A Second Bite at the Apple Read Online Free Page B

chest as the tears stream down my face. Renting an apartment twelve blocks from the office sounded like a fabulous idea when I signed my lease six months ago, in the balmy days of early June. Twelve blocks: a touch too close to justify public transportation, but more than a ten-minute walk. I told myself the walk would be my daily exercise, as if exercise had ever been a priority. Plus, the rent was surprisingly cheap—though, apparently, not cheap enough when combined with my payments to Dr. Larry Gopnik, DDS. But now I wish I’d spent a little more money on an apartment closer to a Metro stop, because between the wind and the snow, I cannot feel my face and may have permanently lost the use of my left index finger. Also, I now live twelve blocks from an office I will no longer visit.
    My apartment sits on Swann Street between Fourteenth and Fifteenth Streets, in a semi-undefined neighborhood sandwiched between Logan and Dupont Circles. For years, Fourteenth Street was known, informally at least, as Washington’s “Red Light District,” more famous for drug trafficking and prostitution than for organic markets and independent art galleries. But over the past decade or so, the neighborhoods have gentrified, and now Fourteenth Street is one of Washington’s hottest areas, with a new restaurant or café seeming to open every week.
    My street stretches from west to east and is filled from end to end with brightly colored town houses, all squashed together like crayons in a Crayola box, lying just beyond the red brick sidewalk. Unlike the towering, three-story row homes in Dupont Circle, the houses on my street are squat, two-story affairs with square, flat roofs and modest front stoops. Some of the homes lodge a single owner, but many, like mine, are broken up into separate apartments. I occupy the entire second floor, whereas the first floor houses a wiry, forty-something recluse named Simon.
    When I arrive at my building, a butter-yellow house sandwiched between a maroon town house to the right and cobalt blue town house to the left, I find Simon shoveling the front walkway beyond our wrought-iron gate, humming what sounds like a slow dirge. Given the day I’ve had, I should probably join in with a funeral song of my own.
    â€œHi, Simon. Need any help?”
    Simon looks up, his pale face blank as he stares at me with hollow eyes. “No. I’m fine.”
    â€œYou sure?”
    He digs into the snow with his shovel and tosses a heap over his shoulder. “Yes.”
    Simon was already living in the downstairs apartment of our town house when I moved into the second floor. We rarely see each other, given the private doorway to his apartment and the private, locked stairway leading to mine, so most of our interactions involve my saying hello and Simon’s grunting an unintelligible reply. He looks a little like a rodent, with his pointy nose, bleached-blond hair, and beady eyes, the whites of which are often tinged with pink. But in a previous life, I lived in an apartment in Georgetown next door to a bunch of rowdy college students, and I would take a quiet introvert over a frat boy any day.
    I march up the front steps and check my mailbox, where I find a folded piece of yellow paper. When I open it, I find, in bold capitals, a message from our landlord, Al:
    Â 
    NEED DECEMBER RENT ASAP. YOU ARE LATE. AGAIN.
    Â 
    Perfect. As if this day weren’t already a kick in the ovaries.
    I stick the note into my coat pocket and let myself through two sets of doors before trudging up the stairway that leads directly into my living room. As soon as I reach the top, I dump my coat and bag on the floor, kick off my boots, grab a handful of miniature gin bottles from the cupboard, and collapse onto my plush gray couch.
    My feet propped on the armrest, I sip the gin straight from the toy-size bottles and reflect on all the ways in which this situation totally blows. I never even wanted to work