No Matter, You Don't Have to Wait for Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Four Keys

The new Tribeca lease has four names and none of them is hers. Justine takes her labeled boxes and leaves, and Dario texts her a bill for the broker fee.

The new building in Tribeca had a doorman, a marble lobby and a brass mailbox wall.

Dario walked in first, spinning a ring of keys on his finger.

"Welcome home, everybody."

The doorman checked a tablet and counted out four silver key fobs.

Dario handed one to Sergio, one to Sal and one to Gemma.

Then he kept the last one for himself.

I stood by the elevator holding my tote bag, and waited for the doorman to look up.

He looked at his tablet again. "That's all four residents, sir."

"Four?" I said.

Dario put an arm around my shoulders. "He means the lease. It's just the paperwork, Justine. Don't make a face."

"Whose names are on it?"

"Mine, Sergio's, Sal's and Gemma's. The landlord wanted everybody who'd be here full time on one page."

"I'm going to be here full time."

"After the wedding. The landlord's fussy about adding people mid-year. I'll sort it out."

He kissed my hair and steered me into the elevator.

Nobody else said anything, and Sal got very interested in the buttons.

The apartment was on the eleventh floor and it was beautiful.

There were four bedrooms, tall windows, and a kitchen with an island long enough for all five of us.

The movers had already stacked the boxes in the hall.

Gemma carried the cat from room to room until she found a bedroom with a window seat.

"This one," she said. "It's got the afternoon sun."

It was the biggest bedroom, the one with its own bathroom.

"Perfect," Dario said. "Cat needs the sun."

I looked along the doors again.

Sergio had one, Sal had one, Gemma had one, and Dario's was across from hers.

"Where do I sleep?" I asked.

Dario looked down the hall, and then at his shoes.

"The den has a sofa bed. Just for now, until we figure out the rooms."

"For now," I said.

"You know what I mean. You're the practical one, you'll love it."

I turned and read the labels on the boxes in the hall.

Most of them said KITCHEN or BOOKS in Dario's handwriting.

Five of them said JUSTINE in mine.

I had labeled them that morning without thinking about why.

I picked up the first one.

"What are you doing?" Sergio said from the couch.

"Taking my things."

"Taking them where?" Sal said, and laughed. "Come on. You can't be mad about a bedroom."

"I'm not mad," I said. "I'm just going to put my boxes somewhere they're expected."

Gemma stood in the doorway of her new room, with the cat on her shoulder.

She looked from me to Dario, and her face went uneasy.

"Dario," she said. "Maybe she can have mine for a few nights. I don't mind the den."

"Don't be silly," he said. "Justine is fine. Aren't you, Justine?"

Everyone looked at me.

I had been fine for six years.

It had been my whole job in that group.

"Thank you, Gemma," I said. "Keep your room."

I carried the first box to the elevator, and then the second.

The doorman held the door for me without a word.

When I came back for the third box, Dario was waiting by it with his arms folded.

"Okay. You've made your point."

"I haven't made a point," I said. "I'm collecting my boxes."

"You're being dramatic. Tomorrow we have the tasting follow-up, and next week the invitations go out, and you want to do this now?"

"The tasting was today."

"Whatever. The follow-up is Tuesday."

I looked at him.

He had no idea that a hotel manager was holding a cancellation notice with his name on the second line.

"Where are you going to go?" he asked. "Tell me where."

"My cousin's. In Queens."

"Then text me when you get there."

He kissed my forehead and went back inside.

He did not ask me to stay, and he did not carry a single box.

The doorman put the last two in a cab for me and refused a tip.

"Ma'am," he said quietly, "for what it's worth, I counted five of you coming in."

I almost cried then, over a stranger and a number.

The cab went across the bridge with the boxes sliding against my knees.

My cousin lived over a laundromat and had a couch and a sleeping bag ready, because I had called from the elevator.

She did not ask a single question until I had drunk a whole mug of tea.

"Was it the cat?" she said.

"It was the cat," I said. "And the fish. And a chair."

"You can tell me tomorrow."

At eleven that night my phone lit up on the carpet beside the sleeping bag.

It was Dario.

Did you pay the broker fee yet? Landlord needs it by Friday. It's nine thousand.

A second message came in under it.

You're good for it, right? I'll pay you back after the round closes.

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