She could go into her garage if she had to. Few purchased them on the property, but she liked parking her car and then having access through a closed-in walkway to the building.
Sirens blared, yet people wandered out like it was a Sunday stroll to church. Maybe it was nothing, but she wasn’t about to stick around and find out if the building was going to explode.
Dramatic, sure, but her mind always detoured down paths it didn’t need to travel.
The firetrucks turned into the lot, the building manager going out to meet them. No one was rushing and that told her there was no fire.Again.
“I’m going to complain if this happens again,” Mary said. Mary lived on her floor and walked over to stand next to her.
“It’s frustrating. Something or someone has to be setting them off.”
“I heard that there has been smoke both times. The eighth-floor sprinklers went off in the hallway.”
“I heard that too,” she said. “At least it wasn’t our floor.”
She didn’t want to deal with that pain. The risk of water getting into her place or just tracking the wet and dirt in.
“I don’t know how the water from that floor didn’t make it to our floor,” Mary said.
They were on the fifth floor.
“There is drainage for it to go down the side of the building and not through the ceilings and ruin other floors,” she said.
“How do you know that?” Mary asked. “Even Tom worried the other night when it happened.”
Tom was Mary’s boyfriend. He wasn’t around much. At least not that she ever saw. But she didn’t socialize with many in the building either, preferring to keep to herself.
“Because McCarthy’s built this structure,” she said.
The building was ten years old. She’d been working at the firm when this place was under construction.
Mary looked at her shirt. “Oh. Where you work.”
She rolled her eyes. She was positive Mary knew her last name, but maybe not and she wouldn’t volunteer it.
“Yep,” she said.
“I thought you did accounting or something,” Mary said.
“I do. That doesn’t mean I’m unaware of building construction details.”
She’d always said she didn’t need to know those facts, but her parents proved her wrong. She had to have a basic understanding to own the business. It was best not to rely on Gabe to do it all.
So she sucked it up, sat with her father and brother, and studied the blueprints and floor plans, taking it all in, even if most of it went over her head.
“You know, I don’t care for the bathroom tile in my place. It was like that when I bought it. How come I wasn’t given the option to change that out?”
She sighed. “That’s not part of what we do,” she said. “Our firm builds the structure, roof, windows et cetera. Puts all the steel in place, the floors, elevators. Once that’s done, it’s turned over to another company to do the inside finishing work.”
“Oh,” Mary said. “Who did this, do you know?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t.”
Jocelyn turned her attention back to the firemen and the building manager. Two firemen stayed out, looked like five went in, but no hoses and no hurry either.
Her arms were crossed, foot tapping impatiently. This was cutting into her workout time. She wanted to finish, grab something to eat, and settle in to try that new series. Watchingjust one episode wasn’t her style. If she liked it, she needed at least a few to dive in.
Now her schedule was going to be off.
