by Sahil Mehta
The fast-fading autumnal sunlight creeps into the apartment, using its newfound angularity to explore spaces it has ignored for months. The rays first kiss the arrangement of silk flowers displayed on the side table before they are distracted by the plastic cover protecting the damask upholstery on the settee, pooling in its stiff folds for a few fleeting moments of respite. They flirt with the typically invisible floating particles dancing in the hot air pumped from overhead ducts. A cuckoo clock keeps the beat for this improvised dance.
The cuckoo clock was purchased by Mr. Yamamoto on a work trip to Switzerland 34 years ago. It was an anniversary gift for Mrs. Yamamoto, who was delighted with the anniversary gift. Mr. and Mrs. Yamamoto were married for 46 years. Mr. Yamamoto passed away six years ago. His passing was swift and sudden. The doctors informed Mrs. Yamamoto that he had suffered from a series of strokes.
Speaking of, the waning rays pay their respects to the late Mr. Yamamoto at the wall-mounted altar before greeting the silver and gold frames in which pictures of Teddy Yamamoto are displayed. In one picture, Teddy is a young child scowling between a smiling Mrs. Yamamoto and a somber Mr. Yamamoto. In another, he wears a cap and gown at his high school graduation, fist pumped in the air to celebrate. He repeats the pose in the next photo, taken at his college graduation, but he does not wear a cap here. There is a picture of a newly-married Teddy with his wife, Eileen Yamamoto-Brown, him in a smart black suit, and her in a strapless ivory wedding dress. There is one more photo, this one with Teddy holding a pink, wrinkly, screaming Julian Yamamoto-Brown but the rays have gotten impatient now. They leave this last photo alone, untouched.
Teddy and Eileen live in Providence, Rhode Island. Teddy calls Mrs. Yamamoto every Saturday at 5 PM. They talk for a few minutes trading news and engaging in small talk. He comes up to Boston to visit in person every few months, sometimes with Eileen and Julian, sometimes alone. Eileen sends Mrs. Yamamoto pictures of Julian but Mrs. Yamamoto does not know how to get them off the phone and into a photo frame.
Mrs. Yamamoto basks in the last of the sunlight, sipping on freshly brewed green tea. The gilded light highlights her cheekbones and the tip of her nose, it blurs the wrinkles on her face and makes the grays in her hair disappear. For a few minutes, she’s transformed. She looks youthful, a final illusion provided by the parting light. It is almost as if the golden light is compensating for its brevity with brilliance.
The room grows dark by the time Mrs. Yamamoto finishes her tea but she doesn’t turn on the lamp beside her. She watches the receding light, waiting for it to abandon her for the night. Eventually, she turns on the table lamp. She takes the teacup to the small kitchen where she washes the cup and matching saucer. She rests them on the draining board next to a single bowl and a pair of red chopsticks. Afterward, she turns off the kitchen light and returns to the living room where she silently ruminates over the remains of the day. The cuckoo clock continues to keep the beat in the background.
***
The bedroom is dark. The drapes are drawn shut across the two windows that overlook the interior courtyard of the apartment building. There is a full-sized bed in the corner of the room. A heavy quilt is draped on the bed. The quilt features large flowers in bold colors, the signature style of the famous Finnish design house, Marimekko. The flowers are only just barely visible in the darkened room. Adrian Pearson snuggles under the heavy quilt. His head is propped up on two pillows. He scrolls through social media on his phone. The changing images on his phone paint his face in various electronic hues. The lurid light camouflages his puffy eyes.
Adrian looks up pictures of Amit Shah on Instagram. Amit’s handle on Instagram is ass02118. He is Adrian’s ex-boyfriend. They dated for six months. They broke up exactly one month ago today. Amit told Adrian he just wasn’t feeling it. Adrian was very surprised and very upset. He was not sure what not feeling it meant. Subsequent attempts at explaining did not make it much clearer for Adrian. Adrian misses him very much.
In a recent post, Amit wears a neon pink tank top. His skin glows like burnished copper against the neon fabric. The location tag indicates the picture was taken in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. In another picture, Amit is accompanied by Tim O’Brien. Tim is shirtless in the picture. He wears a Bentley University cap. Amit is also shirtless in the picture. Tim is Amit’s new boyfriend. Adrian clicks on Tim’s Instagram account. The handle is timob82. The description under the tiny profile picture icon reads: Boston-based, Philly-raised. The account is set to private.
Adrian looks up Tim O’Brien on Facebook. There are 78 matches. He narrows down the search using the city filter. He gets 16 matching results. None of the 16 results are for the Tim O’Brien he is looking for. Adrian closes the Facebook app and opens a browser window. He searches for Tim O’Brien on Google. He then searches for Tim O’Brien Boston. Next, he searches for Tim O’Brien Bentley University. There is a LinkedIn profile that seems like it could be a match. Adrian does not click on the LinkedIn profile. He does not want Tim to know he was looking at his profile.
Adrian reaches for his laptop. He opens up an incognito window on Chrome. He searches for and clicks on Tim’s LinkedIn profile. Tim is a Senior Financial Analyst at Fidelity Investments. He worked at Bank of America before that and prior to his stint at Bank of America, he interned at State Street. Tim graduated from Bentley University in 2003. Adrian does some mental math. He calculates that Tim must be about 10 years older than Adrian and 12 years older than Amit. Adrian puts away the laptop. He picks up his phone again. He inspects the photo of Amit and Tim on Instagram. Tim looks much younger than he is. Adrian feels worse now.
Adrian is supposed to be at work right now. He called out sick on account of a severe migraine. This is not the first time he’s called out because of a migraine. Adrian does not suffer from frequent migraines. He has actually never had a migraine. The manager at the restaurant where he works, Alison Sweeney, is unaware of this fact when she allows him to take the night off.
Adrian looks through his Favorites folder under Photos. There are 18 photos in the Favorites folder. Twelve of the photos are of Amit. Amit is alone in some of these photos, posing, smiling, laughing, and generally appearing happy. There are some photos of Adrian and Amit together. These were taken before Amit declared he just wasn’t feeling it. There is also one photo of Adrian, Amit, and their mutual friend Sam Owens. Sam has been ignoring Adrian’s texts for the last couple of weeks.
Adrian puts down his phone. He goes on his laptop again. He starts watching Love Actually. He has seen the movie 27 times. It makes him cry every time. Today is no exception.
***
A halogen lamp illuminates Ali Habib’s home office. Within the circumference of the light cast by the lamp, there is a desk. There is an Apple laptop, a large Apple monitor, a generic keyboard, a generic mouse (on a Sam’s Club mouse pad), and a coffee mug filled with blue Bic pens on the desk. There is a black chair with a mesh backrest and two levers that can adjust the height of the chair and the angle of the backrest. The desk is pushed up against the wall. On the wall, there is a corkboard with a calendar pinned to it. There is also a green sheet of paper next to the calendar. The paper lists Important Phone Numbers. To the right of the corkboard, a photograph is affixed to the wall with two pieces of tape.
The photograph shows a man, a woman, and two young girls. The man, abbu, and the woman, ammi, are Ali’s parents. The young girls are his sisters, Sana and Samia. Abbu, ammi, Sana, and Samia are smiling in the picture. Sana and Samia have identical braces. The photo was taken four years ago, before the pandemic. That was the last time Ali visited his family in Karachi, Pakistan.
At 5 PM sharp Ali signs off from his work email. He works remotely now. His entire department has been working remotely since the beginning of the pandemic. Some of his colleagues have taken advantage of remote work to move closer to family and friends living in exotic-sounding places like St. Petersburg, Florida, and Lima, Ohio. Ali and his coworkers communicate through email and Slack messages mostly. There is a department meeting every other Wednesday. Sometimes it’s a few days before Ali talks to another human now.
Ali opens WhatsApp on his phone. There are 28 new messages in the Habib Family group chat. The Habib Family group chat includes Ali’s immediate family as well as two uncles, one aunty, and their families. He scrolls through the messages. Eid Mubarak in rainbow colors. An animated Eid Mubarak message from his aunty, Ghazal Khala. There are messages from his cousins, his mother, and from a number he hasn’t stored in his Contacts.
Ali logs on to Facebook on his laptop. He scrolls through the photos and posts on his Facebook feed. There is a photo of ammi, abbu, Sana, and Samia in their festive finest. He clicks on the heart icon under the photo. His cousin Amjad has posted an album titled: Eid 2022. He clicks on the album and looks through the photos of the family Eid celebration. Ali makes a mental note that he needs to call Taufik Chachu to see how he is feeling. Taufik Chachu is abbu’s brother and cousin Amjad’s father. He recently had bypass surgery. There are multiple photos of food in the album. Ali sees platters filled with nihari, haleem, biryani, phirni, and kababs, Ali’s favorite. Ali’s mouth waters.
Ali goes to the kitchen. He opens the fridge, staring at its contents. He closes the fridge and opens the freezer instead. He chooses a package of Trader Joe’s Chicken Tikka Masala. He pulls out the tray from the cardboard box, punctures the plastic wrap with a fork, and places the tray in the microwave oven. While the chicken tikka masala cooks, he examines the cardboard box. It promises an Authentic Indian Recipe.
Ali places the steaming tray onto a dinner plate and brings the plate and a fork to his desk. He has a few forkfuls from the tray before pushing it aside, mostly uneaten. Nothing compares to ammi’s cooking, Authentic Indian Recipe notwithstanding.
***
Mariana Yepes unlocks the door to apartment 56. The metal door lazily swings open with a squeaking sound. Inside, the apartment is quiet and dark. Mariana walks in, turning on all the lights. She carries a vacuum cleaner in one hand, a bucket with cleaning supplies, and a mop in the other. This is her last cleaning job for the day.
She starts with the bathroom, sweeping, scrubbing, and mopping with urgency and efficiency. For her efforts, she will be paid $100 plus $20 as a gratuity. The $120 will go towards paying for her daughter’s school fees. Mariana’s daughter, Paula, is 12 years old. Paula lives in Medellin, Colombia, with Mariana’s mother, Patricia, and Mariana’s youngest brother, Juanito.
Mariana turns her attention to the living room next. She vacuums the rug and dusts the entertainment center. Then she moves on to the built-in bookshelves. The bookshelves hold photographs, knick-knacks, and a few books. In one photo, the owner, Kristen, poses on skis with a snow-covered mountain in the background. In another, she is seen with an older woman, who may or may not be her mother. Mariana doesn’t know. There are pictures taken in India and Egypt, and there is even one from Colombia. Kristen told Mariana she loved Cartagena when she found out Mariana was from Colombia. This photo was taken in Cartagena, she said, pointing to a photograph in a colorful frame decorated with sea shells. Mariana has never been to Cartagena. She did not tell Kristen she has never been to Cartagena.
Mariana finally shifts her attention to the kitchen. There’s a heavy cast iron and enamel pot soaking in the sink. Brown bits of meat cling stubbornly to the sides of the pot. Mariana scrubs the pot to remove the stubborn bits. She thinks of her mama’s sancocho and she remembers she hasn’t eaten anything since breakfast. She suddenly feels ravenous, but she can’t stop just yet. She focuses on cleaning with renewed zest, hoping to get out of there as soon as she can. She washes a bowl, a spoon, and a coffee mug that were also left in the sink. She wipes and polishes the counters. In the usual spot, under the fruit bowl, she finds the money Kristen has left for her. She counts the bills. $20, $40, $60, $80, $100. Then she recounts the bills. $20, $40, $60, $80, $100. Kristen must have forgotten the tip. Or she didn’t have enough cash on her. This happens every once in a while. Sometimes Kristen remembers to add it the next time.
***
Mrs. Yamamoto enters the elevator on the 16th floor. She wears a purple winter coat and a matching hat and gloves. She wears white tennis shoes. She is ready for her evening walk, around the apartment building.
Ali gets into the elevator on the eighth floor. Mrs. Yamamoto shifts to the right. Ali stands to her left. Ali is heading to the grocery store. In his jacket pocket, there is a printout of a recipe for nihari.
Adrian gets in on the sixth floor. He is wearing a tank top. A denim jacket is draped over his shoulder. He stands sideways, perpendicular to Ali, leaning against the elevator wall. He is heading to the local gay bar. He hopes none of his coworkers from the restaurant see him out tonight.
The trio makes room for Mariana and her cleaning supplies on the fifth floor. Mariana is on her way home. She rents a room from an El Salvadorean couple. She is looking forward to eating something when she gets home. Later, she will call Paula and tell her she misses her.
No one says anything or acknowledges the others in the elevator as the elevator descends to the first floor (the ground floor, for Ali.) Four sets of eyes pretend to be mesmerized by the patterned gray carpet lining the elevator floor.