Chapter 40: Moving Up

The next morning Ronan took the Accord out and drove north to Sherman Oaks, where the first of the buildings on Jane’s list was, on Moorpark Street. It turned out to be a low stucco place set back off the road behind a strip of lawn, four floors of it over covered parking, nothing about the outside of it announcing anything.

He went in and did the whole thing the way anybody does it, asking at the desk who ran the building and how a person went about seeing a unit, until somebody pointed him at the small office off the lobby.

The property manager was a woman in her thirties with a paperback open on the desk in front of her, and she went on reading it while he came in and sat down. Her nameplate said Charlotte White.

She looked up once, took him in, and went back to her page.

"So you’re after a place." She didn’t put the book down. "I’ll be direct with you. One-bedroom runs about $1,900. Two-bedroom is $2,200. We’ve got no studios open."

Ronan nodded and worked it out while she waited. It was expensive, more than $800 a month over what he’d been paying at the Kenmore Arms.

Then he remembered what Jane had told him to do, which was to use her name and say she’d sent him, and since he’d spent too many years counting every dollar to be shy about a thing like that, he used it.

"Jane recommended this building to me. I was told it’s very affordable."

Charlotte’s eyes came up off the page. "Jane?" She was looking at him properly now. "Can I get the full name?"

He watched her come up out of the slouch while she waited for the rest of it. "Jane Kingsley."

The book went down on the desk, and everything bored about her went down with it.

"Oh." She was already on her feet. "Then unless I’ve got this wrong, you’re Ronan?"

"That’s me."

"Where are my manners." She came round the desk with a smile all over her. "Welcome. Welcome to the building, Ronan. Let me take you up and show you the rooms myself."

He put a hand up. "I appreciate it, but you really don’t have to. And it’s only a one-bedroom I’m after, if that’s alright."

"It’s no trouble at all, let me come up with you." She had her keys off the hook already. "A one-bedroom, was it? I can do something on the price for you. How does $1,500 sound?"

That stopped him where he stood. "Is that really okay?"

She laughed at him. "Of course it is. It’s no trouble at all."

He didn’t know what to say to that, because he’d expected Jane’s name to be worth a friendlier conversation, not $400 a month.

They talked a while longer downstairs and then went up to look at the one-bedroom, and it was neat and clean and fresh the whole way through: a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom with a shower in it, and the bedroom, all of it put together properly and none of it wanting anything. It came furnished as well, so there was nothing of his own he’d have to move across town beyond his clothes and his boxes, though the appliances would be on him, the refrigerator and the television and the rest of it.

He ran the faucet and it came on clean and held steady, and everything else he tried was in the same order.

"I’m happy with all of it." He turned back to her. "I could definitely live here."

Charlotte looked thrilled. "That’s wonderful. I’ll have the contract ready for you."

He nodded, still turning over what Jane could be to this woman that the name on its own was worth a discount and a change of manner on top of it.

Then it landed on him.

’Don’t tell me she owns this place? That’s the only thing that explains taking $400 off for me.’

The more he turned it over the more sense it made, but he put it away for the time being, and when Charlotte came back with the contract he read the whole thing through before he signed anything, once he was satisfied there was nothing shady buried in it.

After that he called a moving company and booked them to bring his things across town.

***

Before the move he went by the restaurant, and Mr. Park had him the moment he was through the door.

"Here he is. Here is the man." He came out from behind the counter wiping his hands. "We watched the Jane Kingsley interview on the Tonight Show, all of us, and I tell you now, you cannot imagine how jealous I am listening to her talk about the kissing."

Alberto had a tray on his hip and stopped with it. "Ain’t he a lucky duck."

"I’d take some of that luck." Carlo was grinning at him. "Any of it. Whatever’s going spare."

Ronan shook his head at the three of them. "Thanks, guys." Then, before Park could get any further into it, "And before anybody says another word about Jane, I came to tell you something. I’m leaving Koreatown. I’m moving out to Sherman Oaks."

That landed on them cold. None of them had seen it coming.

"You gonna move?" Park said.

"Yeah. The movers are booked already." He put his keys on the counter. "It’s a place on Moorpark Street, out in Sherman Oaks."

Carlo’s head came up. "Hold on, Moorpark? That’s where my sister lives."

Ronan turned to him. "She does?"

"Yeah, been there two years." Carlo laughed. "So maybe you’re neighbors now."

It went that way for a while, all of them wanting to know about the place and how much and how soon, until the room started filling for the lunch rush and Alberto and Carlo had to get back on the floor.

That left him with Mr. Park.

"I’m glad I listened to you," Ronan said. "What you told me that night, about the tide. When the water comes in, you row. I rowed. And I wouldn’t be standing here telling you any of this if you hadn’t said it to me."

Which was pushing it, and he knew it. What had put him here was the «Immersion System» and nothing else. But there was nothing false in the gratitude, and the words had been good words.

"Ah, don’t worry about this." Park waved it off, but he was pleased, and he wasn’t hiding it. "I am happy you are doing well. That is all." Then he chuckled. "And I am buying a new television. A new one, just for the pilot. I put it on the wall right there and I let the customers watch it with me. What time is it on? Somebody tell me nine o’clock?"

"Nine o’clock. Exactly right."

They talked on, and the longer it went the more Ronan understood what the man had been to him.

Then he said his goodbyes and left.

* * *

By 2 PM, the movers were finished and gone, and the apartment had stopped being a set of empty rooms. His things were in it now, and it felt warmer for them, and lived-in, as though it had picked up a soul somewhere between the truck and the door.

He got a Coke out of the refrigerator and dropped onto the sofa, and that was when he saw the message from Jane.

"Hey, you already moved out?"

He looked at it a second, and then called her instead of typing.

She picked up straight away.

"Just so you know, I’m settled in. All of it done and the movers gone."

"Very good." She sounded pleased about it. "I’m glad it suits you."

"It does. It really does." He put his feet up on the arm of the sofa. "Your apartment’s a nice place, Jane."

"Of course it is—" She stopped there. "Wait. My apartment?"

"Did I catch you out?" He was enjoying it and made no attempt to hide that either. "I know you own this building. Worked it out this morning, standing right where I’m sitting now."

She went quiet on the other end.

"Damn. You got me." Then, "What gave it away? The discount?"

"That was some of it." He drank a mouthful. "But mostly it’s the timing. The movers pulled out and I sat down, and your message was there. You didn’t know I’d moved in, you knew I’d finished. Somebody in this building told you, and there’s only one person that could be." He laughed at her. "You couldn’t even wait for me to tell you myself."

"That obvious, huh."

"So is this why you kept pushing me to get out of Koreatown?" He was properly laughing now. "You just wanted the unit filled?"

"Maybe." She was laughing too. "And I’ll have you know I’m not doing well out of this. At $400 off, you can look anywhere in this city you like. Same condition, same kind of neighborhood, that safe. You won’t find it."

"Well. I guess I should be grateful."

"You should."

It went easy from there.