Get a Life, Chloe Brown

Building superintendent Redford “Red” Morgan helps one of his tenants, Mrs. Conrad, with her third clogged toilet of the month. Mrs. Conrad’s grandsons have been flushing her vegetable casserole and when Red informs her of this she begins to cry. Feeling sorry for her, Red begrudgingly agrees to stay for dinner. As he leaves to go change, he hears another tenant, Chloe Brown, down the hall. The sound of her “sharp and expensive” (12) voice triggers negative memories of another woman who “clutched her silver spoon in one manicured hand and squeezed his heart tight in the other” (13). Red rounds the corner and he and Chloe smack into one another with her face hitting his throat. Chloe’s sisters, Eve and Dani, check to see if Red is okay. Chloe reacts rudely, which makes clear her and Red’s mutual dislike for one another. Despite his annoyance with Chloe, Red cannot help but notice her beauty, which makes him want to capture it through painting. Chloe and her sisters enter her apartment and Red resumes not thinking about Chloe Brown “Not once. Not at all” (17).

Later in her apartment, Chloe reflects on her decision to make a list to change her life. Her sister Eve calls her and asks her to go to karaoke with her. Chloe refuses, saying that she already has her pajamas on, and Eve at once assumes that Chloe might be “having a spell” (19). Chloe reflects that most people have trouble accepting Chloe’s fibromyalgia diagnosis and chronic pain, but that her sisters always understand her limitations and, most importantly, believe her.

After her conversation with Eve ends, Chloe returns to work doing digital marketing for local businesses. After only a few minutes, however, she becomes distracted and goes to check her “Get a Life” (25) list, which she created after her near accident. As she looks at her list, she notes an item she has done so far—to move out of her parents’ house. As she re-reads the other items on her list, which include “2. Enjoy a drunken night out, 3. Ride a motorbike, 4. Go camping, 5. Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex, 6. Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage” (25), she pauses at the only other item on the list she has checked off: “7. Do something bad” (26).

Chloe chastises herself as she walks to the window to do her “bad” thing again—watching Red Morgan paint. As she watches him paint, she reflects on her dislike for Red, because of his confidence and the way he reminds her of “all the things she wasn’t and all the loved ones who’d left her behind” (27). Chloe cringes recalling various moments that Red has caught her at her worst in negative interactions with other tenants which have led her to try avoiding him completely. As she watches him, Red suddenly turns and looks out his window, possibly seeing her. Chloe slams closed the curtains and thinks there is no way he could have seen her but wonders what he might have done if he had.

As Red visits his mother to make her lunch, he wonders about why Chloe was watching him paint the night before. He thinks perhaps there is an element of lust to her voyeurism but thinks: “Lust couldn’t exist without vulnerability. Chloe, beneath her pretty exterior, was about as vulnerable as a bloody shark” (32). Red’s mother interrupts his thoughts about how Chloe is “cute as a button” (32) and asks him about the status of his art career. She reminds him that he should not let “that nasty little rich girl” (35) ruin his career and that he should get back to selling paintings.

At the mention of his ex-girlfriend, Pippa, Red begins an anxious thought cycle. He thinks about how he has been painting as much as ever, but every time he thinks about showing his work to someone, he remembers what Pippa said to him as they broke up: “Accept what you are, sweetie. You were nothing before me, and you’ll be nothing after me” (36). Red’s mother asks him if he plans to be a building superintendent forever, a job that Red got through his friend, Vikram. At her insistence, Red resolves to start planning a new website to sell his art. Red says goodbye to his mother and as he arrives back home, he is surprised at what he finds, an event that sets the rest of the text’s plot into motion.

Chloe’s disability often makes it difficult for her to move or to push herself physically. She is in pain as she makes her way home after a walk. Cursing herself for skipping her painkillers that morning, she stops when she sees a cat stuck in a tree outside of her apartment. Chloe pauses and considers what to do, ultimately deciding to climb the tree herself. Chloe begins her climb towards the cat, knowing that her body will “demand retribution” (41) for this exertion. Taking frequent breaks to gather her strength, Chloe finds herself inching closer to the cat until she finds that the branches have thinned out enough that her weight would break them.

She calls to the cat, and it makes its way to her, resting on her lap. Astonished that the cat heeded her directions, Chloe asks the cat whether it can understand her and that “if so, don’t worry. I’ll protect your secret to the death” (43). At this, Chloe hears a voice from the ground say, “So will I” (43) and finds Red Morgan looking up at her and the cat in the tree. Red asks Chloe if she is stuck and if she would like him to give her a hand getting down, to which she responds by asking him if he is on drugs. Embarrassed, Chloe tries to explain herself by saying that she takes drugs every day “Legal drugs. Very legal drugs. Doctor’s orders” (45) and then concedes, saying that she will need Red’s help getting down as she feels her pain flare. Red climbs up in the tree and for the first time Chloe and Red truly talk to each other. They bicker and banter about their past interactions until Red ultimately tells her that she has three seconds before he is leaving her in the tree.

Chloe puts the cat in her jacket and zips it up, then reaches out to grab Red’s hand. As she does so, she feels a pleasurable “thousand tingling darts” (50) shoot up her arm and resolves to avoid touching Red ever again. To avoid acknowledging the attraction she feels for Red, she asks him whether she can keep the cat. Red reminds her that there are no pets allowed in the building and she asks for an exception. Red then notices that Chloe seems in pain and asks whether she is alright. Red tries to insist that Chloe let him take her home and help her settle, but she refuses. She feels “like a giant bruise” (53) upon landing from the tree and to seem unfazed, she leaves Red behind.