Manny laughs at her through the open passenger window. “Well, I’ll be sure to call you and your cab to help next time, too,” he says. Because there’s going to be a next time, he feels certain.
“Ugh, thanks, no, pass,” she says. Then she tilts her head to the side and gives him a once-over so frank that Manny finds himself blushing. It ends with her grin and wink. “You, uh, ever want to consider a different kind of ride, though, call Checker Cab Dream Weddings and ask for me.”
Manny can’t help chuckling, though it’s awkward. He doesn’t think he’s used to such aggressive flirting. She’s pretty, and he’s interested, but something makes him reluctant to take her up on the offer. What? He’s not sure. Maybe it’s just the fact that he seems to be transforming into the living embodiment of a major metropolitan area, and that’s not an ideal time to start dating anyone. So he tries to make it kind as brush-offs go, because it’s not her, it’s him. “I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”
She grins, taking the rejection in stride, which makes him like her that much more. Then she pulls away from the curb, and there he is alone in front of his new home.
It’s one of the older apartment buildings of Inwood, sprawling over half a block and with an actual garden out front, he notes as he walks through the wrought-iron gates. Someone in the building has planted poppies and, he thinks, echinaceas. In the foyer, which is huge, there are black-and-white tiles on the floor and fancy cornices in marble along the walls. The ceiling is embossed tin buried beneath so many layers of paint that it looks lumpy. No doorman, but this isn’t that kind of neighborhood.
None of it feels familiar. The address was in his phone, thankfully, on a sticky app marked with New addy!!! followed by barely legible finger-scrawled information. But he does not remember ever visiting New York before.
(What kind of person abbreviates “address” to “addy”? he wonders. What kind of person is three exclamation points’ worth of excited about having a new address? Is that the sort of person who would rent an apartment and pick a roommate sight unseen?)
The sluggish, ancient elevator is the kind with an inner gate that must be pulled shut before the whole thing will move. On the top floor, the elevator doors open to reveal a hallway lit murkily by ancient fluorescents and stretching away into a distance that shouldn’t be possible given the length of New York city blocks. From within the elevator, it’s eerie, like something out of a survival horror video game. As Manny steps out, however, something seems to swipe its way across his perception. When he blinks, the hallway light is brighter, its shadows reduced, its contrasts softened, and its faint scents—lingering food smells from someone’s dinner, dust, paint, a whiff of cat piss—sharpened. Now it’s just a hallway… but it feels safer, somehow, than it did a moment before.
Weird. Okay, then.
4J is the apartment number in his phone. Manny’s got a key tagged with the same number, but he knocks just to be polite. There’s a thump of hurried feet from beyond and then the door opens, held by a lanky Asian guy who’s got sleep lines all over one side of his face. But he brightens and spreads his arms at once. “Hey, roomie!” he says in a heavy British accent. “You made it!”
“Yeah,” Manny says, grinning awkwardly. He has no idea who this man is. “Had some, uh, some trouble on the FDR.”
“The FDR? Isn’t that on the east side of the island? Why would your cab go that way from Penn? Was the traffic that bad, after that horror show at the Williamsburg?” But the man ignores his own question in the next instant, stepping forward and grabbing Manny’s suitcase. “Here, let me. Your boxes and other suitcase all got here a few days ago.”
It’s all so normal. Inside, the apartment is enormous, with a full-sized kitchen and two bedrooms that are nicely spaced from each other—one just past the living room, the other farther down the hall, past the bathroom and a storage closet. His roommate has claimed the closer one, so Manny heads to the far end of the apartment to find a spacious room that features a full suite of bedroom furniture. Apparently pre-amnesia Manny wanted a furnished space. There aren’t any sheets on the bed, and there are dust bunnies in the corners, but it’s nice. The window displays a great view of a commercial parking lot. He loves it.
“See? Yeah?” says the roommate, watching him take it all in. “It’s a great flat, yeah? Just like the pictures I sent you.”
Pictures. He’s the kind of guy who signs a lease based on pictures. “Yeah, perfect.” But he can’t keep calling his roommate “you.” “Uh, this is embarrassing, sorry, but your name—”
The man blinks, then laughs. “Bel. Bel Nguyen? PhD candidate in political theory at Columbia, just like you? What, was the train ride that bad?”
“No. Uh—” It’s a useful excuse. He evaluates its potential benefits and decides to deploy it. “Well, yeah. I had, I don’t know, a fainting spell? When I was getting off the train. And my head’s feeling a little…” He waggles his fingers, hoping to convey confusion rather than delusion.
“Oh. Shit.” Bel looks honestly concerned for him. “You need anything? I could, uh—Maybe some good tea? I brought some from home.”
“No, no, I’m okay,” Manny says quickly, although all at once he’s not entirely sure of that. Here in this so-ordinary place, as he thinks about what happened on FDR Drive, it seems less and less possible. If he’s got amnesia, then maybe there’s something genuinely wrong with him. Maybe he’s been hit in the head. Maybe he’s got early-onset dementia. “I mean, I feel okay. But there are things I’m having trouble remembering clearly.”
“Like my name?”
Manny considers replying, No, like mine, but decides against it. Discovering that one’s roommate is actively undergoing a break with reality is high on the scale of “things one wants to learn before signing the lease.” “Among other things. So, uh, sorry in advance if I ask about things you’ve already told me. Or if I tell you things you already know. Like, uh, my nickname. Call me Manny.”
He’s braced for pushback, but Bel only shrugs. “Manny it is. You want to change your name every week, mate, whatever, as long as the rent checks clear.” He laughs at his own joke, then shakes his head and lets go of Manny’s suitcase. “Sure you don’t want that tea? It’s not a bother. Or—huh. I was thinking about going for a walk, to get the lay of the land, so to speak. Join me, yeah? Fresh air might do you good.”
It’s eminently sensible. Manny nods, and after a pause to dump his jacket and change into fresh jeans—he’s just noticed the streaks on his khakis from sitting on the taxi’s roof—they head out.
The apartment building is only a few blocks from Inwood Hill Park. The park is gigantic, Manny remembers seeing on a map somewhere. (He seems to have no trouble remembering general facts, he notes clinically. Only things specific to his own life elude him.) It’s also the last untouched bit of an old-growth forest that once covered the entire island of Manhattan. It mostly looks like any other park on first impression—paved pathways, ironwork fences, benches, tennis courts, and the occasional dog walker complete with leashed, yapping coterie. Surprisingly empty, although that’s likely a factor of it being the middle of the day on a weekday, when most people are at work or school. Past the manicured bit of mowed lawn and decorative trees, Manny beholds a forested hill rising above all, covered in a dense tangle of trees and shrubs that clearly have never seen a backhoe or road grader. He stares at this, astounded that it exists less than five miles from the lights and bluster of Broadway, while Bel inhales, his eyes shut in palpable bliss.