I DO Love Lucy

I have a bag of disposable cameras I have moved seven times since I left LA ten years ago.


I got the text messages, and I sat in a chair. When I bought the chair, I thought it would be the kind of chair my grandfather had. My sitting chair. The reality is that I rarely sit in it. That evening, as the words rolled in, words I knew but never expected to see, I sat in the chair for over two hours. Pop music selected by an algorithm played as I looked around my house with new eyes. I glazed over my bookshelf, considering its possible spaces. If he comes, then I should make at least half available. I could sell or give away a number of the sweaters folded below the books and keepsakes. There are only three, maybe four, I really like. Don’t get ahead of yourself, a voice from within told me, it’s easy to give away sweaters when it’s hot outside. Ok, I conceded to no one, so maybe I could make that decision later. It would be easy to consolidate the books and souvenirs, though that leaves less room for the little scenes I create with my tchotchkes. That would be no problem. He will want to have space on the bookshelf. He won’t ask for anything, so I will have to give with prediction. He has always had Blue Rays, DVDs, zines, and books. He loves media and he loves things. We had loved so many of the same things, I wonder if that’s as true now as it was the last time we tried this. How many things would he bring with him, and how many things would he leave behind? It’s true that I have too many clothes but also it’s historically true that he has too little. I don’t need to worry about that, I reasoned, the clothes are no issue anyway because we used to share our clothes. My mind drifted to the fringed leather jacket, and holding hands in the diner by the highway, palm trees swaying in sixty-five-degree smog. Then, there is the alcove above the closet. I couldn’t see it from where I was in my chair. I could get a storage unit for the stuff I keep up there, but, it's probably best to eliminate all clutter instead of taking on more overhead. I could give those things away, I thought, my interior self expanding, that’s no problem. I can eliminate every nonessential, and then we can share the closet and its clothes, and we can share the extra storage space and of course, we can share the bookshelf and its contents and we can share the delight of making them beautiful together, our things co-mingling as I have hoped for years without realizing.


I looked at the art on the walls. Would he like these paintings? Would the room change? If he makes this choice, if these words are true, I want this to be our house, I thought. So, then, of course, it would change. He always liked my taste, so I will need to be more flexible with his. Many of the artworks on my walls are consigned to the gallery right now anyway, I shouldn’t feel so attached to them. I started counting in dollars rather than plain numbers. I can sell these things and make way for the movie posters and punk ephemera I know he has collected. I can do that, I thought, it’s just stuff. He’ll want a TV, I realized. I’ve never lived with a TV before. He once let me borrow his when I was too depressed to leave the bathtub. He brought it from his house to mine, snaking it’s cables the length of the apartment and rearranging my furniture so it could balance on my coffee table just outside the open bathroom door and play I Love Lucy as I soaked. He would turn it on in the morning and come back at night to make sure I was still alive. I don’t know how many nights we did that, but in one part of my mind, we still do it all the time. I could move the coat rack, I thought, and sell that painting. I have a willing buyer already. Then, the TV could go right there beside the front door. I could get a better couch too, I thought. This one chair and my loveseat aren’t cozy enough for us to watch movies together. He will need a good couch so he can research all of the time. I will need to make enough money so he can research all of the time, I realized. Probably an extra hundred thousand dollars a year if I can swing it. I’m clocking in around seventy right now, and not every year, I’ll have to work three times as hard. I can do that, I felt sure.


Plus, during his first year, he won’t be able to provide as much as he might later. Getting a job is challenging, but more so, I’ll have to explain to him that when you first move here, you are sick a lot of the time. It’s a big city with old buildings and people live all on top of each other. It takes about a year to adjust, and the adjustment can be difficult. I would need to buy a lot of vitamins. I would need to buy time, too. It will take him a few months to get work that supports his future. I won’t let him get a job for the sake of having any job, not this time. If he’s coming, he needs to work on his dream. It’s the only way forward, I reasoned. I have my dream right now, so he will have to agree to let me take care of him, and that would have to be agreed on in advance. I have friends I could connect him to, and I have resources. I made a mental note for our next phone call. I have been managing my rent and expenses, and he can share those things with me. I’d like to share, I thought.


The numbers I had been counting started to change. I wonder if he has fixed his teeth yet. We, could get on a payment plan with my dentist. I would want to take care of that straight away. That's around 60 thousand dollars if I recall correctly. I think we could pay that off in three years if we work together. I could ask my father for a loan, though I’m not sure he would give it to me. I love this man, I thought, if he needs something, I will get it for him. So, I imagined the TV on the wall, the new couch, the fixed teeth, the job search, the colds. We could borrow a TV from the gallery, but the couch could be north of a thousand dollars. My heart began to race. What if we have a child? I guess would have a child with him, I thought. I had given up on it, but maybe this is how it was supposed to go. I’m not even sure if he wants that, I thought, but I felt inclined to plan for everything. If it is true that he wants a baby, we couldn’t stay in this apartment. Five flights with a newborn sounds impossible. Five flights pregnant sounds impossible. Maybe in two years, we could move someplace bigger, though hopefully still in Manhattan. We could potentially afford a move by then. I guess I could go back to Brooklyn, I conceded. A baby in Brooklyn at 35 seems reasonable. If we are strategic and work together, we could have the life we want, I thought with clarity. I guess we could have a child in this apartment too, that could be very sweet if we are happy. I started rethinking the floor plan. This place is rent-controlled, perhaps, for an artist couple, that’s worth the walk up. We could build a wall dissecting my studio and rendering the kitchen tiny. How very Manhattan, I thought. There’s a vintage Dutch Mid-century modern credenza at the end of my bed. It’s worth something and I could sell it for the money and the space for a crib, if we go that direction. I don’t need to have a kid, but our kid would be adorable, and he would be an excellent dad. Anyway, he could use the credenza for storage in the meantime as we sort that all out, all I’d have to do is clear it. I imagined its contents, and then, I remembered the cameras.


The cameras were taken in LA. They were put into a Ziploc ™ bag when it was too painful to develop them. They moved with me from Los Angeles to Manhattan, then San Diego for a spell, back to LA, then upstate to Tivoli, then Hudson, but grad school ended so, back to the city, to Bedstuy, and now Manhattan again, and never once did they leave their plastic bag. The cameras are undeveloped because I am afraid of what’s on them. I don’t like to touch them or look at them, but throwing them away is not an option either. I am not sure but I am also certain that there are pictures of him on there. The cameras were taken sometime in the last twelve years, because I started moving them ten years ago, and ten years ago was the end. Perhaps, if he does come here, we could develop them together, I thought in passing.


Two days later, he called to clarify the messages. The messages were true, he explained, but in another way, they were false. He wouldn’t and he can’t act on those messages, he explained some more, and he might or might not act on them in the future. I sat on the loveseat that faces the chair for this conversation. I sat with my back to all the items I had rearranged or bargained with or sold off or given away as I navigated the space between the words typed and the words said out loud. Starcrossed, he said, and chaotic, he added, a decision I can’t make today, he apologized. I mentally filed everything back into their places as he talked and as I did this. I made sure not to touch the cameras.



Brooke Nicholas is an independent curator based in New York City, and co-founder of the gallery Blade Study.