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Jack's New Apartment(continued) Shanna looked at Jack through the corners of her eyes. She noticed
the thick dark hair that covered his forehead, and that his legs seemed
to go on for miles. Jack had bright green eyes that looked childlike
and naïve. Nevertheless, Shanna saw something almost mature about
the young man standing in front of her. "Come here, kid; sit down." Shanna patted the empty seat
next to her. She was inviting Jack to sit on his own couch, and Jack
readily accepted her invitation. "Comfy," he commented. "Yeah," she said. "That's a nice blanket you got there," Jack said, because
he didn't know what else to say. "My mom made it. She used to knit right under that window."
Shanna got up from the couch and started walking around the room slowly,
as if she were watching every detail. But there wasn't much to notice.
The front door of Jack's apartment opened right into the living room.
The living room was a large square with hardwood floors, but there were
only two pieces of furniture in it. Jack's couch was facing the non-working
fireplace. A large oriental rug separated the two. There was a desk,
to the left, right under the two large windows. On the right side of
the room was a large potted plant. The walls were white and empty. Shanna's
shoes click-clacked loudly on the floor. As she walked to the window,
Shanna automatically touched the familiar letters that someone had carved
into the windowsill. She thought about her mother and how she had hated
ST and JM for desecrating her home. "This place looked a lot smaller when my mom was alive." "Oh, I didn't know— " Jack started to console but decided
against it. "My mom had two antique chairs here and an antique chess set that
belonged to my grandfather." Shanna was standing at Jack's desk with a cigarette still burning in
her hand. Jack watched as a bit of ash fluttered from the butt of the
cigarette to the floor. Shanna's back was turned to him. Jack thought
for a second she might be crying, but her voice was steady. "But the chairs weren't my grandfather's. My mother found them
— and I swear this is true — she found them on the goddamn
street! We were driving, and all of a sudden she's screaming
at me to stop! The next thing I know, I'm stuffing these smelly chairs
into my car. I bring them here, and she tells me 'Just put them over
there'" (Shanna points in the direction of Jack's potted plant).
"I say, 'Mom, what the hell are you going to do with these?' and
she's like, 'Don't worry about it.' The next time I see the chairs,
they're beautiful — I mean they really look like a million bucks!
My mom varnished them or something. She could always bring the beauty
out of everyone and everything. And she could transform stuff, like
the chairs, or else she would just make them out of thin air —
like that blanket. But the chairs ended up being worth something. I
could have sold them for a lot, you know. But I didn't. I kept them."
Shanna swung her body around and stared into Jack. "They're upstairs
now. I couldn't let them go." Jack got up from the couch and stood in front of Shanna with the ashtray
in his hand. Shanna looked at Jack as she put out her cigarette. She
immediately pulled out another and lit it with a match. Jack looked
into the ashtray. Already two of Shanna's Parliament Lights lay crushed
amongst their own ashes. "So, is your mother close by?" she asked. "Not really. She's six hours away. But she helped me move in.
She wanted to help me set up my first place and make sure I was OK for
school." "I bet you go to that sissy liberal arts school, right? What are
you, like a poet or something?" Jack laughed. "No, I go to Pall Tech. I'm majoring in civil-engineering." Shanna eyed Jack suspiciously, or at least differently. "How old
are you, kid?" "Twenty-three." "Senior?" "No, freshman. I had to work a bit, well, a lot, before I could
afford college." "Mmm." "So what do you do?" "What do I do?" Shanna's eyes lit up like matches. When she
spoke, she was deliberate and careful. "I'm unemployed. No, I'm
independently wealthy." Jack wondered. Who was this older woman, and why did he live in her
dead mother's apartment? "So why do you live here?"
he said. "Why? What's wrong with here?" Shanna asked. "I don't know. I like it here, but you… The term 'independently
wealthy' suggests wealth. Wouldn't you prefer Honolulu or at least a
permanent sweet at the Ritz?" Shanna looked at Jack for a bit. She was thinking again. Maybe she
was thinking about Jack's words, or his dirty brown hair, or what she
should say next. She opened her mouth and cigarette smoke came out.
"Why do you care?" she asked. "I don't know." This was true.
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