roommates

They had dinner in the small apartment they shared, instant mac and cheese from a box and a bottle of wine, sat with their feet propped up on the table, heels kicked off and little runs in their stockings, lighting up a cigarette for dessert while the neighbors pumped reggaeton through the walls and a few blocks away the JMZ rattled across Williamsburg Bridge which burned like a blue-gold flame in the lingering dusk, drinking, smoking, spilling ash on the printed scarf that served as a makeshift tablecloth, getting up every now and then to see what a passing siren was for, the lights of a police car flashing in an instant before disappearing around the corner, talking over the incessant BOOM-BOOM-BOOM of the music and the electric hum of so many television sets turned on, talking work and overtime, anal retentive bosses and verbally abusive clients, the ridiculously jacked up price of the Unlimited Ride and another sick person on the train who required medical attention, the San José copper-gold mine caved in two months earlier with 33 Chilean miners trapped 700 meters below ground and what it was like to be without sunlight for so long, books each were currently reading, the healthcare bill, Libby’s old high school classmate who recently posted a wedding album on Facebook, the receptionist at Edie’s office whose husband was going back for his second or third tour in Iraq. Libby said her mother sounded increasingly neurotic over the phone these days but insisted that everything back home was just peachy, never offered to visit Libby in New York City, never asked if Libby was making new friends, though she had encouraged her to move there straight out of college. Edie said the only kind of family visit that interested her were the nonexistent ones. Free meals at nice restaurants are a plus, said Libby, and Edie had to agree, spending the next five minutes describing at length what she would order at Peter Lugers should the opportunity ever arise. They continued talking over the noise, each glad to have someone to bitch with after a long day in the city, and though they never said it out loud—a sister where none had been expected. Edie, finishing up the dishes under the flickering fluorescent light of the kitchen, looked out the window and caught sight of the fingernail moon, thought she could survive the unflinching dark after all, maybe even until morning.