1
A nap. That was all Natasha Díaz wanted. She had fantasized about it the whole drive home, in the brand-new blue Prius that had used her entire paycheck from playing a high school mean girl in a few episodes ofDrama School.Not her finest work, but hey, the pay was okay.
When her last client canceled their private yoga session, Natasha headed straight home for a late afternoon nap. She’d taught six fitness classes that day on very little sleep—her own fault, for once again succumbing to temptation. Was a nap too much to ask?
Apparently so, because her entire mother-effing bathroom ceiling wasgone.
Well, not gone. Just not where it was supposed to be. Instead of being where a ceiling belonged, it was all over her bathroom and half the bedroom—including hercloset.
Cue the screaming of every Spanish curse word she knew, which was a lot of them.
This was what she got for wanting the master bedroom. When she and her best friend Gina had moved in nearly five years earlier, Natasha insisted she was cool paying more for the bigger room and private bath. Now, plaster, water, and a fine layer of white dust were everywhere, making it difficult to breathe. She covered her mouth and nose with one hand, creating a makeshift mask. Water still cascaded in from somewhere above.
And her closet? The door had been left ajar in her rush to leave last night. She opened it fully and bit back a sigh. The water from the leak upstairs had managed to seep inside, along with no small amount of plaster dust. It had gotten into her clothing. Her shoes. Her luggage. And everything else jammed into the top shelf she couldn’t reach without standing on a stepladder. It was a godawful mess.
Swallowing back tears, she pulled out her phone and put in a call to her building’s management company. No one picked up, of course, but she left a message explaining the situation in as calm a voice as she could manage, even as the water still flowed. Then she sent a text to the building’s super, hoping he was around.
Since a hollow whooshing sound still came from the pipes upstairs, Natasha grabbed a broom and banged on the bedroom ceiling, hoping it wouldn’t fall in as well. Nothing happened. She jogged upstairs to knock on her neighbor’s door. Again, no reply. The fucking nerve of them, ruining her apartment and wardrobe, and not even having the decency to be home so she could bitch them out.
No use dwelling on it. They had to come back sometime.
Trudging back to her own apartment, she got to work emptying the closet. Wet things in one pile on the floor, and dry things on the bed. Each ruined item she tossed aside brought a pang of loss.
Her clothes. Her beautiful, beautiful clothes.
Snap out of it.Okay, so this was bad, but not horrible. The apartment had a second bedroom, vacant now that Gina had moved out, and a second bathroom. She could still stay here while repairs were made. Or maybe the management company would finally reply to the emails she had sent asking if there was a one-bedroom available in the same building for her to move into.
A small part of her regretted turning down Gina’s offer to pay rent until the end of the lease, but it was high time she stopped leaning on Gina for support. She was twenty-seven years old, old enough to stop relying on her best friend and stand on her own two feet. She didn’t want a new roommate—didn’t want to have to learn to deal with another person’s quirks—and she had enough summer gigs to cover the full rent on her own until the fifteenth season ofThe Dance Offstarted filming in the fall. She’d make it.
Being a pro dancer on a hit reality TV celebrity dance competition paid well, although money still seemed to slip through her fingers as easily as it had when she’d been a teenager working as a waitress in the Bronx.
Exhausted as she was, Natasha separated out the clothing to be tossed in the washer and what would have to be dry cleaned. Laundry was the absolute last thing she wanted to do, but when there was a hole in your bathroom ceiling, plans changed. She’d just retrieved the detergent from under the kitchen sink when someone knocked on her door.
Opening it revealed Manny, the building’s super. “Hola,Manny,” she said, switching to Spanish for their conversation. And even though she was on the verge of hysteria, she asked in a polite tone,“¿Cómo están sus niños?”
It was their dynamic—when their paths crossed, they chatted in Spanish and she asked about his kids, and he came to her assistance more quickly than he did for some of the other tenants.
As he told her about his son’s latest achievement at computer camp, she ushered him into her bedroom and gestured at the water still pouring in. “I came home a few minutes ago and found it like this.”
Manny stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the ceiling, then sighed and removed a giant key ring from his belt. “I’ll go up and turn off the water.”
Natasha continued to move things out of the bedroom while she waited. There was no way she was going to be able to sleep in her room for the foreseeable future.
It was a while before Manny returned. Natasha looked up in surprise when he finally re-entered the apartment. “What took so long?” she asked.
Manny jingled the key ring on the end of his finger.“Lo siento, señorita,” he began. “It looks like a pipe burst. I had to shut off the water in the entire building.”
Natasha groaned. “For how long? I need to do laundry.”
He shrugged. “I have to call a plumber. I don’t know how long it will take.”
Natasha sucked in a deep breath. It wouldn’t do any good to take out her frustration on the super. “Okay, well, I’ll just move my things into the second bedroom for now. I can stay there until this is fixed, unless there’s another apartment in the building that’s open. I don’t need a two-bedroom anymore, so I’d be happy to move into a one-bedroom until my lease ends.” If she got a new apartment out of this whole ordeal, maybe it would be worth it.
Manny cringed. “Señorita, I don’t think either of those options will work.”
Natasha went still, and tried to ignore the prickling sensation on the back of her neck. Whatever Manny was about to say, this was going to get worse.“¿Por qué?”
“The problem is there’s a bug infestation in the apartment upstairs. And . . . some of the other apartments in the building.”
