little more beautiful."
One of the two sushi chefs puts the finishing touch on an elaborate roll, looks up, and asks the men what they want.
"Are we hungry?" Todd asks Henry.
"Quite."
Todd points to a model vessel behind the chef. "I've always wanted to get the Samurai Sushi Boat. You game?"
The chef asks, "You like challenging?"
"Excuse me?" asks Henry.
"Challenging or beginner?"
Henry turns to Todd, who says, "Let's go for it."
"Challenging," says Henry. "And we'll get two more Kirins."
All tables are filled, and there is a line of patrons waiting to be seated. Anyone observing the two men would be surprised to learn that they'd only met this night. They are both whittling splinters off their chopsticks as they joke about the big boat that will—in both retellings—become the centerpiece anecdote of Our First Date.
14. Three Humble Rooms
T HALIA MOVES INTO the maisonette with the help of two uninsured and unincorporated young men whom she found on Craigslist. From his lookout on the second floor, Henry hurries downstairs to meet the truck as its front wheels bump up onto his sidewalk. Thalia exits the truck's cab, looking a little more animated than a week of packing should induce and carrying a pint-sized Christmas cactus, which, she reports, has never bloomed.
For the next hour, Henry silently notes the transport of her sad little lot: a futon frame and its mattress, covered with a fitted sheet he recognizes as Marimekko, circa 1970. An unmoored door and the concrete blocks that hold it up; lumber and more concrete blocks that become a bookcase; a matching rattan love seat and chair with jungle-print cushions; a dozen boxes of college texts and paperback novels; two plastic hourglass-shaped stools in lime green that turn out to be night tables; a computer, a printer, and a naked headless mannequin.
This charmless junk depresses him. "Did your mother and Glenn ever visit your apartment?" he asks as he watches her unwrap what she is euphemistically calling china.
"Probably. Maybe not Mott Street, but the one before that. Why?"
Instead of answering truthfully— How could they let you live an unfurnished life? —he asks what he can do to help. Does she need tea towels or sponges? His cleaning woman put the shelf paper in. Does she like it? Gracious Home had other patterns, but he thought polka dots.
"I do. I love them." She is lining up mugs, all four of them. When he compliments a pale blue cup and saucer, Thalia says, "This was from my Angel Sister my freshman year in college. Do guys have Angel Sisters? Like secret Santas? She was a senior on my floor and one of those beautiful creatures that everyone worshiped from afar." She holds the cup up into the light of the hundred-watt ceiling bulb. "You can almost see through it. It wasn't new when she gave it to me. It was hers, and she must've wrapped this up in a hurry for the big Angel Sister reveal. But I liked that better, that demigoddess Jodi Kleinholz would keep a teacup and saucer in her dorm room—and then it was in mine."
The way she is talking about and gazing at her cup and saucer is breaking Henry's heart—this love of beautiful things narrowed to two pieces of bone china. He squelches his impulse to say, "Please come look through my cabinets. Please take what you want."
Thalia must see Henry's pained expression because she says, "They're giving me a decent housing allowance and I'm sure it would cover ... stuff. The stylist threatened to take me shopping, but I don't want this place to look decorated. It's supposed to be the three humble rooms of a struggling actress."
"But if you like pretty things, and if you're not inviting the paparazzi inside...?"
"I'm not. But they have their telephoto lenses and probably their night vision goggles. I've been warned never to walk around naked or even in my underwear in case..." She tilts her head toward the still-quiet street outside.
Just as Thalia pronounces underwear the movers enter the kitchen
One of the two sushi chefs puts the finishing touch on an elaborate roll, looks up, and asks the men what they want.
"Are we hungry?" Todd asks Henry.
"Quite."
Todd points to a model vessel behind the chef. "I've always wanted to get the Samurai Sushi Boat. You game?"
The chef asks, "You like challenging?"
"Excuse me?" asks Henry.
"Challenging or beginner?"
Henry turns to Todd, who says, "Let's go for it."
"Challenging," says Henry. "And we'll get two more Kirins."
All tables are filled, and there is a line of patrons waiting to be seated. Anyone observing the two men would be surprised to learn that they'd only met this night. They are both whittling splinters off their chopsticks as they joke about the big boat that will—in both retellings—become the centerpiece anecdote of Our First Date.
14. Three Humble Rooms
T HALIA MOVES INTO the maisonette with the help of two uninsured and unincorporated young men whom she found on Craigslist. From his lookout on the second floor, Henry hurries downstairs to meet the truck as its front wheels bump up onto his sidewalk. Thalia exits the truck's cab, looking a little more animated than a week of packing should induce and carrying a pint-sized Christmas cactus, which, she reports, has never bloomed.
For the next hour, Henry silently notes the transport of her sad little lot: a futon frame and its mattress, covered with a fitted sheet he recognizes as Marimekko, circa 1970. An unmoored door and the concrete blocks that hold it up; lumber and more concrete blocks that become a bookcase; a matching rattan love seat and chair with jungle-print cushions; a dozen boxes of college texts and paperback novels; two plastic hourglass-shaped stools in lime green that turn out to be night tables; a computer, a printer, and a naked headless mannequin.
This charmless junk depresses him. "Did your mother and Glenn ever visit your apartment?" he asks as he watches her unwrap what she is euphemistically calling china.
"Probably. Maybe not Mott Street, but the one before that. Why?"
Instead of answering truthfully— How could they let you live an unfurnished life? —he asks what he can do to help. Does she need tea towels or sponges? His cleaning woman put the shelf paper in. Does she like it? Gracious Home had other patterns, but he thought polka dots.
"I do. I love them." She is lining up mugs, all four of them. When he compliments a pale blue cup and saucer, Thalia says, "This was from my Angel Sister my freshman year in college. Do guys have Angel Sisters? Like secret Santas? She was a senior on my floor and one of those beautiful creatures that everyone worshiped from afar." She holds the cup up into the light of the hundred-watt ceiling bulb. "You can almost see through it. It wasn't new when she gave it to me. It was hers, and she must've wrapped this up in a hurry for the big Angel Sister reveal. But I liked that better, that demigoddess Jodi Kleinholz would keep a teacup and saucer in her dorm room—and then it was in mine."
The way she is talking about and gazing at her cup and saucer is breaking Henry's heart—this love of beautiful things narrowed to two pieces of bone china. He squelches his impulse to say, "Please come look through my cabinets. Please take what you want."
Thalia must see Henry's pained expression because she says, "They're giving me a decent housing allowance and I'm sure it would cover ... stuff. The stylist threatened to take me shopping, but I don't want this place to look decorated. It's supposed to be the three humble rooms of a struggling actress."
"But if you like pretty things, and if you're not inviting the paparazzi inside...?"
"I'm not. But they have their telephoto lenses and probably their night vision goggles. I've been warned never to walk around naked or even in my underwear in case..." She tilts her head toward the still-quiet street outside.
Just as Thalia pronounces underwear the movers enter the kitchen
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