Timothy had brought us pasta, picked up at a local Italian restaurant. Lots of garlic, but since we both ate it, I guess that wouldn’t matter. The meal was certainly delicious. Clean-up was easy, too, although I insisted that all the take-away dishes needed to be hauled downstairs to the outside garbage can. Anyone who lives in a small apartment can tell you how remnants of such things, even when enclosed in a plastic bag, saturate the air and creep into the walls to become an apartment’s permanent odor.
After hearing my explanation, Timothy and I gathered up our garbage and walked it downstairs. Even that was fun with him. Who knew there was so much comedy in garbage dumping?
The first time Timothy had visited, I’d opened the door to each bedroom, pointed to the space, labeled it, then shut the door. I’d presumed that nothing more was needed than a quick peek. Simone hadn’t even been given that tour. I realized I’d been an inadequate hostess for her visit.
But weren’t all apartments more or less the same? White walls, bedrooms, living room, and kitchen. My apartment had two bathrooms, a rarity in areas with high rents, but the most important demand of my grandmother when her own house had been condemned was separate bedrooms. She’d told me that old people had their needs and that was her primary one. But then, she’d announced that I was a growing young lady and needed my own bathroom, too.
Anyway, Timothy had been shown what there was to see and had only commented that the apartment seemed quite comfortable. I think seeing the garbage dump was a whole new close-up. Dumping trash in a big bin outside was obviously something he’d never done before. He seemed mesmerized by the fact that a garbage truck came by regularly to pick up our detritus. It seemed as if he’d been distanced from such modern marvels. Didn’t they have garbage bins where he lived?
When we returned inside, Timothy made himself comfortable on the old couch. He hadn’t commented about the furniture’s shagginess or that my apartment looked sparse since most of the decorative items were now gone, having belonged to either Cara or Sammy. My grandmother’s things had been of the senior sort, and, after her death, I‘d packaged them up and donated them to a local charity store. I hoped that someone would appreciate souvenir items from Hawaii, Las Vegas, and New York. Especially the hulu girl and a small copy of the bull whose original full-sized one actually lived in front of the New York stock exchange.