The Woman Upstairs

by Camryn Eyde

  “Great.” Ricci hadn’t meant that to sound so despondent.

  The pair found themselves back at Ricci’s on the pretense of looking at designs. What they ended up doing instead, was sitting around the pseudo-fireplace with a glass of red wine in their hands.

  “So she really just turned up in the hotel room?”

  Tara nodded. “She did. I didn’t know whether to slap her or laugh myself silly.”

  Ricci giggled. The type of giggle only brought on by the imbuement of several wines. After sipping at her first glass, Ricci had tossed the loft plans to the coffee table and had bravely asked Tara about Zoe and the Bahamas. Her stomach knotted when the question initially came out, and disliked what that meant. Tara explained she had secured herself a separate room, and spent the entire two weeks avoiding Zoe’s advances.

  “She told you we were sorting things out?” Tara asked.

  “No, she said you were busy.” Ricci air-quoted herself. Her mirth slipped from her face when she recalled the feelings that incited. Anticipating a warm welcome, and maybe a stolen kiss on their path to become closer ‘friends’, she had been popped like a balloon. Instant, harsh, and irreversibly damaged. Ricci felt a hand slide over her knee, and she looked up to find Tara shaking her head.

  “I’m sorry she answered the door.”

  Ricci shrugged. “You’re entitled to have whoever you like answer your door.”

  “She wouldn’t have been my ideal choice. I didn’t even realize she’d helped herself to the bathroom I was that exhausted.” Tara squeezed her knee. “Rica, I’d really like for us to be friends again. Like we were.”

  “Just friends? Because I can’t—”

  “Just friends. I’m not putting any pressure on you.”

  “Sure. Why not. Friends it is.” Ricci stood with a sway and took her empty glass to the kitchen. What was it about a perfectly sensible decision that threw away her balance?

  “Rica.”

  “Mmm?” Ricci picked up the bottle and was disappointed to find nothing but a drip came out of it.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What for?” Ricci kept her back to Tara.

  “I know that I suggested something more intimate when I left. I meant it and I had every intention of following through with it. In light of current events, perhaps this is for the best.”

  Ricci turned, attempting to smile and wave the notion away. “I agree. I barely have time to see my friends let alone anything else.”

  Tara, who was standing, walked towards her. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, but with the divorce and Zoe—”

  “Seriously, Tara. Don’t even worry about it.” Ricci turned again and picked up her glass. The smile falling from her face. Why was this so hard? This was what she wanted…right? Putting the glass in the dishwasher, she faked a yawn. A yawn that became real as her exhaustion caught up with her.

  Tara placed her empty glass gently on the counter. “I think I should say goodnight and let you get some rest.”

  “Yeah. It’s getting late.” Ricci looked at her watch. It was nine o’clock. Seriously?

  Tara hummed. “Goodnight, Rica.”

  “Night.”

  When Tara closed the door behind her, Ricci took stock. A quick glance around her apartment clearly highlighted the neglect. Paper, blueprints, books and material samples lay scattered on every surface. Cushions lay on the floor where they’d been casually tossed to make room for piles of design magazines. The fruit in her basket had attracted a swarm of tiny flies, and if she were able to see through walls, she’d see the pile of dirty laundry, the unmade bed, and the chaos of the second bedroom. How had she let this get so bad?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Food, Growth, and The End

  It was inevitable, but Ricci’s mother found out about her new project in Midtown East. It was the downfall of having your brother act as your solicitor. Still, he was free despite his loose lips.

  It was a Saturday morning, and Ricci was slated to host the monthly family catch-up. Her mother had called the night before ranting about her new fix-it job, and Ricci had been so annoyed that she drank, stayed up late, and slept half the morning away. Frazzled, slightly seedy, and knowing she was going to be roasted, she had no choice but to call in reinforcements.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Ricci huffed. It was the second time she’d rapped on the door. She leaned her forehead against it and rued her luck. There was no way she was going to reheat one of her mother’s meals, or force the already aggravated woman into cooking their lunch. She wouldn’t hear the end of her inability to organize, and how she shucked her responsibilities to chase renovation dreams. Fix yourself, she had said. Ricci scoffed. “I don’t know how.”

  “Pardon?”

  Whirling around, Tara, the person she was looking to so save her hide, was walking out of the lift. Her hair was wet, and she had a baggy shirt draped over her thin shoulders. Clearly, she’d been swimming.

  “I’m desperate,” Ricci said, launching herself at the woman and grasping her shoulders.

  Tara stiffened. “Excuse me?” Tara reeled her head back on her neck and flicked her gaze to Ricci’s lips.

  “I need you. Please, can you help?”

  “Uh…”

  Ricci shook her gently. “Please. I’m screwed.”

  “What are you on about?”

  “My family. Saturday lunch. I have nothing ready.”

  Blinking, Tara relaxed as she caught up. “You want me to cook, don’t you?”

  Ricci nodded, and when Tara sighed with relief, she frowned. “Wait, what did you think I was talking about?”

  Clearing her throat, Tara extracted herself from Ricci’s grasp. “I really don’t know. You left the subject open to interpretation a thousand different ways.”

  Ricci replayed the conversation in her head and widened her eyes. “Oh. Oh.”

  Tara was chuckling when she looked back at Ricci. “Go downstairs, put the oven on three-fifty, and I’ll be down as soon as I change.”

  “Oh. Okay. Thanks.” In a daze, Ricci did as she was told before a fresh-smelling, damp-looking Tara arrived at her door. Her hair, still wet, was slicked back and perfumed with conditioner. Covering her, was a tight vest top with a flowing white see-through shirt over the top. The leggings finished off the relaxed look. Ricci had forgotten how young and worry-free she looked when dressed this way.

  “Are you going to move?”

  “Sorry.” Ricci stepped back from the doorway, allowing Tara and an assortment of supplies to enter.

  “The garden around the gazebo is looking good.”

  Ricci followed Tara’s gaze to the new structure in the garden. She had begun to fill the planter boxes she had made around the gazebo in preparation for spring. “Thanks.”

  “When is everyone arriving?”

  Ricci checked her watch. “An hour and a half.”

  Nodding, Tara emptied her bags. “Dice that,” she said, pushing an onion, knife and cutting board across to her.

  “Umm…okay.” Ricci managed to peel the confounded vegetable after several hard-fought minutes, but found it difficult to cut without removing her fingers in the process.

  “Do you go out of your way to be awkward, or is that a natural talent?”

  Ricci looked up at Tara. Her side of the counter was littered with vegetable scrapes, and a mound of diced food. “How did you do that so fast?”

  Tara shook her head and rounded the counter. “Here.” She stood behind Ricci and guided her hands. “It’s really not that hard,” she said, cutting the onion in half. “You don’t have to cut it whole.” The warmth at Ricci’s back was distraction, but considering Tara was helping her guide the knife, she concentrated as hard as she could not to slice herself. “Do little incisions like this, then turn it sideways and slice.”

  Following the instruction, Ricci soon found a perfectly diced pile of onion in front of her. She wiped her watery eyes. “Wow. That was…easy.”r />
  “Mmm.” Tara practically hummed into her ear. “If only everything was like that.”

  Tara moved away from her letting a wash of cool air flow down her back. Ricci shivered.

  “I see you’ve tidied up.”

  Ricci inspected her apartment. Since her realization a week ago about the abysmal state of her house, she had a two-day cleaning frenzy. “Yeah.” She looked back to Tara who was scooping vegetables into a roasting tray. “Where’d that come from?” she asked when she noticed a roasting rack complete with a leg of meat sitting on top.

  “I had planned to roast that tonight. Think yourself lucky it was thawed.”

  “Trust me I do. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

  Tara chuckled as she put everything in the oven. “Okay. You need to baste that in thirty minutes. Check the vegetables in forty-five, and pull the meat out to rest in seventy minutes.”

  Ricci nodded, then the need for the instructions caught up with her. “Wait. You’re not staying?”

  “I hadn’t planned to, no.”

  “What? Why?” Ricci looked nervously at the oven. “I can’t cook that.”

  “You don’t have to. The oven does that. All you need to do is take it out.”

  “I can’t. I’ll ruin it.”

  Tara sighed and walked around the counter to take Ricci’s hands. “Rica, stop panicking. There’s nothing you can do wrong. It’s just a matter of timing.”

  Ricci scoffed. “My timing is dreadful.”

  There was sadness in Tara’s smile. “Maybe so, but sometimes, it’s just right.” Tara rubbed her thumb across the back of Ricci’s hands.

  The women stood in front of one another lost in thought about the meaning of Tara’s words. Taking a deep breath and willing the butterflies in her stomach to get lost, Ricci said, “Stay.”

  “I don’t thi—”

  “Please. My mother loves you, and she will be up on murder charges if I let you cook lunch but not join us to eat it. Worse, she’ll disown me. Please stay?” Ricci found herself nibbling on her bottom lip. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. “You know…if you want. You don’t have to. I’ll understand if you need to—”

  “I’ll stay.”

  Ricci let out a rush of nervous air. “Good.”

  Gloria had entered the apartment like she was on a mission to find something to fault. Thanks to Ricci’s cleaning spree, the apartment was ship-shape, and gave her mother nothing to use as ammunition against her investment choices. It helped that Tara greeted her in Spanish and kept her engrossed in neutral conversation. Ricci played with her niece and shared a glass of wine with her sister-in-law while she watched for signs of an impending rant from her mother. None came.

  Tara’s meal was superb, and even Estevan kept quiet as he devoured the tasty morsels. Her brother, of course, ruined her happy mood as soon as the meal was finished.

  “So, how’s the derelict warehouse treating you?” he asked down the table.

  Ricci stiffened and glanced quickly at her mother. “It’s going well, thanks.”

  “Any investors so far?”

  She gave Estevan a fierce look asking him to drop the subject before answering. “A few, yes.”

  Her brother poked his tongue out. “See, Ma. She’s got it under control.”

  Gloria pushed her plate away. “Where is this warehouse and what does he mean, derelict?”

  Ricci took a deep breath. “Ma, it’s in the city, and it’s not derelict. It needs a little TLC is all.”

  “TLC? What’s this TLC?”

  “Tender loving care,” Estevan said with a wink.

  Gloria fixed her dark brown eyes on Ricci. “Meaning you will kill yourself fixing it. Right?”

  “No.”

  Gloria threw her hands up in the air and switched to Spanish. “It’s just like this place. You quit your job, lose your promotion, and for what? Three broken ribs and a year living off soup cans. Why must you do these things, Rica? Why?”

  Ricci ground her teeth together. “If you haven’t noticed, this place is a success.”

  “Then why are you always changing it?” She gestured through the window at the gazebo. “Is it not good enough?”

  “They’re called ongoing improvements.”

  Gloria scoffed. “When is it going to be enough for you?”

  “Look, Ma, this is my life, okay. This is what I enjoy doing.”

  “Enjoy.” Gloria scoffed. “No one is going to want this, mija. You’re so busy that you’re going to end up alone, and with nothing to show for it but a fancy warehouse and some apartments in the city. Is that what you want?”

  “Yes. It’s exactly what I want.”

  “That’s ridiculous. No one wants to be alone.”

  “I do!” Ricci stood, her chair crashing to the floor behind her. The noise startled everyone and did a fine job at stalling what was becoming an ugly argument.

  “Run along to Aunty Rica’s room, honey,” her sister-in-law said. “Go watch some TV.”

  Estella scampered away, pleased at the idea of watching the screen for once, and giving Ricci a chance to take a deep breath.

  “Ma, I’m happy with things the way they are. Just drop it. Please.”

  “How can you be happy with hammers and nails? They won’t warm your bed at night.”

  “Did it ever cross your mind to be proud of me? Huh? No, it didn’t, because you’re too busy worrying about me being single. Having a partner isn’t everything. I chose this life and I’m happy with it. I’m wealthy, I’m busy, and I have no intention of settling down because you want me to. Why should I? So I can do what you did? Sit back and let someone walk all over me my entire life? I have no intentions of being a doormat.” Everyone gasped and Ricci bit down hard on her tongue. She hadn’t meant to go so far. “Ma, I’m sor—”

  “You don’t speak to me that way.” Her mother’s voice was low, quiet and laced with danger.

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “Your father…I loved him.”

  Ricci started to shake her head. “Ma, you don’t—”

  “I know he wasn’t perfect, but that didn’t matter to me. What mattered was the way I felt. You’ll understand, mija, when you find that someone that you can’t live without. That someone that gets under your skin and makes you itch for them.”

  Ricci couldn’t stop the drift of her eyes to Tara, and was startled to see the woman looking back at her. Ricci quickly averted her eyes.

  “Your heart is a complicated thing, and it takes time to understand. All I want for you, Rica, is a chance to experience the joys it can bring. I promise you it’s worth all the heartache that might come.”

  Ricci scoffed quietly to herself. She couldn’t imagine how it would be worth it. Why would giving someone that much power be a good thing?

  “Believe me, I understand,” Tara whispered back to her.

  Ricci looked up, realizing she had said that aloud. As she looked into those understanding blue eyes, she found understanding in herself. Tara already had the power. By the simple action of her ex answering the door, Ricci’s heart had caved in with disappointment and an ache without reason shadowed her since. “Shit,” she whispered.

  Tara’s eyebrows twitched together as her mother chastised her for swearing.

  She needed to run. She wasn’t okay with being ‘just friends’. She wanted it all. “God damn shit.” Walking around her fallen chair, and striding to the door after snatching her keys and a coat. “I need to go.”

  The instant she started her pick-up truck, Ricci had no idea where she was headed. Alicia was off having a romping weekend with Keddy. She had no intentions of lobbing herself on Howie or Lawrence’s door, and she was definitely avoiding Fiona and co. Out of friends, and options, she drove to her new procurement, opening the garage doors and securing her car inside the space that would soon become apartments.

  She lost track of time as hammered her way through the remnants of shelves, make-shift walls and storag
e space. Making good progress and happy in denial, she smashed down the last frame before dropping her sledgehammer and panting. She wiped the sweat from her brow and collapsed against the hood of her car. There, she found her mind turn back again to her apartment, and the reason she had run away. Tara. She had invaded her space, been a thorn in her side, and somehow, became important. Too important. In the run-up to Christmas, Ricci was in blissful ignorance for her feelings for Tara. Happy in friendship, but always wishing for more to sate her libido, she was granted her dream only to have Zoe pop her bubble. Zoe’s rude interference woke Ricci to the stark reality of what she had become: a love-sick fool.

  Moaning, she rubbed her hands over her face and forced her mind away from Tara. Focusing on her mother, she ran through forty-three ways her mother was going to punish her for her backtalk. Working on number forty-four, she heard a bang on the garage door that made her squeal in fright.

  The door banged again.

  Cowling down, she peered at the large metal entry-way and ran through scenarios of criminals and thugs prepared to make her day worse than it already was.

  “Rica!”

  Ricci frowned. Since when do robbers call her name before enacting their crime?

  “Rica! I know you’re in there.”

  “Tara?” Ricci whispered, climbing down from the hood.

  The garage door was hit again by what could only be Tara’s fist. “Rica! Open up!”

  “I’m sorry, we’re closed for viewing,” Ricci said when she was close enough to the door. She heard Tara sigh in what could have been relief.

  “Ricci, please let me in.”

  “I want to be alone.”

  “Maybe so, but it’s dark out here and I’m getting the evil eye from a stray dog.”

  Contemplating that for a moment, she soon pulled on the chain that allowed the door to raise, and gave Tara enough room to scuttle under.

  “Thank you.”

  “Why are you walking the streets alone?” Ricci asked, peering under the door and seeing no sign of a car or a cab.

  “Your brother dropped me off.”

  “And left you? What if I wasn’t here?”