Charles and Emma walk under the cloudy night sky, toward Chinatown.
“Don’t expect much,” she says as they reach the old brick building. Emma unlocks the front door and begins to climb the stairs; Charles follows close behind. Her anxiety increases with each step. Stay calm, you’ve come this far. Stay calm.
Emma opens the door and Charles follows her inside. The restaurant’s neon sign bathes the room in a dim crimson glow. She turns on a light and stands expectantly while Charles looks around. The Saturdays she’s spent combing the thrift shops and sidewalks of lower Manhattan have yielded eclectic treasures. The fruit crates cribbed from the Chinese grocer are filled with thirdhand books. A fringed shawl is draped over her bed. There’s a Persian rug worn through in several places, a lamp in the shape of three puppies, an old manual typewriter, a wedding photo of a handsome black couple circa 1910. Her plates and glasses are mismatched and colorful. Until now Emma was proud of her apartment, but suddenly-with Charles Davis there-it looks shabby, depressing, a place where a crazy girl trying to pass for normal might live.
Emma drops her coat and bag on the bed and goes to the stove. “Can I make you a cup of tea?” She can feel him behind her, standing there, judging her, seeing her for who she is. She fills the kettle with water. The first patter of raindrops sounds against the roof above them. She turns and he’s staring at her.
“What?” she asks. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Then he smiles gently, almost tenderly. “I was just admiring your apartment.”
“I have Earl Grey and some lovely jasmine I found on Mott Street. Very intense,” Emma says, grateful to have something to actually do. She opens the tin of jasmine tea; its sweet exotic fragrance drifts up into the air. Charles leans in to smell the tea and as he does, he gently touches her hand.
“I’d better stick with the Earl Grey,” he says.
Emma turns and reaches for the box of tea bags. She wishes he’d chosen the jasmine, it requires more steps to prepare, would have given her more excuses to avoid looking at him. Reaching for two mugs, she knocks over a small plant, a sad little mum she bought on impulse and couldn’t bring herself to throw away after its single bloom died. The plant falls to the floor, spilling dirt. Emma lets out a little cry. She’s such a pathetic little fuckup. She falls to her knees to clean up the mess. Charles kneels beside her.
“I’m making you uncomfortable, aren’t I?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t have many visitors.”
“I’ll take care of this. You get the tea.”
She stands up and busies herself with the tea while he cleans up the plant.
“I’m afraid this plant has had it,” he says.
“With my brown thumb, I’m amazed it’s lasted this long.”
As she pours the boiling water into the mugs, she notices that he’s crossing the room, approaching her dresser. He picks up the framed photo, the one photo she treasures above all others, the one photo she didn’t want him to notice.
“You and your father?” he asks, holding up the faded color print of Emma and her stoned, long-haired father on the beach at Lake Canoga-scruffy, weedy Lake Canoga-her father with his goofy smile, his proud, goofy smile, proud of his nine-year-old princess, his baby, his Emma. She remembers that day so vividly, just the two of them driving through the hills to the lake, her daddy getting stoned, reaching over and rubbing her head, singing along with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young: “Teach your children well… Feed them on your dreams… and know they love you.”
But then he fucked her over. Too bad. So sad.
“You look like him,” Charles says.
“Do I?”
“What does he do?”
“I don’t know. Four months after that picture was taken, he left us.”
“Just left?”
“He went to work and never came back.”
“That must have been tough.”
Tough. “How do you like your tea?”
“Straight up. Do you have any pictures of your mother?”
Emma brings Charles his mug of tea and makes a point of sitting in the chair farthest from him.
“I wish I had some cookies to offer you,” she says.
“Do you have any pictures of your mother?” Charles repeats.
“My mother? She keeps promising to send me one, but she’s so busy,” Emma says as casually as she can.
“Remarried?”
“Yes.” All these questions make Emma want to scream. Instead she folds her hands in her lap and takes the plunge. “I have a confession to make.”
Charles looks at her expectantly.
“I’m a closet smoker. Could you hand me my bag?”
Charles reaches for Emma’s bag, spilling its contents. A yellow legal pad covered with writing tumbles out, followed by cigarettes, elastic hair bands, a subway map, and a battered copy of Play It as It Lays. Charles picks up the pad. Emma leaps up from her chair and grabs it from him.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing,” Emma says, wrapping her arms around the pad.
“You’re making me very curious.”
Oh good. “It’s nothing,” Emma says, returning to her chair.
Charles’s questioning eyes bore into her. “It’s an awfully important nothing.”
“Oh, all right. Really, it’s just something I wrote, am writing… I don’t know.”
“So you’re a closet writer, too.”
“I guess. Not a very good one. Now can we change the subject?”
“Let me see it,” he says.
Emma pretends she’s considering it.
“Let-me-see.”
And so she does. Charles begins reading. Emma feels goose bumps break out on her arms and neck. Without taking his eyes off the page, he settles into the armchair. The room grows very still. Emma is at a loss as to what to do with herself. He’s reading so intently. She walks as quietly as she can over to the window. Across the street, a cat crouches in the gutter devouring a scrap of food. The New York night feels full of promise, a sea of warm hope delivering Emma from her pain, carrying her to her fate. She turns. Charles is still reading, bathed in the soft lamplight, his lips slightly pursed. He flips a page, and then another. Finally Emma can stand it no longer.
“May I have it back, please?”
He cuts her off with a brusque “shhhhh” and keeps reading until he reaches the end. He looks up at her. “Is this part of something longer?”
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“You guess?”
“There’s more. There’s a lot more.”
“Would you let me see it?”
“Charles, you don’t have to-”
“Read anything I don’t want to. I know that, Emma. But I want to read more of this.”
Emma goes to her dresser and takes out the pages she’s been writing for so long now. All but the most recent are neatly typed. Her book, her story, her life. She feels the weight of the pages in her hand and then, hesitantly, gives them to Charles.
“Do you mind if I take these home tonight?”
Emma shakes her head.
As they finish their tea, Charles, leaning forward in his chair, tells her about showing his first novel to his writing teacher at Dartmouth. Of how he didn’t sleep for two days while she read it. Emma nods and smiles but finds it hard to pay attention.
“Walk me downstairs,” he says.
It’s cool out; the rain has stopped. Charles cradles the stack of papers and hails a cab. He squeezes Emma’s shoulder and says, “See you in the morning.”
Emma watches the cab pull out into traffic and disappear up the street.
It’s going to happen.