She smiled in a motherly way, as if touched to hear me figure out such basic facts about New York. “I don’t disagree with you.”
“It’s just—these parents. They’re the worst. They’re like total Calvinists. They work all the time, and they make their kids work all the time, as if the moral crime of being so ridiculously rich in a city with so many poor people is somehow negated by never actually enjoying your wealth.”
Her clacking stopped. “Did something happen?”
“No. Just the usual bullshit. It’s like, this guy, right? I told you about him. The sex therapist with the freaky dyed eyebrows?”
She nodded vaguely.
“He sat me down in his office the other day, and he just starts going on and on about how wonderful his kid is, and then he starts in on how he’s not that kind of parent, he doesn’t want to pressure her, but he also doesn’t want her to miss out on any opportunity, which is totally code for ‘get her into Barnard.’ So I’m just supposed to magically pull this high score from her, so she can get into this college where she doesn’t even belong, and at the same time not do anything to heighten her anxiety. And when that doesn’t happen, I lose my job! After a month! I mean, whatever happened to a learning curve?”
“Wait, what? You lost your job?”
“Not really. They’re just taking away my SAT students. Which is totally fine. I suck at it anyway.”
“But what are you going to do? Isn’t their main business the SAT?” Her concern jolted me. She wanted things right in my life.
“Yeah, they have some new girl for me to work with. Her parents just basically want someone to sit with her while she writes her college essay. It’ll be super easy.”
“Oh, okay. So it’s good. I mean, so it’s working out.” The lightness in Lacie’s voice—how quickly she was assuaged—made me want to smash her calm. I needed her worried ahead of my ask.
“It’s kind of good, but what if she gets mono? Or jets off to Vail? These kind of people, they’re always leaving. And then all my income disappears,” I snapped my fingers, “like that.”
“Well, I told you. You can give me the rent whenever.”
Getting what I wanted so quickly left me breathless. She was so good to me. “Yeah,” I sulked. “I feel bad.”
“Don’t feel bad.”
“What pisses me off is that Griffin just sits me down and says they’re taking away all my students as if it’s no big deal, as if I weren’t counting on that money. It’s like it would be gauche to say, Hey, actually, that’s my income. There’s this fiction that we’re all doing it out of the goodness of our hearts. It’s such bullshit.”
“You’re freaked out about money.”
“No, not really. It’s just—maybe I’ll get another job.”
“Look, Rose. Really don’t worry about the rent. I mean, pay me eventually, but don’t freak out.”
“But don’t you need the money?”
The red yarn tangled around her wrist. “I mean, yeah, but not like, immediately.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, it’s like, I mean, my parents sort of—I mean, I pay most of the mortgage.”
“Wait, you own this place?” I couldn’t keep the shock from my voice.
“I mean, my parents do. My mom. And me, I guess.”
“But how did she even—” I was thinking of the small white house where Lacie had grown up, single-story, on the edge of town.
“When Bee died.” She shrugged.
Amid the snapshots taped to the fridge there was the program from her grandmother’s memorial service. Often when Lacie was out I had taken it down, puzzling over the list of Quaker hymns and Jewish prayers, the Wallace Stevens Lacie had read.
“Oh.” I nodded. “I’m sorry.”
She laughed. Everything in the room felt pressurized, the objects shuddery and wavering. “Now you’re judging me like you judge those rich kids.”
“No, I’m not. I mean, I was just thinking about Bee. I wish I could have met her.”
“Yeah, well.” She held my gaze. I knew we were both thinking that I would have met her all those years ago when I was in Cambridge, if not for what had happened. “She had a good life. That’s what everyone says.”
As Lacie returned to her weaving I let my gaze roam around the room, seeing anew the clamp and sewing machine, the glass jars of sequins and corked bottles of wine, the homemade sourdough and drizzly twin candle stubs. It wasn’t just her grandmother’s money in this apartment. It was her whole way of life.
Growing up, Lacie’s trips to Boston had been events, with hushed discussions of dresses and trips to the symphony and high tea. She always returned with gifts that made me sick with envy: a set of 256 colored pencils, a swirly Venetian drinking glass, a white silk blouse. Bee had practiced immigration law, slept with John Updike, and founded a black-box theater. Once retired, she held a weekly salon. There had been a husband, briefly, but she’d built her life around something other than marriage: she’d had theater and art and old china, friends and wine and conversation instead.
But I couldn’t touch these things; I couldn’t tell Lacie I had read the program from the memorial service so often I had it memorized, that I had googled Bee more than once, and read her obituaries. I couldn’t ask her if she’d given up on love the way her grandmother had, though in that moment I became convinced she had. Leo’s betrayal had broken something basic in her. For where was Ian? Why did he never come over? What kind of dating were they doing?
But it was much easier to talk about money, so I said, “Thanks for being chill about the rent. And sorry. It’s so hard to talk about money.”
“Yeah, totally.” She shook her head, relieved. “It’s so hard.”
But hard was not exactly the right word, or money was not exactly what we were talking about. We were discussing debt and forgiveness, what I owed Lacie and what would be repaid, but the currency wasn’t the dollar.
I hung around the couch, finishing my soup and watching her sort skeins of yarn. There was a sort of itchy neediness in me. “Lace?” I finally said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” There was exhaustion around her eyes. Talking about her grandmother had upset her.
But I pushed on. I suddenly had to know. “Why did you let me move in?”
She didn’t answer right away, and I braced myself for a dodge.