I made the last turn onto my street, feeling the smile that broke over my face every time I did. I was incredibly blessed to be able to live where I did, the way that I did. Most gals in their twenties in this city were lucky if they shared an apartment with only two other girls, and I knew plenty who shared with more than that. I lived alone, a luxury, in an apartment I owned, an unheard-of luxury.
Well, technically my father owned it. But it was in my name. So according to my own version of the rules, I owned it . . .
I grinned back at the pumpkins and gourds that peeked merrily over the brownstone stoops. Halloween was only a few weeks away, and decorations were going up all over town. As I clicked up the stairs to my own home, a gaggle of white Lumina pumpkins glowed in the twinkle of the streetlights. Juggling my purse and bags, I unlocked the front door, then paused to gaze up at my building. Three stories with an attic, it was three separate apartments, with my own on the first floor, or parlor floor. The other tenants had been here for years, and helped me take great care of the building. We shared the garden out back, and the fourth-floor attic was a shared storage space.
It was converted from a single-family residence back in the fifties, and much of the original woodwork and detail was still intact. The main central staircase had been preserved when it was closed in, making each apartment a self-contained unit sharing the same stairs. Beautiful honeyed wood shone brightly in the entryway, with an original period mirror poised just inside. A bronze umbrella stand, complete with antique parrot-head parasol, stood proudly in the corner, another shared item.
I let myself in my own front door, which had been rescued from a salvage yard when my father renovated the building years ago. The original renovation had been done on the cheap, with ugly flat steel doors. My father had scoured antique shops and architectural salvage dumps until he found beautiful mahogany doors, likely pulled out of another brownstone in the city. Replacing them throughout the building made it feel more homey, and certainly more fitting for a house built in the late 1870s.
I carried my bags through the living room with its shiny pocket doors and eighteen inches of intricately carved crown molding, in through the dining room and its waist-high chestnut wainscoting, on into the galley kitchen with its marble tiling and butcher-block counters. Setting my bags down as I slipped out of my shoes, I listened to the relative quiet. Relative because it was never truly quiet. Cars honking over on Bleecker, a faraway siren, and the ever-present background hum of 1.6 million people living in twenty-two square miles.
It had been a great day. I’d landed a great account based on my unconventional yet killer pitch. I had the entire weekend to look forward to. I had a bagful of luscious cheese to indulge in. And I had a headful of luscious images to indulge in. Pouring a glass of red wine, I let my mind run wild . . .
Oscar. His name was Oscar. I know this because my best friend, Roxie, had clued me in, knowing him from the small hometown she had recently moved back to. Her boyfriend lived on the farm next to Oscar’s. Before I knew this, I only knew him as The Hot Dairy Farmer I Crushed On at the Union Square Farmers’ Market.
I had it bad for Oscar. I’d lived most of my adult life able to date pretty much whomever I chose. A late bloomer, I’d spent much of my teen years hiding my ample body under big sweatshirts and a loud mouth, never letting boys close and certainly never letting anyone under the big sweatshirts. My freshman year at culinary school (a disastrous decision considering I could burn water, but a great decision considering I met my two best friends, Roxie and Clara), I embraced my curves, my natural good looks, and realized that confidence went much further than a small ass in tight jeans.
I’d spent the first part of my life as an observer, watching the world as it went by instead of participating, particularly when it came to men. I’d watched my girlfriends fumble through relationships, watched guys run circles around them, especially when the girl lacked confidence. I learned things about how men and women operate by listening and watching and remembering.
I’d had one boyfriend, just the one, and when it ended, it ended badly. It nearly broke me, in fact, and when I came out the other side of it I was determined to never let a man define me again. Moving across the country and enrolling in culinary school on a whim, I found a new family of friends that welcomed me with open arms.
No one knew me. No one knew my story. No one knew I was the ugly duckling, and in a school where everyone was as in love with duck fat as I was, no one blinked an eye at a pretty (which was news to me), chubby girl who was finally finding her way back out of the dark.