Voices From The Other Side Page 5

His only problem: the odd sounds and smells of the phantom woman that reminded him of Nadine when he tried to sleep at night, naked and sweating in record summer heat, unrelieved by electric fans and open windows. Kenny lay on a queen-size mattress on the bare floor in the dark, played blues on the stereo to block out the sounds of traffic and shouted conversation from the street below while he tried to masturbate himself to dreamland with memories of his lost love and DVD porn. Kenny was alone, on his own, for the first time in years.

  He hated it.

  The next week Kenny spent long hours at the office with no time to meet anyone new, finished up a major Web project for a big client. At home he’d discovered that the building was filled mostly with tenants who’d been there since their youth, holding onto rent-controlled leases well past retirement. Kenny finally spotted a neighbor around his age that weekend as he wheeled his bike down the hall for a ride in Prospect Park. She came off the elevator with a bag of groceries, smiled and nodded as they passed.

  She was a petite young woman, gray-eyed with a cocoa-dark complexion and long cornrow braids. As she disappeared around the corner, Kenny caught a breath of her perfume, the same scent he’d smelled in his apartment. He’d finally found the source. She had to live in one of the two other apartments at his end of the hall.

  Kenny thought about his neighbor that night instead of Nadine while he tried to sleep—what her skin would taste like, salty or sweet; how her braids would feel against his bare shoulders; whether she slept in a T-shirt, in the raw or in a silky negligee. He could almost feel her presence in the bed beside him as he slept that night, warm, close, her soft breaths matching his.

  A few days later he saw her again on his way home. They met just as he turned the bend in the hall. She smiled and said, “Hi!” as she passed. Kenny nodded back, kept going to his door, as she vanished around the corner. She’d come from the far end of the hall, so she had to live in the apartment across from him. He considered knocking on her door later to find out if she was single by inviting her over for a drink, if he had the balls.

  Rejection would be lethal, but friends had encouraged him to be daring and try new approaches after the breakup. He’d been off the market for two years; they said he had nothing to lose. Nothing, except that he liked this girl, what little he’d seen of her, and didn’t want to blow his only chance of getting to know her better.

  Kenny cleaned up the living room when he got inside, just in case; threw dirty laundry from his bedroom floor into the bathroom hamper. He did a little work on his computer and watched TV until later that evening, when he heard the door across the hall open and close as someone went inside. Kenny got up, pulled a bottle of Chardonnay from the refrigerator and two glasses from a cabinet, hoped that she liked wine, that she wasn’t either AA or overly religious.

  Kenny stopped himself from obsessing, juggled the wineglasses and bottle in one hand, used his other to open his door and crossed the hall to knock on hers.

  There was the sound of movement inside, and Kenny felt his heart pound faster; a slight flush of flop-sweat bloomed on his back and cheeks. The door opened, and a skinny, old white woman in a worn, plaid housedress blinked at him from behind thick bifocals.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m . . .” Kenny didn’t know what to say. She was the last thing he’d expected to see when the door opened. Could his dark-skinned dream girl be this woman’s daughter? Granddaughter? Caregiver? “I just moved in.”

  The old woman eyed the glasses and wine, warily. “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry. I thought someone else lived here. A young woman I saw in the hall.”

  “She lives there.”

  The old woman waved toward Kenny’s door. He sighed. She wasn’t just old; she was senile.

  “Thanks. I, uh . . .” There was no use explaining further. Kenny floundered, backed away. “Nice meeting you.”

  “Okay.” The old woman shrugged and shut the door after one last, longing look at the wine bottle. Kenny stood alone in the empty hall, closed his eyes and let his heart slow. Stupid. This was stupid. The girl must be in the other apartment, closer to the elevator. Then why was she coming from back here?

  “Hi again,” said a familiar voice, and Kenny opened his eyes to see her standing there, smelled her sweet scent catch up to them as she stopped at his door.

  “Hi,” he answered, and thought to offer her a glass while he fished for something to say. She took it with a smile. “I was coming over to introduce myself but got the wrong apartment. Kenny Gaines. I just moved in.”

  “Yeah? Me, too. Yolanda Morgan,” she said, and clinked her empty glass against his. “You want to come in for a minute? Pour me some of that wine?”

  She had keys in her hand, and before he could answer she slipped one into his lock and turned it. Kenny opened his mouth to protest, but when the door opened, words failed him. He walked forward in disbelief for a better look.

  Nothing in the room belonged to him.

  It was as if he had accidentally gotten off on the wrong floor and stepped into someone else’s apartment. He knew his apartment was still almost empty, with only a few lonely pieces of scattered furniture bought at Pottery Barn after leaving Nadine’s. She’d owned most of what was at their place before he had moved in. What little he’d taken with him barely filled a room, much less his apartment.

  Instead, he stared at a fully furnished living room decorated with a woman’s touch, a smart, well-traveled woman with great design sense and enough income to indulge it. There were African and Polynesian masks on the wall—good ones, not cheap knockoffs, but the sort of things you’d find on your own while on the road. A modern but comfortable sofa and chairs with clean, simple lines were positioned to let the art in the room catch your eye and interest, invited relaxed conversation over drinks. Big pillows covered in African mud cloth and Japanese textiles lay piled on Moroccan carpets between the fireplace and a low wooden coffee table, which was littered with architectural digests and art magazines.

  Kenny stared up at a massive, framed, brightly colored photograph over the mantle signed by Lyle Ashton Harris, a popular black artist whose work he could never afford. At home Kenny had a five-dollar Jacob Lawrence poster he’d bought at a street fair taped up on this wall. He looked at the photo more closely.

  It was Yolanda in an abandoned warehouse, eyes closed, face ecstatic, belly bare, feet naked, wearing large gold hoop earrings, a white tied-off blouse and floor-length skirt, hair bound up in a white cloth. The transparent spirit of a voluptuous black woman, scantily clad in yellow and gold, floated slightly above Yolanda’s writhing body, the two figures captured at the moment of blending into one. The title under the signature read, “Oshun enters the Acolyte.” Yolanda poured them more wine.

  “Do you like it?” She stood beside him, looked up at the photo, talked about the art as if nothing was wrong. “It’s a gift from the artist. I met Lyle at a gallery opening a few years ago, and he talked me into posing.” Her relaxed at-home air only made the situation more bizarre. It was all so damned casual and ordinary. Kenny marveled at the weird beauty of the moment. If this weren’t some kind of hallucination or psychotic break, it would be the smoothest pickup he’d ever made. “I love it too much not to show it, even though having a huge portrait of myself over the mantle makes me look vain.”

  “No. It’s great.” He turned away from the picture and blurted out, “I live here.”

  “What?” Yolanda looked sure she hadn’t heard him correctly, a flash of confusion flickered across her eyes as she stepped back. “You what?”

  “I don’t know how to explain. It’s crazy, but . . . I have to see something.” He pulled her toward the door. She tried to break free, as if suddenly worried he was insane. “Just come outside for a second. Bring your keys.”

  He got her to the door and out, pulled it shut. “Lock it.”

  She shook her head and sucked her teeth, but did it. Kenny put his key in the lock before she could stop him. W
hen she saw that it fit, she stared at the key, then at him, and waited. Kenny turned the key and unlocked the door. When he opened it, his apartment, the one he knew, was on the other side.

  This time it was Yolanda’s turn to be stunned. She stepped inside, walked slowly to the center of the room, shocked into silence. When she turned back to face Kenny, tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “This is impossible. So God damned impossible.”

  She looked about to collapse. He grabbed her arms, supported her. “Tell me about it.”

  “Damn, Kenny! How . . . how did you stand there for so long without saying anything?”

  “I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t.”

  They compared their keys, which were completely different, even though they both opened the same lock. To be sure they weren’t imagining it, Kenny and Yolanda tried the trick a few more times, locked and unlocked the door with one key, then the other, to see the two apartments, then fled.

  They went to a new jazz club down the street, declined the trendy ambience of the restaurant, sat at the bar and ordered doubles. Other young couples milled around them, laughed and joked their way through pickups and first dates, while Kenny and Yolanda drank in silence, listened to the music and tried to reclaim their hold on reality. Yolanda finally looked Kenny in the eyes when she was halfway through her second Hennessey.

  He did his best to smile.

  “So. Since we’re sharing an apartment, I guess we should get to know each other,” said Kenny. It was the only clever opening line he’d ever had. The tension broke, and they laughed until they cried, drifted close to hysteria and back, until words poured out as they tried to explain what the hell was happening. Dimensional warp? Quantum flux? Was it a time or space loop, black magic or mad science, a blessing or a curse? Kenny’s nerdy high school years spent watching hours of Star Trek reruns and reading science fiction gave him an endless supply of possibilities to offer Yolanda.

  For once, he was relaxed on a first date, if you could call it that. He entertained and soothed her by spinning out wilder and wilder theories, his hands carved out spatial explanations in the air of how two apartments could occupy the same space at the same time yet be completely separate.

  “They couldn’t be completely separate, though, could they?” Yolanda stared out the front window of the bar as the conversation slowed, looked through their candlelit reflections in the glass to the street as they finished their fourth drinks and ordered another round. The sun had set while they talked; car headlights flashed past, lit the street outside in lightning-quick bursts, like strobes. “I mean, the dynamic tension of trying to stay apart, it seems like there’d be some kind of leakage every now and then.”

  “Like osmosis. Things slipping through the membrane to whichever apartment has the least, trying to find balance.”

  “You just better leave my CDs and DVDs alone,” she warned, and giggled at the absurdity of it all. For a moment, Kenny could see the girl the woman had been, sleepily curled around the stool beside him, guileless, trusting. A door in his broken heart opened and invited her in. He stood, put down money for the bill and tip, extended a hand.

  “May I walk you home?” For some reason, that set them off on another round of laughter as he helped her to her feet and guided her out of the bar to the street.

  At the apartment door, they both hesitated, unsure which key to use. Kenny waved Yolanda forward, and she opened the door. He shuddered. While the shock of their discovery had faded over drinks, conversation and flirtation, seeing her belongings behind what he had always known as his door gave him a chill again. She felt it, too, and paused before she went inside alone.

  “I guess it’s good night.” She turned back to face him. “Thanks for everything. I know this is all pretty weird, but I still enjoyed meeting you.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. And, yeah, pretty damn weird.” All he could see were her lips, full, moist, parted, tilted up at an almost ideal angle for him to lean forward and steal a kiss. So he did.

  He didn’t really steal it. Kenny could tell immediately that she gave it to him freely, and then some, a kiss that answered any lingering question about her availability. They pulled apart, startled by the intensity, but Kenny understood. He’d seen this exact moment in too many grade-B horror movies, when the hero and heroine fell passionately into each other’s arms just when they most needed to run.

  “I’m sorry, it’s . . .” She glanced inside and actually trembled. “I think I’m just a little afraid to stay here alone tonight.”

  “If you want company . . .” he said, and winced. Any other time, it was a cheap line that would have gotten him an icy stare, but Yolanda looked relieved by his offer.

  “Your place or mine?”

  “As long as we’re here . . .”

  She laughed, stepped inside and pulled the door open wider for him to follow as she turned on the lights and low music, then went to the bar to pour them a nightcap.

  They didn’t have sex that night. Kenny curled up under the sheet spoon-style behind Yolanda, in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, gently cupped her warm, soft breasts in moist palms. As he fell asleep, he could smell coconut oil in her hair, gently kissed the back of her neck and tasted her when he licked his lips with the tip of his tongue.

  She was both salty and sweet.

  The next morning, Kenny and Yolanda tried to understand their unique living arrangement by conducting experiments. They addressed notes to each other and slipped them under the door to see which side they’d appear on, separated and shouted to see how much sound traveled between the two spaces, burned incense to see if smells crossed over, like demented high school science projects out of The X-Files.

  Hours later, they still knew only what was happening, not how or why. The two keys opened the front door onto two identical copies of the same space, no matter who used the keys, and neither key had any markings to indicate where it had been made, except for an ironic “Do not duplicate,” which was stamped on both. The rooms inside were the same down to the cracks in the walls and the leaky faucets, only the contents, including the cable and phone lines, were different, depending on which key was used.

  After hours of investigation and experimentation, all they were sure of was that neither of them wanted to lose his or her lease. Even if they’d somehow stumbled onto the Bermuda Triangle of shares, like true New Yorkers neither of them wanted to move out of a great rent-controlled apartment in a rising neighborhood. The only question was how to pull it off without anyone else figuring it out.

  “We can’t pay two rents again at the end of the month. They’re bound to realize something is wrong,” Kenny said over lunch at a local bistro. “I’m surprised they haven’t already, since they got two leases for the same apartment.” He felt more like his father in daylight, examined the practical aspects of a surreal situation, when last night he’d explored the fantasy.

  “So what do we do? Tell them we’re sharing the apartment and split the rent?”

  “Sure. It’s not like we’ll really be living together,” said Kenny. “And we’ll never find another deal this good. Believe me, I looked.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  They decided to work it out with the Russian super, but that evening, their frenzied torrent of words as they tried to explain without really explaining completely lost the recent immigrant. He finally silenced them. If his wife had given Yolanda a lease after he’d given one to Kenny, a mistake had been made. If they wanted to share the apartment, they had to pay one rent, but more for two tenants.

  They gladly arranged to get back Yolanda’s rent and deposit, gave the super a new check for the next month’s increased rent. Yolanda then wrote Kenny a check to cover her half while she waited for her refund. Back upstairs, they opened the door to Kenny’s apartment with his key to celebrate in his place with champagne, then stepped out into the hall and into Yolanda’s apartment with her key to have dinner.

  They fell into dating without thou
ght, drawn into a relationship like coconspirators bound by a shared secret, went to movies and shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, free concerts in Prospect Park, jazz clubs in Fort Green, combed the neighborhood for fresh entertainment to enjoy together. Kenny started to feel whole again; Yolanda filled the void left in his life by losing Nadine.

  It was more than just the strangeness of their meeting or the intimacy of their living arrangement that made him feel close to her. They shared a taste for the same music and films, got along with each other’s friends and even looked right together when he caught glimpses of their reflection in store windows and restaurant mirrors. They fit. Kenny was falling in love, and each day he was sure he saw signs in Yolanda that the feeling was mutual.

  When they finally had sex it was tender, prolonged, multiorgasmic for them both. They ended lovemaking wet with sweat and tears of laughter, held each other all night, amazed to be so lucky to have found each other.

  They spent the weekend bouncing between their beds, cooked together in her kitchen, then scampered into the hall to go back to his place for DVD movies on his new flat-panel plasma TV. They talked about their childhoods, their first jobs, where they’d been and where they wanted to go. By the end of the weekend they talked about where they might go together.

  Weeks went by as they continued to live jointly but separately in the same apartment, lives entwined but with enough distance to enhance the time spent together. Kenny felt a satisfaction he’d never known before, a sense of oneness that made him realize what he had been missing from other relationships.

  Kenny had found more than a new partner in Yolanda; she completed him. He wanted to tell her that without it sounding pedestrian, when what he wanted was so much more than anything he had ever had, more than he’d ever believed possible.

  That night, Kenny watched Yolanda all through dinner at a local restaurant, admired and desired her, as if she were a rare work of art. He listened to every word she said, but his attention was on the voice inside, which told him to tell her how he felt, to share what he wanted with her, for them.