A Room With A View

Chapter Six - Brian

September 3rd, Sunday

The light in 6J switched on. Brian looked up from his notebook and out across the courtyard. Ms. 6J was home. Brian watched as she picked something up from the floor and tossed it out of sight. It must have landed where she wanted it to, because she clenched a fist and thrust it into the air in triumph. Brian smiled. He wished he was brave enough to know her name. 

      A soft light spilled into Ms. 6J's living room. She must have opened the fridge. Sure enough, she came back to her couch with an ice cream container and a spoon. 

     "What's your favorite ice cream?" Brian whispered. 

     "Mint," he responded, his voice high-pitched.

     "Mine too."

     Ms. 6J picked up something from her couch and another light started flickering. The tv.

     "What's your favorite thing to watch?"

     "Something that makes me smile," Brian responded in that high-pitch voice.

     "You make me smile."

     Brian instantly chided himself. He pulled off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Even in his fictional conversations he couldn't say the right thing. With his luck, he would finally meet Ms. 6J and the first babbling thing he'd say would be, "I don't know why, or how, but I think I'm in love with you." And then she would ask him how he even knew who she was, and he'd be stuck saying, "Oh, well, I've watched you from my window for a year." What a great start to a budding relationship. 

     Brian tore his eyes away from Ms. 6J, who was dipping her spoon in and out of the ice cream with abandon, and turned back to his work. Surprisingly, he'd had a productive afternoon. Granted, much of what he had written was an outline, but Brian felt like there was something promising within. His chicken scratch curled its way across the page in fits and starts, the ink thicker when he'd rested his pen against the page in thought, and thinner where he'd been struck by furious inspiration. But it was getting late, and the words were feeling more and more forced. So, he snapped the notebook shut, and stood up. He hadn't moved in about three hours, and he could feel it in his muscles. He stretched and looked up the tower. The light in 15F turned off as he pulled his arm across his chest, but a few of the lights above were still on. It looked like many of the residents had settled in to watch tv for the night. Except for Agatha Newman. All the lights in her penthouse were on, as if she was hoping to send a fluorescent signal to the moon.

     As it always happened once he had finished writing, Brian was famished. He scavenged around in his apartment, and pulled out a jar of peanut butter, two slabs of wheat bread, and some rare apricot preserves he had bought on a whim at the farmer's market. Brian pulled out a knife, and hesitated. He glanced back out the window. The apartments that would have an angle in to his couch were dark. The apartments with wide-awake residents could only see as far into his apartment as the little desk under the window.

     Brian stashed the knife back into the drawer, and pulled out a spoon. He picked up the jar of peanut butter and brought it to his couch, leaving the bread and apricot preserves on the counter. Brian opened up a book and rested it on his knees. He pulled off the top of the peanut butter jar, and jammed in his spoon. 

     He ate with delight. His back was to the window, his nose was in a book, and the taste of extra crunchy peanut butter was on his tongue. It was a fairly inexpensive way to get protein, and Brian was almost certain he was addicted to the stuff. His sister had a peanut allergy, so all throughout his childhood, peanut butter had been forbidden at his house. Now that he lived alone, it had become his guilty pleasure.

     A reminder flashed across his phone, accompanied with a bright chirp. Brian licked the spoon clean and checked his screen. "Call back Charles Guilford." It was already past eleven. Though Brian knew Charles would be awake, he decided it would be better to call in the morning, when they both were fresh-faced and eager for the day. Brian scooped up another spoonful of peanut butter. For the first time in a long while, he was excited to speak to Charles. Sure, Charles would be furious about the delay, but Brian thought he might enjoy this new idea he'd been cooking up. It was a romance, as many stories were, but it had much more substance and an existential crisis. It was similar in tone to the first book he had ever written, and it had felt good to fall back into that style, like walking through the streets of a town you hadn't meant to leave. Brian hadn't wanted to be pinned down by one tone and genre, but maybe he should have stuck to what he knew. Although, he clearly didn't know too much about romance, but he had had enough hapless romantic experiences to have a grasp on the subject. Charles always enjoyed picking through the threads of a storyline, so Brian hoped he could get him hooked on this one. Then together they'd work to bring Brian's idea to life.

     Brian's spoon hit the bottom of the peanut butter jar. Without even thinking, he'd finished it. There was enough tucked in the edges and beneath the lip of the jar for Brian to spread along a slice of bread, so he doctored up one of the remaining slices and added a spoonful of apricot preserves. Dinner in hand, he settled back in to his book. It was the latest historical fiction from a New York Times-bestselling author. It had been in the "new arrivals" section of Phineas's little library downstairs. But Brian was finding himself going back a few pages with every new one he turned just to sort out the characters. He finally gave up and tossed the book onto the coffee table, taking a bite of the open-faced sandwich.

     "Eeuch!" He grabbed a tissue and spit out the masticated bite. The apricot preserves were awful. They were bitter and had a rank, old taste to them. Brian stood up to check the date of the jar, but felt the hairs rise at the base of his neck. Someone was watching him.

     Brian looked out the window and into the dark night. His face lit up with heat as quick as a stovetop. A shameful sweat broke out along the base of his spine, and the napkin full of half-eaten apricots and bread dribbled onto the floor. Ms. 6J was looking up at him from where she sat on her couch. Brian saw her head dip down, as if trying to get a better look at what had just spilled onto his carpet. Though Brian knew she couldn't see what it was, he still felt compelled to slowly sink to the floor in embarrassment, and hide behind his desk.

     He sat in wait, wondering what to do next, the apricot preserves leaking through the tissue and into his palm.

     That was it. That was his first ever introduction to Ms. 6J. Never before had they made eye contact, and it had to happen today, with a fistful of food he had just spit out on full display, and a head full of shabby, unwashed hair. Brian squeezed his eyes shut. He would never eat apricots again.