“You bring up sex with me an awful lot for someone who claims not to want it. Your subconscious speaking?”
“I bring it up in thenegative. Scary but not surprising that I say ‘no’ and you hear ‘yes.’”
“The neighbor doth protest too much, methinks. Maybe I’ll open up a hole on my side of the wall, too,” he muses, a finger tapping his mouth as he stares up at the hall ceiling. “We can pass each other secret clubhouse messages through it. Or you can pass me love letters.”
My eyes flare wide with alarm, and I fall back a step. There is now only a very thin coating of plaster and some wooden slats separating his apartment from mine. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He shrugs noncommittally. “You don’t know me very well, 5A.”
After he closes his door, he starts to whistle.
Today was supposed to be a good day. I woke up well rested, since my new noise-canceling headphones managed to drown out DJ Dickhead’s latest idea of a funny song to play on repeat: Extreme’s “Hole Hearted.” The new Evadon global marketing framework launch call went reasonably well. We’ve gathered, Avengers-style, a solid virtual team to make it happen, and though I’m only a senior manager, people seemed receptive to me leading the project. I got my hair done yesterday post-hole-inspection, a fresh trim and golden highlights to break up the copper. And I’m wearing the skirt that makes my ass look like it’s been raised on a steady diet of StairMaster and squats.
This isn’t how this day was supposed to end. I sit down hard on the sofa and stare.
I really like his barstools.
The thought floats through my mind because my brain is protecting me from the shock of what my eyes are really seeing: the three-foot hole in my wall now goesstraight through to Jack Craig’s apartment.
Jack is dressed in a baby-blue dress shirt and dark pants, just back from work, and is standing on his side of the hole, arms akimbo, lips pursed tight.
No, not the hole. This thing is monstrous, catastrophic, game-changing. It’s The Hole now.
“Gence. What the fuck, man,” Jack snaps.
Gence peers through The Hole at Jack. “Sorry, I have anaccident. Now I am trying to make sure everything is tocode.” He slants me a sidelong look.
“This isn’t happening,” I murmur.
Jack’s nose scrunches up like a subway rat’s, and the space between his eyebrows furrows into a mean-looking eleven. He looks stupid when he’s livid, like someone beaned Indiana Jones with a shovel.
“Oh, it’s happening, 5A. You and I have taken the next step in our relationship and moved in together thanks to your antics.” He runs a hand through his thick hair.
The image of Jack moving in with a woman floats through my mind. Poor pretend woman.
I swallow hard and turn my best imploring expression on Gence, calling on the goodwill I’ve earned with dozens of cookies. “There has to be some way to fix this. Can you board it up for the time being? We can’t live like this.”
“No, I can’t. Plaster here and… No, no. Need to bring it to code, Penny.” He shrugs. “I’ll work on it more tomorrow.”
“But what are we supposed to do tonight?”
Gence mimes chewing. “You have maybe some bubble gum and a sheet,kastravec?” He laughs at my horrified expression and pulls his tool belt higher over his paunch. I plant my face in my hands and my elbows on my knees and hear Jack take over, proposing a few solutions, none of which Gence thinks feasible. I let their sharp words circle around me. I thought I had no privacy before. But now?
“Tomorrow, I come and take the rest of this wall down,t’kap kolera. It’s drywall so easy job. If lath and plaster, then it would take longer time. I do the framing, drywall one side, mudding. Then you have privacy. Next day, inspector come, I put drywall up other side, mud there, sand here. Bam boom, boom bam, three or four days, brand-new wall.A morre veshë? Just no walking around the living room in your underwears, heh? For one day,shtazë t’egra.”
“I need to go to sleep,” I announce. “Please, Gence. Tomorrow you’ll fix it?”
“Of course. For you two, Gence work all day.”
“The hole didn’t look this big in the pic you sent me yesterday,” Margie says, staring at the now six-footholein the center of the wall between my apartment and Jack’s.
Avery shakes his head. “I’m going to have to institute a crisis intake form so I know what the hell I’m rushing over straight from work to deal with from now on.”
“Because itwasn’tthis big yesterday,” I snap at Margie. “Where the fuck is Gence? He isn’t answering his phone.” I dial him again on speaker, and a ringing sound fills the silence. I hang up.
Margie levels a look at me. “Maybe he’s pissed. This is a lot of work. I told you this was a bad idea.”
“No. You didn’t. You introduced me to a lawyer who told me to do this, and then you cheerleaded every step of the way.”
