Rushing Waters (18 page)

And by the end of the day, the movers had loaded boxes, crates, and most of the upstairs furniture onto the truck. And the insurance adjuster had shown up to take pictures and a video. Bob came across the hall to check on their progress and was impressed.

“You two are pros,” he said admiringly. Grace no longer looked like she was in shock or about to keel over, as she had at the shelter or when she first saw the apartment, and Ellen was keeping the workers on track. Grace was full of energy, and had already taken photographs and notes about what she was possibly going to change in the apartment.

“You're really coming back?” Bob asked her, still surprised by that.

“I love this apartment,” she said simply.

“What if it happens again? It could,” he said practically. Knowing that had made the decision not to return easier for him. He preferred to give up an apartment he loved than to go through it again. He didn't know how Grace could face the thought.

“It won't,” she said decisively, but she had said that this time too, and Ellen disagreed with her and hadn't given up yet. “Twice was a fluke. Three times just isn't possible.”

“Never trust Mother Nature,” Bob said seriously. “She'll trick you every time. I'm going to look at two apartments in Jim's building tomorrow. I like it there, and as much as I love Tribeca, I'm ready to move uptown.”

“I used to live uptown—I like it so much better here. It's so staid and boring uptown.”

“I'm ready for boredom,” he said, glancing at the damage around them. There were watermarks and drying remnants of sewage on the walls. He couldn't face it again, and his apartment looked as bad as hers, if not worse, since it hadn't been as polished as hers to begin with. Most of his furniture had to be thrown out and wasn't worth saving. “I'm going to take a hit when I sell the apartment, but it's worth it. I don't want to be around to pay for the building repairs too.” And they would have to. Ellen had pointed that out to Grace, but she insisted she didn't care. She was a stubborn woman.

The movers were almost finished in Grace's apartment by the end of the day, and the place was nearly empty. And without the wet furniture they'd thrown away, it didn't smell as bad and wasn't as awful. The weather had warmed up that day, which made the stench of sewage in the streets worse, and they had all seen rats in the street, escaping from flooded buildings.

The next day, the movers emptied her closets and put her dry clothes in storage, until she found a temporary apartment. The insurance adjuster had already sent boxes of her clothes to a special dry cleaner to see if they could be saved. They had to throw almost all her shoes away. But her insurance company had promised to cover her losses. She was one of the rare hurricane victims who was well insured, but she paid high premiums for it, which most people couldn't afford and didn't want to. It was paying off now, just as it had five years before. But however good her coverage, and their willingness to pay, there were so many things that couldn't be replaced. Fortunately, she had kept all her photo albums of Ellen's childhood and wedding, and her own history and her parents', upstairs, and they hadn't been damaged. Others hadn't been as lucky and had lost all the sentimental and material things they owned. There were thousands of stories of heartbreak and loss in the papers and on the news, and heart-wrenching photographs of people crying. And those who had died in the hurricane were being buried that week. Ben had been one of the first.

By Tuesday afternoon, the apartment was totally empty, and Ellen turned over the keys to her mother when she got back to Central Park West. She felt tired and sad and drained. It was painful to see something once so beautiful damaged beyond recognition, and a whole section of the city a shambles, with people crying on the sidewalk over their losses. It depressed her every time she went downtown. The whole city was affected despite the lack of damage uptown, although people were rallying, and many like Grace swore they would rebuild and return. Ellen still didn't want her to do it, but the human spirit was hard to control or predict or argue with. Most people wouldn't have been as persistent about trying to get pregnant as she had. Everyone had their own blind spots and obsessions, and living in the apartment she owned in Tribeca was her mother's. She loved the building, the apartment, and the location on the river, beyond reason.

Ellen called George that night and missed him again. He sent her a text that he was in a meeting, then at a dinner party and would call her when he got home, but he didn't.

And the next morning, when Grace went to work, Ellen met with the real estate agent she'd been referred to, and began the round of furnished apartments, which was an education in itself. There was a long list to see, and an even longer list of refugees from downtown, especially from the higher-priced areas like her mother's, who were willing to pay any price and were snapping up apartments as soon as they saw them. The realtor had already warned her that they'd have to make a quick decision if they saw something they liked, and Ellen had told her mother that she'd have to run over from her office if a great place, or even a decent one, turned up. It didn't have to be perfect, it was just temporary, until her Tribeca apartment was restored.

The realtor seemed mildly eccentric to Ellen, but if the woman had good listings, Ellen didn't care, and she worked for a well-known, respectable firm. After that, it would be the luck of the draw as to what was available, and it was Grace's decision in the end, since she would have to live there for several months. And of course, they had to be willing to take the dog, which most owners of furnished apartments weren't. They had already ruled out the ones that weren't pet-friendly, since Grace wouldn't have considered them. The realtor had recognized Grace's name and was impressed, which never hurt, and she assured Ellen that they would be able to get her mother approved by any co-op board in the city, also not a given with every tenant. So in theory, if they could find the right apartment, it should be easy. And Ellen had described her mother's needs, and Grace's own list of specifications. She wanted a doorman and fully staffed building, a pleasant view, lots of sunlight, a minimum of two bedrooms, preferably a third so she could use it as an office, ideally downtown in the undamaged parts of SoHo, the West Village, lower Fifth Avenue, or Tribeca, which was a tall order, or the Upper East Side, north of Sixtieth Street and south of Seventy-ninth, or on Central Park West if it was fabulous, but nowhere else on the West Side. Ellen's marching orders were clear, and the realtor knew them all.

They started downtown, since it was the area Grace preferred. Very few buildings had been unaffected by the hurricane, but Ellen saw an apartment in a modern building on a high floor, which her mother had said she didn't want either. She didn't like high floors, in case of a fire in the building. The ceilings were so low that Ellen felt as though they were coming down on her head. The apartment looked flimsy and cheap, and there were sparkles in the paint on the walls and ceilings, which made her cringe and she knew Grace would hate, and the furniture was awful, and was mostly wicker bought in Mexico. The apartment had been lived in by students, and it showed.

The next one was a brownstone townhouse on Washington Square, which was beautiful and exquisitely decorated but had no doorman. The realtor had sneaked it in “just for a look” in case Ellen fell in love with it, and she reminded the agent that she had to stick to their requirements or she'd be wasting their time. She apologized, and they moved on to a loft in SoHo, with a kitchen in the middle of the living room, which Grace wouldn't want. There were three in Tribeca without doormen, so not worth seeing, although the agent swore they were fabulous, and an allegedly incredible one that supposedly had everything they wanted, for forty thousand dollars a month, which was beyond Grace's budget, so they skipped that one too. And a sweet apartment in the West Village that was tiny but very pretty, it had one bedroom and a living room and was claustrophobic. And after that they went uptown. Ellen was starting to get discouraged, as the realtor talked on her cell phone constantly, trading listings with other brokers and negotiating prices. She sounded like a bookie or a drug dealer, and was giving Ellen a headache as they got in a cab and headed north. They had agreed to start at the top of Grace's geographical limit, on Seventy-ninth Street, and work their way down.

The two listings she had on Seventy-ninth Street were well decorated but dreary and dark, with no sunlight at all. And there was a townhouse across from the Frick Collection that had no doorman. Ellen had almost lost hope by then, and wondered if she would find anything. They were at Sixty-eighth and Fifth by then, not far from Grace's office at Fifty-seventh and Park, walking distance on a nice day. And the building on Sixty-eighth was across from Central Park, supposedly with a roof garden, and they didn't mind the dog. Ellen was waiting to see what was wrong with it, as the doorman let them in, as the listing agent was late and had allowed him to do so. And for a moment, Ellen felt as though she had walked into someone's home and didn't belong there. There was a very chic living room, all done in beige, with furniture by a well-known Italian designer Ellen recognized immediately. There was a book-lined den set up as an office, a huge master suite done in pale blue, and a respectable second bedroom in navy and white French fabrics. There was a small dining room and a separate kitchen, with a maid's room behind it. The entrance hall was black and white marble, the view of the park was spectacular, the apartment looked clean and well cared for, and the small roof garden was pleasant and had the same high-quality Brown Jordan furniture that Ellen bought for her clients. She couldn't imagine why anyone would want to give it up. The surface of the apartment wasn't enormous, so it was manageable with one cleaning person, and it was big enough for Grace, even if slightly smaller than the apartment she owned in Tribeca, and it was all on one level, so she didn't need to worry about stairs. And the apartment came with kitchen equipment and linens, if a tenant wanted.

“Why are they renting it?” Ellen asked, mystified by why anyone would want to have strangers in an apartment like it.

“The woman who owns it is trying to decide if she wants to move to Palm Beach, and she didn't want to make a hasty decision before she sees if she likes it. She bought a big house there last year, but she's afraid she'll miss New York if she gives up her apartment here. She can always stay at a hotel, but she's not sure. She's renting this apartment for six months, with an option for another six months, if she doesn't want to come back.” It was plenty of time for her mother to get the Tribeca apartment in order, if she remained stubborn on that score. Ellen loved the apartment, and would have been happy living there herself. “If she decides to give it up, the apartment will be put up for sale in six months or a year, and the tenant would have to agree to let us show it.”

“How much is the rent?” Ellen asked cautiously, afraid that it was one of the ones over budget. She couldn't remember and was surprised at the price—it was well below anything they'd seen in Tribeca, but the Upper East Side was now noticeably less expensive than the trendier areas downtown that had become so popular and were in such high demand, even after the hurricane. “When is it available?” Ellen asked her—it was the last detail she needed to know.

“Now. She just put it on the market after Labor Day. It's been on the market for just over two weeks, but with the hurricane, no one has seen it for the last ten days. We have two showings tomorrow and another one on Friday.” Ellen reached for her cell phone as she said it and called her mother. She walked into the orderly white kitchen so she could speak freely.

“Hi, Mom. Are you busy?”

“I'm in a meeting. Can I call you back? I'll be finished in ten minutes.”

“Perfect. Get in a cab as soon as you finish. I think I just hit the jackpot. I found a great place on Sixty-eighth and Fifth. There was nothing decent downtown, and this is a little traditional for you, but I don't think you'll find anything better than this for ‘temporary furnished,' unless you like the one I saw with eight-foot ceilings and sparkles in the walls. It'll go quick, so you need to come and see it.”

“You're fantastic,” her mother said with open admiration. “I'll be there in twenty minutes, less if I can do it. Will they take the dog?”

“The broker said the owner has two French poodles, and doesn't care if you do. Mom, it's perfect. I would live here myself.” Grace knew that Ellen's taste was more conservative and less extreme than her own, with a bent for modern design and architectural flourishes, but she had total faith in Ellen's ability to pick something for her. She always knew just what her clients liked. And Grace knew that if there was something right for her out there, her daughter would find it.

“I'll be there as fast as I can,” Grace promised.

She was there fifteen minutes later, as the realtor waited with Ellen and returned a slew of calls. And Grace was as impressed as Ellen had been when she saw it, and was delighted with the price.

“I think I'd rather use my own linens,” Grace said thoughtfully. Hers had been drowned and stained with sewage and they had thrown them out, so she had to get new ones anyway, and towels. She kissed Ellen then and smiled broadly. “I'll take it,” she said to the realtor and her daughter, and they sat down at the kitchen table to fill out the forms, for the real estate agent, the owner, and the co-op board. It was like signing the Constitution or the Treaty of Versailles, but both mother and daughter were impressed by how easily the process had gone. They had found what she needed in a single day.

“It will take about a week to get board approval,” the agent explained to them. They were both familiar with the process, and that it took time, and Grace would need three business references, four personal ones, and two financial, which wasn't a problem either. Her secretary could round them up.