The Woman Upstairs

by Camryn Eyde

  “Oh, my heavens!” Mrs. Dellaroy cried as Ricci exited the apartment soggy, dirty and carrying armfuls of buckets and ladders.

  Ricci tipped her head at the woman and her equally-shock upper-class companion. They were frozen halfway between the elevator and Mrs. Dellaroy’s front door. Behind her, Ricci heard Mr. Yates sigh. Mrs. Dellaroy trembled with outrage, and about to open her mouth with what Ricci assumed would be a colorful string of insults, her phone rang.

  “Sorry,” she said, pulling it from her pocket. Mr. Yates could deal with the fallout of her presence in front of Mrs. Bollinger-Lowe. “Hello?” she answered without checking the caller ID.

  “What have you done!”

  Ricci pulled the phone away from her ear at the volume. “Huh?”

  “You’ve screwed up my life! She’s trying to take the kids, and all because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. I told you it wasn’t me, but you couldn’t help yourself, could you? You just had to blab to the police, and now…” The man broke into a round of sobbing. “My kids. I’ll never…I hate you.” He hung up.

  Ricci stared at her phone for several minutes after the call. It had been Mr. Carter.

  “So…” Ricci said as she handed Tara a plate of her mother’s reheated menudo. It was late and Ricci was still covered in dust, plaster, and bandages, having managed to cut herself with her side-cutters. “I had an interesting visitor today.”

  “Was it an inspector saying I can move into my apartment?” Tara scowled and brushed away a piece of plaster that had fallen off Ricci’s clothes. “They invented showers for a reason.”

  Ricci ignored the barb. “No, not an inspector.”

  “Then I don’t care.” Tara stabbed at her food and stared at it.

  The woman had returned to the apartment in a foul mood, and now Ricci regretted asking her to join her for dinner. “Who shat in your sandwich?”

  “Excuse me?” Tara said, taking her attention away from her impaled food.

  “I’m offering you simple conversation, and all I get is hostility. What the hell?”

  “I’m not here to be your BFF. I’m here because you can’t control your tenants and because your security is lacking. Who let’s saboteurs run about with a free reign?”

  “I didn’t let anyone do anything! God, you’re so judgmental, no wonder you and Zoe broke up.”

  Tara’s fork dropped with a clatter. “What did you just say?”

  “Zoe. She was the interesting visitor.”

  “She…she was here? When? Why? What did she say?”

  The change from challenging and bitchy to isolated and unsure was remarkable to watch. It also didn’t suit Tara. So concerning was the change, that Ricci reached out and took the woman’s forearm in hers. “Are you okay?”

  Tara snapped her arm away. “Of course I’m not.” Standing from the patio table, Tara began to pace around on the terrace lit by one of Ricci’s lightscape settings. In the muted light, Tara looked small. “Did she say anything?” she asked as the pacing stopped.

  “She wanted to know where you were, right before she insulted me. Several times.”

  “Well, you make it so easy.”

  “Hey!”

  Tara held up an apologetic hand. “What…what did she say?”

  “Not a lot. She said she was your ex.”

  Tara closed her eyes and nodded.

  “So…the rumors?”

  Tara took a deep breath through her nose. “Which one?”

  “The one about you sleeping with a married man.”

  “Is clearly none of your business.”

  Ricci threw up her hands. “Look, I’m not judging, and I’m offering to be someone you can talk to. A friend or something. If you don’t want that, fine, but don’t be rude about it. I’ve had enough of being treated like a second-class citizen today, thank you very much.” Standing, she picked up her plate and went inside, preferring to eat alone in the living room.

  “I’m sorry, okay?”

  Ricci shrugged, not looking up at Tara. “Your business is your business. Mine is mine. That’s fair.”

  Tara sat down beside her. “I’m not…I don’t do confiding. I take care of my own problems, and prefer it that way.”

  “Your prerogative.”

  Tara nodded and stared at the hands clasped in her lap. “However, I would like to set you straight on what happened.” Looking at Tara, Ricci raised an eyebrow. “Zoe and I…we were the married couple. She was the one caught sleeping with the District Manager. I took whatever job I could and left. End of saga.”

  “And now she’s here looking for you?”

  “Like I said, that’s my problem.”

  “I hardly want to make it mine. That woman is unpleasant.”

  Tara glared at her. “She’s not. She’s…” Tara frowned in thought. She looked confused.

  “An adulterer?” Ricci suggested.

  Tara stood baring her teeth. “She’s…she’s…why don’t you just stay the hell out of my business.”

  Holding her hands up in defense, Ricci watched the aggravated woman storm off to her room and slam the door. Shaking her head and biting at her bottom lip, Ricci picked up her phone.

  “Hey babes,” Alicia said.

  “Hey, I have a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Did anyone called Zoe come in to visit you today?”

  “Yeah, but Tara refused to see her. The woman was pissed. Why?”

  “Zoe is her ex. I think.”

  “Tara’s a lesbian? But, wait, that means the rumors are ass about.”

  “No surprises there.”

  “So what was the go? Tara cheated on Zoe?”

  “The other way around.”

  “Oh. Bummer.” Making a hum in reply, Alicia kept talking. “Hey, where were you the other day? Could have used your muscles to lift that stupid, heavy coffee thing in.”

  “I was upstairs trying to get Tara’s place fixed.” Ricci frowned in thought. “Come to think of it, I ran into Tara on the way down. Where were you then?”

  “Oh. I showed Tara the gym, then had a workout. I was about to come over after that, but I saw your mom.”

  Ricci groaned.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “She shouted at me about having a white woman living with me in sin.”

  “Yeah, I caught that part. Why do you think I left?”

  Ricci rolled her eyes. “Coward.”

  “No. Smart.” Alicia chuckled. “So what happened? Are you disowned again?”

  “No.” Ricci ran a hand through her knotted brown hair and scratched at bits of plasterboard in it. Gross. “Ma decided Tara is perfect. She cooks, she speaks Spanish, and she’s apparently heartbroken and needs saving.”

  Through a chuckle, Alicia said, “Let me guess? You’re the knight in shining armor that’s going to save her and give her grandbabies?”

  “Something like that.” Ricci leaned forward and looked at her cooling dinner. Somewhere outside was Tara’s plate. With a sigh, she said goodbye to Alicia and looked contemplatively down the hallway.

  Tara’s behavior made so much more sense now. She was cheated on, and clearly hadn’t even begun to process it. Tara had the atypical reaction of someone wanting life to go back the way it was, but was grieving because she knew it couldn’t. She was angry and lost. Her mother had pegged it. Tara was heartbroken.

  Staring at her plate of food, and knowing Tara had gone to bed without hers, Ricci took a deep breath. You’re an idiot, she thought as she picked up her plate, fetched Tara’s and made her way to Tara’s room.

  Knocking on the door with her foot, she waited and knocked again.

  “What?” Tara said through the door.

  “Open up for a second, will you?”

  Long seconds passed, and Tara finally cracked the door, immediately focusing on the plates of food. “What do you want?”

  “My mother makes the best menudo in all of New York. Missing out on it is a tragedy. She would
never forgive me if I didn’t share. Now, open up.”

  Tara eyed her cautiously, but swung the door inwards anyway. Away from the muted shadows of the door, Ricci saw used tissues on the bed and in the basket, and that Tara’s face was a mess of blotch and mascara.

  “Hold these for a second.” Shoving the plates of thick soup at Tara, she fetched a wet face washer and handed it to her. “Swap you.” Tara looked at the face washer for a moment, before handing back the plates and accepting the offering. Turning her back to clean her face, Ricci sat on the bench at the end of the bed and waited.

  “They’re really the best?” Tara asked, taking her plate and sitting beside Ricci.

  “Without question. Dig in.”

  Ricci squirmed with discomfort at the moan Tara let out as she tasted her mother’s cooking.

  “Good. Right?”

  Tara nodded and chewed. Silence met with the occasional clang of cutlery against ceramic, and the two women ate companionably. Swallowing her last bite, Tara said, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Tara looked at her plate. “Your mother is truly a wonderful cook.”

  “I know. Anything I do isn’t remotely comparable, and I’m using that as an excuse for not learning. I can’t beat perfection.”

  Tara tilted her head to look at her and shook her head with a ghost of a smile on her face. “That’s a dreadful excuse for not learning a basic necessity of life.”

  Ricci shrugged. “I do a mean take-out order.”

  Chuckling under her breath, Tara looked back to her empty plate. “You shouldn’t underestimate the power of a meal. A home-cooked meal made from love and passion.”

  Ricci frowned. “I don’t.”

  “I lived in Spain for a few years when I was younger, and we had a cook that made this same dish. One night, she made it when my parents got back from their trip in Morocco. We sat around the table together and shared the meal. They regaled me with stories about their trip and showed me the photographs of where they’d been. We laughed, they hugged me and told me they missed me and wished they’d taken me along, and we had a truly wonderful night over this rustic dish.”

  “It sounds…really nice.”

  Tara nodded. “Yes. It was.”

  Ricci nibbled at her bottom lip feeling awkward. Tara sounded sad and distant as she seemed to lull herself in memories. A wet sniff stiffened Ricci’s back as she became aware the woman was upset. Oh, crap. What do I do?

  “Zoe and I loved cuisine. It was our thing.”

  “Uh. Okay.”

  “She’s a chef, and was always experimenting with food.”

  “She’s a chef?” Ricci’s eyes widened. First-class bitch was the only occupation that sprang to mind when she’d met the bottle-blonde.

  “Well, she was. She sold her restaurant about five years ago and chose to move with me to the west coast.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence.

  Ricci bounced her knee a little before asking, “So…how long were you married?”

  Tara took a deep breath and continued to stare into her lap. “We still are.”

  “Oh. Umm…yeah. Of course. I just—”

  “It’ll be a year next month.”

  Ricci felt her heart splinter a little for Tara. Her marriage hadn’t even lasted a year before it had fallen apart. That’s rough, Ricci thought.

  “I know.”

  Ricci stiffened. She said that out loud? “Ah. Do you think you two will work it out?”

  Tara’s chuckle was hollow. “What do you think?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t know either of you.”

  Tara sat up and looked at Ricci. “Tell me, Rica, what would you do?”

  Swallowing at the way her given name sounded on Tara’s tongue, Ricci puffed out her cheeks with a breath. “I’m not one for putting up with cheaters. If it was me, I’d have the divorce papers signed already.”

  “You’ve been cheated on before?”

  Ricci shook her head. There’s no way in hell she’s ever letting anyone get close enough to break her heart.

  “Then how do you know what you’d do?”

  Fair question. Screwing up her face with thought, she said, “If I give my heart to someone, I expect them to take care of it. To treat it as their own. To honor any commitment we make. If the commitment fails, then it fails. But if it’s forced to a close because my partner was careless and deliberately broke my heart by taking another’s, then they’re no longer worth it. Love is a precious thing, and I know that sometimes it doesn’t last, but respect should. If you’re bound to someone, then you owe them truth and loyalty. Only a selfish person forgets that and takes care of their own desires without thought of the consequences. I may not have experienced it, but I’ve lived with the fallout. I refuse to subject myself to countless acts of forgiveness only to have my heart broken over and over again. My life is worth more than that.” Ricci held Tara’s intense stare for only a moment before having to force her gaze away. Her throat had tightened as she spoke and it took a long, hard swallow to clear it. Tara’s hand on her arm made her emotions swell again.

  “Your father?”

  Ricci let out a dry laugh. “Lucky guess.”

  Tara’s hand remained on her arm. “I started legal proceedings the day after I found out,” she said a few minutes later, drawing Ricci’s gaze to hers.

  Ricci nodded once in response. “Good. I think you’re worth more than what that woman can offer.” Tara searched her eyes, while Ricci internally panicked. What did she say that for? What did that even mean? Worth more than what? Being cheated on? Definitely. Beyond that, she didn’t even know this woman.

  “I only hope that’s true,” Tara said eventually.

  With a shy smile, Ricci stood, collecting plates and walked to the door. “Umm…goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Chapter Seven

  Odd Things and Gym Socks

  Friday. Finally.

  Crawling out of bed, Ricci ran through her to-do list. The apartment upstairs had taken up the bulk of her week, leaving her to neglect her superintendent duties. Today, she was planning to rectify that. After checking that Howie and Lawrence had the renovation under control, she started her list.

  Step one: Cleaning.

  Starting on the bottom and working her way up, Ricci vacuumed the laundry room, the gym, the lobby and the elevator. Following that with the mop, she waited for the lobby to dry as she tidied the gym.

  “Ew,” she mumbled, picking up a stray hand towel and someone’s damp socks. “Ew. Ew. Ew.” Judging from the bright-orange color, they had to be Roman’s. The teenage son of the Gothager’s that lived on the second floor, he was known for his buff body, his pierced face, and his love for bright clashing clothing. Dropping the socks into a bag, she continued to bop along to the music plugged into her ears, and thanked the inventor of rubber gloves as she tackled the small bathroom off the lap pool. She was looking forward to Valerie, her permanent cleaner, returning from maternity leave. Two months, and two weeks to go, she calculated as she noticed the date on the gym calendar.

  Sparkling and smelling lemon fresh, she sang the lyrics to her current favorite song, and backed out the room using the broom handle as a microphone. Then she screamed.

  “Miss Velez,” Tara said, rebalancing herself after being knocked into by Ricci and her energetic singing performance.

  Ricci yanked the ear plugs from her ears with a wince and quickly scanned Tara’s soaked outfit. Wearing a dark one piece, it left little room for imagination. Her shape was classic, her lines were tight, and her legs were long and bronze. She stood there like a model.

  Tara cleared her throat and Ricci endured another wave of mortal embarrassment at being caught staring. Clearing her throat and trying to avoid Tara’s eyes, she said, “You were swimming?”

  Tara raised her eyebrows at the question.

  Ricci blushed. “Well, obviously, but, you know, I didn’t see you.
Have you been there the whole time?”

  “If you mean, have I listened to you sing three songs at the top of your lungs as I did laps, then yes, I have.”

  Ricci shut her eyes and bit her lip. How desperately embarrassing. “I was cleaning.”

  “And polluting the air waves.” Tara looked around her. “I gather the bathroom is out of use?”

  Ricci narrowed her eyes at her. “My singing isn’t that bad, and, no, it’s not. Feel free to use it.” Ricci swept her arm across her body, gesturing to the bathroom door.

  “Thank you.”

  “Welcome.”

  Tara moved past her and closed the door. Ricci couldn’t help dipping her eyes to the woman’s backside, and was mortified once again when Tara caught her looking before the latch clicked.

  Ricci punished herself by scrubbing the laundry room to within an inch of its life.

  Ground floor: Done.

  Working her way skyward, Ricci had just finished dusting and vacuuming the fifth floor corridor when the elevator chimed. Assuming it was Tara, she quickly rushed to the small utility room and stacked away the cleaning equipment she had used in an effort to avoid another embarrassing encounter.

  She exited to find Mrs. Carter peering into the lock. “Mrs. Carter?”

  The woman leapt back with fright. “Oh! Ricci. I was…just looking for you.”

  Ricci frowned.

  “I heard what David did.” She shook her head. “What a horrible thing to do.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “He has clearly had a breakdown.”

  “Mmm.”

  Mrs. Carter made a show of shaking her head some more. “I was curious to know if I could collect the security deposit today.”

  Ricci blinked and raised her eyebrows. “The deposit?”

  “I figured, with the insurance and the charges and everything that I could collect on my family’s behalf. It’s hardly like David will need it in jail.”

  “Ah…Mrs. Carter, I’m afraid the deposit will be forfeited.”

  “I have paperwork to say otherwise.” Mrs. Carter pulled a document from her purse and handed it to Ricci. “You signed the apartment off on the twelfth.” She tapped Ricci’s signature. “David damaged it on the thirteenth. So, as you can see, we weren’t in control of the property when he took his unstable mental health out on it. Considering he has lost his mind, and has been charged with willful damage, then his claim on the money is no longer valid. I have paperwork that says as much. You owe me forty thousand dollars plus interest.”