did was highlight her pale, almost translucent complexion. She looked fragile enough to break if one of the more aggressive New York pedestrians I had confronted bumped into her.
“That’s true if I get up,” she replied, and laughed. “I work for my father. He has a paper-bag factory in Brooklyn. He wants to fire me because I’m a bad example for his other workers, but my mother won’t let him.”
The other girl and a dark-brown-haired man standing beside her laughed. They were both carrying bags of take-out Chinese.
“I’m Toni,” the girl said. She was the prettiest, I thought, with wavy pecan-shaded hair and a shapely figure highlighted by her tight light-blue mid-calf skirt. She wore a darker blue light-cotton tight sweater. “That’s short for Antoinette.”
“Let ’em eat cake, huh, Toni?” The man with her looked at me. “Marie…”
“I know,” I said. “Marie Antoinette.”
“Who’s that?” Piper asked.
“Toni’s great-great-great-grandmother,” he said, smiling and winking at me.
“Very funny. Toni works as a bar waitress at the Hot-cha Club in the Village,” Piper said. “And Michael,” she added, referring to the man who had made the joke, “is part owner.”
“Very small part,” he said. “I’m more assistant manager.”
“I told him you’d sing for us. Maybe he’ll get you a gig,” Piper said.
“A gig?”
“A job singing one night.”
“Oh. I have a possible audition for that sort of thing Saturday night.”
“You do?” she practically screamed. “Where?”
I looked at her friends. “It’s only possible. It might not happen,” I said. I didn’t want to reveal the place and have her make negative comments to discourage me.
“Yeah, well, enlighten me when it does,” she said. She laughed and then led them all into the living room.
“Emma, you’ll have to heat up our food,” she called back to me. “We don’t have a microwave,” she told her friends. “The manager, Grandpa Abbot, is supposed to see about getting us one, but so far he hasn’t. We should hold back on the next rent payment,” she told me.
“It’s not part of our arrangement,” I said. I had told her if he did get it for us, it would be more of a favor. “He’s not obligated to get one.”
“Whatever. I don’t know which pot to use and how to work the oven,” she told the others. “Emma’s been doing all our cooking.”
Reluctantly, I told Toni and Michael to bring the food into the kitchen. Piper immediately turned on her radio in the living room. She sent Jerome in to get some glasses for the wine he and she had brought. I began to heat up their food and put out some plates and silverware.
“This is nice of you,” Jerome said. “I told Piper it might not be right to bust in on you like this.”
“It’s not,” I said, feeling my father standing right beside me, whispering, Always be honest. Better to set people straight from the start than stumble around doing it later.
“Oh,” Jerome said, and made a quick retreat to the living room. Whatever he told Piper only made her laugh and turn up the music.
You know what this is, I told myself. Jealousy and spite.
Piper had them all dancing and drinking the wine. Michael and Toni were smoking, which was something Piper and I had decided neither of us would do nor permit anyone else to do in the apartment.
“The radio is too loud, Piper. There’ll be complaints, and we agreed that no one is supposed to smoke in the apartment.”
“It’s only tonight,” she said. “Don’t be so… English. The English are so proper,” she told her friends.
Everyone laughed.
I didn’t.
“Your food is hot,” I said, and went into my bedroom and closed the door.
She didn’t lower the music. I had to throw my window up to get more fresh air, because the odor of the cigarette smoke was seeping in under the door. For a while, I just lay on my bed, sulking. A few minutes later, I heard what sounded like someone knocking on our door quite vehemently and rose just as Piper opened it. Leo Abbot was standing there.
“Your music’s too loud,” he said. “It’s bothering the other tenant on this floor, as well as the one directly below. We have a time cutoff for loud noises. You were told,” he said. He saw me come out of my bedroom and realized from the look on my face that I had nothing to do with it.
“We’ll lower it right now, Mr. Abbot. I’m sorry,” I said, eyeing Piper.
She smirked and shouted to Jerome to turn down