Chapter 4
Chapter Four
BAIT ARM AND SWITCH
LOUISA
“Hold it!” I yell, as my shoe is tucked under my armpit, sliding my key into the lock as I’m closing the door.
“I’m coming, just one… more… sec!” I hop towards the still-closing elevator on one foot as I try (poorly) to slip my foot into my shoe as I do.
Just as I manage to sneak my body into the elevator, barely scraping the closing door that is past the point of caring about any obstruction, my shoe does not make it onto my foot and instead lands in the space between the inside of this elevator and the floor we were just on.
I grab for it in horror as the door shuts and crushes my sneaker.
“Quick! Press the open button!” I say in a frenzy as I try to decide whether to grab for the shoe or reach for the button, but it’s too late.
I just watch my pink Chuck Taylor slide along the side of the elevator door until it gets stopped at the top, folding at the toe and struggling to be sucked through to the other side where it’s stuck.
Standing and spinning, I knew before I saw him who it was willing to abandon me to my fate. The scowl on his face is full of disgust as he glances down at my socked foot, and shakes his head in admonishment. (Trust me, I feel dumb enough for the both of us.)
The elevator door makes a crunching, wheels on steel coming to a halt, kind of noise.
I can hear the deep breaths of rage emanating from him.
Angry Neighbor? will always do whatever it is to keep his Angry Neighbor trademark.
It would have been no effort for him to just hit the button, or even just hold the door.
But no.
Not him.
Definitely not for me.
It’s not his breathing that makes the ground we are standing on sputter as the elevator comes to a screeching halt. I grab the rail, mainly because I don’t know what else to do.
“We’re stuck,” I say, a little too enthusiastically for anyone’s benefit and far more than the situation warrants.
It’s definitely nerves, because what goes up always does come down, or whatever they say.
And I’d really like to not plunge to my death with someone who takes any opportunity to remind me what an inconvenience I am to him.
“Clearly,” he replies. Because clearly it would cause him physical pain to have an interaction with me that isn’t just pure annoyance.
He presses the ‘HELP’ button repeatedly, causing the buzzing ring to reverberate through both of us.
I’m not sure what it’s supposed to do besides ‘call for help,’ but does that mean someone is waiting to answer the phone?
Does it automatically call a fire department? Is it just a placebo effect?
Staring at the display indicating we stopped somewhere around the sixth floor. Rest In Peace, Left Foot Pink Chuck Taylor, you were a loyal support all these years. And the thought makes me laugh. (Wrong move apparently.)
“What could possibly be funny.” His tone is sharp, coarse, the words are being pushed through gritted teeth behind lips I doubt could form a smile.
And it strips the smile from mine. He presses the door-open button, it lights up, but does nothing.
The breath he lets out in return is the most exasperated sound that fills the entirety of this small space with all the hot air that must fill that (well-shaped) head of his.
“Lots of things,” I say as I step closer to the wall of buttons, and he jumps out of my way faster than you would imagine someone could move while confined to an elevator. “Right now, I think the elevator eating my shoe for breakfast is at least a little funny.”
“Some of us have places to be,” he says. Like always, wherever he is going, whatever he has to do, is the only thing of importance.
“You think I raced in here because I wanted to start my morning with cardio?”
“Skipping down the hallway isn’t cardio.”
“How would you know, you give off more ‘a round of golf with the guys’ kind of vibe.” The corner of his mouth does something I have never once been responsible for before, which is pull in a direction that is not downward.
I wouldn’t call it a smile, but it’s loaded.
And the sound that escapes him is barely the chalk outline of a laugh. (But I’ll take it.)
“Don’t worry, I get my heart rate up just fine,” he says, and the meaning is filthy, written across the white teeth that sneak out from the grin.
Not only is his sex life not something I worry about, I’ve seen enough of his comings (wrong word, Lou) and goings to know even if that is his only cardio, he’s doing just fine.
“Gross,” I reply, though if we’re honest, the shape of him tells me that there’s nothing gross about it.
I shake the thought from my brain where it wants to squirrel itself away for later (Roma would thank me), but I won’t let it.
He’s hard enough to get out of my head when I’m recording lately, the last thing I need is actual traction for these thoughts that don’t do me any good.
Unrequited lust doesn’t work out well for the unrequirter.
He’s looking at his phone, trying to make a call, but the no-signal message keeps flashing.
And I can feel the intensity in his eagerness to get the fuck out of here.
(Same.) If he could go back in time sixty seconds, I’m pretty sure he would take the stairs.
I press the ‘HELP’ button, it buzzes and lights up but does nothing.
I press it again, and again, and okay, again.
(Just for good measure.) Maybe what I’m doing is more of a button smash.
“I already tried that,” he says, holding his phone up to the corner of the elevator, hoping for a bar of service to save him.
“Yeah, but maybe it just needed a little extra umph.” Smash. Smash. Smash.
“I don't think pizazz is going to save us.” The emphasis on the word pizazz is meant to be insulting, dripping with sarcasm aimed right at me. I’m not insulted by pizazz; frankly, he should have more of it.
He’s dressed for a work day, or dressed like every day I’ve assumed he’s gone to work.
So much about him I just piece together with Chandler and Toby as we craft the most interesting hypothesis about him, never knowing more than his actual coffee order, his address, and his general ‘I hate the world’ energy.
Except today is Friday, so I don’t know for certain where he is off to because it’s the one weekday we never see him at The Double Shot.
I wonder if he can feel me roll my eyes.
I hope so, but if not, I turn to face him as I do it so that he has a clear view of my defiance.
Which is ironic, because as much as I like to live by the rules I make, I also hate hate hate being the reason anyone hates me.
Except for him. Because I’ve given him ample opportunity, I’ve left more than one basket in front of his door full of apology muffins, I’m-your-new-neighbor focaccia, and even the I’m sourry-dough loaf.
No success. They ended up in the trash while still warm.
Some of the few words he’s spoken to me, were to get me to stop leaving him baked goods.
We’re stuck somewhere below our floor, so I hit the seventh floor button, maybe that’s what’s needed. A reminder to go home, back to the start, like a little elevator reset. Since I can’t turn it off and on again, the way I fix anything else electrical in my life.
“That’s not going to help.” Each time he speaks I can feel my cheeks flush the same way I can see his nostrils flare.
Our eyes locked on each other, I don’t reply.
He’s right. It doesn’t help, but maybe it was the wrong floor, maybe 6 is the answer.
Without breaking our gaze, refusing to concede whatever staring contest we are both too petty to lose, I slide my hand over just one button.
“Don’t,” he says, cold as ice.
I hit the button for the sixth floor and for a moment think I hear something, but it’s not this metal box we are in, suspended in the air.
It’s him, growling out his frustration as he slams his hand over the buttons.
“You’re going to make this worse.” But when he pulls his large hand away, it is him who ends up pressing multiple buttons, leaving them illuminated as we remain frozen in the air. “Fucking great.”
With that, I slide myself down the wall and take a seat in the corner.
No point in standing. I’ve made my best attempt at getting us out of here.
I just cross my legs, one foot in nothing but a sock, and I plop my bag on my lap.
Rummaging for the muffin I was going to eat on my walk to the coffee shop to stop me from grabbing a cornetto from Antonio.
(Who am I kidding, I would have eaten both.)
Hudson is standing at the opposite wall, leaning against it. Pretty sure he’s trying to will himself into a jelly to melt through the wall, negotiating with physics to try and escape me. (Good luck.)
“Do you want half of a muffin,” I ask. No idea why, except if we are going to be stuck here, might as well.
He cuts me a glare and just shakes his head.
Guess a ‘no thank you’ would be too much to ask for.
He is genuinely missing out, which I hope he knows on some level, even if it’s buried under six feet of contempt and bespoke suiting.
Fine, his loss is my muffin. (Not like that.) I take a big bite of the streusel topping.
Too big of a bite, one that in ten-second retrospect is far too ambitious.
But as I do, the clump of cinnamon sugar hits the back of my throat and I start choking (figuratively.) I want to be clear, I can still breathe.
Everything is fine except that I am now coughing up muffin in what can only be described as a dramatic display that is doing absolutely nothing for my case that I am a competent adult woman who has her life together. (Which I do, sometimes.)
“I’m fine,” I choke out (literally) in a rough voice dry from too big a bite of my breakfast. “Don’t mind me, just dying over here.”