French Vanilla & Felonies

by Erin Huss

  "Hello! Apartment Manager?" Teardrop called out.

  Thumb to the eyeball. Knee to the nuts. I ran through my attack plan.

  Step…step…step…

  I pulled my knees in tighter, steadying my breathing.

  Step…step…step…

  He was getting closer. My heart grew louder and felt as if it were about to leap out of my chest and run away screaming.

  Step…step…step…

  Knee to eyeballs…thumb to nuts…wait, that's not right.

  Step…step…step…

  "Freeze!" A brigade of heavy-soled shoes stomped through the door and filled my cramped quarters.

  I uncurled my shaky limbs, feeling thirsty, nauseated, cold. I was a flimsy mass of confusion as the adrenaline drained and the shock took over. Somehow, I ended up outside with a bottle of water in my hand and Officer Bulldog, who insisted his real name was Officer Stanwall, at my side. He kindly requested I stop calling him as such then questioned me on the incident.

  "You said you saw him getting mail?" Officer Bull…Stanwall asked in his burly, very bulldoggy voice.

  "Yes. I took a picture. It's on my phone…somewhere." I took a swig of water.

  His pen flew across his notepad, and with a lick of his finger, he flipped the page and continued. "He said he used the keys on the desk to open the door because you wouldn't answer."

  Water dribbled down my chin. "Wait. What?"

  "Did he say anything when he entered your apartment?" Officer Stanwall asked.

  I thought for a moment. "He said…'hello.'"

  "Stop what you're doing! Stop! Cambria! Came-bree-aaaa!"

  Why?

  Why?

  Whyyy?

  "Cambria!" Kevin ran across the grass in his bare feet, wearing a pair of blue-checkered boxer shorts and a frown. "Cambria!" he yelled again as if I were a great distance away and not a foot from where he stood.

  "Who are you?" Officer Stanwall asked.

  Kevin's mouth fell open, revealing all his metallic molars. He placed his hand over his furry chest. "Who am I? I'm the owner of this building."

  Stanwall looked to me for confirmation, and I nodded. "His parents own it," I said, which earned me a sympathetic brow raise from the officer.

  "What did you do to Wick?" Kevin hissed.

  "Who's Wick?"

  "My friend," he said as if it were obvious. "I sent him here to get my mail and ask you for a parking pass. What did you do to him?"

  Stanwall's bulldoggy face trained on Kevin. "You know the suspect?"

  "Suspect?" Kevin threw his hands up as if declaring a touchdown and paced the walkway. "I don't believe this. He got here last night, and she's been harassing him since. Arrest this one." He pointed his hairy-knuckled finger at me.

  The plastic water bottle crinkled in my clenched fist, and it took all the restraint I had not to throw it at his head. "Your friend broke into my apartment, and he has a teardrop tattoo," I said through gritted teeth. This was beyond ridiculous. Mental disability or not, a woman could only be pushed so far.

  "So you're prejudiced against teardrop tattoos?" Kevin huffed, shaking his head. "I know lots of people with teardrop tattoos. I was on the phone with him the entire time. When you didn't answer the bell, I told him to go into the office and knock on your door, and when you didn't answer, I told him to knock louder. Then he heard crashing, so I told him to go in." He looked at Stanwall and cocked a thumb. "This one was taking his picture. She's a perv who sleeps with old people."

  My water bottle went sailing over his head, only because I missed.

  Officer Stanwall planted himself between Kevin and me. "We don't need any of that," he said with exaggerated patience. "His story checks."

  I opened my mouth—to say what, I wasn't sure. It felt like I was starring in an M. Night Shyamalan movie about some parallel universe, except no one bothered giving me a script.

  "So you're not arresting him?" I asked, too snippily for my own good.

  "He's been taken in for violating his parole," he answered, still standing between us.

  "What was he on parole for?" I demanded.

  "Parole for none of your damn business!" said Kevin.

  "Let's all calm down," Stanwall tried.

  Kevin's face went tense. "You're fired," he furiously whispered under his breath.

  "That's enough," Stanwall ordered in a deep, rough voice, causing both Kevin and me to jump. I resisted the urge to salute. "I'll take you in if I need to," Stanwall barked at Kevin with a cautionary glare. His eyes softened when they landed on me. "You OK?"

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tenant must give 30-day intent to vacate in writing before vacating. Yelling "I'm moving" is not sufficient notification.

  Am I OK?

  That question echoed through my head later while sitting at my desk holding Officer Stanwall's card, staring at the silver and gold police emblem. Am I OK? I'd answered Stanwall with an involuntary nod of my head as Kevin tromped back to his delusion hideout, grumbling and puffing the entire journey. Am I OK? Teardrop of Death, aka Wick, hadn't come from Spencer's apartment. He came from Kevin's. A question Patrick specifically asked before making the decision to give Spencer a thirty-day notice, and I said no. I had, true to form, overreacted. Accused a man of being a murderer solely based on his looks and my own theory. Which got me thinking.

  Could I have been wrong about Spencer? Misread the situation? Ignored the real source of the crime?

  It was too coincidental for murder and a car to be stolen within the same week. They were connected. I was sure of it. Which meant the killer was either visiting or, heaven forbid, a resident. Spencer had a lot of foot traffic—one or two of those feet had to belong to the killer. Right?

  But what did I know?

  I'd been there…one…two…has it really only been two weeks?

  Felt like a year.

  So I'd been there two weeks and had only thus scratched the surface of who the residents were. I knew Silvia was the complainer. Larry the over-sharer. Kevin the nudist. Ty the new parent. Mickey talked to himself. Apartment 3 obnoxious. Apartment 38 unruly toddler. Grandma Clare was…active.

  Was I missing someone?

  I spun around and pulled out files for Apartments 2 thru 39 and looked through each one more closely—occupation, credit score, delinquencies, incident reports. Next, I flipped through the maintenance logs—garbage disposal fixes, A/C units. Apartment 5 once attempted to install a bidet at 2 a.m. and flooded his apartment. The pool overflowed last year when Bob forgot to close the valve. Larry's head got stuck in the upstairs railings on New Year's Day. Why that was written up as a maintenance request was beyond me. Lack of things to report, I supposed.

  I came to the conclusion that the most acrimonious thing to happen over the last decade was when Kevin threw Joyce's vase through the window.

  The problems started the exact same day I did.

  If I didn't know that I had nothing to do with it—I'd think I had something to do with it.

  So was I OK?

  Not sure.

  The day was turning into a compilation of my failures. There was a killer on the loose. I appeared to have brought the crime. My job was on the line. Tom wasn't answering my texts or calls. Chase had disappeared. Then there was the fact that Kevin fired me. Common sense said he didn't have the power to do so. Still, he had to have a little influence.

  To top it all off, when I went to print the incident report for Kevin's file, the printer was out of ink—magenta. My attempts to explain to the machine that I only needed white paper with black print didn't work. The hateful piece of machinery was going to hold my incident report hostage until I replaced the cartridge.

  Was I OK?

  No, I guess I wasn't. And there wasn't a thing I could do about it. Except sulk.

  But before I could sink into a sulking oblivion—fun as that sounded—the lobby door chimed, and I knew it was Chase before I even saw him. He had a distinct, sexy man smell. A
musky mixture of salty skin with a hint of soap. One of my favorite smells (second only to that sweet newborn baby smell). Under normal circumstances, his aroma would have me in a puddle of lust. Except I was already a puddle of petulance, and petulance and lustfulness are a deadly combination. There was an entire 20/20 episode dedicated to it once called "Women Who Murder" or something like that.

  "Cambria, are you OK?"

  "That is the question. After careful consideration I've come to the conclusion I am not."

  He opened the door to my office and walked in, the man scent growing stronger. "What happened?" he asked, placing his hands on the armrests of my swivel chair, leaning in close. I breathed from my mouth only and kept my eyes away from his sexy incisors.

  "I'm out of magenta ink." This, I could tell from his expression, was not the answer he expected. "And the guy with the teardrop tattoo came into my apartment looking for a parking pass, but he was arrested, so Kevin fired me." I flapped my arm in the general direction of the printer. "If I had magenta, I'd give you the incident report to read. It's a real page-turner. Or, well, it's only one page, single-spaced."

  Chase pushed off the chair, walked to the printer, and yanked the cover open with ease. Something I attempted to do several times while the vile machine mocked me with its beeps and error messages. I had then given up and thrown my stapler at it. He pulled out the magenta cartridge, gave it a few hard shakes, and replaced it. The machine hummed back to life and spit out my report.

  I gave a halfhearted chuckle. Even the office equipment was against me. "First the air conditioner and now the printer. You're on a roll today."

  He ignored me, his beautiful green eyes darting furiously down the page.

  "This is ridiculous." He flicked the paper in his hand. "Give this to your ex." He tossed the report across the desk, shaking his head. "Better yet, email it to Patrick and copy Tom. I guarantee you this will be the last straw. Kevin was already close to getting kicked out after what happened with Joyce."

  "What? Why would I give it to Tom? So he could use it against me if we should ever have a custody hearing?" Chase's mind was elsewhere. "Chase?"

  He returned to the conversation. "You know his story, right?"

  "Who? Tom?" How long was I in the bathroom this morning?

  He shook his head. "What? No, Kevin."

  "I know he has a mental disability, went to rehab recently, and threw a vase through his window. I read Joyce's incident report."

  Chase placed his forehead into his palm and laughed a hearty someone-told-a-hilarious-joke laugh. I was beginning to question the sanity of every person in the community.

  "Mental health is not a laughing matter," I said, not amused. Not amused at all.

  "Kevin doesn't have a mental disability." He leaned against the desk. "Cambria, you know he's gay, right?"

  I shook my head. His sexual preference had never crossed my mind.

  "I didn't think so," Chase continued. "Joyce called it a mental disability because that's what his parents called it. He's an only child, and when he came out of the closet, sometime during his teenage years, his parents kicked him out and cut him off. Patrick found him living here in the storage closet and put him up in a hotel for a few days while he talked to Kevin's mother. She's the one who said Kevin could live here rent-free as long as he didn't contact the family. From what I've gathered, Kevin is extremely lonely. And that guy from last night? Turns out he was from San Bernardino, and he's not supposed to leave the county without notifying his parole officer. They met at rehab, and he came out to visit Kevin. I know some stuff went down with Joyce, and Kevin was pretty close to getting kicked out, but Patrick paid her off to not sue and sent him away until she moved. Once Patrick hears about Kevin telling his friend to enter your apartment, I think he'll have to kick him out. That's why I said copy Tom. You have legal rights as an employee."

  That was a lot of information to digest.

  How terrible.

  "Poor Kevin," I thought out loud.

  Chase bent down and lifted my chin up with his finger, catching my eyes with his, holding me in place. "What happened in his past sucks. It does. Still doesn't give him any right to treat you the way he has."

  "No, but it's a change of perspective," I muttered, Chase's finger still forcing my chin up. "How'd you know Tom was a lawyer—"

  Chase's calloused thumb ran gently across my cheek, derailing my train of thought. His other hand went to my shoulder, his fingers spread, taking up the entire space between my shoulder and neck. The warmth of his touch beckoned every nerve ending in my body.

  I felt the wisps of warm breath escaping his parted lips and feathering against mine. I felt the distance closing. I felt my eyes closing. I felt the desire so desperate to be fulfilled that it ached. I ached all over. The distance closed, and his lips brushed against mine. I could already feel our tongues dancing in sweet unison, savoring the taste of his mouth.

  I parted my lips, an open invitation. His lips parted, accepting, moving in closer…nearly there. My heart beat in triple time. Almost there…

  He pulled back like a hand on a hot stove, his back pressed against the door, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

  No! No! No!

  I sat there with my mouth still hanging open, the feeling of his lips still hot on mine. Desire swimming around my head.

  His chest rose and fell as if he had just sprinted a marathon. "I better get going," he announced, not making eye contact. The door opened, and he left. He left.

  What happened?

  I sat there, a sexually frustrated figurine. Confused. Mad. Aggravated.

  What the hell just happened?

  The familiar clanking against the linoleum freed my joints. "Apartment Manager," Silvia hollered over the counter. I turned slowly, weighted by the intense crappiness of the entire freaking day. "They're at it again," she moaned. Harold flapped. I stared. "Did you hear me? They're doing it again. I will move if this doesn't stop."

  I continued to stare until "I'm OK with that" fell out of my mouth.

  If Silvia could move her face, she would have scowled. Instead she scoffed and fluttered her eyes like she had an eyelash stuck in there. "Fine then, Apartment Manager. Consider this my thirty-day notice," she snapped. Harold bobbed his head up and down in agreement.

  I shrugged an I-don't-care shrug, because I didn't. Someone at the property should be getting some, and it obviously wasn't going to be me. Why not let the senior citizens enjoy each other in peace? Honestly, I was jealous. "It has to be in writing. Drop it off when you're ready." I smiled a patronizing smile. "And the name is Cambria, not Apartment Manager."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Tenant shall only use Premises as a residence, not for a business.

  To say things weren't going well would be a gross understatement. I should have taken this as my cue to keep my attention on the job and my butt in my chair. But I couldn't. I'm a fixer. I have a need to fix things. Even things that didn't want to be fixed—like Kevin.

  My Grandma Ruthie used to say, "We all have a backstory, and you can't judge anyone until you've read theirs." This was in reference to my cousin, Stephanie, who had blue hair (before blue hair was cool) and black nails (before black nails were cool) and purple-stained lips (not sure if that has ever been cool). Her nose ring was connected to her lip ring by a thin, silver chain. Black Os decorated each earlobe. When I was older, I'd learned that various other sensitive areas of Stephanie had been privy to a piercing gun as well.

  Her shoulders slumped forward, and her face remained shuttered. When I spoke, she would pretend not to notice, or she would call me names, roll her eyes, make fun of my hair, and turn her back on me. I hated her. I hated being forced to converse with her. I hated when Grandma Ruthie would pull out her "everyone has a backstory" speech when I'd tattle on Stephanie for being cruel.

  It wasn't until I was sixteen, while sitting in a cold, metal folding chair, looking at a 16x20 of Stephanie's shuttered face atop
an easel with an urn next to it, that I finally understood what Grandma was saying. Stephanie had ended her life after a long, silent battle with severe social anxiety and depression. I never knew. I had filed her away in my mind, shoved in a folder labeled arrogant and mean, and brushed her off. I never knew she was suffering. I never bothered to read her whole story.

  And now I knew Kevin's. Leaving him alone was the opposite of how he should be treated. Knowing he'd been sent away, abandoned by his family, told he had a mental disability since adolescence—it didn't sit well with me. His behavior didn't sit well. I wasn't entirely sure it wasn't substance-induced either. Time to try rehab again?

  If Kevin had a friend, someone who cared, then perhaps he'd be more inclined to keep his clothes on and not steal Girl Scout Cookies. At least I hoped he wouldn't. Didn't the saying go "the kids who need the most love ask for it in the most unusual ways"?

  Or was it "the most unloving ways"?

  What I knew for certain was the man-child needed a person in his corner. I was ready to take the role. Kevin was not going to end up like Stephanie. Not on my watch.

  Pep-talking myself, I climbed the steps up to the black door and knocked. After ten more knocks Kevin, still wearing only the checkered boxers from earlier, flung the door open.

  "Can't you read the sign?" He pointed to a freshly posted note taped above the knob: Management Not Allowed.

  I smiled, pretending not to notice. "I have a proposition."

  "Does it have to do with you moving out ASAP?"

  "No, it doesn't. It has to do with us."

  He shook his head before I even got the words out. "Not interested," he said, swinging the door closed.

  I shoved my foot into the doorjamb, and the door bounced back open off my blue Converse sneakers. "I want to propose a truce. We don't have to be enemies. I'd like to be allies." He perked up. Now I had his attention. "Come grab a bite to eat with me sometime after payday. Let's work together. I know how much this property means to you. You're valuable here, and I'm not just saying that because you tried to fire me. I genuinely want to be your friend. What do you say? Friends? How about next Saturday?" It would give me time to come up with how he could be more involved in the property without having him actually involved.