Welcome to Envy Park (7 page)

"This is good," he said, as he
chewed his grilled beef. "Remind me one day to tell you what I
really think about this interview thing."

"You won’t tell me
now?"

"Not right now, no."

"Fine."

My phone rang, and that happened so rarely recently
that I was concerned, and then was tempted to ignore it. But the
caller ID showed that it was Allie in Singapore. I motioned to
Ethan that I was going to take it.

"Allie babe," I said.

"So very sorry to be calling you
at this hour." Her voice was different across the seas, for some
reason. For a long time she was the closest friend I had, but I
hadn’t actually spoken to her since I got back. One of the things
that tended to happen when we both made the trip back home; we kind
of skipped catching up with each other, taking for granted that
we’d see each other again once it was all over. "But I forgot to
tell you that my credit card’s due this week and I’ll need your
share for the drinks."

"Right, of course. I’ll send it
tonight." Right before I left, we had a going-away margarita party
and invited our friends. We used Allie’s credit card for it but I
promised to pay half. "How are you? How’s the new
flatmate?"

Ethan looked away and checked his
own phone, but he smiled when he heard me say "flat" again. I
raised an eyebrow at him, which he saw through his peripheral
vision too and made him stifle a laugh.

"She’s weird," Allie was saying.
"Twice as weird as you."

"Great, thank you."

"I don’t know. I just got
nostalgic all of a sudden. I don’t think I can talk to her like we
used to talk about things, you know? And then when I offered to buy
her dinner she said no thanks. Who says no to free
dinner?"

"She probably thinks you’re so
needy."

"Well she’s
antisocial."

I knew Allie, and she
was
a little clingy. But
she was fun, and she enjoyed company, and was probably responsible
for half of anything happy I’d remember from my time there. "Is
something wrong?" I asked, shifting gears as easily as if I’d been
there in the flat with her, arriving from the train ride and quick
walk from work. No matter how long or crappy my day had been, I
never really wanted to burden anyone with it. Allie and her daily
little dramas always made me feel in control of my life, for some
reason. "Why do you feel the need to buy a new friend?"

"Shit, I’m really sorry for doing
this to you. I just need...do you have time?"

"If it’s for your sanity? I don’t
think my friend will mind," I said, tapping his wrist. He sort of
shrugged in that universal sign of "it’s okay" and peeked at me
periodically between phone scrolling.

And Allie launched into that continuing narrative of
the evil ex, the confusing current boyfriend, the monster boss. She
was aware though that she was making an overseas phone call and
gave me an abbreviated version, speaking nearly at twice the speed.
Ethan could hear snippets of this and stopped pretending that he
wasn’t listening.

"You can’t call him," I said,
finally, once Allie stopped to breathe. "I’m not there to stop you
but I swear I’ll get the weird flatmate to watch you if I have
to."

"I knew you were going to say
that," Allie said.

"Are you going to stay
strong?"

"You’ll find out, I guess. I miss
you, Moi. And I can’t keep this on for too long."

"Good luck, Allie."

The phone was warm against my face when the call
ended, and I was glad to be able to put it down.

"Crisis averted?" Ethan
asked.

"Maybe not," I said. "Allie over
there? She has a thing for attention and recognition. She will work
for low pay if you give her an award or something. She hates it
when she gets bypassed for things. And when a guy who has already
broken her heart starts texting again, she can’t help but want more
of it." As a friend, I learned that all she needed was for me to
listen when she was like this, and true enough, living with her
became so much easier.

"Do you do this? Figure out
people’s ‘things’?"

So I probably revealed more than I
should have. It could come off as creepy, out of context. "Only if
I have to."

"Have you figured me out
already?"

I shook my head. "Not enough
information."

Ethan did the same. "I just
realized that I can’t do what you’ve done. Live with strangers.
This is too much interaction for me."

"I don’t know, I think you’re
doing fine so far." I said that without thinking much about it,
thinking that Ethan was holding on to his loner badge too tightly
as a matter of pride. Instinctively I wanted to make him feel that
he didn’t need to.

But wait, that was me trying to figure him out.

He was right though, it could get exhausting, and my
own day’s failure crept back up again. The meat, and conversation,
and Allie diversion hadn’t taken it away.

-/\/\/\-

When Ethan and I got back to Tower 3 from post-gym
dinner, we'd ride the elevator together. He would always go in on
my right side, and then he'd be on my left when we turned around to
watch the floors light up. When it came up to the ninth floor, he
would turn slightly to his right, toward me, and give a slight,
polite nod. Then he would step out onto his floor.

So after kebabs, same thing. My mind was busy, I had
to admit, still going over the interview and the many other things
I could have said. Should have said. Still kicking myself over the
inability to articulate my plan in a way that other people could
understand. Was it me? Or everyone else? Maybe it was me.

I almost missed it when the
elevator reached the ninth floor—and Ethan didn't step out. I
didn't catch if he looked at me, or nodded, or did anything else.
The next thing I knew, the doors were closing, and the steel box
slid up to tenth, and he was still inside.

Hmm.

Are you lost? Do you need directions? Do you need to
borrow something?

Things I could have said, should have said maybe,
but was lost in the cloud in my head. Instead, I just started
walking. Turned right into the hallway that led to 10J. And he fell
into step beside me.

The hallway wasn't very long. But I felt each
step.

I'll say something when we get to
the door
, I told myself. Like,
Do you want to come in?

I pushed my key into the lock and then turned to
him, about to say whatever, but it was a sentence that immediately
disintegrated. He was so close. Just there. I was still trying to
get the words back but his lips were already on mine.

I was like, screw words. So I kissed him.

It had been a while, for me. I
didn't have time to think about this, didn't plan if I should play
it coy, mysterious, or casual. I just—I kissed him. I went for it.
Like a girl who really wanted to be kissed.

And what that led to was my least coordinated kiss
ever, a jumble of lips and intentions, each one half a beat out of
sync. I wanted to laugh. It was a little funny.

I thought he was about to do just that when he
pulled back. Make a joke about this, comment about kebab
breath.

But instead he paused, and his hands came up to
cradle my face.

"Just let it happen," he said,
whispered almost.

Our lips touched again, whisper-light first. A
gentle sweep of his tongue and my lips parted, and took, and gave.
It was that until it wasn't as gentle, and wasn't as light, and I
was straining against him and out of breath. This was nothing to
joke about.

This was a great kiss. I didn't
want it to end, but we couldn't live with lips fused together. I
had to, like, sleep, and eat, and talk again at some point. Not now
though. And when I thought it wouldn't get any better, his mouth
sort of swooped down and took the last of my conscious thought with
it...and then disengaged. So softly that I was aware of it only
when I felt the air against my lips again.

The slight breeze came to my face
next, because he had let go of my jaw. And then he stepped back,
gave a slight, polite nod—and walked not back to the elevator, but
in the other direction, toward the fire exit. His footsteps as he
bounded down the stairs echoed in the tenth floor
hallway.

All night I thought about him in 9J.

Chapter 10

Moi,

Did you get my last email? My mom says Tita Mara’s
been talking to you about it, so maybe you’re just busy. But yeah,
I really need hot water. I know it’s always hot there, but it’s a
thing. My mom wants to send money over to get one installed and if
you have it done now then you’ll have hot water while you’re
staying there.

You really don’t take hot showers? Try it. It’s life
changing.

Megan

The other thing that made me
excited about coming home was the thought of decorating my own
place, from scratch. It started when I had to buy a few things for
my room over in Singapore, and before I knew it, I had spent three
straight days just wandering inside IKEA. And even after I got the
"few things," I kept coming back every few months for new curtains
and somewhat-matchy rugs and bed sheets.

Knowing that I had my own place at
NV Park to look forward to however made me just go on full amateur
decorator overdrive. I had vision boards, color wheels, boxes of
"found object inspiration" and took trips to museums to "meditate
in artistic spaces."

One time I was invited to a garden
party and I randomly picked up a shell lodged between two pebbles
on the floor—then it came to me that my own apartment’s theme would
be "home by the beach." For a second I had been transported back to
an early memory of playing at a beach back home, and it instantly
calmed me. I wanted that feeling. I wanted my own place to feel
like the one I could seek refuge in when the world got crazy. I
wanted it to be an escape.

I worked with an initial palette of yellow, blues,
and nutty browns. I wanted wood furniture and glass accents. My bed
frame, coffee table, and kitchen/dining table were variations of
each other. The room didn’t get a lot of sun because of where it
was located in the building, so my curtains were a creamy yellow
with orange print on the inside, and regulation boring beige facing
out.

But yes, I did not have a water heater installed. I
had opted out of it when it was offered to me, because seriously,
it never got cold enough to need it, or so I thought. Not that I
had a say in this, apparently.

There was an appliance store at the mall and I
checked it out, after my afternoon errands. They carried three
brands of heater, the kind that you installed next to your shower
head, and they would all look ugly on my brand new bathroom wall. I
didn’t want to buy it right then, so I asked dumb questions, except
I encountered competent salesmen who convinced me that one
particular brand was a good buy, and installation was free.

Hmph, I thought. I would think about it.

How did I end up at the burrito place again?

I had been thinking about my wall, and how exactly
they intended to install this unsightly contraption. I was going to
have to invite a burly man into my place so he could drill holes
into my wall. How could I say no though, when it was as good as
paid for?

Then I thought, maybe after four years, once Megan
graduated from college, I could tell her to take the heater with
her. But I’d still have the holes in my wall. How would I cover
those up?

And then I felt like having a wrap.

The burrito place wasn’t
exclusively Mexican, more of Mexican-Filipino fusion. I walked in
and was thinking of which manner of pork to have in my burrito when
I noticed Ethan—9J—9th Floor—already inside, sharing a booth with
two girls.

Women, technically. But I thought
"girls" in the way that I thought "girls" to refer to women younger
than me, which they were.

He saw me a split second after I
spotted him. I smiled, because my mouth just wanted to do that, and
it was remembering the nice things his mouth did, but my brain was
yelling
abort! abort! Act
casual!

Dear God. This was not how I wanted our first
post-kiss encounter to go.

He sort of awkwardly waved at me, and I did the
same. And then he sort of awkwardly waved me over, an invitation to
join, and I sort of awkwardly signed that I still had to order. And
then I definitely awkwardly stammered my order to the counter girl.
I had more composure when I walked over to them with my tray, and
took the only empty seat, the one beside him.

I was on autopilot when I did that. I just plopped
myself down on the chair, but then he got up and I wasn’t sure if
it was because it was the polite thing to do, or if he was actually
about to do something, like touch me.

And then I wondered if I did the wrong thing by not
touching him anywhere just then.

It wasn’t like we were an item,
right? I mean, the only people who knew about last night were him,
me—and all of the night duty security, if they happened to be
watching the hallway CCTV footage.

Oh god the CCTV footage.

He was introducing me to the girls
as his "neighbor from Tower 3" so okay, the no touching tactic was
a good one.