. “She’s kind of freaking out, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
“Oof,” Katya said. “Yeah. I can imagine.” Suddenly, she had an idea. “Hey…this might be weird, but would it be okay if I came with you to Isabel’s? I wouldn’t mind just having, like, a normal conversation with her about what’s been going on.”
Sabrina tilted her head at her. “I don’t know if that’s such a great plan,” she said. “You know, Isabel’s a lot more sensitive than people think. She’s taking all of this pretty hard. I know it was just a story to you, but this is, like, her life. She’s saying stuff about how she’ll never get another job, her life is over, that kind of thing. She’s not in a good place. You’re probably the last person she wants to see right now, to be honest.”
Katya nodded. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I can see that.” She stubbed her cigarette out against the wall of the building and dropped it on the ground. “But…maybe just text her and ask? Tell her it’s not for a story or anything. I just want to talk. Completely off the record.”
Sabrina was quiet for a moment. “Okay.” She took out her phone and sent a text. “Let’s give it a couple minutes. But if she doesn’t respond, then I’m just gonna go.” Katya nodded. But they didn’t have to wait long—within thirty seconds, Sabrina’s phone had vibrated. She looked at it and seemed surprised. “She says sure. Okay, let’s go.”
27
Three’s Company
WHY HAD SHE agreed to let Katya come along to Isabel’s? For that matter, why was she even going to Isabel’s? Sabrina needed to be working on making her life less complicated. Neither of these decisions was going to help her do that. She glanced over at Katya, sitting next to her in the backseat of the Uber they were taking to Isabel’s apartment in Williamsburg. It was only four thirty in the afternoon, but the sun was starting to go down, and as they went over the Williamsburg Bridge, the light glinted off the shiny tall buildings next to the East River, giving the whole neighborhood a warm, dusky glow. Even when she was of the age when one was supposed to go to Williamsburg often, Sabrina hadn’t come to Williamsburg very much, and she certainly didn’t come to Williamsburg these days. But as the driver eased his Honda Civic off the bridge and into the streets, she noticed how even the older, shorter buildings she vaguely remembered had been torn down to make way for structures of glass and steel. They seemed to be telegraphing that New York was nothing if not a molting snake, regularly shedding its old skin to reveal a new body underneath—except that the new body usually looked nothing like the old one. She recalled a night sometime in the middle of the previous decade—before marriage, Park Slope, kids—when she and Dan had gone to a rooftop party somewhere around here, probably in one of the buildings that didn’t exist anymore, and stayed out until the sun was coming up. It felt like a different person had gone to that party. Every now and then as they sped through the neighborhood she’d get a glimpse of something—a deli, a coffee shop, a bar—that looked vaguely, vaguely familiar. Maybe she had stopped at that deli for a Gatorade and a bacon, egg, and cheese after that rooftop party—or maybe not. Geographic nostalgia for somewhere you had only faint memories of was such a mind-fuck.
The driver pulled into the circular driveway of one of the shiny buildings by the river—this one was called Williamsburg Montage—and they got out of the car. Katya and Sabrina were both silent for a moment as they gazed up at the building. It had to be at least thirty stories high. “I live pretty close to here,” Katya said. These were the first words she’d uttered since they got in the Uber. “In Greenpoint. But I’ve never been to this building. I always wondered who lived here.”
“Isabel, apparently,” Sabrina said. She was also momentarily quieted by the building’s luxury. She could see the doorman from out here. It didn’t seem fair that she would never get to live in a building like this one. Not that she wanted to live in a luxury building in Williamsburg, but it was thoroughly out of her reach now. They gave their names to the doorman and took the elevator to the seventeenth floor. Sabrina noted the elevator buttons for the pool and the yoga/meditation room and the fitness center. This wasn’t an apartment building—this was a hotel.
She knocked on the door of Isabel’s apartment. “Come in, it’s open,” she heard Isabel call out. She opened the door. Isabel lived in a studio that was around the size of Sabrina and Dan’s apartment minus their bedroom. Everything was brand-new: the stainless-steel appliances, the ash-gray hardwood floors, the furniture that looked like it had all come straight from the CB2 catalog. Isabel had a gallery wall of photos and prints above the couch, where she was lying, her head propped up on a pillow facing Sabrina as she walked in, Katya trailing a little bit behind her.