by Ivy Smoak
Really, he should have known I was coming. He was stalking me after all. Maybe he wanted me to hit him with the door. No. It was an accident. All of it was a terrible, hopefully anonymous accident. Please don’t have seen me.
I exited the stairwell into the second-floor hallway and pressed my back against the wall. It felt like my heart was beating out of my chest. Why did I have to be me? If Chastity had run into him like that, she would have known just what to say. She would have apologized and seductively licked the pie off his face or taken off her shirt and used it to clean up the mess. And then they would have gone back to his place for a change of clothes. And fallen in love. It could have been the perfect meet-cute, but I had ruined it. I’d even laughed in his face. Why in God's name had I done that?
Maybe it's not too late! I could still go back and apologize. I could play it off like I had run away to find him a towel. I looked around for a cleaning cart. Those things were always stocked with fresh towels. But there were no carts to be found. The hallway was empty except for a statuesque blonde in a stylish maroon pantsuit approaching.
I sized her up. There was no way I was going to ruin my beautiful panda shirt with blueberry filling, but if I could trick her into giving me her blazer...
No, that wouldn't work. I could hardly talk to strangers, much less convince them to give me their clothes. The only option was to sacrifice my own. I looked down at my favorite panda shirt. It would be a crime to get blueberry filling on such a finely crafted garment. And it would also literally be a crime for me to strip down to my bra in the stairwell. If the police weren't already hot on my trail after the Dr. Lyons incident, stripping in One57 would lead them right to me.
"Raven Black?" asked the woman.
"It wasn't me!" I screamed. She was either an FBI agent coming to arrest me on rape charges, or she was a member of my stalker's personal security detail. Either way, I was screwed.
"You're not Raven Black?" she asked.
I looked to either side for an escape route. "That depends. Who are you?"
"Frankie. Frankie Underwood." She gave me a huge smile and offered me her hand.
"Ha. No way. Frankie Underwood is supposed to be a big strong man with a nine-inch penis. I'm not into girls." Was being a lesbian on the list of expected behaviors? No. It definitely was not. Oh my God, had I just said all that out loud? Had hitting my stalker with a door made me lose my mind?
"I’m not really into girls either. But I am into helping girls find new apartments."
I eyed her skeptically. "I feel like this is a trick." She was definitely FBI. I was wanted on so many charges at this point.
"If you think I'm trying to trick you into finding a place you'll love, then you're right. This is a trick."
Hmmm...maybe she is telling the truth.
I studied her a bit more closely. She had a black bracelet on, which meant she was part of the Society. It looked like she had made it herself out of beads…just like Rosalie used to do. Suddenly my mind flashed back twenty years. Rosalie and I were sitting cross-legged on the family room carpet. I had a piece of bread stuffed in my mouth (my way of circumventing the “no food in the family room” rule) while we threaded plastic beads onto string. I tried to shake away the memory. The last thing I needed was to burst out in tears in front of this FBI agent. Or…normal person? Actually, the fact that she was wearing a beaded bracelet made me feel a little less nervous. How dangerous could she be if she made homemade bracelets?
“Ready to find your dream home?” asked Frankie.
It didn’t seem like there was a way out of this. And I didn’t want to go back in the stairwell and run into my stalker. It was better if he never knew I was here. Let’s go hide out in a random apartment to avoid him. “Yeah, sure.”
“Wonderful.”
I glanced down at Frankie’s blazer. She even had a laminated nametag with her picture, name, and the logo for Frankie Underwood Realty. This wish had nothing to do with free shoes or my husband, so it wasn’t one of my wishes. Which I guess meant it was one of hers. Had she wished to be a successful real estate agent? It wasn’t the kinkiest fantasy, but whatever. Maybe selling houses really got her excited. In a way, that was close to my Jack and the Bean Stalk fantasy. Only in that scenario, the buyer was a giant, and the real estate was a sky castle. Or maybe the buyer was a giant's penis and the real estate was my vagina. You know what...just forget it. It made more sense in my head.
"So we're really just going house hunting tonight?" I asked. You're not going to turn me into a skin cocoon?
"Yup. That's the plan. But first let's duck in here and go over a few of your preferences." She walked over to Suite 212.
"Okay, sure. I'll be right there. I just need to uh, use the bathroom real quick. I think I saw one in the lobby." What am I doing? I thought as the words came out of my mouth. Was I running away from this lesbo FBI agent in disguise? Did I really have to pee? Was I going back to see my stalker? Maybe it was a combination of all three. "I need your blazer. I mean, can I borrow it?"
She gave me a weird look. "Are you going to pee on it?"
"What? Ha. No way. I'll return it to you completely clean. Unless there's a horrible blueberry accident in the stairwell. You know, I've heard that's a real issue around these parts. I'm just cold. Brrr." I tried to rub my arms to look cold, but I only succeeded at jiggling my boobs. And then I realized that I was entirely too awkward to talk to my stalker. It was a blessing that he'd taken a pie in the face and not seen me. I needed to learn to interact with other humans and then I could try again. "Actually, just forget it. I suddenly don't need to pee anymore."
She glanced at my crotch.
"I didn't pee my pants, if that's what you're thinking. I just have a weird bladder thing. Spastic bladder is what they call it.” I cleared my throat to try to stop the awkwardness coming out of my mouth. “So…you were going to help me find an apartment?” I walked past her and into the office.
"Yup!" she said, mercifully ignoring the whole spastic bladder thing. "I just have a few questions and then we can head out and look at some places." She pulled out a chair for me and opened her laptop. "Okay, let's see... First things first. Are you looking to rent or buy?"
I don't know. I wasn’t actually in the market for real estate. My financial situation could not exactly be described as healthy. If Chastity hadn’t hooked me up with my new job, I would have been homeless soon. Joe had taken everything from me. And I couldn’t do anything about it. Not unless I was cool with him releasing that sex tape he had of me. And I definitely was not cool with that. Thus…I was left with nothing. Asshole.
So yeah…no new real estate for me. Especially not after my thousand-dollar Monopoly shopping spree. Monopoly! If my count had been right, I had over $750,000 in monopoly money. Could I use that to buy an apartment from the Society? I decided to pretend like I could. "I'm up for renting or buying. If you find me the right place for under 750K, I can pay in cash."
"That's a good strategy. It's hard to say if you'll want to rent or buy until you see the place. Me? I'm renting a few different places with the option to buy once I decide which one I like the best."
"You can do that?" I asked. I'd heard of that with car leases, but not with houses. This was so fancy.
"Sure. I have my landlords wrapped around my finger."
Of course she did. She was exactly what you’d expect from a member of a sex club. Long blonde hair. Legs for days. Dimples. Somehow even the bullring in her nose wasn’t totally repulsive, which was shocking. Because those things were freaking disgusting. No matter how well she cleaned it every night, it would never be enough to get rid of her nose germs. Thank God I’d talked Rosalie out of getting one of those back in college. Unless Frankie’s landlord was a total germaphobe like me, then the poor guy would probably give her the entire apartment building for free.
Frankie scrolled to the next question. "Do you care if your house has had more than three previous owners?"
"What? Why would I care about that?"
"Well, you know. Sometimes people are picky about that sort of thing. They want everything to be brand new. And sometimes lots of previous owners in a short time means that there's something wrong with the place. Or at least, that’s what my therapist told me to look out for."
Therapist? For house hunting tips? Weird. "Now that you mention it, I guess I would prefer for it to be brand new." Nice and germ-free. Unlike her nose ring. Gag.
"Would you like it to be pet-friendly?"
"No pets. I want the opposite of pet-friendly. I'm pet-hostile."
"But puppies are so cute." She reached for her phone. "Look at this picture of my friend's adorable little Pomeranian..."
What now? I was about to smack a bitch. The only thing good about a little dog was how easy it would be to punt it out a window. "Have you seen an air filter from a house with dogs? Or looked at a dog owner under a black light? I did once. All that slobber lit them up like a Christmas tree.” Oh God, that reminded me of when I’d lit Matthew Caldwell’s pants up like a Christmas tree. Stop it. “Dogs are the offspring of Satan and Stalin."
"Wow, okay. No pets. Let's move on. How important is it to you that your apartment is reliable?"
What does that even mean? "Are you talking about stuff breaking a lot? Yeah, I'd love for shit to break all the time."
"Got it. You want something that makes you work a little," she said as she typed it into her laptop.
"What? No. Don't write that down. I was being sarcastic. Of course I want it to be reliable. Who would want a place that they have to constantly fix?"
"Me, apparently." She laughed and asked me a bunch more questions, but none of the usual stuff. She didn't really say anything else about my budget, and she didn't ask about how many bedrooms or bathrooms I wanted. The answer to that, for the record, would have been two of each. Or at least two bathrooms. That was the key. Otherwise I'd never be able to have anyone over. A single bathroom was a pants-pissing incident waiting to happen.
"Just one final question and then we can start looking at some places," said Frankie. "Do you care if it's carpeted, or do you want it to be completely smooth?"
Completely smooth? Who talks about a floor that way? I was suddenly feeling like I wasn't the most awkward person in the room, if that was possible. "Carpets are okay in some rooms, but I don’t want those little germ nests anywhere near kitchens or bathrooms."
Frankie nodded as she made a few more notes and then closed her laptop. "Okay, let's go look at some apartments!"
As we went down the stairs, I tried to hide behind Frankie in case my stalker was still there, but he was gone. The only trace of him was some blueberry filling splattered on the floor.
Had I missed my only chance to meet my stalker? I sure hoped not. And I really, really hoped he hadn’t seen me.
Chapter 15 - Smooth Floors?
Tuesday
"Drive or walk?" asked Frankie.
"How far is it?"
"Just down the street. At the Caldwell Hotel."
Hearing the name Caldwell made me shudder. It was like no matter how hard I tried not to think of the incident…it kept popping up. Curse you, Matthew freaking Caldwell. I tried not to think about it as the hotel came into view. Wow. I didn't know if my 750,000 monopoly dollars would even make a dent in the down payment for a place at the Caldwell Hotel. I'd never been inside, but I knew that Chastity's boss and Matthew’s older brother, Mason Caldwell, owned the building. He'd bought the Manhattan a few years ago and totally rebuilt it. Now it was one of the most expensive hotels in the city. And it showed.
Every bit of the building oozed class. Gold trim, polished marble…even the doorman’s forest-green suit looked like it had been handcrafted by some name-brand designer.
“I thought this was a hotel?” I asked as Frankie led me to the elevators.
“Only the bottom 20 floors or so. The rest is residential.” The elevator dinged open and a liftman held the doors open for us. Unlike the doorman who had been well over 60, the liftman was around my age. And damn was he handsome. Was he part of the Society? I was so busy checking him out that I nearly tripped. I tried to play it off like it was no big deal.
“41st floor, please,” said Frankie.
“My pleasure.” The liftman pressed the button and up we went.
On the ride up, Frankie explained that all the apartments had access to all the amenities of the hotel, including a heated indoor pool, a fully equipped gym, room service from the restaurant downstairs, a la carte bath butler services, and daily maid service.
"This first apartment is the base model here. Two bedrooms, one and a half baths. Pretty standard. Nothing too fancy, but it's a good solid apartment. You really can't go wrong with it."
"Sounds boring," I said. If I was going to splash almost a million fake dollars, I didn't want the base model. I wanted something freaking amaze-balls.
"Noted. Just try to keep an open mind and afterward we can discuss what you liked and what you didn't."
Maybe if she'd asked me better questions than if I wanted a "completely smooth" floor she'd have known that I didn’t want something #Lame, as Chastity would say. Score! I’d finally used a hashtag right! I couldn’t wait to tell Chastity all about it. But right now I needed to focus.
Frankie swiped a keycard through the lock and the door clicked open. I went immediately to the kitchen. That was always my favorite thing to see on all those HGTV shows. Well, that and the master bathrooms. This kitchen was okay. Not amazing, but definitely better than mine. I was looking at the stack of listing flyers when a man said, "Hello."
Holy shit! I threw the entire stack of papers in the air and nearly fell over.
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," he said.
"Are you the owner? I'm so sorry. I just assumed Frankie had arranged for us to be here. We'll leave right away."
"I'm the listing agent. John." He stuck his hand out for me to shake. "Nice to meet you."
I shook it, but I didn't reach in far enough, so he just ended up wiggling my fingers like wet noodles. "Cool," I said.
"Cool," he agreed. "Just let me know if you have any questions." He gave me a friendly smile. I know that you're probably thinking he was super hot and that I was going to rape him or something. But that wasn't the case. Other than his smile, the rest of him wasn't really worth describing. Actually, I don't really remember what he looked like. I think he was average height with an average build, probably dressed in a standard realtor outfit of a white button-down and some slacks.
It only took me a few minutes to tour the entire apartment. According to the listing flyers I had thrown all over the kitchen, it was only 730 square feet. Most importantly, I didn't once try to get naked or rape John during the entire tour. I was very proud of myself. My reintroduction into the wild was going quite well, other than the whole pie thing with my stalker. And the more time I spent out in the wild, the more I realized that had totally been my stalker’s fault. What kind of stalker didn’t know where his stalkee was at all times? I just taught him a lesson to step up his game. He’d thank me later.
Frankie was waiting for me in the foyer. "So what'd you think?" she asked.
"I think we should keep looking."
John looked disappointed. Maybe he was really in need of that commission check of monopoly money. "Well, thanks for considering it. Good luck finding an apartment."
"You too." Damn it. I always said shit like that. Especially at restaurants when the waiter would tell me to enjoy my meal. Or when people wished me happy birthday. The worst was one time when I said it to some girl who had the same birthday as me. I immediately took it back, and then I really looked like an asshole. You too. Actually, don’t have a nice birthday, bitch! Rather than try to awkwardly backtrack with John I just walked out and hoped he hadn't noticed.
"So what turned you off about this one?" asked Frankie when we were alone in the hallway.
"It was okay. It was just
so...boring."
"I get that. But what specifically didn't you like? The more you give me, the better I'll do with the next one."
"Well I definitely didn't like how John surprised me in the kitchen. Why was he there? Was he having an open house?" If he was, he did a terrible job advertising it. There hadn't been a single sign anywhere on the way up. And there weren’t any glasses of complimentary champagne. In all the fancy showings on TV, there was always champagne. Poor, simple John. He wasn’t going to sell that place in a million years.
"For apartments this expensive, the listing agent usually likes to be there to answer any questions."
"Ah, gotcha." Crazy rich people.
"So what else didn't you like?"
Where do I even begin? "I didn't like all the walls. I'm looking for more of an open concept. And the kitchen was just so...blah. I want a big island. And granite countertops. And a sexy backsplash. Oh! Definitely a gas stove with one of those fancy hoods over it.”
“So you’re looking for something with a little more flair?”
"Yeah, I guess you could say that." I hadn't been in the housing market for a while, but it sure seemed like she was using some strange lingo. It didn't really matter though. There was no way the Society would actually let me buy a place here using Monopoly money. I decided to just have some fun and pretend like I was on My Lottery Dream Home. "You know what, I can get more than $750,000 for a down payment. Just show me the most extra place you’ve got."
"Now that's what I like to hear." Frankie clicked a few buttons on her phone. "I have just what you're looking for."
We took the elevator up to the 58th floor. If the elevator buttons were to be trusted, that was only a few floors away from being the top of the tower. Fancy indeed. In fact, it was so fancy that there wasn't even really a hallway. Just a little foyer with two doors labeled 58A and 58B. 58B was our destination. And it was freaking awesome.