"The Grass is Greener, I promise" by Molly Gillis
You’re not living unless you’re living beyond your means.
You’re not living unless you’re living in New York.
Living in New York is living beyond your means. The beans. All of the beans. 5 million beans would certainly not be enough.
5 million beans is modest.
She looked across the street and saw a sign. Another brand new building popped up. Luxury apartments! Calling all luxury apartments!
She loved luxury. She wanted a new apartment. (She ended up settling for a haircut, but we’ll get to that later.) She called and made an appointment to see the other side. How does the other half live? She was supposed to explore the unknown. It is unknown how people can “afford” to live in “luxury” buildings.
Oh I forgot…BEYOND YOUR MEANS. That is how. And that is the most important thing to remember. Everyone is beyond their means. That is why her grandmother wore fur in July and smoked until the day she died and drove a convertible and moved to Florida and never left the house without lipstick. She knew luxury. And she would be appalled at her granddaughter wearing spandex shorts and flip flops to the deli, let alone around town all afternoon. (But to the granddaughter’s defense, she did regret wearing the spandex shorts all around town and could only focus on her reflection in every mirrored glass she could find, examining her cellulite and the ratio of her ankle to calf thickness from a modest distance in the mirror. So really it was more trouble than it was worth. She always knew her grandmother was onto something with how to dress when leaving the house. No more spandex, she promised.)
She had luxury in her blood. She was meant to be fancy. And even though she never felt like it in her life, she knew it had to be true. So. She stood outside of a luxury apartment building in a borough of New York City that began with a B and waited. She buzzed and was curious as to whether the broker would take her seriously as a candidate. She was wearing converse and a backpack standing in the rain after all. Without an umbrella, mind you. And nothing says luxury more than a proper umbrella. Perhaps if you had someone holding it for you. Someone you paid. But she would never make someone do that. But she should get a working umbrella one of these days. A massive black one with a wooden handle, that wouldn’t break in the wind the first time she used it.
Denise the broker met her at the door. Denise was late, and she made sure to remind her of that. People of luxury never like to be kept waiting. So she followed Denise up the stairs to see 2B. A single bedroom apartment with a terrace over a paved courtyard. Denise said it was going to be a coffee shop, a very quiet one. She scoffed and asked to see another apartment. People of luxury can’t be too close to other people.
Denise showed her 5 more units in the building. 2 bedrooms. Studios. And even a duplex penthouse. She of course said the penthouse was her favorite. One month cost more money than she had ever had in her bank account at one time. Ever. Denise asked about roommates, but people of luxury never have to worry about that. They never share anything. Everyone always wants a piece of them but they can be as selfish as they want because they have everything and no one else can touch them. People are always nice to people of luxury. But they don’t realize that luxury isn’t contagious. It’s in your blood.
She stood on the roof top private deck of the duplex penthouse that cost more money that it deserved. She could see her own building. Directly across the street. The red fading exterior. The air conditioners stuffed outside of grey windows. The broken front door without a lock. The spray painted graffiti on the walls in the foyer. The beige ugly tile. The cockroaches. The chain smoking neighbors. The bed bugs. The hot smelly hallway. The broken buzzers. The busted and warped wooden stairs. She stood on the rooftop of a luxury rental and looked at her own home.
Denise kept talking while she cried. It was quite sad. Denise didn’t know that she only wanted to see how the other lived. She thought about how she would most likely never get to understand the meaning of luxury, probably for the rest of her life. That the legacy her grandmother had left her….her pearls and manners and lipstick and cigarettes and fur and life BEYOND THE MEANS. It all was for nothing.
I suppose it can be remember that her grandmother did leave her grandfather in debt after she died and now he has to work as a security guard at a high school in Florida at aged 83. She’s going to visit him soon, hopefully it won’t be as sad as she thinks.
But the roof was really nice. It was just so nice. The stainless steel appliances. The brand new floors. Windows. Shower with mosaic tile. The video intercom. Thermostats. Heated bathroom floors. Dishwasher. Recessed lighting. Clean. Brand new. Untouched. Space. For. One. Person.
New is always better than old and beyond the means is better than you. It’s always better than you.
It was better than her and it was time to go back across the street to her house. But she took the folder with the apartment application inside and told Denise she would come back again on Saturday.
I think Denise knew that would never happen. But it was nice of her to let me keep that fancy folder. She could use it to hold her magazine clippings of famous people she admired and didn’t want to forget. That’s what she would do. She would do that and watch another 3 episodes of Sex and the City and try to remember why she loved New York. And try to figure out what her means were, so she could start figuring out how to live beyond them. As soon as possible.