Perfect Nightmare

Chapter Seven

“This is the last place I have to show you,” Rita Goldman said, and Lindsay silently sighed in relief. The morning, which had started off badly with the traffic jam, just seemed to be getting worse, and even before she looked at her watch, her stomach told her it was at least an hour past lunchtime. But her hunger was only part of it.

The worst of it was that as the morning had worn on, and they’d gone from one awful apartment to another — each of them seeming worse to Lindsay than the last — she’d slowly come to the conclusion that despite her brave words the other night, moving was going to be a lot harder than she’d dreamed, even in her worst nightmares. She hated everything about the city — the crowds, the noise, the traffic — everything.

And now she was starting to get a headache.

As if in response to her mood, a dark cloud had formed over the city and the wind was blowing cold. Still, there was just one more place, and then they could get to the good part of the day.

Lunch and shopping.

It was an open house on the Upper West Side.

Lindsay followed her parents and Rita Goldman into the building. The elevator opened, half a dozen people got out, and even more got in with them.

Crowded.

Lindsay hated that about elevators. People you didn’t even know were always touching you, even when they didn’t mean to. She pulled her shoulders in, pressed her arms against her sides and herself against the wall of the elevator, but even so, the man next to her brushed against her and she felt a chill pass through her. The knowledge that this would be happening every day after they moved to the city only made the chill worse.

The apartment was on the sixteenth floor, actually had a good view and a big kitchen — big enough to hold a breakfast table. Not so bad.

A nondescript man with greasy hair was the hosting agent, and he had a plate of cookies and a stack of color flyers, which he pushed into the hands of anyone who would take them. There were at least a dozen people standing in the living room in groups of two or three, whispering among themselves and examining every detail of the room.

Lindsay headed for the bedrooms, leaving her parents to listen to Rita Goldman’s sales pitch, which by now she was pretty sure she knew by heart: “… close to the subway… good school… great restaurants… fantastic view… blah blah blah…”

She edged past a young couple coming out of one of the bedrooms. It was a girl’s room, with posters on the wall and a pink bedspread. She looked at the jewelry box on the dresser and the cluster of framed photographs that could only be family pictures. A bunch of high school photos were stuck around the edges of the mirror over the dresser, and Lindsay wondered if one of the cute guys was the girl’s boyfriend.

She felt a sudden urge to look through the girl’s CDs to see what kind of music she liked, but just as she was about to flip through them, she realized there was going to be an open house at her house next week.

An open house just like this one.

With strangers looking through her things.

She jerked her hand away from the CDs almost as if her fingers had been scorched.

She suddenly felt creepy about even having looked at the pictures and wondering if one of them was the boyfriend, and silently apologized.

The thought of this happening in her own room, with anybody at all going through her stuff, made her queasy. Having an agent show people through apartments and houses that belonged to other people was bad enough, but open houses, where anybody—anybody—could just walk in and look through her underwear…

Lindsay felt her queasiness turn to nausea, and knew that if she didn’t get out, she was going to throw up. She hurried back through the rooms and found her parents in the kitchen discussing the apartment with Rita Goldman, who looked just like a raven cawing over a prize piece of garbage.

“Mom?” she whispered, trying to pull her mother aside. But her mother, still listening to the cawing of the raven, put her arm around her shoulders and tried to draw her into the conversation.

“It’s only a block to the subway,” she heard her father telling her. “That’s really terrific, kitten!”

“Did you look at the bedrooms, sweetheart?” her mother asked. “What do you think?”

“I think I’ve got to get out of here,” Lindsay managed, bile rising up in her gorge.

Her mother’s smile faded into a look of concern. “Honey, what’s wrong? You look a little pale.”

“I just need to get out of here.”

Kara’s motherly instincts came to the fore and she nodded. “Okay.” She turned to Steve. “I’m going to take Lindsay out for some air.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, good Lord, she must be starving — look how late it is!”

“Why don’t we find a little place for some lunch?” the raven clattered. “I can make a few phone calls — maybe find something even better than this — and we can all get a bite.”

Lindsay tugged at her mother. She didn’t want to have lunch with this woman. All she wanted was the Thai cabbage salad she’d been promised. Then she wanted to go shopping and to forget moving to the city. She struggled against the tears now threatening to overwhelm her. “Mom, please?”

As if she’d read her daughter’s thoughts, Kara nodded, then glanced at Steve. “We’ll see you downstairs.”

The elevator was crowded again, and Lindsay’s queasy stomach began to escalate into an anxiety attack. She felt hot and clammy at the same time, and steel bands seemed to be tightening around her chest, making it hard to breathe. As the elevator crept downward, she felt the strange heat rise up through her chest and her neck and into her face, and when the doors finally opened on the ground level, she was unsteady on her feet.

She dropped onto a bench in the foyer and leaned against her mother, who sat down next to her.

“What’s the matter, darling?” Kara asked, her brow creased with worry. “Are you sick?”

“I’m hot,” Lindsay said. She picked up her mother’s hand and pressed it to her face.

“You’re burning up,” Kara said.

But already the flush was starting to pass. “No, I’m going to be okay,” Lindsay assured her. “I just needed to get out of there.”

“Then we’ll just relax here for a few minutes and wait for Dad. Okay?”

Lindsay nodded, closed her eyes and silently prayed for some kind of miracle that would mean they could just stay in their house and never have to go through this again.

“Did you like this place?” Kara asked. “It certainly seems to be the best thing we’ve seen — close to the subway, and close to a very good school, and not too far from your father’s office.” She paused, then added, “And we can afford it. Barely, but we can make it.”

Lindsay hardly heard the words, a single thought filling her mind: “Are people going to be going through our house like this?”

Her mother looked puzzled. “Well, of course they are. At the open houses next week. Why?”

Lindsay’s eyes widened and she paled. “I don’t want anybody in my room,” she whispered. “And I don’t want to move. Can’t we just forget about all this and go home?”

Kara hugged her close. “I wish we could,” she said. “But you know we can’t! Come on, sweetheart.” Turning so she could face Lindsay, she tipped her daughter’s head up and looked into her eyes. “It’s a new chapter, Lindsay. A new adventure. I know it’s scary, but you’ll get through it! We’ve had a wonderful life out on the Island, but we’ll have a wonderful one here, too.”

“But I hate all these places,” Lindsay whispered, her voice breaking. “I hate the city.”

“You’ll grow to love it. Trust me.”

But as the elevator dinged and her father came out with Rita Goldman and a flood of other people, Lindsay knew it wasn’t true. She hated the city now, and she always would. “Someone already made an offer on this place,” she heard her father say, sounding disappointed. “And it’s been accepted.” Lindsay immediately felt better.

“Timing is everything,” she heard the agent say. “I’ll do a little more research, and now that I’ve got a better idea of what appeals to you, I can zero in. We’ll keep looking until we find the place that’s just right.”

“Thai salad,” Lindsay whispered to her mother.

“Thank you so much for your time,” her mother said as her father shook the agent’s hand. Rita Goldman swirled her black coat like a pair of wings, turned and swooped out of the building with a promise to be in touch soon.

“We’ll find something we all like,” her father said, but Lindsay knew the truth.

Her parents would find something they liked.

The best she could do was cope.

But she would do it. Somehow, she would do it.