Josie, 12A

Josie moved into apartment 12A on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. She didn’t have much furniture, only one car-boot full. In fact, most of what she did possess were collections. Seashells for the windowsills. Blue glass bottles for the countertops. There was a shoebox filled with tissue-wrapped knickknacks. She owned a French press, a grinder, one suitcase of clothes, and books. An abundance of books.

Her grandfather had given her his old blue-and-white striped army bedroll. She’d sleep on that until she had the money for a used bed frame, a new mattress, maybe a second-hand sofa. This was the first time Josie was really and truly on her own. No parents. No dorm. No beau. No-body.

The apartment was in her dream building. The tower was tall enough to sport views, but not scary tall. The apartment was old enough to have character but still with amenities. The small courtyard brimmed with fruit trees and flowers. Her one-bedroom featured a fire escape outside her window. She would put plants there, she decided. The kitchen floor was black-and-white tile. The modest closet had a light with a pull cord. There was crown molding and built-in cabinets, and it was hers.

All hers. Glorious, beautiful, hers.

After carrying the last box inside, she put on an old t-shirt that came to the tops of her thighs, made a pot of coffee at midnight, and read on her bedroll until it was nearly dawn. There wasn’t anyone to tell her to turn out the light.

But on her first morning, she had no hot water. Or water that never got hot. Tepid showers were only going to be bearable for so long. Shivering, she toweled dry, got dressed quickly, and went downstairs in search of the super.

Her ex had said she wouldn’t be able to exist on her own, that she was like a house cat who needed someone to open the can of tuna for her. Not that he was an expert handyman. He tended to buy new when something went belly-up. But he felt she was unprepared, a plaything, a party favor. While she knew in her heart that she didn’t need to prove anything to him, she needed to prove something to herself.

Yet that didn’t magically transform her into a plumber.

A man was standing right outside the building manager’s door, wrench in hand. She tentatively tapped him on the shoulder, and when he turned around, she saw that he was wearing a shirt with a patch over the pocket that read “Raymond.”

He had dark hair and gray eyes and a face that felt familiar, as if she’d been to a party with him long ago, but maybe never been properly introduced. He was someone she’d definitely seen once upon a time. He had a strong jaw, mild lines around his eyes from smiling, a friendly, open expression.

She hesitated a moment too long, and she could feel him assessing her as well. She’d thrown on her favorite, faded jeans and a denim shirt, her wet hair was in a ponytail, and she hadn’t bothered with make-up. He smiled, and she smiled back.

She said. “I’m really sorry to bother you. And I know it’s only my second day here, and I don’t want to be THAT tenant, but my hot water isn’t working properly, and I was wondering… I’m Josie, 12A, by the way.”

He nodded efficiently, said he had one thing to do first, and then he’d be right up. No problem. She made a fresh pot of coffee, so she could have something to offer. She did own two mugs.

There was a knock on her door within half an hour, and she let him in. Where had she seen him before? She couldn’t shake the feeling. She wondered if she should ask, but he seemed ready to get to business. The apartment was small, and he didn’t need directions. She trailed after him down the hall, offering coffee, happy when he told her yes, thank you. It felt self-sufficient to be giving someone a coffee.

“What was the exact problem?” he asked when she brought a cup into the small pink bathroom.

“The water was the saddest water ever. Not cold, but never hot. It was lukewarm at best.”

He got busy, made a few bangs and clatters, and then found her in the kitchen with a quarter-sized disc in his hand. “There was an anti-scald device on the shower,” he said, “no big deal at all. You’ll have all the hot you want next time you turn the knob.”

“That’s it?” she asked.

He nodded. She thanked him, and felt a vibe between the two of them. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him, felt herself go pink, debated mentally if she should offer a tip but decided that was a no-no, and let him out of the apartment. She thought about him while she watered her spider plants. She thought about him as she wandered through the new place, feeling like she owned the whole world, moving a book here, a pillow there. Wherever she put something, it was going to stay there until she moved it again. She was nearly giddy with power.

One of her friends came by with a housewarming gift and gently ribbed her about her apartment being nearly empty. “You know, there’s this invention called the sofa…” Agatha told her.

“I know. I don’t care.” Josie couldn’t put into words the pleasure she had in simply being in her own place. She stuck a postcard on the fridge with a little magnet. She put the cactus from Agatha in the kitchen. She started to fill the cabinets with basic items. Sugar. Pepper. A bottle of wine.

The next week, a lightbulb burned out in her kitchen. She didn’t have a step stool, didn’t even have any actual chairs yet. She attempted to reach the fixture from the counter, but failed. She considered piling her books up to make a makeshift ladder, imagined herself ending up in a pile of Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, and then gave up and went to find her handyman. She told herself she really did need his help. She wasn’t looking for an excuse.

Her ex would have laughed at her. “How many Josephines does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None, because she doesn’t know her loosey from her goosey. Or her righty from her tighty.” Or some such nonsense. But just because she needed help didn’t mean she was helpless.

Nobody answered her knock on the super’s chipped green door. Then she saw him in the courtyard. “This is embarrassing,” she said as she approached him. “I mean, I do know how to change a bulb. But it’s up so high, and I don’t have a way to reach.” She hated to admit this next part, but she added quietly, “I don’t even have any chairs yet.”

“I’ll come by after lunch,” he said. She noticed he was wearing a shirt with the name tag “Max.” She didn’t say anything. It was a little strange, though.

He showed up a few minutes after one p.m., and she had the coffee ready, and he had a ladder with him. He easily unscrewed the vintage light covering, and she served as his assistant, holding the four little metal screws in her palm while he took off the dome, and then handing him the new bulb.

After, she offered him some cherry pie. She'd bought a slice at her favorite bakery the night before. She had one plate but two forks, and they stood by her counter, since she had no place to sit but the floor, and ate the pie together.

“I’m not judging or anything. I’m just curious…” he started, “Why don’t you have any chairs?”

“You know how breakups sometimes go south?” she said.

He nodded.

“Mine went arctic. I left with the bare minimum. But my soul’s intact. I wasn’t going to fight him for possession of the dining room set, especially since I’d always hated it.”

“What did it look like?”

“Something your grandma would put a felt topper on.”

“Oh, jeez.”

Her ex had favored traditional. She liked scrounged and repurposed. It wasn’t the cause of the break-up, but it had made leaving easier.

The handyman—Raymond? Max?—said he’d be on the lookout for items if she’d like. She said she’d like, and she thought about her ex, and how when he needed something new, it had to be new.

She went thrift-store shopping that afternoon, looking for more items for her apartment. She found a small coffee table, which she decided to paint, and she bought another plate.

Soon after, she saw the most perfect set of chairs by the side of the road. They needed new seats, but she was handy with upholstery. Her car was a compact. She had no way to transport the quartet other than carry each one back to the apartment and hope nobody else got to the remainders in the interim. When she saw her handyman in the lobby, he said, “Do you often take chairs for a walk?”

She said she had to hurry, there were three others just like this one, and she didn’t want them to disappear. He helped her rescue the stragglers, and he watched as she positioned them around the space a table would hopefully go.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” he said, and she wasn’t sure whether he was kidding or not. Today, his shirt said, “Mike.”

At some point, she was going to have to ask him what his name was. But she felt they’d gone past the point where it was simply a polite error into a strange zone.

That night, she spread newspaper on the floor and painted each chair a different color. She used scraps of fabric she’d been saving to refashion each cushion in a different shade of denim. She’d been hoping to have more of the place done before the end of the break she’d taken from work for the move. But she still felt joy when she walked through the rooms. Her place. All hers.

When she came home from work the next night, there was a small bookcase outside of her door. She brought it into the living room and found that it fit perfectly under the window. She unpacked a box of her books. She didn’t believe in lining the spines by color. She organized them by genre. The noir. The Westerns. The romances. Her ex had always complained about her books, and always asked why would anyone need so many. He owned a handful of titles on how to succeed, make friends, influence people. He’d failed on every score.

Over the following few weeks, presents appeared outside her place. First, there was a lamp. She replaced the shade with one she found at a local flea market. Then a rag rug. Then an old-fashioned magazine stand.

When she came home one evening, she found that one of her windows was sticking. She’d never tried to open it before. She decided to leave a note for the super, and maybe invite him for another slice of pie. She’d bought coconut this time.

She found him coming towards her down the hall carrying a small table.

“I thought, maybe…” he said.

It was perfect.

He fixed her window in no time, and she set out the two plates and two forks and made the coffee. This time, he was wearing a shirt that said “Joe.” She still didn’t know how to broach the fact that she didn’t know his name.

He asked her more about her previous living arrangements. She said she’d moved in with her boyfriend after university, and she’d never had a need to buy her own furniture. What they’d bought together was his style. All she really had were her books and souvenirs. Packing had been easy because he’d never let her put out her knickknacks. They’d all been in boxes in the back of the closet.

He told her that his whole place was cast-offs, often from when people moved out of the building and didn’t have room for all of their accumulated items. Or when two people moved in together and didn’t need duplicates of every item.

She told him she was going to a flea market on Sunday, and would he like to go with her, and he said yes without a hesitation. She knew she was going to have to find out his name first. Or somehow call him darling, hon, or sweetheart like beehive-sporting waitresses did at the local diner. She’d practiced while she was pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Hey, hon…” “Sure, darling.” She wasn’t sure if she could pull this off.

When she was checking her mail the next day, she overheard two neighbors talking, and she introduced herself.

The handyman walked past and nodded to them. He had on a striped shirt with “Billy” on the pocket. Josie realized this was her chance. In a low voice, she said to one of the women, “Hey, what’s the super’s actual name?”

“Mr. Miller?”

“Do you know his first name?”

“I think it’s Charlie,” said the other neighbor. “Goes by Chuck. He should be back soon.”

“Back from where?” Josie asked as she watched her handyman disappear into the courtyard.

“He’s been visiting his grandkids in California for a few weeks.”

“Grandkids!” Josie couldn’t hide her shock. “How’s that possible. He’s only maybe thirty…”

The woman shook her head. “Mr. Miller? He’s a widower. Lives in the basement apartment. I can’t wait for him to come back. Our disposal’s on the fritz again.”

Her handyman came back towards her then, holding a step stool in his hands. The women headed to the elevator, and Josie said quietly, “Who are you?” He looked abashed, and she said, “I mean, you’re not the real super, right?”

“No,” he said. “You were never supposed to find out.”

“Find out what?” She was so confused.

He shrugged and ducked his head at the same time. His cheekbones were flushed. “I just live here.”

“You live here…”

“I know it’s silly. I mean, of course you were going to figure it out at some point…”

“Figure what out?”

He put out his hand. “I’m your neighbor. But when you asked for help that first day, I realized you thought I was just the super, and I didn’t want to make you feel bad. I should have said then, but…”

“So you kept helping me?” She was shaking his hand, and then just holding his hand.

“Yeah, well, you were so nice. Gave me coffee. I thought it was a one-off, and then you had me over another time. Gave me pie… by then I thought it was sort of too late…”

“Like I thought it was too late.”

“For what?”

This was her chance. She had to say it. She took a deep breath. “Dude, what is your name?”

He started to laugh. “What do you mean?”

“I asked this one woman if your name was Raymond, and she said there wasn’t a Raymond in the building. And then I thought Mike…”

He put out his hand. “My name is Tev.”

“Tev,” she said, “would you like a cup of coffee? You don’t have to fix anything.”

They went up the elevator together. There was a flickering energy between them. Stronger than a lightbulb. Hotter than shower water without a no-scalding device. She put her hand close to his. His fingertips brushed hers. When they got to her apartment, she had trouble with the key in her lock. He opened the door for her, and he leaned against the counter while she boiled the water.

Even though it was clear they didn’t really want the coffee. Or maybe they’d want it after. While they waited for the java to brew, she asked, “So why do you have all of those different names on your shirts?”

He looked around her kitchen, warm and glowing with the different collections she’d arranged on the counters and windowsills. The seashells. The blue glass. “Because I collect them,” he said.

“So what do you actually do?” she asked next.

“You’re not going to believe me.”

“Try me.”

“I work at a secondhand store. You’ve been in it. I generally am in the back, tinkering. I was surprised you didn’t recognize me. Where do you work?”

She said, “You’re not going to believe it… I work at a used clothing store. Sometimes we get shirts in like that… I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that you were a collector.”

The coffee was ready. He pressed the piston down. She put out the mugs.

“What was your plan going to be when I found out you weren’t the super?” she asked.

He countered with his own question. “What were you going to do when you had to finally call me something?”

She was the one to blush now. “I was thinking of sweetheart, maybe darling, drop the g.”

He leaned forward and kissed her, and she kissed him back. They left the coffee and headed to her bedroom, where she was pleased to learn he was handy in other ways. He didn’t mind the bedroll, said nothing about the lack of furnishings. Pressed her up against the wall and kissed her again. And again.

After, they ate their pie in silence for a few bites, and then Tev leaned and said, “Josie, 12A, you can call me darling, you know. Drop the g or not.”