We’re meeting up in half an hour for a drink before the club. Come along… It’d be really good for the whole group to get together.
Ade stared at the four walls that had contained her since Monday. Aside from a couple of lab shifts and a trip to the mini market, she’d had no contact with the outside.
Okay. But I can’t stay for too long.
Within an hour of joining them, Ade had finished her beer, attempting to dull the onslaught of voices, beats, and scraping furniture around her. It worked. The alcohol found its path to her brain, subduing the noise.
After another liter and several vodka shots, it was like wearing a diving mask, with the piercing voices of the others muffled to an acceptable level. Greg’s incessant attempts to strike up a conversation became almost bearable.
“We’re heading to Bleu after these,” he said, grinning with the reckless abandon afforded by an evening of cheap beer. “You coming?”
A tiny whisper inside Ade’s head said,No, thank you. I’ll be heading home where it’s safe and peaceful.But the mix of liquor delivered an emphatic yes, and then she was arm in arm with Madison, trotting down toward La Place de la Comédie.
She’d been in the dark, dingy nightclub less than ten minutes, when her nervous system overruled her. She shielded her eyes from the blinding spotlights and dodged the swirling beams of the lasers. The heaviness of the bass beating against her chest was so oppressive, she doubted her own breath, worried it wouldn’t make it far enough inside her lungs to provide the oxygen she craved. The stench of sweat and sugary drinks overwhelmed her nostrils, making her nauseous. She sought an exit for a breath of fresh airto cleanse her body.
When she awoke, she couldn’t remember getting home. The dawn light streamed through the shutters she hadn’t closed the night before. Her fuzzy mouth and weak stomach reminded her of the consumption of heavy liquor. Thank god it was the weekend, and she didn’t have to drag her sorry ass to campus.
As she rolled over, another wave of sickness threatened, and the fierce buzz of the intercom disturbed the silence. She dragged herself from the creased sheets and hit the two-way mic, putting her best French accent on the word “hello.”
The barrage of words that came back at her was indecipherable. She caught the words “air filter” and “rocks” but couldn’t work out the meaning.
“Just come up,” she said, beaten into verbal submission. Maybe the agency had sent a maintenance guy. Eventually, the heavy footsteps reached the fifth floor and a tall guy in overalls flashed her a smile, repeating some of the same words she couldn’t understand over the intercom. Her hungover brain stalled, simultaneously translating and processing his meaning. She stared, her nostrils twitching at his smell.Is that tobacco?She glanced at his hands, seeking proof that he smoked so she could close that tab in her brain.
He gestured that he needed to come inside, and Ade showed him in. He scanned the room and headed for the bathroom. Inside, he pointed to the extractor fan and said something about cleaning it.
“Sure, go for it.” She sighed. Anything to hurry him along so she could get back to her bed to relieve her exhaustion.
A few minutes later, the guy came out with a handful of stones. “This bad,” he said, acting out taking them out of the filter.
“If you say so. I don’t mean to be rude,” she said, “but I really need to be horizontal right now.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “You live alone here? No one to help with stones?”
“No, no one to help get stones out of an appliance I’ve never noticed. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She ushered him to the door. “Thank you.”
“Thank agency,” he said and disappeared down the stone spiral staircase.
Ade sank against the closed door, grateful that the contents of her stomach hadn’t reappeared, at least for the duration of his visit.
Raised voices came from the fourth floor, but Ade couldn’t make out what they were saying. She cracked open the door. It was the same guy she’d just let out of her studio.
By the time she’d reached her neighbor’s hallway, he was gone.
“Are you okay?” her neighbor asked. “That guy was a conman.”
“What?” Ade froze. What had just happened?
“He said he was some maintenance man sent by the building manager, but he looked like a rogue. Come in for a minute.” The neighbor ushered Ade inside. “I’m Marcella. Sorry we haven’t met before, but welcome to the building. I wish it was a warmer welcome.”
“Thanks.” Ade willed herself to say more, but the idea of a fraudster inside her apartment freaked her out.
“You look terrible.” Marcella’s kind eyes creased when she smiled. “Would you like a coffee?”
Actually, she’d love Marcella to look elsewhere while her brain melted with anxiety. Ade nodded.
“Did that guy frighten you?”
Ade closed her eyes, pulling down the shutters on the world to work out the chaos in her head. “Sorry, I’m having trouble processing what just happened. So that person wasn’t employed by the realtor? He was just a random guy?”
