by Nancy Adams
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I feel like I do. I want us to fully—“
But I was cut off by my alarm going off again.
“Ah!” Josh pronounced. “The second alarm. That means I’m expected back in the kitchen like a good househusband.”
He kissed me once more on the head, before returning to the kitchen and making me scrambled eggs on toast. Meanwhile, I went to the bathroom and showered. When I emerged in my towel, Josh was setting out our little dining table, all three square feet of it, with my breakfast. In the center was a Coca-Cola bottle stuffed with bluebells that he’d picked, or rather stolen, from the next-door neighbor’s window-box. He would stretch his body dangerously out of the kitchen casement, dangle himself across, only his legs remaining inside, and pluck the flowers. I wasn’t really cool with him stealing the old lady’s flowers, but I appreciated the effort, as well as the danger, involved in hanging out the window to retrieve them.
“Breakfast is served, m’lady,” Josh said with a sweep of his hand.
Holding out my chair as I seated myself, he then disappeared into the kitchen for his own breakfast, before returning and taking the seat opposite around the cramped table. When I began cutting through my toast, the thing wobbled slightly and Josh got off his chair, down onto his knees and began repositioning the folded cardboard that was under two of the legs.
“That’s better,” he exclaimed when he bent himself back up.
“Do you think it’s the floor?” I inquired when he had. “Because every morning we have to reposition those pieces of cardboard.”
“I hope it’s not the floor. The last thing I want is to wake up one morning in the apartment below!”
“I’m with you there.”
We ate breakfast, and then I got dressed while Josh cleaned up. When he’d finished, he strolled up behind me as I did my hair in the mirror, and laid his strong hands upon my nimble hips, kissing the nape of my neck as he did. While he held me, he gazed over my shoulder at our reflection.
“My word, Sarah Dillinger,” he announced in his warm voice, “if you aren’t the most precious beauty in all of God’s great kingdom.”
A beaming smile radiated from my lips and spread down my whole body, which lay in his delicate but powerful hands. His earlier request that I should call in sick came floating back to my ears and I almost said to heck with it. But I stayed firm and let it pass. Once I’d finished with my hair, Josh spun me around so that we faced each other and kissed me softly upon the lips.
“I really don’t know how I’m gonna survive without you all day,” he said at the end of the kiss.
“You’ll have Charlie for company.”
He grimaced and replied, “Not the same. Not the same.”
Now that I was ready, he walked me down to my car, handing me the packed lunch that he’d made the night before. We kissed through the open driver’s side window and he watched me drive from the lot, my own eyes glancing up in the mirror at his waving figure as I left for the day. I always felt so gosh-darn special every morning when I’d leave, and, once I’d turned the corner, I would always give a sidelong look at the packed lunch sitting on the passenger seat, knowing that he’d made it with love just for me.
JOSH
I watched her car leave, like always, and felt something depart from me at the sight of it disappearing around the corner. With a heavy sigh, I returned to our lonely cabinet of an apartment, hoping that the neighbors would leave off their dramas for this morning so that I could concentrate on studying. Charlie was due to come around at twelve and we planned to finish the decorating, so I only had three-and-a-half hours study. As for the kid, his leg casts were off and he was walking easily on crutches. Like me, he too was set to return to college in a month.
Seated at the dining table, I had about an hour’s peaceful study before the family living to the left of us, the Willis family, began their late morning battle, which would invariably rumble on throughout the day if the pack of mother, father and two teenage sons was kept together. There appeared so much anger and resentment in that house, although I never heard it turn physically violent. This morning, I was thankful to hear the slamming of their front door after only five minutes of fighting, and realized that the husband was off to work, meaning the removal of the mother’s prime target, the poor man being forced to exist within an ongoing fight to the death by verbal savagery.
Next-door having calmed itself down, I got my head back into the boring world of corporate financial regulations and attempted to cram all the dancing lines of words into my head. I was getting much better, able to test myself successfully, and was beginning to feel the true business student. I’d made up my mind to say to hell with Dad; I would find my own way in the corporate world and become my own man. Often, when my head was stuck in the clouds, I imagined creating a company bigger than my father’s and watching his face as I crushed him in some hostile takeover, leaving him to walk away with just his clothes. Of course this was pure fantasy, but the thought gave me a little taste of pleasure all the same.
It was as I sat at the table with my head in a book that the doorbell went and I instinctively checked the time on my phone. It was eleven, at least an hour before Charlie was due. Shrugging, I went to the intercom and answered.
“It’s Holman,” came the familiar gravely tones of my father’s man.
“What do you want?”
“I got your mail for you.”
This was a little odd. So far, it had been the canned-meat figure of Holmes that had always brought my mail and books over to me. The presence of Holman placed a certain level of foreboding onto my shoulders.
“You been demoted?” I wanted to know. “Why didn’t you just send B like usual?”
“Because maybe I wanted to see how you are.”
“Well, I’m fine,” I said curtly. “Now, if you look to the left of the door you’ll see the mailbox for apartment 23. If you just pop the mail into the slot, I can come down and get it later.”
“Come on, kid. I just wanna talk for a bit. See what your new place is like. The building looks shitty.”
“It is shitty. But it’s also affordable until things get better. Once I’m done with college, we’ll move to better facilities. For now, shitty will do.”
“You still studying hard?”
I sighed out loud. His persistence was boring me.
“Is this dynamic gonna go on forever?” I asked.
“If you let me in, we can have this conversation inside.”
As I closed my eyes, another sigh escaped my lips, and I thought about his request. I was still pissed at him, almost more than I was with Dad. When he’d struck me in the name of my father, I’d felt betrayed, even though I knew it was always meant to be. He was, after all, my father’s man. Nevertheless, with our history, I thought that I had Holman’s heart rather than merely his mind; I thought I had his loyalty. Lying on that floor after he’d winded me, I felt as though I’d been terribly deceived by him all these years.
Now, as I stood by the intercom, those years came floating back to me, and because of them—because that inner child in me still wished to have the old fucker see my place, no matter how dingy it was—I pressed the button and invited him up.
When he stooped his big frame into the apartment, his eyes gave a furtive look around.
“I see you’re still decorating,” he commented as he knelt down to take his shoes off.
“Grab a brush if you want,” was all I said to this, and he just grinned.
Once he was standing again, he removed a large brown envelope and a couple of letters from his jacket pocket and handed them to me.
“What’s this?” I asked, feeling the large envelope.
“Don’t open it yet. I wanna talk to you first.”
“You’re not gonna try and convince me to come back, because you’d be wasting your time.”
“No, nothing like that. I just wanna have a chat first is all.”
We both took a seat on the sofa, the bed now folded up, he on one end, me the other. With the two of us being pretty big, it only left about a foot gap between us. We must’ve made a comical picture all squeezed up on that tiny thing.
“First, I wanna say sorry,” he said once his colossal body had sunk into the cushions.
“Whatever.”
“Don’t be petulant. I want you to know that if there had’ve been any other choice I wouldn’t have floored you like that.”
“Well, don't worry. I went easy on you last time. You know; because of your age.”
This made his crooked face chuckle.
“I guess,” he chortled in his bass voice. “But, still, don’t think it was easy for me to hit you. You kinda gave me no choice by striking your father, and you know I can't allow that. Plus, by the looks of you, you were ready to flatten the poor guy. And, as rich and powerful as he is, your old man ain’t no fighter.”
“No, he’s always had some other asshole to do his fighting for him.”
Again his mouth widened.
“I take it that was an indirect dig at me?” he inquired through his wide teeth.
“Obviously…asshole!”
Holman shook his head, wagging his grin from side to side.
However, once he’d finished his chuckling, we found ourselves with nothing further to talk about, and a shroud of silence prevailed for a moment or two. That was until Holman slapped his thigh and announced that it was time to get to the nitty-gritty.
“You need to open the envelope with your college insignia marked on it,” he stated. “I haven’t read it, but I know what’s in there.”
My guts turned to water and the room shrank around me at the mention of a letter from college. Urged on by my trepidation, I tore open the envelope, plucked out the letter and immediately started to read. Only a few sentences in, my heart dissolved into water along with my stomach. I won’t give it to you word for word, but the meat of the thing was that my college financing had been stopped, my father pulling the plug on it, and, unless I could cover the bill for my studies within the next month, I wouldn't be returning to college for the foreseeable future. The amount needed was thirty-three thousand dollars. I instantly shrunk with the room.
“What the fuck!?” I muttered breathlessly.
Holman let out a withered sigh and began explaining:
“Your old man has cut all your finances, including college. I personally didn't think he’d sink this low and even tried to change his mind. But you know how stubborn he is.”
“But it was all I had. What the fuck am I going to do now?”
I was almost in tears, glaring down at the despicable letter grasped in my hand. Then, as my sorrow soared, a furious anger overtook it like a rocket and my hand crumpled the paper up into my fist. The whole of my body went rigid and, having felt a softening toward Holman only a minute ago, I turned to him and ordered him to get out.
“Kid, don't go crazy,” he pleaded, his eyes glowing tenderly. “That’s why I’m here. I want you to open the large envelope.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the money you need. You give it to Sarah and get her to put it into a savings account in her name. Then what you do is—”
“More clandestine secrets behind my father’s back?” I bellowed at him. “More of that shit, huh? Don't you think you’ve been caught out enough?”
“Kid, it’s my way of helping you. I don’t want to see you burned for good in all this. I believe in you. I think you’ll complete your studies—”
“GET OUT!” I snapped. “Get out and don’t ever come back.”
With that I threw the large envelope on the floor, not even bothering to open it.
“Kid, you’re making a huge mistake,” he said, getting up from the sofa.
“No, you are if you think I’ll accept your money. You chose your side: his. You stay to that side, then at least you know where you stand—a twenty-four-karat piece of shit. You stay there with him, standing behind his chair. I wouldn’t want to jeopardize your iniquitous position in this world by alleviating your conscience. You take your money and you fuck off.”
“Please, kid,” he said imploringly, his moist eyes looking so out of place on his solid granite face.
“Holman, I wouldn’t wanna have to force you to hit me again,” I let out in a seething voice, both my fists screwed up at my sides.
“Okay,” was all he said as he retrieved the envelope and left the apartment.
When he had, I sat there a while longer, a terrible rage enveloping my body, throwing me into a pit of madness, the whole room cast in red as the blood boiled away in my veins, rising up like the froth of an angry ocean. But, in the midst of this storm, I held myself firm, closed my eyes tight and held within my mind the image of Sarah, of her emerald eyes gazing benevolently at me, her timid face, her freckled, porcelain hand taking me gently by the cheek and pulling me into her soft, forgiving bosom. I drifted away with this image, mixed in as it was with my olfactory memories of her scent, the feel of her skin, her chest breathing delicately under my cheek, the sound of her cooing shushes washing over me. My fists uncoiled, my blood cooled and the sinews of my body let go, the red mist dissipating.
I opened my eyes and merely sat there for an unknowable amount of time, attempting to come to terms with the great catastrophe that had just befallen me. I’d feared its happening, that Dad would pull my college funding, but had optimistically chosen to believe that my father wouldn’t stoop so low as to deprive his own flesh and blood of the chance of education. However, my father meant business and, in his usual business manner, he had destroyed me. I began to wonder if I was a fool for having turned down Holman’s offer. But it was too late now. I’d done it, and I certainly wasn’t the type to go back with my tail between my legs and beg for money.
In truth, I had no idea what I was going to do from now on and was deeply worried about telling Sarah. In everything that had happened this last month, she had always assured me that all I needed to worry about was graduating college, that at least I had a purpose. Now that purpose was gone and I was really scared what she’d think of me. There was no longer any light at the end of the tunnel; it had been blotted out in one fell swoop of a treacherous father. I had a month to revive my studies by getting hold of thirty-three grand. At the moment, I was incapable of getting together thirty-three dollars in that time and knew that Sarah certainly had no access to that much money.
No. I was royally fucked and my mind filled up with a quandary of nothingness, my future both bleak and unknowable.
SARAH
I drove straight to court from the apartment, as it was the third hearing on the Miller case today. Once I parked up, I went and found my father, as well as Karl and Paul Holcher upstairs in the courtroom lobby. I greeted them all, my father giving me his trademark hug and kissed cheek, Paul with an enthusiastic ‘Hi,’ and Karl with a dejected nod. Though we’d done well with being professional these past weeks, Karl was still as cold as ever, and this hadn’t improved since I’d moved into the apartment with Josh.
We convened for a few minutes, going through things, and the lobby began to fill with many of the tenants we were representing, including Theresa, who hugged me warmly when we greeted. Today the court would be hearing statements from the tenants on their experiences living in the Miller building. The news of our case had spread like wildfire through the building and instead of the mere twenty we needed, we now had a total of fifty-three separate clients from the place. Soon, the hallway was abuzz with their chattering, and this continued all the way up until we were called into court.
Seating myself at the front alongside my father, Karl and Paul, I awaited the entrance of the three judges who were on the panel. Behind us, the tenants began filling up the courtroom, until there were only a few spare seats to be had. While we waited, Langley Holdings’ defense team of five came filing in; all expensive suits and smug looks. They were the face of corporate
law and looked on us ‘little people’ with utter contempt. In their conceited smirks appeared to be a knowing, an arrogance that foretold that they didn’t think we had a chance, whether we had fifty-three souls complaining today or fifty-three million.
It wasn’t long before we all stood as the presiding judges entered and the show began. One after the other, the tenants took the stand, swore on the Holy Bible and told their stories. What followed was a series of angered complaints, the plaintiffs ranging in the severity of their emotions. We’d spent much of the past two weeks coaching them in how to approach it, to keep everything simple and don’t get carried away with their emotions. But this is easier said than done when you’ve grown so exasperated by the constant injustice of your situation.
“I moved into the building about four years ago and immediately complained to the landlord,” one middle-aged woman was saying, “that the boiler was leaking. It took them two months to send someone over and he wasn’t even a qualified plumber…” Another went, “I’m eighty-seven years old and I ain’t got no family. I’ve lived at the Miller building for forty-six years and it used to be a good place. But since Langley took over fifteen years ago, the place has fallen into utter decay…” “I tell ya,” the red face of a particularly aggrieved male tenant blasted, “I’ve had to raise four kids in that fleapit of a place. Four. And they’ve suffered no end of shi…bad stuff as a result. Like my boy Kevin for instance, he used to be on the school basketball team, but now he can hardly tie his shoelaces before he’s outta breath. And what have Langley done about the mold and the damp? Nothin’…” “Three years ago the mechanism that locks the front doors broke,” a tearful young woman said in a timid voice. “Langley sent someone out and they said they needed to get parts. But they never came back, no matter how much we complained that it was dangerous to leave the place open all day. Last year I was attacked when I came home from work. He was standing in the hallway, but I couldn’t see him because all the lights have been broken so long. The man…he…”
