We can afford it

The couch sat in the window of the furniture store Victoria passed every morning on her way to the bus. Sage green velvet, three seats, deep cushions, curved wooden legs. On Wednesday a sign appeared: “Was 1,290 euros. Now 790. Through Saturday only.” Victoria stood so close to the glass that her breath fogged it up. She took a picture, then another one.

That evening she showed Sam. He was sitting on their current couch, dark green, secondhand, a gift from Kathi and Jakob when they bought a new one. It sagged in the middle, so whoever sat on the left slowly slid to the right. “We can afford it,” Victoria said. “I ran the numbers. It comes out of the household account, and that’s for the apartment. A couch is apartment.” Sam looked at the photo for a long time. “It’s beautiful.” “So?” “So no. Not yet.”

He got out the spreadsheet he kept every month. Their safety cushion, the emergency money, was at 240 euros. He had paid the security deposit from his savings, and Victoria was paying back her half in installments because she insisted. “If we buy the couch, we’ve got nothing left in case something happens.” “What’s going to happen?” “The washing machine. The utility bill. My bike. Something always happens.” “Why not today?” Victoria asked. “By Saturday it’ll be gone. I don’t want to sit on Kathi’s old couch forever like we’re just visiting.”

“I’m telling you something worries me,” Sam said quietly, “and all you hear is no.” “And I’m telling you what matters to me, and all you hear is numbers!” Victoria was loud now, way louder than she needed to be, and Sam got so quiet she could barely hear him. “I hear you, Vici. I just can’t do it that fast.” She dropped onto the couch to sulk properly and slowly, very slowly, slid toward the middle until she was lying next to him in the dip. She tried to stay serious. After five minutes she gave up and laughed with her face in his sweater.

“Okay,” she said. “Explain it to me. Not the spreadsheet. You.” Sam was quiet for a while. Then he told her about the winter he was twelve. A big customer hadn’t paid the woodworking shop, and Bernd sat at the kitchen table every night with the binder, doing math. At Christmas, Ole and the others still got their holiday bonus, out of the money Bernd set aside every Friday. “That’s when I figured out the Friday money wasn’t being cheap,” Sam said. “It was the reason nobody had to be scared. When our cushion is empty, I sleep badly. Not because of the money. Because of the feeling.”

Victoria took his hand. “My turn.” She told him about home, where Giulia had made every room beautiful on very little, and about Nonna, who always had an empty chair for anyone who walked in. “I want your parents and my parents to be able to sit here without somebody perched on a box of books. I want to come home and think: we made this. Not: we inherited this.” Sam looked at her. “I didn’t know that.” “I didn’t really either. Until just now.”

They sat down at the table with the spreadsheet, both of them this time. First the household account would cover rent, electricity, food, and everything for the apartment, each of them paying in by income like before. Then a fixed amount would go into the cushion every month until it reached 1,000 euros. Whatever each of them earned beyond that stayed theirs, for rowing, dancing, clothes, and books, no questions asked. Big purchases for the apartment would wait until the cushion was full, and only if they both said yes. On the chalkboard by the fridge Victoria wrote: “Cushion: 240 of 1,000,” and under it: “Then: couch.” Sam added one word in pencil: “Promise.”

On Saturday, after her shift at the Limonaia, Victoria walked past the window. There was a sign on the sage green couch: “Sold.” She stood there for a moment. It hurt more than she expected and less than she’d feared on Wednesday. Then she went to the market, took money from her tip jar, her own money, and bought three yards of fabric in a warm terracotta.

On Tuesday, family night, Chiara sat at their dining table with Giulia’s old sewing machine and made a slipcover for the old couch, plus two new pillows. Afterward Sam carried the machine back to the bus for her. Once the cover was on, he sat down first and slowly slid into the middle. Victoria slid in after him. “The dip’s staying,” Sam said. “The dip is ours now,” Victoria said.

Neither of them was completely sure it had been the right call. Sometimes Victoria still thought about the velvet in the window, and once Sam quietly asked whether she was mad at him. She wasn’t. But the number on the chalkboard kept growing, to 410 the next month, and every time Victoria walked past, she drew a little couch next to it, each one a bit bigger than the last.