Chapter 16 Dark Water
DARK WATER
I’m standing in several inches of dark water. By the time I made it back to my condo, night hanging over the city, the entire thing had apparently flooded.
“A burst pipe,” the maintenance man says beside me as he runs a hand over his protruding abdomen. “It happens.”
“In September?” I ask, incredulous. “It’s not even winter yet.”
He smacks his gum. “Must have been a bad connection or something. Better get a plumber here pronto. I’ve shut your water off for now, so you’ll need to spend the night somewhere else.”
“You think?” I ask, irritable, as I consider how much of my furniture may be ruined.
He doesn’t seem to notice the venom in my voice.
“Lucky you’re on the first floor or you’d be liable for damages to the units below you.
I’ll bring the shop vac down and get this mess cleaned up, but I suggest you reach out to your insurance company as soon as possible.
You’ll need new floors, probably baseboards and drywall too. ”
I stand, mouth agape as it’s been since I first walked in the door, and mentally tick off all the things I’ll have to replace—sofa, armchair, wool rug.
I let Roger have the recycled black walnut table and chairs since he’d bought them to begin with.
My bed frame is metal. We never managed to agree on a headboard.
But my bedding has been soaking up the floodwater like a wick where I left it hanging, unmade, so now it and the mattress will have to go.
I glance at the kitchen cabinets and wonder. At least there’s not very many.
The condo itself is hardly a prize—barely more than a studio in a grubby corner of the city.
Roger only moved in with me because it was closer to his work.
But it was mine. One small thing I’d built for myself in a shifting, transient existence.
And it was clean. Which is not something I can say for it anymore.
“Why does it look like this?” I ask the maintenance man, forgetting his name. Jerry or Terry or Perry? “It’s … murky. Like it’s dirty or something.”
He shrugs, nonplussed. “Beats me. Must have been a buildup in the pipe.” He rolls his eyes. “You’d be surprised what washes up in this city.”
His words are little comfort under the circumstances, and the wet, slopping sound I heard in Arla’s basement repeats itself in my memory.
I slosh toward the bedroom door and peek inside.
The dresser is some kind of veneer over MDF, so trash now.
But atop it, the painting of Thalassa stares at me, daring me to make an accusation.
I narrow my eyes. “Let me gather some things and I’ll get out of your way,” I tell maintenance man Gary or Larry.
“Not a problem. Leave a key and I’ll lock up for you when I’m done,” he says with a hearty sigh.
“Just leave it unlocked,” I tell him. “There’s nothing worth taking now anyway.”
The truth is, like the rest of my life, this condo was furnished like a mid-tier hotel lobby—generic and uninspiring.
I don’t have an attachment to any of it.
There’s nothing of value here. I pull a large duffel bag out, leftover from my foster days—I was lucky to have it, most kids don’t even get that much—from a shelf in my closet because my actual luggage was lined up neatly on the floor.
I cram most of my clothes and a few shoes into it, the small assortment of toiletries I actually use, and my laptop and phone charger.
I sling it over a shoulder and stand before the painting, staring into Thalassa’s stormy eyes with a narrowed gaze.
It would be so easy to go over to Arla’s, to plead my case and glide right into the space she’s slotted for me. But that poster, the strange chamber, the underground tunnels all make for poor roommates in my book. I’m not keen on sleeping over whatever it is they’re hiding.
Is that why this happened? To push me deeper into Arla’s grasp?
“I don’t know if you’re responsible for this,” I tell the painting in a thin-lipped whisper, “but you’re coming with me, so please don’t flood my friend’s place.”
I tuck her unceremoniously under one arm and head outside, where I pull my cell phone out, thumb hovering over the contacts.
Arla’s name shines up at me, then Brennan’s.
Both a firm and resounding no, especially since for these purposes, they’re one in the same.
A little farther down, I see Levi’s. Tempting, but I’m afraid of bungling what we have, the perfection of today, my messy life (which has just grown exponentially messier).
Moving from passionate, inaugural tryst to indefinitely crashing at yours in a day feels warp speed even for us.
There’s one other person I can call. Someone who, despite my rigid resistance, has always put me at ease, who I am certain will not see this as an imposition but as a sign of progress.
Aaron picks up almost instantly. “Is this for real?” he asks, cynical. “Are you actually calling me right now? Did you forget to reformat the Vivid piece before sending again? Because if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, always go with Helvetica. It’s cleaner.”
“Aaron,” I say, repositioning the duffel on my shoulder. “Hi. Listen, there’s been a … a … mishap at my place. A pipe burst. I need somewhere to stay the night. I’d go to a hotel but I’m a little low on funds.”
“Riiiight,” I hear him drawl. “The mysterious mountain of cash on Sue’s desk that you absolutely didn’t have anything to do with.”
“Uhhhh…” I manage, unable to lie convincingly.
“If you want to cross the bridge to Aaronland, you have to pay the toll,” he chimes.
I inhale sharply through my nose. “Okay, fine. It was me. But you can’t tell Calvin!”
“I knew it!” he shouts into the phone. “It was generous, I’ll give you that.
But there is such a thing as too much, Jude.
You laid it on a little thick, and you were sloppy, doing your handoff at work instead of privately.
Sheer luck that video crapped out, or Calvin would have fired you for something like ‘disruptive behavior’ or ‘oversharing’ already. ”
“A kid was sick, Aaron. What was I supposed to do?”
“Let Sue figure it out, which she eventually would have,” he says sagely.
“I’m sorry—have you met the American health care system?” I ask acerbically.
“Fair,” Aaron drawls. “Look, don’t get touchy.
I’m just worried about you. That was a lot, and now you’re in a pickle.
It’s a manageable pickle, but a pickle all the same.
Calvin’s watching you like a hawk in Dockers.
You could’ve started a GoFundMe, you know, given others a chance to pitch in.
It’s not your job to solve everyone else’s problems for them. ”
He’s not wrong, and he doesn’t even know how much of a pickle I’m in, what with the company card and Calvin threatening to make me his fall girl.
But there’s only so much I can tell him.
When it comes to me and my life, the less people know the better.
“So can I stay with you now, or are there more truth-or-dare taxes I have to pay?”
“Come on over,” he relents. “I’m texting you the address. I have a couch that’s deeper than the Mariana Trench. You’ll sleep like my grandma on edibles.”
“Thank you,” I say with a sigh of relief. “Be there in twenty.”
When I pull up to his bungalow twenty-four minutes later, Aaron opens the door and greets me. “You’re late.”
I smile. His humor has always been infectious. “I can’t thank you enough for doing this.”
He waves me off as he ushers me inside. “Nonsense. Can’t let the Good Samaritans of the world end up curbside.” He takes my duffel and drops it on his overstuffed sofa. I decided it was safer to leave the painting in the car, just in case.
His eyes glide over me knowingly. “I heard you were hospitalized with food poisoning today. Miracle recovery, I assume.”
I’d forgotten all about Arla’s call to my employer this morning. “Oh yeah, that. I’m, uh, feeling much better.”
“Sure you are.” He grins. “Nothing like a day away from the office to sleep off a hangover.”
I’m not sure what to say. It’s evident by looking at me that I was lying, or Arla, in this case.
Aaron crosses his arms and studies me. “You know, I never pegged you for a night rager, lie-to-the-boss type before. I mean, I always sensed there was more to you than that sad twee vibe, and I like that you laugh at my jokes. But you’ve been such a square peg for so long, I started to think you were in the witness protection program or something. ”
“Not exactly,” I reply.
“No,” he says. “I guess not. But there’s something lurking behind your eyes,” he continues, waving two fingers at me as he marches toward the kitchen. “A secret. A big one.”
When I don’t deny it, he says, “I’m watching you, Clark. Not in a Calvin-the-office-troll sort of way, but I do like a puzzle. You’re human Wordle. I’m intrigued.”
“I’m glad one of us is entertained,” I tell him.
“How many guesses do I get before you go poof! and disappear?” he asks.
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” I tease, which sends him roaring with laughter.
“Nightcap?” he asks from behind the counter, holding up a bottle of birthday cake vodka. “You owe me, remember? You said ‘drinks.’”
“I did.” As he pours, I wave the bottle away. “Aaron, that shit is for twenty-year-olds. You need to get some adult booze.”
He looks up at me. “I don’t drink brown liquor,” he says, “unless it tastes like chocolate.”
“You know there’s vodka that doesn’t come in flavors, right?”
He passes me a glass with a shot and a half in it. It smells like a scented candle. “Honey, don’t waste your breath. I am the Marie Antoinette of alcohol. Let them drink cake!”
We each take a large swallow and wander back toward the living room, to the chairs and sofa, their soft, cushioned seating. The vodka is sweeter than bubble gum, but it still burns. A feeling I oddly relish after my last twenty-four hours.
“A little hair of the dog,” he ventures.