Timing
Christina (Age 24)
New York City was everything I expected and nothing like I thought it would be all at once. The smell was the first thing to hit me. At first it was a sour stench of human waste, sweat, and when I got close enough, food vendors would confuse my senses by making my mouth water with the aromas wafting from their trucks and carts. The second thing that hit me about New York was when I went below to ride the subway. The heat down there, while waiting for the trains, was palpable. There is always a thickness to the air in the south with the humidity, but this was different. It was a stifling, unnatural heat to top off an already hot summer day.
I had finished with school, finally, and now I was in New York for a job interview. It was time for a change, but even I had to admit the big city was rather intimidating for this small-time country girl. I had been born, raised, and abandoned by everyone I loved in my little beach town. It was the last thought that made me push for this move, even when I wondered if I might be in just a little over my head here. Besides, I was an artist and an art history major. I was destined to be in a bigger city with a larger art scene. All the better to be discovered, right? Sure. That’s what I kept telling myself.
I made my way to the Oxford House Apartments on East 72nd Street and glanced up. They didn’t seem too bad, as far as an apartment buildings went. This would be where I was housed if I got the job. They were allowing me to stay in the studio apartment that they kept here for staff that rotated in and out of the area. When I got inside, I found the apartment and knocked on the door, as I’d been instructed to do since I didn’t have a key yet.
A man in his early thirties wearing a suit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe opened the door and smiled widely at me. “Welcome, Christina. I am Bradford Cormack, at your service!” He made a sweeping gesture with his arm, indicating I should enter. Then he chuckled as he slipped back out of the way, and only after I got inside did I realize he had to back himself up into the bathroom so that I could come through the front door into the hallway that led to a small kitchen and a living room. “I’m not really at your service, this is a today only type of thing.” As he joked, I glanced around, looking for another door or something, but that was it, besides two closets that were opened.
I turned to the man, “There’s no bedroom space?”
He gestured with his hand around the tiny living room area. “This is it, my sweet. A studio means that the living and bedroom space are one and the same.”
“Okay, yeah, I just… wow.” I spun in place and wondered what this place rented for per month. Back home it would have gone for $400 a month, at most. “What’s the rent on this place?”
He grinned. “Two grand,” he offered up leisurely while I choked on my own spit.
“Two grand? As in two thousand dollars?”
“It’s a steal, right?”
“It’s something!” I laughed then. “I could rent a whole three- or four-bedroom house back home for that amount of money,” I explained to him.
His brows shot up into his hairline. “Yes, darling, but then you wouldn’t have all of this at your fingertips,” he told me as he indicated the view out of the window. It wasn’t much of a view actually, since the building was only six stories high and there were others towering on three sides of it and a street out front. “Location is everything, especially in the art world. If you want to be a big name someday, this is the place to be.”
I chuckled. “It feels like this place probably swallows up more artists than it shows off.”
“You’re not wrong. Let’s see what you brought to show the big wigs, shall we?”
And that was how I ended up making friends with Bradford – never Brad – Cormack. He was very adamant about his name. He also lifted me up and took me out for drinks when I was told that the position at the gallery would not, in fact, be mine. The consolation prize was that they loved some of my work enough to feature it an upcoming gallery opening.
I was two drinks into my ‘Misery Celebration Spectacular’ as Bradford called it when my phone rang.
“Christina? Where are you? Everything sounds so loud there.”
“That’s because I’m in a bar in New York.”
“New York? What the hell are you doing there?” She asked, though she seemed a bit distracted as I listened to her giggling about something and trying to cover the phone as she did. I, in turn, rolled my eyes.
“I was here about a job.”
“What? No! You can’t move to New York!”
“Well, I didn’t get it, so that won’t be an issue.”
“Good, because I’ll be coming home soon, and I have news!”
“I already know you graduated with your Masters,” I reminded her.
“No, it’s not that. I met this really cool guy at a concert. We don’t have that explosive chemistry I had with my ex, but…” she hesitated, and I just remembered that I never actually met her ex, so I wouldn’t know what kind of explosive chemistry she supposedly had with him. I could almost picture her smiling through the phone though. “He’s great, and we’ve been hanging out. He invited me along on tour with the band Valhalla Rising. Can you believe it?” Her voice was squealing loudly as she mentioned the man.
“Is he in the band? Aren’t they older?”
“No, he’s not in the band. I guess they’re in their early thirties or something,” she mentioned. “This guy, Jay, is part of their security team, and the best part is that he’s actually from Charleston too! We spent the last few weeks of the tour together”
“Oh, that’s cool. So, are you going to stay with him now that the tour is over?”
“Yeah, isn’t that the greatest?”
“The best, for sure,” I agreed as I took another drink that was offered to me by Bradford.
“I know it’s not super passionate, but I don’t think he’d ever cheat on me. He’s looking for familiar and comfortable just like I am.”
“That’s good, Lindsay.” I wasn’t sure why she was so concerned about cheaters. She’d never complained about any of her exes cheating on her. “I’m happy to hear that things are working out for you.”
“Yeah, you too!” She offered, though it rang pretty false considering I had only told her about not getting a job. She hadn’t asked about anything else where I was concerned so I didn’t bother to tell her about my good fortune with getting some of my work shown. For some reason, I wanted to keep it to myself for now. If and when any of it sold, there could be a celebration.