Just Another New York Story

On the Fourth Floor of a Five-floor Pre-war Walk-up

Veronica comes home to a barely legible note scrawled on a junk mail flyer left on her doormat: "Water back key ready so tell when home." It's always something in the city—plumbing problems, heating problems, problems with the portable air conditioner purchased from the previous tenant. Hot water turns cold. Cold water turns hot. Water comes out brown for reasons you don't want to contemplate. Paint flakes and may contain asbestos. Ceilings leak. Hallways flood. Mice, roaches, and mosquitoes move in—sometimes all in the same night. Special-order-only light bulbs blow. Putrid smells waft through the stove. And finally, that old refrigerator breaks—the pea-green one that says "Made in Yugoslavia."

Locks get changed and you need new keys, this time because a guy with a thing for standing naked in the common areas of people's buildings (a passion for which he'd previously spent a brief time in jail), ended up with a copy of the front door key to Veronica's building. Veronica wasn't home when it happened because she was working on an overnight shoot on a sci-fi remake of "A Christmas Carol" set in the fourth millennium. She played one of two hundred helmeted townspeople in a too-tight silver pantsuit and too-big platform boots.

It was Gina, the full-time grocery store clerk, part-time personal chef, and part-time vegan food blogger who lives in the basement studio who found him standing in the hallway outside her apartment. She called the police and watched him from the keyhole. She said he just stood there until the police came and took him away. At one point, she said he started singing. ("The sad part is he actually had a good voice—like I want to say it was Julliard-level...").

Gavril, the building super, knows that Veronica works for Hollywood and keeps odd hours, and while he's too busy, tired, and homesick for his wife and son in Macedonia for this to be any point of fascination, he appreciates the snacks she brings back from the sets and shares with him on a fairly regular basis. He thus makes her the first tenant to receive the new front door key, which, after she texts him to tell him she's home, he delivers to her door. On his way out, arms loaded up with a paper towel-wrapped bagel, a can of orange soda, a can of grape soda, two granola bars, and a pre-packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Gavril advises Veronica to go and make a spare.