Livy held my hand and skipped along beside me. “I thought you had to work for hours and hours.”
“I got off early.” I kept my voice light, not wanting to let on that there was anything wrong. I must have succeeded, because Livy kept skipping happily.
“Can we have ice cream?” she asked, eyeing the ice cream parlor across the street.
“Not tonight, sweetie,” I said with a pang of regret.
I felt even worse about denying her request when she accepted my response without protest.
“If you don’t need me anymore tonight,” Mrs. Nagy said as we neared a crosswalk, “I think I’ll stop in at the corner store before it closes.”
“Of course,” I said. “Thanks so much for looking after Livy.”
“Anytime, dear.” She smiled. “Goodbye, Olivia.”
“Bye, Mrs. Nagy.” Livy waved as the elderly woman headed down the street.
We waited for the light to change and then crossed the road. Another few minutes of walking took us to the Deco Mirage, more often known simply as the Mirage. Back in its glory days in the 1920s, the building was a popular art deco hotel. It still boasted the geometric stained-glass windows, plaster detailing, courtyard fountain, and goddess statue in the lobby that could be seen in the old photos hanging on the walls in the entranceway, but some of the plaster had crumbled away and the fountain was no longer running. Moss had covered the stonework, obliterating many of the details of the mermaid sculpture. Inside the building, cracks ran through the walls and some of the windows were foggy, their seals broken. The building could have been a metaphor for my life. Once shiny and full of promise. Now crumbling, slowly but surely.
Or maybe not so slowly.
I looked up at the building with a sympathetic and self-pitying sigh. Then I reminded myself to be grateful for what I did have. My beautiful niece. A roof over our heads. And since we didn’t live on the top floor, the leak in the roof didn’t bother us much.
What had once been luxury suites had been broken into apartment units that had seen better days. For the last few decades, the building had catered to the fifty-five-plus community. Officially, it still did, but its low occupancy had left the landlord desperate for tenants. That was a good thing for me and Livy. The run-down building offered some of the cheapest rent around—at least within my niece’s school district—and although most of the otherresidents were at least thirty years older than me, I tried to look at the positives: Grab bars in the shower—extra safety! Sweet elderly neighbors—free cookies and babysitting!
I spotted one of those sweet neighbors as soon as we entered the Mirage’s lobby. Except Mr. Zoltán Nagy didn’t seem quite so sweet at the moment. The man I’d only ever known as quiet and kind was currently chasing the building superintendent around the lobby, brandishing a croquet mallet over his head like a weapon.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
“Crazy old geezer!” the superintendent, Freddie Hanover, yelled as he dodged a swing of the croquet mallet.
Livy bounced up and down at my side. “Run, Freddie, run!” she cried, as if the men were playing an entertaining game.
Mr. Nagy let out a string of angry Hungarian as he took another swing at Freddie’s head.
I was still frozen in place, wondering if I should intervene somehow or rush Livy up to the safety of our apartment, when the only other resident of the building under the age of fifty-five stepped off the elevator.
“Whoa!” Bodie Chase jumped back just in time to avoid getting creamed by Freddie and Mr. Nagy as they ran past.
It took Bodie approximately two seconds to assess the situation and jump into the fray. He grabbed the croquet mallet from Mr. Nagy and placed a hand on the elderly man’s chest, bringing him to a halt. Freddie huddled by the elevators, glaring at Mr. Nagy as they both tried to catch their breath.
As for me, I breathed more easily. With Bodie on the scene, surely everything would remain under control. The thirty-year-old bartender from unit 505 stood over six feet tall and looked like he hit the gym several days a week. His hair was a more golden shade of blond than my own, and his eyes were as blue as a tropical ocean. Translation: He was built. And hot.
“Okay, gentlemen, let’s calm things down.” Bodie let the mallet hang from one hand. “What’s going on here?”
“He threatened to confiscate my croquet equipment!” Mr. Nagy cried, his English more heavily accented than his wife’s.
“You’re always leaving it lying around the courtyard,” Freddie shot back, still keeping his distance from Mr. Nagy. “I nearly broke my leg when I tripped on that metal hoop!”
Bodie turned those brilliant blue eyes my way and gave me a reassuring nod. “I’ve got this.”
I mouthed,Thank you,and then pushed Livy ahead of me through the door to the stairwell.
“What did you do at school today?” I asked as we hurried up to the third floor. I didn’t want her attention lingering on what we’d just witnessed, even if she hadn’t quite realized that the men hadn’t been playing a game.
Livy regaled me with stories about her teacher and classmates while we made our way to our apartment. Later, as Livy splashed about in the bathtub singing to herself, I flopped down on the couch and closed my eyes, a wave of exhaustion and defeat nearly crushing me.
The money that my brother, Ethan, had saved for his and Livy’s future had been eaten up by his medical bills once he got sick with cancer and started his slow decline toward the end of his life. I thought that my niece and I would be okay financially after his death. Not well-off, by any means, but okay. Then my ex-boyfriend stole most of my savings, and my bad luck only continued from there. I lost my steady job as a copywriter thanks to financial restructuring, and now my career as a restaurant server was in the gutter too. I had rent to pay, a child to feed. I needed to get my life together, but it seemed like the harder I tried, the more it fell apart.
