They moved in on a Wednesday. Moria watched the homegrown troop of movers carry boxes from two cars double-parked on the street into the building across from her. The movers reappeared in the window directly opposing hers, three stories up. Through the two panes of glass, she observed them surveying their new surroundings. A young woman’s face poked out the farther window, then receded back inside. It wasn’t two seconds before she reemerged onto the fire escape in whole with a young man by her side. They looked down the quiet street with big grins on their faces. The young woman pulled out her phone to take a picture of the view, and the young man pulled out a cigarette.
This was Moira’s first sight of the young Romeo and Juliet, standing close together on the fire escape. Soon enough, they climbed back down into the apartment as the troop of movers — seemingly made up of a handful of various family members — beckoned them. The young woman seemed to be in charge of the whole operation, as she pointed and boxes were moved accordingly.
Moira watched for a while longer at her desk. They were a more engaging sight than the blinking cursor on her empty page. At one point, she got up to pour herself another cup of coffee, and when she returned, one of the young movers was on another’s shoulders, hanging lights around the perimeter of the ceiling — exactly where the young woman pointed adamantly, of course. She and a mover who must have been her mother, as they were near mirrors of each other, watched the endeavor in a mixture of exasperation and glee. The young man who had previously been on the fire escape had hidden his cigarette away somewhere and was standing by with his arms raised in caution.
The day whiled away and Moira sat at her desk, alternating between watching them and watching the blinking cursor. She managed to get a few paragraphs done, not as much as was adequate for a whole day of sitting, especially not to a laborer in such great anticipation of the product being finished and profitable. The moving party across the street offered greater amusement, as well as a sufficient excuse for being distracted.
Midafternoon, all but the mother and the young couple left. The mother propped herself on the windowsill next to the fire escape, drinking in that air which was a perfect median between summer and autumn. Through the window directly across from her desk, Moira could see the young couple sitting on the couch, evidently exhausted from their big day. In a bit they left, and an hour or so later, the young couple only came strolling back down the street with a pizza box and a rather large bag from the liquor store. The young woman fumbled with unfamiliar keys at the door for a moment, but it was quickly conquered. Seconds later, Moira watched them reappear in their little portmanteau.
The clock struck six and Moira closed her computer. She wasn’t going to get any more work done for the day — and in all honesty, she could have said that at ten in the morning. She would start getting ready for dinner. Her old friend Joanne had called earlier in the week and told Moira she was coming to town. They were going out to eat somewhere Moira had never been before, somewhere just enough out of her budget to draw a wince, but not enough to make her suggest switching venues.
She had thought about canceling, often, throughout the week. Joanne had lived in the same apartment building as she and Will when they first moved into the city. Years later, she got married and moved to the suburbs, something Moira and Will had never quite gotten around to. Now she was back, visiting, and Moira was still there, just down the block. She groaned inwardly in anticipation of the small talk that would, of course, gradually turn to awkward questions. What happened to them? What was the final straw? Where was Will now?
She didn’t know.
Dinner was nice. Nothing special, but nothing especially terrible. It was cordial. Her friend was doing well, and talked proudly about her two children, the youngest of which was a freshman in college. Moira remembered being that age, the excitement of a new frontier. It was bittersweet now. That had been the year she met Will. The conversation remained, in large part, focused on her friend, which Moira did not mind in the least.
They finished up relatively early, not staying long after they had paid the check, not really having anything more to talk about. They parted with the typical promises that they would keep in touch and see each other soon and on the walk home Moira considered changing her phone number. She dismissed the thought as mean and uncalled for, immediately disgusted with herself. Her friend hadn’t done anything to warrant such rancor, so why was it her instinct?
She decided to walk home, something which had become a frequent habit of hers since Will had moved out; she was in no rush back to solitude. In fact, the less time spent buzzing around in that empty apartment, the better for her. She walked slowly down the Bowery. As she wandered past the groups at bars and the couples at restaurants and the solo wanderers something like her, she tried to absorb some of their energy. There was something so infectious about the city; it hummed, it breathed.
She had wondered about this energy often. New York, the city which was a giant, the giant who was a god. It had a consciousness to it, an imposing sense that it was alive and it was better than you. And another thing, a certain elusive element which Moira had been trying to pin down since she first moved there in college. Some magnetic force which called to the random myriad of souls who formed its populous. Some vortex which drew in the lonely and drunken sailors, and kept them there no matter what. Some element which might explain the city’s power, and with which she might be able to justify how she and the city — hand in hand — had ripped her life to shreds.
As she grew closer to her door, her eyes wandered to the building across the street. There was a soft purple light emanating from the third story windows.
Inside her apartment, Moira took off her shoes, then coat, then jewelry, ambling aimlessly over to the window all the while. She could see the young Romeo and Juliet sitting on the couch together. That strip of lights around the ceiling seemed to be the source of the purple glow, which was changing in hue ever so slightly. She peered at the young woman. She was fiddling with the lights with great concentration, glancing between them and something in her hand. Finally, she seemed satisfied with their exact hue, and Moira was as well. Lilacs under a full moon. She went to bed.
She wasn’t tired. She read for a while, and she still wasn’t tired. She went out to the kitchen and made herself tea. It wasn’t late, and the purple lights were still on across the street. Without really thinking about it, Moira wandered to the desk and folded herself into the green swivel chair. The tv was playing in the other apartment, but the young couple was facing each other on the couch. She leaned back, blowing softly across the top of the hot mug, and watched.
This was something new and strange, yet not entirely unfamiliar. She didn’t necessarily mean to watch them, in the sense of watching as a deliberate activity. It felt perverse, and in New York especially, where one is made to stay in their business and barely make eye contact with passerbys. And yet, everything in this city screamed look at me. There was always something to see, something to observe, and it was impossible — inhuman, even — to resist. And this young couple bathed in lavender, not having even hung curtains.
She wondered what they were talking about. Years ago, that would have been her and Will, sitting up talking late into the night. Even more recently, before the last strings were cut, he would sometimes call her late, when he knew she wouldn’t be sleeping, just to talk. Just to have someone else to bear witness, to know you were sleepless just then, and thinking. Alive. Maybe that was the elusive element — the siren song. In New York, there was always someone who knew if you were awake.
The next morning, Moira sat again at her desk staring at the computer screen. Even though it was a week day — and a work day for her — it was not until about noon that the young couple dragged themselves groggily from the bedroom at the back of the apartment. The young woman collapsed almost immediately onto the couch, visibly exhausted from the trial of waking up. Her paramour bustled around in the kitchen, making coffee. Moira let her attention be drawn from her work to them with little fight. They lazed on the couch together for a while, basking in the early autumn sun without a care in the world who might be watching.
Eventually, it seemed they remembered the existence of the rest of the world, and they set to work unpacking. Moira let her mind wander back to when she herself was doing the same thing, almost forty years ago now. She watched them move deftly through the maze of boxes spilling out their lives, trying to recall what it felt like to move in a body still so full of youth. She knew it once, she was sure, though now she had trouble imagining it.
Memories were funny like that. One might be able to remember events, conversations, images, but it can be impossible sometimes to remember yourself in them. How you sat in your own body, how you spoke, how you felt. She had marveled once, a long time ago now, at how strange it felt to try and remember how she and Will interacted before they started dating; the slight, anxious hesitation before brushing up against his arm, the quick glances, the slight tremor in her voice when she called for his attention. Now, it was almost just as difficult to remember the rest, the years they spent together before. All she can remember is awkward silences and unfinished conversations.
Later in the day, the young couple went out. Moria stared into the empty apartment across the street. It was coming together nicely. To distract herself, she started looking through old folders on her computer. It was an old machine now, and groaned at her every demand, but she couldn’t bring herself to part with it, no matter how much of her day was spent waiting for it to buffer. When she had gotten it, she hadn’t wanted to transfer her old writing files off her old laptop. She hated even looking at them; no matter how good it was, her writing always seemed so juvenile after a few years. It was like shedding skin — the person who wrote it was unrecognizable. She saw a new laptop as a new start.
Will had other ideas. He was adamant that she not lose her old files and whatever memories were attached to them. Moira had rolled her eyes, that much she knew for a fact. She almost rolled her eyes just remembering the ensuing fight. It devolved from the computer switch to finances to their relationship and finally to the same place it always ended, them — imperfect, incompatible, indecipherable them. No matter what they started arguing about, it would always lead back to them and all of their flaws. Still, when she wandered out to the living room just past midnight to invite Will back from the couch, she found him hunched over the coffee table in deep concentration, switching the files between computers himself.
That was always the problem with them. Will held on too tight, Moira let go too easily. It made her wonder why she had stayed in the city so long. It would have made more sense, given her track record, to give up as soon as it got rough. But New York City had an innate power of stirring in every one of its inhabitants — and even its onlookers — a thirst for conquest. A desire to prove oneself, to “earn your keep”, so to speak. It wasn’t that Moira had simply wanted to live in the city. It became a necessity; she needed to prove that she could. She had just forgotten, somewhere along the way, who exactly she was trying to prove it to.
Later that afternoon, Moira was preparing lunch when she heard screaming out on the street. Her curiosity immediately won over her body and she rushed back to the desk, peering surreptitiously out the window and down onto the street. A woman was standing on a fire escape down the block, shouting at a man on the street below. Clothes rained down over him, flung out into the August air. Moira’s gaze glanced over the other pedestrians who glanced to and away from the scene over and over again. She chuckled to herself.
Her eyes found their way over to the young couple’s apartment. Their grinning faces were poking out onto the fire escape. They seemed to have not quite learned the art of subtlety yet. Framed through the white panes of her window, they looked almost like a polaroid of her and Will forty years ago, watching with big smiles as the world swirled around them. Moira watched the young couple giggle together before disappearing back into their apartment after the excitement passed.
Her eyes followed them into the apartment. They went back to the couch together. She watched them deep in conversation, trying to remember when she had that much to say to another person. She wondered what they were talking about. Their faces were barely visible, illuminated only by the oscillating screensaver of the television, but Moira could tell from the silhouette of adamant hand gestures that they were both enthralled by the topic. She wondered, if she sat here for long enough, would she watch another young love fall to pieces? She hoped not. She wished she could freeze them right there, turned towards each other on the couch, framed in the windows of Fourth Street forever.
Eve Annajane Writes, LLC 