If We Lived Here by Lindsey Palmer

Author:Lindsey Palmer [Palmer, Lindsey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780758294357
Amazon: 0758294352
Goodreads: 22557313
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2015-03-30T04:00:00+00:00

After Luis fled from the bar, muttering on his way out about “the goddamn gentrifiers,” Nick ordered them a pitcher of beer, then another one, and then several drinks in, Emma caved and let Sophia have one, too, and then it started to seem like a good idea to join Sophia at a party uptown where she claimed they’d find her housing lawyer friend. (Emma was reluctant to call her lawyer brother, for fear that Max would skew the story into an I-told-you-so opportunity.) It didn’t occur to her to question why Sophia was going to a party on a school night, or to consider the inappropriateness of attending said party with her teenage client; although she did think to ask why, at age seventeen, Sophia was partying with someone who was old enough to have completed law school.

Sophia waved away the concern. “All my friends are older. High school kids are immature.”

“She has a point there,” Nick said, emptying the remains of his glass.

“Anyway, you should really come.”

Nick shrugged his concession, and Emma, more than willing to spend the rest of the evening avoiding their current predicament, said, “Why not?” Her beer-fogged brain was still calculating the best subway route up to Seventy-second and Second when Sophia announced a car service was on its way. Moments later they were beckoned to the curb by a honk that sounded almost polite, as if to expose the car’s prim Upper East Side origins.

Emma was expecting a stately high-rise with an equally stately doorman, vases of freshly cut flowers, and polished, shiny surfaces, but the car pulled up to a building as battered-looking as Emma’s own Lower East Side tenement. “Thanks, Gordon,” Sophia chirped. She reached to pat the driver on the shoulder, then shimmied her way out and guided Nick and Emma inside and up three sets of stairs.

The door swung open, and a waifish guy in his early twenties planted a peck on Sophia’s forehead. “Darling, hello. Who’s this, your nanny?”

“This is my tutor-slash-friend-slash-life-coach, Emma,” said Sophia, giddy. Emma felt herself blushing. “Also her lover, Nick.” Nick shot Emma a skeptical look.

Post-introductions, Sophia pulled them into a large room that resembled the set of a down-market Benetton ad: Each of the dozen or so people was an unusual take on attractive, and each projected a variation on a thrift-store-chic aesthetic. Genevieve would’ve fit right in, with her long blond hair and vintage wardrobe, Emma thought. Emma considered texting her, before she remembered with a twinge her friend’s recent chilliness—although maybe Gen really was just busy with her nursing school applications, as she’d claimed. After a few moments, Emma realized that no one in the room had moved or spoken; they all lounged, wearing listless expressions and draping long, limp limbs across the furniture; she half wondered if there’d been a gas leak. Sophia made introductions, but Emma couldn’t quite follow the names that either sounded like medications (Allegrina? was it Frescaline?) or else just things (Branch, Lyric, Bird, did she say Nickel?).

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