I was tense, at least as much as a slab of wood could be. I’d waited all morning for Tana to recognize me, to acknowledge the conversation we’d had in her dream. Aside from a few pensive, darting glances at my back, she’d studiously ignored me and moved around the apartment more quietly than usual this morning.
As late afternoon began to dim the sky, Tana grabbed her keys and purse, hesitating only a moment when she grabbed the door’s inner knob to let herself out.
“Stop being dumb. Weird dreams happen.” Tana gave herself a side order of aggrieved sighing with the theoretical pep talk, slipping out into the vestibule and engaging my lock behind her. It was Thursday, I realized, grocery shopping day. A pang of sorrow coursed through me at the idea Tana was avoiding me, at least as much as someone could “avoid” their own front door.
A few minutes later, the annoyingly shrill bark of Mrs. Scrimshaw’s chihuahua, Christopher-Thomas, echoed off the concrete walls of the vestibule. The incontinent little demon was blind, half deaf, and mostly bald, but unfortunately he could bark endlessly. A murmur of voices grew louder as the speakers moved closer to Tana’s apartment.
“Thank you so much Randall – oop! Oh, I’m sorry, Christopher-Thomas can’t seem to get enough of your…erm…company!” Mrs. Scrimshaw jiggled the leash in her hand, one attached to the collar of the furiously-humping chihuahua making frantic love to Randall’s ankle. Randall scowled, lifting his leg and shaking it to dislodge the dedicated hellhound. I was pleased to see a small spot of urine darkening Randall’s vacated pant leg.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine Mrs. Scrimshaw. It was just a spare lightbulb, I’ve got plenty. I gotta get going though, I have to fix Ms. Ventt’s oven. Have a good night!” Randall quickly closed the distance to me, brandishing that same strange key with a furtive look at the parking lot beyond. He waited long moments for Mrs. Scrimshaw to vanish around the corner before he twisted my outer knob with savage force, shouldering his way into Tana’s empty apartment.
Randall’s movements were jerky and tense as he slammed me closed in his wake and rooted in his pockets, coming up with a dirty pill bottle clutched in his hand. He yanked open Tana’s refrigerator with the same amount of unnecessary force he’d used on me, grabbing Tana’s favorite expensive orange juice. As I watched in horror, Randall emptied the entire pill bottle into the juice, recapping it and giving it a vigorous shake before setting it back in the fridge.
The slimy son of a bitch was poisoning Tana, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
Torn between wanting Tana to come home early and fearing what would happen if she did, I watched silently, radiating rage, as Randall scooped another pair of panties from Tana’s hamper. Excitedly rubbing the purple satin between his fingers, Randall quickly shoved his stolen bounty into a coat pocket, swiping a dirty sleeve across his nose and sniffling loudly as he yanked me open again. Moments after my disrupted lock tumblers settled back into place, Tana rounded the vestibule corner, thumbs tapping away at her phone, arm laden with grocery bags.
Randall gave a quick, panicked look around before striding resolutely in her direction, his shoulder accidentally-on-purpose bumping hers, sending one of her bags crashing to the ground. “Oh! Tana, I’m so sorry. I was on my way back from Mrs. Scrimshaw’s and I wasn’t watching where I was going. Her oven was broken again.” He chuckled humorlessly, picking up the fallen bag and handing it back over.
It was all I could do not to vibrate with rage in my frame. I didn’t want Randall close to Tana – not handing her things, not talking to her, not even looking at her. Tana, at least, seemed more hesitant than usual with Randall, accepting the bag from him but taking a step backwards, her smile forced. Maybe she’d listened to me after all.
“No harm done! Thanks for the help, and good luck with the oven. I have a – uh – friend coming over soon, gotta get dinner started!” She brushed past the superintendent, uncharacteristically fumbling with her keys and closing me with more force than she usually did.
Dropping the bags on the counter, Tana closed her eyes, muttering to herself before finally dragging over a stool from her breakfast bar and tilting it under my interior knob. While I would much rather have had her soft hands – or more – on my knob, I was relieved she seemed to be taking my warnings seriously.
As she moved back to the kitchen area, her foot slid lightly on something crumpled on the carpet. Her underwear. The slip of purple satin must have slid out of Randall’s pocket on his hasty exit. I’d been so busy watching the outer hallway that I hadn’t noticed it, but Tana’s wide-eyed shock told me she certainly had. She gripped the fabric tightly, eyes darting down the hallway to her distant bedroom hamper, then back to me, then down to the lock plate beneath my knob, secured with the tilted stool.
She growled with frustration, stomping to the bedroom and tossing the underwear back in the hamper, heading to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. With a huff, she stormed over to the couch and plunked down, sipping her wine sullenly. Even furious, Tana was beautiful, and I couldn’t miss the way her tongue darted out to catch a few sloshed drops of wine off her hand. If I hadn’t already been made of wood, I’d be stiff as a board at the sight.
When the large glass had been drained a half hour later, she sighed audibly, pushing up off the couch and gathering her robe around herself. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this. I’ve gotta be out of my fucking mind.” Her eyes drifted down the hall again, lingering on the edge of her hamper. “But, I mean, it can’t hurt anything, right? I mean, women fuck cucumbers and bedposts and balloons and shit. This isn’t that weird, right?”
Setting down her wine glass on the coffee table, she rolled her shoulders, bit her lips, and nodded once, firmly, before heading to the kitchen and flinging open the under-sink cabinets. When she popped back into view with a clean rag and a bottle of disinfectant spray cleaner, I could hardly believe my luck.
Was she really going to…?
