Chapter 5
I knock on Gence’s door, but there’s no response. My chin drops. He’s not making this bribery business easy. I sigh and hang the bag containing a Tupperware of peanut butter hi-hat cookies from the knob.
“She’s kidding,” he says to his daughter. To me he adds, with a hint of desperation, “This stuff gets everywhere. Everywhere.”
“Hey look, it’s the human wrecking ball,” he says.
“At least I just wreck walls, not vibes. You’re a walking rain cloud.” I scowl up at him. The faint funk that always hangs in the air here from the nail salon next door is extra funkified, mixed as it is with his piney air-freshener smell.
“Oh good,” Gence’s voice rings out. “You are both here.”
Jack and I straighten guiltily.
“Gence, when are you going to sort out the wall?” Jack asks. “What’s taking so long?”
“Mos ma caj bythen. You have questions, I know. I will answer. The owner of your apartments, Mr. MacManus, is very upset. He says he will not renew your leases. He ask me to knock down wall, t’rafte pika, so he can sell as one apartment to one of you.”
“What?” I cry out at the same time Jack shouts, “Sell?”
The edges around my vision blur. This isn’t real. I can’t lose my place. “Gence, I will talk to Mr. MacManus,” I say.
“No. Mos pjek pordhe ne tepsi,” Gence says.
“He told you not to bake a fart in a pan. That can’t be right?” Jack says. He holds up his phone, the translation written on the screen, clear as day.
“Oh, you know things, hajvan?” Gence says.
“Why are you mad at me? She’s the one who put the hole in the wall!”
“I know things too. I know everything.” Gence glowers at Jack.
“I met Mr. MacManus once, a couple of years ago. I’ve got his number. There’s no way he can kick me out! I love my apartment!” I insist. I fumble with my purse, pulling out my cell.
“No, no!” Gence’s eyes shift, taking in Mrs. Russo’s descent into the lobby. The old woman shuffles past us to the mailboxes, pausing to clutch the cross hanging from her neck and give Jack a disapproving glance.
Gence’s voice is softer when he says, “No need to bother Mr. MacManus. He did say maybe he sell the apartments separately. But only if you fix the wall and do anything else that is needed. You remove wall, you get permits, you can split the work, cost, to put up wall maybe with each other if you both want to buy. If you do all of that and make official bank-approved offer to buy before city deadline, you get apartments. If not, Mr. MacManus sells as one apartment. Full price. And we know how fast condos go here, a din?”
“What’s—” I lick my lips. “What’s the price?”
Gence cites a number that freezes my insides. “For the entire floor?” I ask hopefully.
“Each.”
I force a smile. “Oh. Okay. Great!”
Gence walks on down the hall to his apartment. I stare after him.
“Nice going,” Jack murmurs.
“What? I don’t know where you can get live chickens,” I say, loud enough that Mrs. Russo hears. She moves with purpose in Jack’s direction.
My heart beats against my chest like a demented caged bird. I could own my apartment. My baby would be mine. Permanently. I hurry to the door.
My own patch of city—if I can somehow, miraculously, come up with the money and build that wall in less than sixty days.
The walk is marked by an emotional yo-yo within me. It crashes violently when I think of the cost of buying and buoyantly jerks back up when I think about my place being my forever home.
An hour later, while I’m on what has easily become the most painful conference call of each day, I multitask and fill out a mortgage pre-approval application. Anthony, a colleague of mine from our European region, drones on and on.
Application submitted, I sit back in my chair and smile.
“And so, perhaps we can regroup on this second agenda item,” Anthony says, finally arriving at his point.
I’ve dubbed him “The Professor” in my mind, since he loves to pontificate and poke holes in others’ work while never volunteering to do anything himself.
Academia in the corporate world at its finest.
“Actually, Anthony, if we can just review this one piece—”
“No, Penelope, I must insist. Moving on to agenda item three…”
I open my mouth and shut it, my shoulders slumping.
“You know what? I don’t need you after all, Jolly Green. I did it all by myself,” I say to Avery, adjusting my earbuds and balancing on the ladder I borrowed from Gence. I push the sticky Command hook firmly against the plaster wall, about a foot above and to the left of the giant hole in the wall.
“I don’t understand. One night of drinking to excess and you’ve devolved to College Penny. Why didn’t you just put a Taylor Swift poster over the hole?” he says.
I step down and survey my work. The hook looks even enough with the one to the right of The Hole. My call waiting beeps, but I send my mother to voicemail. “I blame Margie.”
“You always do. Adulting is hard.”
“I called you for freakishly tall person help, not character assassination,” I tell him.
I exhale in a mighty puff and grab the end of the sheet I bought to serve as my new wall tapestry.
It features a delicate blue and white and yellow pattern of trees and birds and was the least like a college wall hanging I could find.
I climb again and jam my earbuds more firmly into my ears.
“Well, you potato, you called the wrong friend if you didn’t want to be judged about your wall-hole problems.”
“I wasn’t complaining. And The Hole is being temporarily handled as we speak.
” I tie off one end of the sheet and hop off the ladder, grabbing the other.
“But, you know, I sure would like to have the wall fixed permanently. It’s probably not safe to have it open to an apartment where a weirdo lives… ”
Avery is silent.
“That’s my super-slick way of asking you to help me take down this wall and rebuild it? Please? Pretty please?”
“Hi, Dr. Vaughn. Sorry to interrupt,” I hear a husky female voice say on Avery’s side of the conversation.
“Dr. Cassidy, hi. I didn’t know you were back.”
“There’s a matter I need to discuss with you. I’m—”
“Excuse me for one second,” Avery says. “Penny, I’ve got to—”
Jack’s door opens, and a woman follows him in.
“Gotta go.” I don’t wait for his response, instead hanging up on him and ducking behind the sheet to avoid detection.
I hear him offer the woman something to drink, and she accepts a glass of water with a smile.
She’s pretty, in a garish kind of way. Long black hair, big gazongas, and tight black pants.
Nothing like the ex-girlfriend I met. Whatever.
He doesn’t have a type beyond “willing,” I guess.
I crouch down again, just in time to hear her ask about The Hole.
Jack sighs. “My next door neighbor is a little…eccentric. She attacked it with a hammer and opened up a can of worms. I’m sorting it out. It’ll be fixed in the next few weeks.” He adds the last bit in a rush, probably desperate to have her come back.
I hear them walking around the apartment, with Jack pointing out its architectural features, the ones I’m obsessed with in my own. I’m surprised the bonehead knows them, to be honest. And that woman definitely doesn’t look like a history buff.
I mentally slap myself. What the hell are you doing? I’m always preaching the gospel of Women-Need-To-Stop-Tearing-Each-Other-Down. I don’t make catty, shitty comments about other women. I should be rescuing this stranger, not comparing my bra size to hers and finding myself lacking.
I rub at my eyes wearily and hear my moment of opportunity present itself.
“Sorry, I need to call my sister,” Jack says. “Her cat just died. The thing always made me itch, but she’s— That’s her calling. Excuse me a second.”
I wait until I hear the click of his bedroom door.
“Hey! Hey! Psssst!” I lift the sheet and lean through The Hole, waving my arms wildly.
The woman yelps, spilling the water she was just sipping down her front. She looks anxiously to the door—the one Jack disappeared through—then approaches The Hole slowly. “Can I help you?”
“No! You can help yourself. By getting out. You don’t know what kind of hurt you’re in for with—”
She backs up a few steps and gulps, audibly. “Hurt? What do you mean?”
“I’m trying to warn you. The last woman I saw here was destroyed. Broken.”
“Oh. Okay.” The woman abandons her glass on the counter and retreats toward the front door, backing away with purpose.
I lean farther through The Hole, and she fumbles with the knob.
She seems nervous, which she absolutely should be if she was this close to making the biggest mistake of her life.
“Uh. Thanks for letting me know. I’m going now.
Goodbye.” She opens the door and bolts through it.
I race to intercept her in the hallway. She screeches when she sees me and grabs for the stair rail. “You’ll thank me later!” I crow triumphantly as she hurries away.