On Fifth

Prologue:

The arrivals area was filled with busy people; cosmopolitans of course. They dashed around, a lot of them with phones glued to their ears, yak-yak-yakking away.

“We are not here. No way. No way!” Scarlett exclaimed to all of us.

“Well, we are, Scarlett.” Autumn told her, in her cool as a cucumber persona. Jennifer and Chelsea gave a little squeal in their excitement.

I was familiar with the city though, heck; I knew it as well as I knew the colours of the rainbow. As the five of us pushed our trolleys through the automatic doors, we smiled together, looking ahead of us in awe. I hailed the group a yellow cab, four of us sneaked into the back; one in the front, and we set off towards New York City, our new home.

1

“So we’ve got a week until the beginning of the semester, Autumn and Chels have nine days, and Jen starts next Tuesday.” Scarlett wasn’t talking to anyone in particular as she hastily jotted these notes down in her leather bound diary, while pacing around in the black and white tiled kitchen. Autumn and Chelsea were still asleep on the makeshift beds; a mixture of worn out sheets and old cushions. Jennifer was taking a shower and I was buttering a piece of toast on the battered counter and humming to myself, in my own little world.

“Can you believe we’re going to Columbia, Scarlett? In New York? And we’re not stuck in Sydney with the rest of them? And we live on Fifth!” I sighed in happiness.

“Helen, have you got a second to listen to what I’m saying?”

Oh, she was talking to someone. “We have to prepare ourselves. Get Autumn and Chels up, we’re not lazing around today like we have been doing for the past fortnight. Sure, we live on Fifth Avenue, but it’s old and battered and pretty disgusting.”

“Furniture time.”

“Wake them up.”

“I want to be a part of it… New York!” I half yelled as I went down the hallway to their bedroom. We now lived on Fifth Avenue, in a small apartment with two bedrooms. It was an odd miracle how five imports from Australia managed to get an apartment on one of the most expensive streets in the world, at an alarmingly low price. I had gotten my cousin, Tabby, to check it out after I had found the place online back in Sydney.

“How is it?” I’d asked her.

“It’s nice.”

“And? Tabitha, five people could potentially be throwing half of their lives away to live in a dump, and you’re telling me that it’s nice.”

“It has a nice view, you can see the corner of the park. There’s two bedrooms, one has a balcony attached to it. There’s a kitchen that leads onto the living area. If you dress it up it could look nicer. But it’s livable, and it’s nice.” Tabitha desperately needed a vocabulary makeover. But at least the apartment was livable and nice. 

“What about the landlord?”

“He was weird, I don’t think he speaks a lot of English and he dresses really tacky. And he had a beard too. ”

“Oh. Well as long as we keep the place in order, and he’s not too picky.”

Tabby had not been wrong. It was a beautiful apartment with that sort of vintage feel, and it was on the second top floor of 20 so you could see pretty far out. The corner of Central Park was visible, as we weren’t lucky enough to find one overlooking it. But it was wonderful, the location.  However the inside? It needed a bit of work.