Skirting The Issue

“Ah.” They both laughed.

Men.

“Some men have all the luck.”

“I make my own luck.” Tavish held out his hand for another postcard.

The other man nodded. “I’ll have to admit that holding a lottery for a Central Park West apartment is genius.”

“Thank you.”

Sam had been idly eavesdropping but hearing about the apartment again made her focus her attention even though Central Park West was so out of her league.

“And you don’t even advertise.”

“I don’t have to.”

The movement of the line brought the men closer to Sam and the supply table. People kept cutting through the line which interfered with her eavesdropping.

“…agents do screen, so I’m not taking the wild risk you seem to think.”

“Risk, or not, didn’t you tell everyone to be there at noon?”

Both men checked their watches. Sam did as well. It was twelve-thirty.

Tavish shrugged. “They’ll wait.” He spoke with supreme confidence.

His apartment was being shown at noon. His unadvertised apartment. A sublet. Knowing what she did of New York, Sam knew the sublet was likely illegal. The fact that this didn’t bother her must mean something, but Sam wasn’t going to explore that now. This man in the fake leather cowboy vest had an apartment for rent. Sam needed an apartment. There was no need to complicate matters.

Except maybe to wonder in what kind of apartment a man who wore a fake leather cowboy vest in June might live, but wasn’t that what posters, pillows and artfully placed colorful throws were for?

As the men approached, Sam strained to see the return address on the postcards Tavish labeled. NY, NY. Yeah, yeah. Tell her something she didn’t know. She leaned closer, but at that moment, someone trying to cut through the line jabbed her with an elbow, then bumped into Tavish and his friend.

“Hey, watch it, buddy.” Mr. Titanium Glasses made a rude gesture as several of the postcards fell to the grimy floor.

Not proud, Sam grabbed for one. She intended to give it back—truly she did—but somehow, in the commotion, a strong self-preservation instinct kicked in. She read the printing, “Tavish McLain announces his summer itinerary. In June, he will be on safari and can be reached in care of Mavis Trent Travel…” In July, he’d be summering at a villa in Italy. And so on until Labor Day. Sounded like a great summer. Better than hers, even if she did get the promotion. Must be nice. Sam flipped the card over and there, printed in the upper left-hand corner, was an address.

It had to be his apartment. It had to be.

I make my own luck. Well then. If this wasn’t a sign, she didn’t know what was.

Without giving herself time to reconsider, Sam kept the card and walked out of the post office, hailed a cab, then gave them the address of the apartment.

The man ran a lottery for his apartment. She couldn’t win if she didn’t play the game.

AFTER FLINGING WAY TOO much money—guilt, no doubt—at the cabbie, Sam climbed out of the taxi and looked quickly up and down the street.

Nice neighborhood.

Who was she kidding? Fabulous neighborhood. The kind where all the apartment buildings had snooty uniformed doormen. Except this one, it seemed. There was no doorman, uniformed or otherwise.

Maybe he was performing one of those errands everyone seemed to have doormen perform. Sam only knew this from movies and television and not from personal experience. But she could learn. Would love to learn, in fact.

She pushed open the plate-glass door. And shouldn’t that be a duty of a doorman? she was thinking when her eyes were assaulted by a tableau featuring a man with a pale, hairless chest smack dab in the tiny foyer.

Actually, he was smack dab on a folding lawn chair as he soaked his feet in a plastic wading pool featuring cartoon fishes. He wore baggy blue polka-dot swimming trunks, which clashed with the blue wading pool, she noted, as well as with the lime-green zinc oxide he painted on his nose. And…could that possibly be the Beach Boys? Yes. Definitely the Beach Boys.

“Password?” he shouted over “Surfin’ U.S.A.” He slid his mirrored sunglasses down his nose, which got them gunked up with the zinc oxide.

Password? She should have known good luck always came with a catch. Sam wondered if the password bore any resemblance to the name of a dead president and wished she hadn’t been so generous to the cab driver.

While she considered her next move, the man cleaned the green stuff off his sunglasses and reapplied more to his nose. “I’m waaaaiiiiting,” he sang. Then he cleared his throat and sang it again an octave lower, adding a theatrical vibrato. “Not bad. Certainly good enough for off Broadway, not that there are many musicals off Broadway these days. But better than the dinner theater circuit, wouldn’t you say?”

“I wouldn’t presume to say anything.”

“I noticed.” He slipped the glasses back into place. “Don’t know the password? How about a piece of juicy gossip?”

“I’ve only got this.” Sam held up the card she’d filched at the post office.

“So you are here about the apartment. You’re late.”

“I know, but Tavish didn’t say anything about a password.”

“Consistency.” He gestured outward, as though reciting Shakespeare. “All I ask is consistency. Is that too much to ask?”

Sam did a little gesturing of her own toward the beach setup. “I think you ask a lot more than that.”

He stared at her—or maybe not. With the mirrored sunglasses covering his eyes, she couldn’t tell. “I like you. You may pass.” He waved her toward the elevator.

“Thanks, uh…”

“Franco Rossi, at your service.” He assumed the manner of a Spanish grandee, rolling his hand and inclining his head.

“Thanks, Franco.”

“Do run along. You’re blocking the light.”

Oooookay. Sam didn’t need to be told twice. Jabbing the button on the elevator, she stared at the numbers above the door and willed the car to come.

The Beach Boys swelled for a brief moment then retreated.

“Who are you?” Sam heard.

The elevator arrived and she nearly pulled open the doors herself. Escaping inside, she turned and saw a woman talking to the weird doorman, or whatever he was, and another pulling open the heavy plate-glass door.

“Password?” she heard just before the doors closed.

Great. More competition. She hoped there weren’t any more rules she didn’t know about.