“What’s upstairs from here?” Ashley asked, pointing back up at the floor above us as we leaned against the railing of my office’s street-facing terrace.
“Luisa and Mia’s apartments and a deck facing the river,” I said.
“Is that the deck you posed naked on?” Ashley asked, intrigued.
Sighing, I said, “Yes, that’s the one.”
“I wanna see!” she announced.
“What, the deck, or me posing naked?” I asked, knowing full well I was opening the proverbial can of worms.
“Why not both?” she replied with a shrug and a smile.
Sighing again, I said, “Follow me,” as I led Ashley back inside. We took the stairs, since the elevator didn’t go up to the floor with the ‘servants' quarters’. I was never sure if that was because of mechanical limitations of the ancient elevator system or sociological restraints, but that’s what we were stuck with.
“That’s the bridge you said people could see you from?” Ashley demanded, pointing to the Queensboro Bridge off in the distance. “You totally oversold it. Nobody on Earth could make out any kind of details from that sort of distance if they didn’t have some sort of telescope handy.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what I actually told you,” I said.
“No, you said that you could clearly see this deck from that bridge while you were running,” Ashley countered.
“And you can,” I confirmed.
“Yeah, maybe, but no way could anybody see, like your boobs or anything from there. You’d just be a little speck, that’s all.”
Shrugging, I led Ashley back inside and down several floors to our master suite level. “That’s the home gym,” I said as we peeked in from the doorway.
“Nice,” Ashley said, nodding her approval. “But it doesn’t have, like, an octagon to fight in or anything.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed. Leading Ashley down to the other end of the hallway and past the landing gallery, Ashley pointed to the biggest painting and said, “That was that Eighties AIDS painter, right?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed, a bit sad that that was how she thought of Keith Haring.
“Um, do you guys have one of his paintings because of the gay thing?”
“No, we have one of his paintings because he was an amazing artist and iconic in the New York art scene, just like we have an Andy Warhol litho downstairs.”
“The guy that did all the color prints of Marilyn Monroe?”
“Yeah, that guy,” I said, sincerely hoping that Ashley was just trolling.
“This is our bedroom,” I said, opening the door for her to enter. “And there’s your view of me posing naked,” I added, pointing to the wall above the fireplace.
“Wow, yeah, that’s you, all bare-ass naked,” Ashley said, examining the painting. “It sure doesn’t look like that’s that upper deck, though.”
“Artistic license,” I told her.
“Leah, this painting… Anybody ever tell you that you’re hot as fuck?”
“Not quite in those words, no,” I said.
“Well, anybody should have,” Ashley said, finally tearing her eyes away and looking around the room. “Seriously, there is plenty of room in here for me, too. You guys could have, like, made a little dog bed right there on the floor and I would’ve been happy.”
“Sleeping on the floor?” Asked Emmy, nearly giving Ashley a heart attack.
“Jesus!” Ashley said, her hand on her chest. “I didn’t know you were here!”
“It is the thick carpeting,” Emmy said. “It makes footsteps silent.”
“Um, Emmy, what I meant about the dog bed thing…” Ashley said, turning bright red.
“Leah told me that you wanted to spend your summers here as her sex toy,” Emmy said, amusement in her voice.
“She told you that?”
“I don’t keep any secrets from Emmy,” I said.
“So, like, you told her about the first time I rode in your fancy car?” Ashley asked, turning even redder.
“Is that the time you masturbated?” Emmy asked, clearly enjoying mortifying Ashley.
“Oh, God, just kill me now,” Ashley said, covering her face with her hands.
“Do not concern yourself,” Emmy said. “It is a common reaction to being with Leah. You are far from the only one.”
“What,” Ashley said, her voice flat in disbelief.
“I, too, find her company very… stimulating,” Emmy said, smiling. “Often I find myself lost in thoughts of her taking me in every possible way.”
“Right? I was totally serious when I said I’d be you and hers sex toy,” Ashley said, warming to the subject. “Like, one hundred per cent for real. If you guys told me to take off all my clothes and wear nothing but a dog collar, I’d totally do it.”
“Add that to the list of things not going to happen,” I said.
“But Leah!” Emmy pouted. “You know how I have wanted a pet!”
“O.K., it’s time to change the subject. Em, I was just finishing up the tour of the house. Are you done with your music for tonight?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I think I have hit an impasse on the song I have been developing. I need to step away, perhaps to sleep on it before I get back to it.”
“How does that, like, work?” Ashley asked, letting herself get distracted from her thoughts of dog collars. “Do you write the words first, then the music, or the other way around?”
“Sometimes one way, sometimes the other,” Emmy said with a shrug. “Sometimes I start with nothing more than a feeling. I will poke and pull on it until it starts to form a shape.”
“That’s so cool,” Ashley said, eyes wide.
Emmy wound up inviting Ashley to stay with us and skip the hotel room she’d booked. I had my misgivings, but Ashley was a friend, after all.
Mia and Luisa had gone out, so Jeremy made a nice pasta salad which the four of us ate up on the upper back deck. The evening was warm, but there was enough of a breeze to keep it really pleasant. Conversation stayed light and relatively inconsequential. Emmy asked Ashley about her upcoming job interview, and Ashley admitted that she was a bundle of nerves. It was apparently a big deal to land a job in the municipal planning department of a major city like New York- most recent graduates were lucky to get hired on in mid-sized cities first, then relocating to larger metro areas once they had some experience. Ashley said that her senior year project at Stanford had caught the eye of somebody important in the department in New York and they asked her to come and interview.
“I didn’t reach out to them- I sent my resumé to at least a hundred towns and cities, but none to any of the big ten,” Ashley said. “The New York planning department actually contacted me to ask if I’d considered working here! Of course I said I’d be happy to come in for an interview!”
“I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even know you were majoring in urban planning,” I said, helping myself to another piece of the excellent garlic bread Tiny had baked that afternoon.
“No, well, it never really came up,” Ashley said. “The only reason I ever knew that you got your Bachelor’s in business was because I looked it up,” she admitted.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Stalking- now why didn’t I think of that?” I asked.
“You should try it sometime,” Ashley said, completely unrepentant.
“Ashley, if the city of New York does hire you, where will you live?” Emmy asked.
“Well, starting public employee salaries, even in specialized positions like the one I’m hoping for, really don’t pay enough to afford a house like this here in Manhattan,” Ashley replied, gesturing at our townhouse. “So I’d have to get something a little smaller. Maybe skip the secret dungeon wine cellar.”
“No, do not skip that!” Emmy said. “You would probably be O.K. skipping the four guest bedrooms. That would be acceptable.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Ashley hedged. “They’d be nice to have if four guests came to visit at the same time, though.”
“This is true,” Emmy admitted. “We could have used more guest bedrooms when The Prodigal Sons stayed here for a week.”
“The rock band? They stayed here?” Ashley asked.
“They’re old high school friends,” I explained.
“My first band,” Emmy added.
“You were in The Prodigal Sons?” Ashley asked, amazed.
“Only for one show- well, three, really,” Emmy said. “One back in school, and two here in New York. It was a lot of fun.”
“Whenever we happen to cross paths with the Sons Emmy just has to jump in and play with them,” I said. “We’re probably due- it’s been a while.”
“They are working up their next album right now,” Emmy said. “They want to record in our studio in Los Angeles.”
“Are you gonna guest?” I asked.
“We have talked about it,” Emmy confessed. “I will likely be uncredited. I do not want it to be seen as an Emmy De Lascaux record.”
“People are going to know anyhow,” I said. “Your style is very different than Brent’s.”
“I can change it,” Emmy protested.
“But really, why hide the fact? I mean, everybody knows you and the Sons go way back, right? I’m sure the Sons and The Downfall have a lot of crossover fans,” I said.
“Emmy, I’ll admit I’m not the biggest fan of The Downfall or of The Prodigal Sons, but even I know that you support ‘em. I watched the Los Angeles concert online and they opened for you guys- and you played some songs with ‘em! Nobody is gonna be the tiniest bit surprised if you play on their new stuff. I mean, Hell, it might even give ‘em a solid sales boost, right?” Ashley said.
“That may be true,” Emmy admitted. “Perhaps I should reconsider my position on the matter.”
“Did they complain when you asked them to open for you guys in Los Angeles?” Ashley pressed.
“No, they did not,” Emmy replied. “They were excited to play for such a large audience.”
“So, there you go,” Ashley said, crossing her arms dramatically.
“We should lock our door tonight,” I said to Emmy when we all called it a night. “We may wind up with an uninvited third otherwise.”
“Would that be so terrible?” Emmy asked, still in the mood to tease me on the subject.
“I don’t want to encourage her at all,” I said. “I like her as a friend, but I sure don’t see her in the lover category.”
“Is she aware that you feel this way? That you have friend-zoned her?” Emmy asked.
“I’ve made it damned clear,” I said. “And honestly, I think she’s accepted it. At this point all the flirting and that kind of thing- that’s all just a sort of inside joke, or a game we play, I guess.”
“You think that if we invited her into our bed she would not accept?” Emmy asked as we slid into the bed she was mentioning.
“Oh, no, she absolutely would,” I laughed. “But she knows I’m not going to invite her.”
“Wait- you’re going out for a run?” Ashley asked the next morning when I popped into the kitchen for a bottle of water. “Gimme five minutes to get my shit on and I’ll go with you.”
“My usual loop is around ten miles,” I cautioned her.
“Aw, Jeeze,” she groaned. “I’m gonna die.”
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” I replied.
“Fuck me,” Ashley said to herself as she headed for the elevator.
I had a banana while I waited for Ashley in the front foyer. I was looking forward to running with her- my runs were pretty much solitary events, so it would be a welcome change to have a companion. We’d run together a few times over the years, and I was confident that she would grumble and complain, but still keep me honest on the pace. Yeah, maybe she’d be wrecked for the rest of the day, but whatever. She didn’t have anything else to do, anyhow.
“How far did you say this loop is?” Ashley asked as we ran up the pedestrian walkway on the Queensboro Bridge, gaining elevation over the East River.
“It’s about ten miles,” I answered. “Look at the boats down there!”
“You’re trying to distract me,” Ashley huffed.
“Yeah, it may be farther than you’re used to,” I admitted. “But other than the bridges, it’s pretty much flat.”
“We’re like, a hundred and fifty feet up!” Ashley complained. “Times two, since we’re coming back this way, right? That’s three hundred feet of elevation gain. You know how that compares to my usual races?”
“How does that compare?” I asked, smirking.
“That’s about exactly three hundred feet more elevation gain than in the events I run, because they’re held on tracks in athletic stadiums!” Ashley grumbled. “My longest event is nine minutes!”
“Yeah, but you train farther,” I counted. “And look- we’re going downhill now!”
“For now,” Ashley replied, but we both knew all her complaining was just performative.
“This… isn’t a really nice neighborhood,” Ashley commented as we ran west on 40th Avenue. “Are those, um, projects?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Biggest public housing project in North America,” I said. “Maybe not the birthplace of hip-hop, but certainly fertile ground for it. Lots of rappers came from these buildings,” I said as we ran.
“Isn’t this totally sketch?” Ashley asked, sounding nervous.
“I’ve never had any problems besides an occasional catcall,” I replied.
“Yeah, well, you’re, like, nearly seven feet tall and built like that famous outhouse. Nobody in their right mind would get in your way.”
“Tell you what,” I said as we left the projects behind. “Tomorrow we’ll go the other way. We’ll run around Central Park.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound dangerous at all,” Ashley said.
“Ash, your perception of the danger in New York City is wildly outdated. This isn’t the Eighties anymore. We’re safer here than we would be in just about any city in the South.”
“I know the stats,” Ashley confessed. “I did get my degree in city planning, after all. But, like, this isn’t the nice part of New York.”
“It’s far from the worst, either,” I replied.
“Jesus, I’m fucking dead,” Ashley groaned when we got a block from home and slowed to a cool-down walk. “You did it, Leah. You killed me. Now you’re gonna have to tell my parents. They used to like you, too.”
“Your dad loves me,” I said. “And your mom thinks I’m great.”
“True,” Ashley said. Checking her sports watch, she said, “And that was over eleven miles! You said it was less than ten!”
“I said it was around ten miles,” I told her. “Ten, eleven- that’s just a rounding error.”
“I hate you right now,” she said, pausing to stretch as I did the same.
“Use the hot tub up on the top deck,” I said. “Soak for a bit- that might help.”
“Why are you so danged fresh-looking?” Ashley demanded.
“We were holding a conversation when we ran, so I know for a fact that was only zone two for you, Ash. Don’t try to play it off like you were anywhere near your limit, either.”
“Maybe not speed-wise,” Ashley admitted. “But eleven miles!”
“Well, I have zero doubt you’d leave me in the dust in a fifteen-hundred,” I said. “We all have our strengths.”
“O.K., tomorrow, screw Central Park. We’re gonna find a high school track so I can work you over,” Ashley said as we entered the townhouse. “It’s gonna be five by fives until you puke.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I said with a shrug.
I found Emmy in the sun room, to my surprise. Sure, we’d had UV-blocking glass installed with the remodel, but it was bright enough with the morning’s sun that she was wearing sunglasses.
“How was your run?” Emmy asked after I kissed her hello.
“It was good,” I replied, dropping into the seat facing her. “It’s different running with somebody else versus by myself. By myself I can let my mind wander, but with Ash I had to hold up my end of a conversation.”
“You talk while running?” Emmy asked, amazed.
“Well, normally I don’t, because I’m by myself,” I said with a smile.
Emmy laughed, her smile bright. “Do you have plans for the rest of the day?”
“None,” I said. “No plans for tomorrow, either. The weekend is wide open as far as I'm concerned.”
“When will your friend Teddy Bear arrive in New York?”
“I’m not really clear on that,” I admitted. “He said he’d try to get here this weekend, but it all depended on him finding a place to stay. He said he’d let me know when he got here.”
“How long will filming take? When does he expect to return to Los Angeles?” Emmy asked.
“He said he expects to be on set for twenty, maybe twenty-five days, if everything goes smoothly. He told me that the general guideline is that a day’s worth of filming produces three minutes of finished product, and he’s in roughly a third of the movie’s run time. The problem for him is that his scenes won’t necessarily be filmed all consecutively, so those twenty days might be spread out over two months.”
“I understand that,” Emmy said. “It is often like that with our studio work. The whole process takes ever so much longer than one might expect.”
“Yeah, it seems to,” I agreed. “But anyway, I guess the answer is that Teddy Bear should be here any day now.”
“What does he expect you to help him with?”
Chuckling, I explained that Teddy Bear thought I’d be a good person to emulate for a thriller bad guy. He also wanted help with the action and combat scenes, so I’d have to work with the production’s fight coordinator to develop the sequences, then with Teddy Bear to make them real.
“Where would this happen?” Emmy asked, still curious.
“Some sound stage somewhere? Maybe a gym? I have no clue,” I admitted.
“Not here at the house, though?”
“No, it’ll be somewhere else for the fight scenes. We’ll probably work through the character development here, but not the action stuff.”
“I like him,” Emmy announced. “He is a good friend.”
“I like him, too,” I agreed.
“Like who?” Ashley asked as she joined us, fresh from her post-run shower.
“Leah’s friend Theodore Behr,” Emmy replied.
“I saw him in that one karaoke video,” Ashley said, plopping herself down at the table with Emmy and me. “I guess I just figured he was your friend, Emmy. I didn’t realize he was Leah’s. You know, with the whole entertainment industry thing,” she added.
“I do enjoy his company, but he is much more Leah’s friend than mine,” Emmy said, finally admitting defeat and setting down her pen and sheet music to pay full attention to the conversation. “They like to drive together. He went with Leah to Japan a few months ago as well.”
“Teddy and I hang out a lot, too. We’ve gone out on the town a few times,” I added.
“God, that’s an image. Two six foot three great-looking blondes, hitting the clubs?” Ashley said, her eyes unfocused as she imagined it.
“You should see Leah with her friend Andy,” Emmy said. “They look like cousins, and act like it, too. Both are impressively large and ridiculously athletic.”
“Um, not to sound like too much of a stalker, but that’s the guy that plays in the NFL, right? The one who was the, um, donor for the baby you lost, right?” Ashley asked.
“Where did you hear that?” I asked.
“Reddit, I think,” Ashley admitted. “There was a whole sub devoted to speculating who the dad was.”
“Why am I not surprised?” I groaned.
“There are a lotta subs having to do with Emmy,” Ashley said. “Even one or two that are just about you,” she said to me.
“I am not going down that rabbit hole,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t even want to know.”
