Twelve Rooms With A View Part 3

"They were going to show up eventually, that was a given," she announced.

"They were pretty p.i.s.sed," I told her.

"Did you think they were going to be delighted to hear that they've been disinherited? I didn't."

"Man, Lucy, do you always have to be so mean about everything?" Lucy, she's, no kidding, it's very impressive how capable she is, but sometimes she just seems to think everybody should sleep on rocks. Plus I had a whanging hangover. I was in no mood for all this steely resolve.

"Just because I knew they were going to show up, that doesn't mean I'm particularly happy about it," she replied. "I think this could get pretty complicated pretty quickly, and I don't see any point in being naive about that."

"Yes, yes, okay," I said. "Actually, what I meant was couldn't you be like a little worried that I was stuck in this apartment by myself and these two big guys showed up and scared the s.h.i.+t out of me?"

"They frightened you?"

"Well, yeah, of course they did! I was sound asleep, and all of a sudden there are two big guys in this empty apartment with me, I didn't know who they were. It was terrifying."

"Did they threaten you?" Lucy asked, only idly curious.

"They were both drunk, and yeah, they threatened me-they threatened me a lot," I said. That cheered her right up; she went from being slightly interested to downright perky.

"That is absolutely unacceptable." I could hear her typing.

"Are you taking notes?" I asked, kind of wanting to strangle her.

"I just want to have everything on paper for the lawyers. We have to have a paper trail if they get aggressive. No point in putting it off. Listen, I have to run to a meeting."

"You're running to a f.u.c.king meeting? What am I supposed to do if they come back?"

"Tell them to call our lawyer," she replied. "Let's see-Long, tell them to call Stuart Long, you met him yesterday, he was Mom and Bill's lawyer, he put together the will."

"Yes, I remember, but I don't have his number."

"They'll know who he is, Tina," Lucy said. "Listen, I really do have to run."

"Wait a minute, would you wait a minute?" I said. "There's somebody here." And there was. Somebody was in the apartment.

"Is it them?" she asked.

"I don't know, but it's someone," I whispered. I was in that little couch-and-television island where Bill and Mom had drunk themselves to death. But the air in the back of the apartment was moving differently, like the wind that comes just before a train arrives in a subway station. And then I could hear somebody moving around.

"Tina, go find out who it is, and if there's a problem, call me back," she instructed. "I'll tell my a.s.sistant to come get me out of my meeting if you really need me. All right?"

"Can you just hold on a minute?"

"No, sorry, I can't. For heaven's sake. It's not like it's the middle of the night and they're walking in and threatening you. I can understand why that upset you, but this should be easy. Handle it, would you? You're not a child."

"Look, don't talk to me like that, okay?" I said, really annoyed now. "I don't appreciate it; we're all in this together."

"That's my point. If you need me, call me back." And then she hung up. No kidding. She hung up on me without saying good-bye.

"I hate my family," I said to myself. I knew that calling Alison would be useless in the complete opposite direction. She would get all uptight and start freaking out and have no idea what I should do, and then she and Daniel would come to the apartment and he'd try to take over. I decided I'd better go see what the h.e.l.l was going on.

I heard another sound, like pots banging in a kitchen six miles away. "Hey!" I yelled. "Who's in here?" Which was not particularly sly, but I wasn't looking for the surprise element, since I a.s.sumed it was those two boneheads, or at least one of them. "You need to get out of here!" I yelled. I was charging through the maze of rooms now, all determined and c.o.c.ky. The apartment looked considerably friendlier in the morning light. Even though there wasn't much furniture and the carpeting was s.h.i.+tty, the walls were painted all beautiful colors, which glowed in the morning light. It gave me courage, which was good because I didn't have much else to go on. "Get out of here and call your stupid lawyer and stop bothering me!" I shouted, charging into the giant room at the front of the apartment.

"h.e.l.llooooo," said a man. "Who are you?"

Okay, I practically jumped out of my skin. When I turned the last corner, there was a man, but not Pete or Doug, standing in the middle of that big empty room. He was quite short and very tidy, a tidy little person in clothes covered with dirt. I half expected him to evaporate, but he didn't. He just stood and stared at me until I recovered the part of my brain that wasn't completely hungover, and I flipped out.

"Who am I?" I said. "Who are you?"

"Oh wait, oh wait," he said. "I know who you are. You're Tina! Alison, Lucy, and Tina; you're Tina. Olivia showed me pictures. I've seen pictures of you."

"You've seen pictures of me?" I said.

"Look at you-you're pretty, you're much prettier in real life, you don't photograph well at all. I think that's strange, don't you, how some people look just lovely when you meet them, and then you see them in pictures and you think, well, that didn't translate. Well, anyway. I'm Len! Your mother ... didn't? Didn't she?"

"Didn't she what?"

"Nothing," he said, kind of sad. "Oh well. She said you didn't talk; I didn't realize that meant you didn't talk at all. You and she didn't talk at all?"

"Listen, Len, I don't ..."

"No, of course-not my business! Not my business. And honestly, it's not that we spent a lot of time on it, but she seemed, much more than Bill, to have a kind of yearning, you know you should have called her, you really, oh well. You don't have to answer that; I know things were complicated. She didn't blame you, so who am I?" He seemed to think this was a point worth making, but at the same time he didn't seem to want to continue our conversation. He glanced toward the kitchen, distracted.

"Look, could you, you know?" I was starting to get annoyed with this guy. Frankly, I was getting annoyed with just about everyone: Lucy, those s.h.i.+theads who barged in on me while I slept, my mother, my ex-boyfriend Darren, everyone in New York City, the universe. "You know, whoever you are, Len, I think, uh, this isn't a great time for me to visit, and I'm not sure what you're doing here."

"Sorry." He smiled, suddenly looking down and dusting himself off, as if he remembered how actual people behave. "I'm being ridiculous, you're right to be upset. Did you stay here last night? You must have. I'm so sorry for your loss, it must have been a terrific shock. Well, it was for all of us. Such a shame. She was a terrific person. I'm Len Colbert, and like I said, I was a friend of your mother and Bill's. I live in the penthouse here on the top floor. Well, of course, it's the top floor-that's where penthouses are, aren't they?" He laughed at himself. "I'd shake your hand, but mine are not presentable. I'm a, well, it's complicated what I do." He sighed. "Not complicated. I'm an anthropological botanist. I was, that is-I don't teach anymore. But the, uh-the kitchen here-have you seen the kitchen?"

"The moss?" I asked.

"Yes, the moss." He smiled. This elflike character had a fantastic smile, charming and self-involved and devilish. He also had the most alarming blue eyes I'd ever seen, with dark edges but sky blue around the middle. For a second I was grateful he was at least thirty years older than me, because even though he was so odd, I could see the appeal of eyes like those. "Bill and I had an arrangement. He rented me his kitchen. He let me-that is, both he and your mother-let me use it as a kind of greenhouse. My own greenhouse, up on the roof, is not tenable for a mossery, not that I didn't try, but to maintain the habitat, the hydration alone would be a fortune. Of course, it may be possible that we just didn't solve the problems. But people were not enthusiastic overall, you can imagine. The terror of a few bryophytes! Anyway, it was finally impossible. I investigated the possibility of renovating the plumbing to provide the additional water to the roof, and I had no support from my fellow tenants. None whatsoever. One might even say there was open hostility. At least lawsuits were threatened. Anyway, you'll have to come see it."

"See ...?"

"The greenhouse. It's a rarity to find one in the city, but the light, as you can imagine, so far up, is utterly spectacular and alarming-even the views, not to mention what you can accomplish with that much light. I think I am not unduly proud, I'd love for you to come up; you should take me up on this. But it is absolutely useless for moss. Our solution-Bill's and mine-to our mutual needs was as you see." He made an elegant gesture toward the kitchen. "Actually it's a bit of a secret. There's a lot of misunderstanding in the building about moss. This confusion between moss and mold-it's ridiculous. They're not even the same order. Bill and Olivia were very understanding. And discreet." He smiled at me and nodded, apparently finished with this unintelligible explanation.

"So you have a key?" I asked.

"Oh yes. They spent most of their time in the other half of the apartment. This part of the place hasn't been in use for years."

"Well, okay, but it looks like I'm going to be living here now," I said.

"Reeeeallly?" Len asked, c.o.c.king his head as if it were the most extraordinary news. Actually, he made it sound like it was just the slightest bit too extraordinary to be believed.

"Yes, until the will is settled. I'm staying here."

"And what do the boys have to say about that?" Len the elf asked, sort of half to himself.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" I asked edgily. He smiled, clearly amused by my tone.

"The boys," he repeated. "I ran into them last night in the lobby. They didn't mention to me that you would be living here. So I'm surprised to hear it. As I a.s.sume they were." He folded his hands in front of his chest with an odd little gesture of delight and smiled at me again, as if I would find his clever piece of deduction charming.

"Look, you're going to have to go," I said. "I don't know anything about this, and you know, you want me to be discreet and everything, but this is clearly some sort of illegal thing you have going here."

"Moss is not a controlled substance," he informed me, laughing.

"Oh sorry, I maybe misunderstood you before," I said. "Because you said how people in the building got all mad when you were trying to grow it up there on the roof, so I was thinking maybe they wouldn't like to find out that instead you decided to grow it on the eighth floor in the middle of the building, where it might actually spread."

"Ah," said Len. "I understand why perhaps you thought I said that."

"Yeah, it sounded a little like that, like people maybe wouldn't be so thrilled to hear what you were doing here."

"That's not what I was saying," he said.

"So I don't actually need to keep my mouth shut about this?" Elfman laughed again, to himself this time.

"What's so funny, Len?"

"Nothing, no, nothing." He looked back at the kitchen, this time with real longing. "Do you like moss?" he asked me.

"Honestly, I've never thought about it that much."

"It is a rare spirit that appreciates moss," he said, as if this were news. "I have seventeen different species in this particular mossery. Some of them are exceedingly beautiful. The curators at the two public botanical gardens in the city would give their eyeteeth, frankly. It's actually a bit of an achievement that I could do what I've done, and under these conditions? Please. Let me show you."

"That's not necessary, Len."

"Please," he said, holding out his elegant dirty hand, like a prince at some ball, waiting to sweep me into a dance.

"What the h.e.l.l," I said.

So for the next hour, this strange guy walked me through the intricacies of moss, gametoph.o.r.es and microphylls and archegonia-that's the female s.e.x organ of moss, who knew-and how much water moss needs for fertilization and how long it takes for sporophytes to mature. He talked about liverworts and hornworts; he had mosses in there that were native to the Yorks.h.i.+re Dales and mosses that grew only in cracks in city streets and mosses that grew only in water. In Europe during World War II, he told me, sphagnum mosses were used to dress the wounds of soldiers, because they're so absorbent and have mild antibacterial properties. Also some mosses have been used to put out fires. Don't ask me how they would do that, but apparently it's historically accurate. Old Len knew a ton about moss, and he made sure that I knew how great his mossery was and how no one builds them anymore and what a tragedy it would be if anything were to happen to his mossery.

"That would be awful," I agreed. I looked around the transformed kitchen. Len had even hung an old woodcut of a medieval tree on one wall, I suppose to keep the moss company. "So how much did Bill charge you to rent his kitchen like this?"

"Oh," he said, looking at me sideways for a second. "It was a very friendly arrangement."

"He didn't charge you rent for this? But they were broke, weren't they?"

"What makes you say that?"

"I spent the night here. There's nothing here. They were living on vodka and fish sticks and red wine," I said. "Which he paid for in cash."

"You have been busy, and you say you just arrived yesterday?"

"So he really gave you this room to grow moss in, for free?"

"I didn't say that." Len smiled. "I said we had a friendly arrangement."

"Like under the table, friendly like that?" I asked.

"Bill liked to fly under the radar," he admitted with a small shrug. "He did prefer cash."

"How much did he charge you?" I asked directly. Len looked at me sideways and then went back to examining one of his moss beds, poking at it carefully with his middle finger.

"Seven hundred dollars a month," he said, raising an eyebrow.

"You know what, Len?" I said. "I think this mossery is fantastic, and I see no reason why you can't keep it here for as long as you want. I'm gonna go make a phone call."

"Lovely." Len smiled. "I'll just continue my work, then."

I figured I might need to keep the cash coming, and it did seem reasonable to let this guy keep his mossery. So I went back to TV land and picked up the phone and started dialing, meaning I made it halfway through Lucy's number before realizing that the phone was dead. There was nothing on the line-no clicks, no beeps, no dial tone, nothing. I hung up and tried again, and I did that about eight more times, and then I plugged and unplugged the phone about eight times and then I tried it eight more times. Then I tried it in three other jacks, in three of the little bedrooms, before returning to the great room.

"Something wrong?" Len asked me, leaning out of the kitchen. I mean, obviously there was something wrong; I was holding the phone out and staring at it like it was about to explode.

"The phone doesn't work," I told him. "I mean, it worked just an hour ago, and now it doesn't."

He held out his neat but dirty hand and I gave him the phone, which he plugged into yet another wall jack. He listened for less than one second, then nodded. "Well," he said. "I need to introduce you to Frank."

Frank was the doorman. Len took me downstairs to the front lobby, and there was Frank, a good-looking Hispanic guy in a beige uniform with little gold things on the shoulders.

"Hey, Len, what's up?" Frank asked.

"This is Tina Finn, Olivia's daughter." Len made a little wave with his hand, like I might be some fancy dish that was being served up. I felt like bowing.

"Nice to meet you, Miss Finn," said Frank, reaching out and shaking my hand politely. "I'm real sorry about your mom."

"Thanks," I said.

"Tina is going to be staying in the apartment for now, while they settle things up with the estate," Len informed Frank. It was genius, seriously; coming from Len, "she's staying in the apartment" sounded pretty good. At least Frank the doorman had no problem with it.

"Well, welcome to the Edge," he said. "If you need anything, you let me know."

"There is something." Len nodded. "It looks like her phone's been cut off. Could you put a call in about it?"

"Sure, who's your carrier?" asked Frank, reaching for the phone receiver on his desk.

"You know, I'm not sure who they had," I said.

"Well, let's see then, maybe I'll put in a call to Doug-that's Bill's son," he told me. "There's probably been some mistake, maybe he cut the phone off. Did he know you were going to be staying up there?"

"Yeah, we talked, you know, we just talked yesterday about it," I said. "Look, you don't need to bother him, I'll call him myself."

"I got it right here," Frank said, dialing. "It's no bother." He was dialing away when Len tapped him on the shoulder.

"It's probably better just to give her the number," Len said under his breath, like he was trying to keep me from hearing what he said. Frank looked at him, confused, and Len did that thing with his hands, opening them up, apologizing to the universe for the stupidity of the human race. "I think there's a lot going on, Frank, you probably don't want to put yourself in the middle of it." It sounded so much like he was taking care of Frank that for a minute I forgot he was actually taking care of me.

However, it was starting to occur to old Frank that this story didn't quite add up. "But you did see Doug last night?" he asked, a little worried, while he rooted around for a pen.

"We hadn't figured out what we were doing last night when we talked, and everything was such a mess, with Mom's funeral, I was kind of a wreck and we hadn't actually thought about the practicalities. I mean, I was just like crying and crying, so I really didn't get the details straight," I fibbed.