A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara EPUB & PDF – eBook Details
- Author: Hanya Yanagihara
- ISBN: 978-0385539265
- Language: English
- Genre: Asian American Literature & Fiction, Asian American Literature, LGBT Literary Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 1 MB
- Page: 737
- Price: Free
THE ELEVENTH APARTMENT had only one closet, but it did have a sliding
glass door that opened onto a small balcony, from which he could
see a man sitting across the way, outdoors in only a T-shirt and
shorts even though it was October, smoking. Willem held up a hand
in greeting to him, but the man didn’t wave back.
In the bedroom, Jude was accordioning the closet door, opening
and shutting it, when Willem came in. “There’s only one closet,” he
said.
“That’s okay,” Willem said. “I have nothing to put in it anyway.”
“Neither do I.” They smiled at each other. The agent from the
building wandered in after them. “We’ll take it,” Jude told her.
But back at the agent’s oce, they were told they couldn’t rent
the apartment after all. “Why not?” Jude asked her.
“You don’t make enough to cover six months’ rent, and you don’t
have anything in savings,” said the agent, suddenly terse. She had
checked their credit and their bank accounts and had at last realized
that there was something amiss about two men in their twenties
who were not a couple and yet were trying to rent a one-bedroom
apartment on a dull (but still expensive) stretch of Twenty-fth
Street. “Do you have anyone who can sign on as your guarantor? A
boss? Parents?”
“Our parents are dead,” said Willem, swiftly.
The agent sighed. “Then I suggest you lower your expectations.
No one who manages a well-run building is going to rent to
candidates with your nancial prole.” And then she stood, with an
air of nality, and looked pointedly at the door.
When they told JB and Malcolm this, however, they made it into
a comedy: the apartment oor became tattooed with mouse
droppings, the man across the way had almost exposed himself, the
agent was upset because she had been irting with Willem and he
hadn’t reciprocated.
“Who wants to live on Twenty-fth and Second anyway,” asked
JB. They were at Pho Viet Huong in Chinatown, where they met
twice a month for dinner. Pho Viet Huong wasn’t very good—the
pho was curiously sugary, the lime juice was soapy, and at least one
of them got sick after every meal—but they kept coming, both out
of habit and necessity.
You could get a bowl of soup or a sandwich
at Pho Viet Huong for ve dollars, or you could get an entrée, which
were eight to ten dollars but much larger, so you could save half of
it for the next day or for a snack later that night. Only Malcolm
never ate the whole of his entrée and never saved the other half
either, and when he was nished eating, he put his plate in the
center of the table so Willem and JB—who were always hungry—
could eat the rest.
“Of course we don’t want to live at Twenty-fth and Second, JB,”
said Willem, patiently, “but we don’t really have a choice. We don’t
have any money, remember?”
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