“Juilliard. I play the violin.”
“Classical?”
“At school, yes. But American bluegrass is where my heart is.”
I hear Sam’s voice. “Stop with the interrogation, Ilsa! Let the poor guy in already. He’s not a vampire.” He stands behind me and loudly whispers in my ear, “Is he?”
I turn around and see Sam wearing his favorite suit, with his regrettably red-cheeked blush revealing his every feeling. Hope! Anticipation! The kid’s never going to be a poker champion.
“I think this one’s mortal,” I tell Sam. But just to be sure, I ask Johan, “You’re not a vampire, are you?”
“No,” says Johan, “despite how tempting your neck is looking.” He winks at me, then at Sam. “His neck, too.”
What. A. Pro. My favorite guest of the night, already.
“Come in, please,” I say, holding the door open for him to step through.
Johan carries in his violin case but nothing else so far as I can see. You can tell a lot about a person by the type of gift they bring for their host (Pret a Manger Boy—leftover cookies; Terminal 5 Boy—flowers; Starbucks Boy—gingerbread syrup), or if they don’t (Trader Joe’s Boy—the worst). I suppose Johan is in the Don’t category. Maybe they don’t bring gifts in South Africa. Not like I throw a party just to get the gifts. (But please bring those amazing chocolates, Li Zhang.)
“This is your granny’s actual apartment?” Johan asks as we lead him through the foyer and into the living room, which is at the building’s corner and offers views of the Empire State Building and midtown Manhattan to the south and the Hudson River to the west. “Everyone I know lives in dirty dorms or crowded shares in Bushwick.”
“The apartment’s been in the family for three generations. Before everything got so crazy expensive around here,” says Sam, sounding like he’s apologizing for Czarina not living up to starving-artist, bohemian standards.
“Rent controlled,” I add, so Johan will know we’re only surrounded by lucky moneybags folk. We’re not them.
Sam hates hates hates when I bring up the rent-control subject—especially so soon—to total strangers, but I’ve found it’s a good way to appraise their character right away. Either they’re happy for you or they literally hate your guts for having such luck in your family. It’s better to know right away. What’s it matter, anyway? The luck’s all ending.
Johan says, “This is what rent controlled means? I’ve heard about it, but I thought it had to be an urban myth.”
“It’s a rarity, but not a myth. And it’s all going bye-bye,” I say, pointing to the movers’ boxes against the far corner of the living room wall. “This whole apartment cost our grandmother significantly less every month than you probably pay for a tiny dorm room you share with a snoring roommate, or mice, or both.”
“I have both!” Johan says.
“May I get you a drink?” Sam asks Johan, trying to change the subject. “We have sparkling water, pomegranate juice, ginger ale.…”
“Beer?” Johan asks. With his accent, the word sounds like beeyrah?
“Sorry,” says Sam the Saint. “I promised our grandmother we wouldn’t serve alcohol.”
“I’ll get you one,” I say. “Sam Adams or Sierra Nevada?” Sam and I have a tacit understanding: He repeats the party line about Czarina’s rules, then looks the other way when I disobey them.
“You choose,” says Johan. “Thanks, mate.”
I leave for the kitchen, to give Sam some time alone with Johan. New guests—especially if they’re not from the city—always want a tour of the grand, chipping-away old apartment. I hope Johan appreciates my party-decorating efforts. I pinned decorations across the living room walls, picturing Liberace in his many years of spectacularly garish fashions. I dangled small, mirrored disco balls from the chandelier over the dining room table. I stocked the bathrooms with Czarina’s best hand towels from Ireland, and stocked the bathroom vanity drawers with Advil (for guests who can’t handle the booze), Pepto-Bismol (can’t handle Sam’s cooking), and a colorful array of condoms (want to get handled).
The house phone in the kitchen that connects our apartment to the building lobby rings, like it’s still 1956 and people don’t have cell phones.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Announcing…,” the doorman starts to say.
“Please don’t announce, Bert. Please just send them up. Thank you!”
I hang up the phone and pull out a Sam Adams from the fridge for me and one for Johan, taking a count of the beers in there so I know how many I’ll have to replace with swiped stock from KK’s parents before Czarina gets home. They never notice the beer missing any more than they notice that KK practically subsists exclusively on sushi and frozen Jell-O pops.
As I head to the front door, I hear Sam playing the piano in the study, Duke Ellington’s “Prelude to a Kiss.” Bold move, brother, so early in the night! Such a sweet, hopeful melody. I’m encouraged. This is going to be our best dinner party ever. I can feel it.
I wait for the doorbell to ring, as I always do, resisting the urge to open the front door and look down the hallway to see our guests disembarking from the elevator onto the eighth floor. A good hostess welcomes her guests but doesn’t seem desperate for them. I look at myself in the mirror in the foyer, blotting my matte burgundy lips, de-smudging the black kohl lined beneath my eyes, and smoothing down the black bangs of my newly cut, razor-sharp twenties showgirl bob, whose ends come to points on either side of my chin.
I wish upon the next guest: Please be Wilson Salazar, please be Wilson Salazar. Johan, one of Sam’s three mystery guests, has been accounted for, and I can already tell Johan is awesome. Sam will obviously invite Jason Goldstein-Chung, because Jason is Sam’s habitual safe choice. Jason is like the comfort food of ex-boyfriends. That leaves one more guest on Sam’s list, and I salivate with hope that Sam finally extended an invitation to Wilson Salazar, the most talented
