“Glitter! Oh my God,yes. Put some in his shampoo,” the blonde says.
“What would that even do?” the brunette counters. “He’d just wash it out.”
“Um,trust me. Glitter is like an avoidant ex-boyfriend. The minute you think he’s gone for good, he shows up again to wreck your shit.”
“‘Seek revenge and you should dig two graves,’” the driver says, piping up suddenly.
“It’s glitter,” the blonde sasses. “Not an axe murder.”
“Is this your stop?” the driver asks me, and I’m surprised to realize it is. The pregnant woman files outside, and I clumsily stumble my way out of the third row behind the blonde. Once I’m on the street, I turn to thank the car’s remaining occupants for the crowdsourced advice.
“Good luck, honey! If all else fails, just kick him in his gonads,” the bloodthirsty, bespectacled grandma calls out from the front seat.
People around me on the sidewalk gawk in confusion. The car pulls away, lively conversation trickling back to me through the open windows.
When I get upstairs, I am desperate for four things: a cup of tea, my reading socks, a new book, and someone to finish taking down the wall for me.
I settle for the cup of tea, reaching for a cabinet door under my kitchen counter to retrieve my kettle. Instead, I retrieve the door. It falls off its hinges, and I recoil, still holding onto the handle for some inexplicable reason as it glances off my big toe.
“Ow, ow, ow.Ow.” I hop around, pulling my foot up to hold until the worst of the pain subsides. A sneaking suspicion crawls up my spine.
The cabinet still has its screws, but the thing came out with no resistance, so they must have been loose. The cabinet next to it appears to have loose screws, too, though I don’t try to open them. In fact… All of the bottom cabinets have loosened screws.
Jack.
He didn’t loosen the top cabinets, probably because he didn’t want to kill me, just enrage me. He must have discovered the tuna fish.
I find a multitool in the junk drawer and refasten the cabinets securely. And then I seethe.
I don’t hear him on the other side of the wall.
Quickly, before I lose my nerve, I run out of my apartment and down two flights to 3B. The father answers on the second knock.
“Hi!” I say, trying my best to feign cheerfulness instead of hysteria. “That project Olivia put together. Did she use all that glitter?”
3B, to my delight, has buttloads of glitter to spare.
Back in my apartment, I rummage through the cabinet under my bathroom sink until I find a squeeze bottle. I fill it part of the way with water and then try to pour the glitter, as best I can, into the bottle’s narrow neck. It gets all over my sink and floor.
“Dig two graves,” I mutter.
I rush across the room and flap the sheet out of my way, hurrying over to Jack’s bathroom, sure he’s going to erupt into the apartment at any moment. My pulse gallops.
His shampoo bottle is sitting on a toiletry organizer hanging from his shower head. I lift it out gingerly, as if the sound of it sliding against the organizer will summon him like a genie. Shampoo and conditioner in one. Good—no separate product to dilute the impact. I unscrew the cap. Almost all gone. Perfect. I squirt the contents of my brew into the bottle and shake it up. Spying his shower gel, I give it the same treatment.
If this goes the way I hope it will, Jack’s going to look like he dry-humped Tinkerbell.
I set the shower gel back where I found it, wishing I could see his stupid face when he realizes what I’ve done.
Mission accomplished, I retreat back to The Hole to start on more demolition, my smile brighter than it’s been in ages. The idea that I may be part of this problem tickles the back of my mind, whisper-soft but niggling.
The smile fades as I take in my wall. The drywall on my side has all come down, more or less, but the areas where there was lath and plaster beneath it is riddled with pockmarks. It’s proven really tough to take out the plaster and rip out the narrow horizontal slats beyond. It gives me anxiety to see Mary Sue this way, but I reassure myself that it’s for a greater good. Soon this wall will be down, then back up againwith soundproofing, and then my apartment will belong to me.
We haven’t started work on Jack’s side yet, though stabbing through the lath has opened up little holes here and there on his side. The only sizable spot still fully open to Jack’s apartment is the original Hole, although it’s now a touch wider and taller. I can still spy undetected as a result—which I do the second I hear Jack’s door open.
He’s shrugging out of a gray suit, headed for his bedroom, when I peep past the sheet. I’m about to duck when he stops in the middle of the room and turns around, facing his kitchen but not moving other than to toss his jacket on his sofa and tug the tails of his dress shirt from his pants.
I can’t see what he’s doing, since I can only see the expanse of his back. I frown and shift as quietly as I can to my knees. My workouts do not allow for squatting for that length of time. This vantage point makes it so that his sofa blocks his ability to see me, but I can just see over the top.
