Loose Screws

by Karen Templeton

  “I can’t believe you won’t be living across the hall anymore,” Alyssa says, sidling up next to me. Her mouth is all twisted up. “That so totally sucks.”

  I sling one arm around her slender waist, pull her to me. “I know. But we can still get together, you know. Wherever I live.”

  She eyes me speculatively. “You mean that?”

  “Of course I do.”

  She wanders back out into the living room; I give the guys a what-was-that-all-about look. Ted sighs.

  “Her mom’s got a real bug up her butt about something recently. New boyfriend or something, never seems to have time for her own daughter. And Lyssa’s at that age when she’s beginning to have all these what’s-going-on-in-my-body questions, and worrying about boys, and I can tell she doesn’t think I could possibly know anything about boy-girl relationships.”

  I smile. “Well, do you?”

  “More than I’d like to, honey, believe me. But anyway, back to you, since Mr. Randall here seems to think that denial is healthy—”

  “Screw you,” Randall mouths. Ted ignores him.

  “—I can’t do anything about the job, that’s true. And God knows, I wouldn’t begin to try to sort out your love life. But let’s put our heads together about the apartment situation—oh, God!” He smacks his palm against his forehead. “I am so slow today! Jerzy told me Mrs. Krupcek’s place will be ready to show tomorrow or Wednesday, if I knew anyone who was interested. And I bet he could swing it so you wouldn’t even have to put down a deposit.”

  For a couple hundred bucks’ finder’s fee, our super has been known to give the head’s up when one of the apartments becomes available. This suits everyone, since his little service saves the brokers the trouble of listing—

  Realization dawns.

  “Whoa, hold on—what happened to Mrs. Krupcek?”

  Ted looks up, frowning. “You didn’t hear? She died. A week ago, something like that.”

  Tears pop out of my eyes. “She died? Mrs. Krupcek died?”

  This is far too many dead people in one day.

  “She was ninety-eight, honey,” Ted says gently. “She went in her sleep.”

  “Ninety-eight?”

  “Yep. And healthy as a damn horse up until the very end.”

  “Oh.” I let out a shuddering sigh. Well, that’s not so bad. Besides, I don’t think I exchanged ten words with the woman since I moved in, so it’s not as if this is a personal loss. But still. “Who…who found her?”

  “Her granddaughter. When she came to check on her that morning. Anyway, it’s a one-bedroom, which would be nice, but since it’s in the back, it probably won’t cost you any more than what you’re paying now. So you should go ask Jerzy. Tonight, preferably. Okay, let’s eat.”

  See? Without even trying, things were beginning to get back to normal.

  “Did you just say three thousand a month?”

  “And it is steal at that, you should grab it, I already have five other people asking me about it.” Jerzy grins, showing me his gold tooth. I have no idea how old this man is. Forty? Sixty? Hard to tell with the dyed hair. “But I give you first crack because I like you.”

  I ignore that. Jerzy leers at anything with boobs. Or reasonable facsimiles thereof.

  “Let me get this straight—you’re telling me three thousand bucks a month for an apartment that gets approximately five minutes of sunlight a day?”

  “Hey, you want sunlight, move to New Mexico.”

  Everybody’s a smartass, sheesh.

  “Two thousand,” I say.

  He laughs.

  I bite my lip. I have no job. I have no idea if, when, or where I’ll find one. But I’ve looked at the ads—got a paper when I went to the store to buy five different kinds of dog food in the hopes that Geoff would eat at least one of them—and I know what rentals are like. I also know there are plenty of idiots who’d sell their souls to the devil for the privilege of having a bedroom door.

  “Twenty-five hundred.”

  “Miss Petrocelli, please do not embarrass yourself like this. I do not set the rents. I only pass along information I am given by manager. T’ree t’ousand, take it or leave it. Although, for you, because you are so nice—” another gold-plated leer “—I reduce my fee from t’ree hundred to two seventy-five.”

  “It’s too dark, anyway,” I say, and walk away.

  Geoff is waiting for me when I get back to the apartment, ears pricked hopefully. I toss my keys onto the counter and sink onto the sofa beside him. “I didn’t get it,” I say, and he lays his chin on my knee with a little whine of sympathy.

  This is going to be tricky. I have two weeks to find both a job and an apartment. And without a job, it’s going to be damn tricky to land an apartment. But I am a plucky little thing, if I do say so myself, and I’m not going down without a fight.

  So I call Terrie, figuring I’d fill her in on the events of my day as quickly as possible, since God knows I do not wish to rehash them any more than necessary. Only I no sooner get started than she goes, “You know, just once it might be nice if you ask how somebody else is doing before you go layin’ your whole sorry life on a person’s head, you know?”

  Then she hangs up.

  And that really freaks me out, because she’s never done anything like that before. I almost call her back, except I realize I am on serious crisis overload right now and am in no fit shape to help anybody deal with theirs.

  So then I call Shelby, only Mark answers and says, in what sounds like a tight voice only I can’t quite tell because one of the kids is screaming in the background, that she’s gone for a walk—at 8:00 p.m.—as if that’s a perfectly normal thing for Shelby to do. He’ll have her call me back, he says, clearly not interested in my plight—even though I haven’t had a chance to tell him I have a plight—then he hangs up.

  Then Terrie calls back, all apologetic, saying she had a really awful day at work (she’s a financial adviser and when you hear the headline, “Stocks fell today in the aftermath of…” you would do well to give her a wide berth) and she’s still all messed up about what happened between her and Shelby, but if I feel like talking, she’s there. Now, my options are, saying, no, no, it’s okay, we can talk another time, or taking advantage of her feeling guilty for blowing me off before.

  I am so bad. But I am also sure she will provide me with ample opportunity to make it up to her in the future.

  I cut to the chase.

  “Brice was found murdered this morning in front of the offices so I don’t have a job and Annie’s moving back to New York so I have to be out of the apartment in two weeks, and I think Nick’s trying to hit on me only he has a girlfriend and I don’t really want to get involved with anybody else, not right now anyway, and especially not Nick.”

  I swear I had no idea that last part was even lurking in my brain, let alone poised to fly out of my mouth. Good God.

  “Nick? Nick who?”

  “Wojowodski. You know, from my cousin Paula’s wedding?”

  “Broom closet Nick?”

  “Yep.”

  After a lengthy pause Terrie says, “Kinda took him a while to get around to calling you, didn’t it?”

  So I bring her up to date.

  “Oh,” she says, only then there’s another really long pause. Then I hear, “You know what really burns my butt? Here I’m thinking I’m fully and completely justified in feeling like shit, but then you come along and shoot that notion all to hell.” She sighs. “Jesus have mercy, girl—what else can happen to you?”

  “Oh, I forgot. I got a dog.”

  I hear her laugh. It’s not a joyful sound, though. “And how did you manage that?”

  So I tell her, ending with, “And I’ve always been a sucker for brown eyes.”

  “Uh-huh. And what color are Nick’s eyes?”

  Didja notice which item on my list she honed right in on?

  “Blue.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s something.”

&n
bsp; “Yeah, well, unfortunately, I’ve always been a sucker for blue eyes, too.”

  I hear a loud sigh, then a scraping sound, like a chair being dragged across the floor or something. “Okay, let’s take this one item at a time. So, since we’re on the Nick subject, we’ll start there. Now you say he was hitting on you?”

  “Well…” Now I’m embarrassed. “I don’t suppose he was really hitting on me…”

  “Honey, if you can’t tell, you really are out of the loop.”

  “Terrie, I’ve never been in the loop.”

  “This is true. Okay, so what’d he do or say to make you think he was?”

  “He, um…”

  “Yeeesssss?”

  “He asked me if I’d like to get a cup of coffee or something sometime.”

  Silence.

  “So,” I say, feeling the need to get things moving since I’m about to self-destruct, “what do you think that means?”

  “That he needed a caffeine jolt?”

  “Oh, come on…you don’t honestly believe that?”

  “No, I suppose not. And you say he has a girlfriend?”

  “The kind that keeps him u-um, that keeps him awake until 4:00 a.m.”

  “In that case, I’d definitely nix the coffee. Except…”

  “What?”

  “Well, if the only reason—besides the girlfriend, I mean—you’re not going out with him is because you’re waiting around for Greg to come back—”

  “I wouldn’t be going out with him. Out is a movie or dinner or clubbing or something. I may not be clear on whether or not a cup of coffee qualifies as a sexual overture, but I sure as hell know it isn’t out. I do have that much figured out.”

  “You do, huh?”

  “Yes, I do,” I aver with a faux confidence I’ve fine-honed over the years. “And this has nothing to do with Greg.”

  “You sure of that?”

  “Sure I’m sure.”

  “Girl, you lie like a rug.”

  I remind myself that I walked right into this one. “For crying out loud, Terrie—it’s only been ten days since the wedding! Besides, what kind of man tries to pick up a woman after questioning her as part of a murder investigation?”

  “A horny one?”

  “Remember the girlfriend?”

  “And maybe he’s just telling you that to throw you off the scent. You ever see this so-called girlfriend?”

  “Well, no, but…”

  “You know,” she says as if I do when she knows damn well I don’t know bupkiss, “some men do that. Pretend to have a girlfriend so they can sneak past your barriers without you even knowing it.”

  I frown. “I don’t think Nick would do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know, I just don’t. Because he’s family. And who the hell’s side are you on, anyway?”

  “My own. So what was this about Brice getting murdered?”

  I’m used to abrupt subject changes with Terrie, but even I find this one a bit jarring.

  “Are we finished talking about Nick?”

  “Yes. So…?”

  So I tell her what I knew about that, too. Which wasn’t much. Although I linger a bit on the not-having-a-job part.

  “I could get you on here,” she says.

  “Where, here? In your financial consulting dealie?” I laugh. “Doing what?”

  “You type, don’t you?”

  “You are kidding, right?”

  “Yes, baby, I’m kidding. So. You have any idea what you’re going to do?”

  “Wait to hear from the accountant, go down to unemployment, go look for a job.”

  “Well, at least you’ve got a plan.”

  “You betcha.”

  “You start looking for a new place yet?”

  Considering I just found out this afternoon, this question might seem weird to anyone who doesn’t live in New York. Apartment hunting in Manhattan is an activity that consumes the hunter’s every waking moment until the new lease is signed.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.” I tell her about Mrs. Krupchek. Terrie lets out a low whistle, then says, “Well, you sure as hell can’t come live with me. I’ve just got the one bedroom…”

  “I don’t want to live with you. I don’t want to live with anybody. I like living by myself.”

  I can hear the sigh of relief on the other end of the line. Then Terrie says, “Look…there’s a guy at work who swears by this broker who found him this fabulous place in Inwood Park for like next to nothing.”

  “Inwood Park?” The northernmost tip of Manhattan. Any further north and you’re in the Bronx. And “next to nothing” is a relative concept in Manhattan.

  “There are still some great deals up there,” Terrie says. But then, she lives in Washington Heights, which is just below Inwood Park. I get nosebleeds when I go up there to visit her. The thought of living even farther away from Bloomie’s makes my ears ring.

  “Inwood Park, huh?”

  “And the Heights. I think he goes up as far as Riverdale, too.”

  “Bully for him.”

  After a moment of what I take for annoyed silence, Terrie says, “How much money you got in the bank?”

  I tell her.

  “Uh-huh. And just how far do you think that’s gonna stretch when it comes time to shell out for deposit and first and last month’s rent and broker’s fees and new bathroom rugs and shit? And you with no job, to boot. So it seems to me you can’t afford—literally—to be too fussy.” She pauses. “Unless you want to move back in with your mother.”

  My heart jolts. “Oh, that’s low, Terrie. Even for you.”

  “Woke you up, though, didn’t it?”

  True. I would live in hell before moving back in with my mother. Which would be the same thing, now that I think about it.

  “Anyway, Julio swears by this broker. I’ll get his name for you.”

  After we hang up, I realize there is no air in the apartment, even with both the windows open and the fan going. Geoff has abandoned the couch for the middle of the tiled kitchen floor, where he lies, panting and looking at me as if to say, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

  “Yeah, well, you could be lying next to your poop, you know.”

  With a little groan, he lays his head between his paws.

  Day 3 of the Great Apartment Quest. The broker has sent me out to look at four places. Two had been rented before I got there, one looked like a set for the film Independence Day after the alien invasion, and the fourth one, which I actually kind of liked, was five hundred more a month than he’d said.

  And, having finally reached Max Sheffield, Brice’s accountant, after two days of trying, I have been halfheartedly job hunting as well, since, yes, Max confirmed Brice’s will specifically ordered the business to be dissolved after his death. He couldn’t tell me much more than that, other than he and the lawyer were working as quickly as they could to sort it all out, that they’d get whatever money was coming to us just as soon as they could.

  Ever since, I’ve been trying to convince myself that I hadn’t heard a smidgen of worry in Max’s voice, but I haven’t been terribly successful. I did, however, inform Max that I had Geoff, so the lawyer could get in touch with me to arrange handing over the dog to whoever Brice wanted to have him.

  No news on that front, either.

  Nor has there apparently been any further progress with the murder investigation itself. Last I heard, which was the five o’clock news, the police were still asking for anyone with information to come forward, but thus far, all the leads they’d had had fizzled out. I can’t help imagining how annoyed and frustrated Nick must be. I mean, I know most murder investigations are time-consuming and frustrating, but I never had a personal stake in one before. Well, stake is too strong a word, I suppose. Interest, then. I keep thinking I want to help, somehow, which is totally insane, mainly because I’m the least analytical person I know. It used to really get my goat, when Greg and I would watch a
movie and he’d figure out the mystery within the first half hour, while I’d still have trouble understanding what had happened after it was all over.

  Speaking of Greg and mysteries, still nothing. Phyllis called to chat yesterday, just to find out how I was holding up after she heard about Brice’s murder. I hemmed and hawed, did the “everything’s fine” routine, even though the woman isn’t stupid. How could I possibly be fine, after losing a fiancé and a job in less than two weeks? I didn’t tell her about the apartment, though. There didn’t seem to be much point. In any case, if she knew anything about Greg’s whereabouts, she didn’t volunteer, and I didn’t ask. After she hung up, she probably wondered why she’d bothered calling.

  Of course, my mother called, too, the first time on Monday night, after the news broke. The first minute of the conversation was spent listening to her berate me for not calling her right away. I did more hemming and hawing, alluding to my being busy. And no, there is no way I’m telling her I’m looking for a new place. I’ll call her from the new apartment after I’ve moved in. Otherwise, she’ll not only insist on tramping all over Manhattan helping me look, but will, the entire time, make noises about wasting money, yadayadayada, when I could be living with her.

  What else? Oh, I think Terrie and Shelby have somewhat reconciled, or at least so Shelby said when she finally called me back on Tuesday evening. She didn’t sound too happy about it, however. Like she was too tired to care. Think the kids are beginning to wear her down.

  So, that pretty much catches us up. Other than I’m sick of hearing chipper weather people tossing out phrases like “record-breaking heat wave” and “no rain for the forseeable future.” Which, loosely translated, means eight million cranky, gritty bodies trying desperately not to make contact as they mill about through a snot-colored haze during the day and across sidewalks still griddle-hot at midnight. I nearly lost a good shoe yesterday when the asphalt at Lex and 83rd swallowed my heel. And lemme tell ya, you haven’t lived until you’ve had taxi drivers swear at you in a dozen languages.