“Joey Redmond.”
“Tanisha Chahal,” I mimic, already feeling better at the sound of her voice. My best friend and partner. The other half of my brain. “Now it finally feels like home.”
“What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me? Is it about the interview?”
Damn it. I don’t want to tell her about my neighbor, precisely because no one knows me better than she does. She’ll hear my voice, read my body language and deduce all the things I’d rather keep to myself about my unexpected reaction to my neighbor. And then she’ll want details.
I drop the boxcutter and reach for my fruit basket instead.
“I ran into this guy lurking in the lobby,” I blurt, right before telling her everything while gorging on tiny fruit and caramels.
I suck balls at keeping secrets.
***
“I almost want to cancel movie night and watch The Joey Show instead.”
“Unpacking isn’t that exciting, Tani.”
Yet she’s been watching me for at least an hour.
“Hush. You’re right, but don’t spoil it for me.”
If you didn’t know us, you might wonder why we’re FaceTiming even though we’ve already shared a few dozen emails, selfies, texts and a handful of phone calls today. It’s a tale as old as time, really. Tanisha Chahal and I have been each other’s ride or die since the first day of middle school. We’ve never lived more than a half hour’s drive from each other before, and neither one of us is taking our separation well.
I’m usually at her place for movie night.
Over the last week, we’ve been making up for the physical distance via alternate forms of communication. The night before last, I had her on my iPad, propped up at my brother’s dinner table. JD’s known her as long as I have, so he wasn’t as surprised as his husband. Instead, the two of them spent the evening being inappropriate and discussing my nightmare of a social life. It was nice.
Nice? Well, I’ve never been good at big changes, and I’ve had several in less than six months, including this move. I need something familiar to keep me centered. Familiar—as in Tani and JD teasing me—is like comfort food at the moment. So yes. It’s nice.
“If you can stop drooling over Lobby Lurker and get cracking, this could be the best episode of Hoarders ever,” she prods unhelpfully. “I’m still not over your boxes being unlabeled, or you hiring those boys. I know you haven’t moved since we graduated from high school, but your financial situation is a little different now, in case you haven’t noticed.”
More teasing. I feel better already.
“I moved from the third floor to the seventh for the extra bedroom six years ago,” I correct her.
“It was five years ago, and you should have moved out of that rat trap back then. Everyone thought you were being frugal, but I knew better.”
Ouch. But fair. I am standing in a pile of evidence that belies my frugality.
“You have the money to hire professionals to pack, move, unpack and decorate that place to your exact specifications five times over, but you paid kids you barely knew to do it wrong. I’m ordering you a label maker as a housewarming present. You’ll need it when you find out your lurker got those free tickets because he’s mobbed up and you have to hide on an island and change your name. I heard the mob is big over there.”
When I say she’s my other half, I mean she’s the missing part of me that’s realistic, organized, and detail-oriented. But she’s also blessed with a similarly out-of-control imagination.
“And they think everyone over there is a vegan,” I remind her, “but you, me and your chicken biryani know that’s a lie. Anyway, I told you how thorough the background check is. Anyone visiting for longer than a few days gets the treatment. You’d think most of the residents were in witness protection instead of just financially solvent privacy lovers. You’ve already been vetted, FYI, so you can move in any time.”
That startles her. “Why did I get the treatment?”
I count out the reasons on my fingers. “Number one, you’re my business partner. B, you’ll be visiting and/or moving here sooner than you’ve planned because life without me is too horrible to contemplate and you’re worried I need supervision. Lastly, yours was the deciding vote. You told me I had to live in this building, and you should share in all its perks since anything that happens to me while I’m in it is on you.”
If eyerolling were an Olympic sport, Tani would always get the gold. “I’m not owning that. But I do think being part of a smaller, close-knit community is better than what you had before. Part of the problem was that you were too isolated. Other than me, your family, our employees and that ex we’re not talking about, you didn’t know anyone.”