Danielle Bradley
Bare Minimum
Julio, usually good with his hands but not when I was riding handlebars down Pine, West Philly, early dusk in late September, and he hit the trolley tracks I told him he might hit. I said, ‘You might hit those’ and he told me ‘Don’t worry, mi amor, you know I’m good with my hands.’
I’m telling you this because I’m repeating it to Julio now, in my bathroom, him below me. ‘You’re good with your hands, eh?’ I’m saying. ‘Let’s see how you do this time.’ He’s fumbling. Uncertain. Pulling the wrapper apart. ‘No, not like that,’ I’m saying. I’d show him but can’t—both my arms are broken from that bike ride, those trolley tracks.
‘There, on the side, shaped like a tulip,’ I say. He gets it open and says, ‘Where’s the grip?’ ‘At the base, near the taily thing,’ I say. ‘It’s textured.’ ‘How are we gonna do this?’ He asks. I squat, legs apart, knees wide. He supports me with a hand—I can’t balance myself because I’m still in slings. ‘Maybe bend a little deeper,’ he says. I do and am wide open.
He gets the tampon in. Asks me, ‘And press the little taily thing?’ ‘Yup,’ I say. So he does, and pulls plastic out, and wipes me, and pulls up undies followed by pants and washes his hands and pats ‘em dry before running them through my hair. ‘See,’ he says, ‘Good with my hands.’
Dinner and Dancing and Dinner and Dancing and Dinner
Threadbare would be a good word to describe it. One bedroom, living room, kitchenette, backyard concrete slab shared with fourteen other units. The whole apartment drywall. Laura could hear Nick asking the broker about drainage in the backyard while she was in the living room. The window at a height that required her to bounce to her tiptoes to see the sidewalk and highway. It would be loud but she wouldn’t mind. Laura liked the rhythm of a passing car, how flat and even. It was music, brown noise she could dance to. Nothing to disrupt their little dinner parties.
“So, what are we thinking?” the broker asked.
She was the broker for the owner, but Laura and Nick would pay her fee—three months’ rent. She told them she’d drop it to two when Laura asked if the spores in the bathroom were black mold or some other type.
“We’ll need to talk about it,” Laura said.
“I have other showings. Not trying to pressure you, just saying you should think quickly.”
They thanked her. Shook her hand. Told her that absolutely they understood the gravity of the situation, would think and talk about it on the walk home. It would be the only thing they would think and talk about on the walk home, in fact. They said and then waved goodbye from the sidewalk because the broker could not hear them over the traffic.
“At least make it a block first!” Laura said, a hand around Nick’s mouth.
He licked her palm with little strokes—around, around, around. Laura relented, took her hand from his face. They laughed, louder, more.
“$2,300 a month for that pit?” Nick said.
“She was just doing her job.”
“It looked so cute on the listing. I thought it might’ve been it.”
“We’ll find the right one soon.”
“I’m impatient,” Nick said. “When will we get to the dinner and dancing? When will it be right?”
Okay, fine. Maybe, then, this is the one where it’s finally the right one. Nick and Laura buy a kitchen table from a thrift store, two matching chairs from online, find a third in the trash, and acquire the fourth later when Nick’s grandmother dies. They paint the living room a pale yellow that Laura calls off-white and Nick calls ugly. They spend every Sunday at that table until the apartment floods, the backyard concrete non-absorbent. The electricity kicks and they decide that isn’t it time they left that shabby apartment in that needless city.
Or maybe, this is the other one where the apartment doesn’t flood and so they never contemplate fleeing and instead double down, saying that they live in the Greatest Neighborhood in the Greatest City in the Greatest State and they must own 600 square feet of it. They try to buy their unit from the landlord, citing the desire to live there forever, to rip up the concrete and replace with sod and daisies. The landlord tells them No! but in unkind words.
Or maybe, this is the one where the landlord is taken by their sweet little handwritten letter and photo of them sharing an ice cream. She thinks maybe selling just one unit is a good idea, especially to this wholesome couple always dancing to records in the living room. She could use some of the money to live abroad like she had always wanted and planned. She agrees to sell to them if they’ll have her over for dinner and dancing sometime.
Or maybe, this is the one where they cannot get approved for the mortgage. Two middle school teachers and a half million-dollar apartment does feel a strange pairing. They need a co-signer. Laura’s absent father or Nick’s? They flip a coin and Laura wins or loses. She’ll meet with her father uptown over breakfast and explain the situation: she’s in love, Dad, very in love, and they are broke, Dad, very broke, and want to buy this perfect little apartment in this charming little neighborhood from this gentle little lady who they’ll have over soon for dinner and dancing, and won’t he come, too? It’s a simple: No!
Or maybe, this is the one where it’s a simple: Yes! He apologizes for being away, daughter, far far away. He’ll be there for the dinner and dancing. Does she have the paperwork here for him to sign?
Or maybe, this is the one where Nick’s dad hears about Laura’s dad’s reconciliation and decides that he’d like to do the same. He buys them a new couch—that cypress sectional they’ve dreamed of. He joins them for the dinner and dancing.
Or maybe, this is the one where all the dinner and dancing gets a bit distracting and in the way and Nick is put on probation at work for underperformance. Laura comforts him. They decide to take a break from dinner and dancing and start having breakfast in bed. French toast. Broken yolks.
Or maybe, this is the one where they have the baby. When they remove the door from the hinges, the crib will fit in the closet. Not the one that converts to a toddler bed, but the one Nick’s sister gives them. Leena. Leilani. Lilia. Lucia. Liam. Luca. Landon. Leonardo. Olivia? Oliver?
Or maybe, this is the one where they decide not to have the baby. When they leave the door on the hinges, the bedroom looks much bigger. Much, much bigger.
Or maybe, this is the one where they decide to keep the baby and lose it anyway. When they remove the door from the hinges and then put them back on, the bedroom looks much smaller. Much, much smaller.
Or maybe, this is the one where there is no baby. It’s Laura, not Nick. But Nick understands.
Or maybe, this is the other one where there is still no baby, but it’s Nick, not Laura. And Laura understands, too.
Actually, no. It’s still the same one where the apartment isn’t right but it’s funny and just a matter of time. Laughing on the sidewalk now and still, Laura takes Nick’s hand. They walk together in rhythm, dancing a little.
Danielle Bradley received her MFA from the MFA for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her work has been supported with scholarships and residencies by the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, the Juniper Summer Writing Institute, the Hudson Valley Writers Center, and Smith College. The winner of the 2025 Elizabeth Alexander Creative Writing Award and a 2025 – 2026 Tin House Reading Fellow, her work appears or is forthcoming in the Colorado Review, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, and The Penn Review, among others.
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