Ever since Ryan asked me to move in with him five days ago and I said yes, he’s been impatient for it to happen. I woke up the morning after the dinner party to him on the phone with a moving company, scheduling their services for later that day, thanks to a last-minute cancellation.
I convinced him to wait, even if it was just for a week, to make sure this was really what he wanted and not just something he said after an evening of expensive wine and perfectly cooked beef tenderloin. Plus, I mentioned he was getting a little ahead of himself by calling the movers when I haven’t packed anything yet.
“If you didn’t really want to move in with me, you’d tell me, right?” Ryan is standing in front of the bathroom mirror, knotting a dark blue and gray striped tie, and trying to act like he’s asked me some insignificant thing. He’s pouting. Something I’ve seen before when he doesn’t get his way.
I hop up on the counter and scoot down the white marble surface until I’m sitting right in front of him. He looks over my shoulder as if he can still watch his progress in the mirror behind me. He’s being a little bit of a baby this morning.
I’ve memorized his face, but I still study it every chance I get, looking for any small piece I may have missed. He’s attractive in a classic way. His dark hair is thick and tends to curl at the edges when it gets too long, as it is now. His blue eyes are striking, and even though he just shaved I know by the time I see him tonight his jaw will be shadowed and I’ll get goose bumps when it grazes my neck.
Brushing his hands away, I finish tying the tie for him. “Of course I want to move in here. Where’s this coming from?”
Ryan looks down at the tie, straightening it even though it’s already straight but needing something to do. He hasn’t touched me this morning and barely looked at me. Yep, total baby.
Since he hasn’t answered me, I add, “Have you changed your mind about me being here? I know you think I’ve been avoiding packing, but I’ve set aside the entire day today to get it done, and Goodwill is coming by to pick up everything I don’t need anymore. But I can call them and cancel . . .”
His eyes and hands are finally on me. “Yes, I still want you here. I didn’t know that’s what you were planning to do today. But you’ve picked the one day I can’t help you. I’m swamped today.”
Today is Thursday, and he’ll be fifty miles away from here at his East Texas office for the day. Just like he is every Thursday.
“I know, the timing sucks. But today was the only day I could get off work and the only afternoon Goodwill could send a truck over. I don’t have much, so even by myself, it shouldn’t take long.”
His hands squeeze my sides while he leans forward to kiss me on the lips. His pout long gone, I hook my feet around the back of his legs and pull him close.
“Maybe I can call in sick. I am the boss, after all, and it’s high time I abused my position of power,” he says with a laugh.
I giggle between kisses. “Save your sick day for something better than packing. And really, there won’t be that much to pack since I’m giving almost everything away.” I glance through the door to the bedroom. “My stuff isn’t as nice as yours, so there’s no reason to keep it.”
His hands go to my face. “I told you, anything you want to bring here, we’ll make room for it. You don’t have to get rid of your stuff.”
Biting my bottom lip, I say, “I promise you, you don’t want my ugly secondhand couch in your living room.”
“How would I know if I didn’t want your ugly secondhand couch in my living room? You’ve never let me see it.” I try to sidestep this landmine of a conversation by looking away, but his finger pulls my chin back so we’re eye to eye. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”
“Yes, I do,” I say, matching his stare. Then I lean in and kiss him quickly to avoid another pout. “You’ll see it on Saturday when we meet the movers there. I scheduled them yesterday. And Sunday will be spent finding space for my stuff here. Save your sick day for Monday. By Monday, we’ll both be exhausted and I’m sure we’ll need a pajama day. Pajamas optional.” He leans his forehead against mine, his smile infectious. “It’s a date.”
With a last quick kiss, he pushes away from me and strolls out of the bathroom.
Twenty minutes after Ryan’s Tahoe pulls out of the driveway, I’m doing the same in my ten-year-old 4Runner. Lake Forbing is a medium-size town in north Louisiana that is known for its fertile farmlands and deep pockets of natural gas. There is a lot of money in this area, but it’s the quiet kind. It
takes fifteen minutes to get to Lake View Apartments from Ryan’s house, and from what I can tell it’s nowhere near the lake this town was named after.
I pull into the empty spot designated for apartment 203, right next to the idling Goodwill truck.
“You’re early, Pat,” I say to the driver once we’re both out of our vehicles.
He nods. “Our first run didn’t take as long as I thought it would. Which unit is it?”
Pat follows me up the stairs while his helper opens the back of the large box truck. Stopping in front of the door, I pull a key out of my bag. “This is me.”
He nods again and heads back downstairs. It takes me a couple of tries to get the bolt to unlatch; lack of use has made it stubborn. Just as I’m turning the knob, I hear the thump, thump of the metal dolly bouncing up the stairs.
I hold the door open as Pat and his helper struggle to get the dolly through the narrow frame.
“Where do you want them?” he asks.
Glancing around the empty apartment, I say, “Just put them in the middle of the room.”
I eye the first stack of boxes, each filled with the items I’ve spent the last four days picking out. Things Pat has been storing for me in that box truck until I was ready for him to bring them here. Things that I will move to Ryan’s house on Saturday. Things I will say I’ve owned for years rather than days.
It takes two trips to get all the boxes upstairs. I pull five twenties out of my back pocket and hand them to Pat. This is not a service Goodwill offers, but for a slip of cash, he was more than happy to help.
The guys are almost out the door when I ask, “Oh, did you bring the extra boxes?”
Pat shrugs and looks back to his helper, who says, “Yeah, they’re in the back of the truck. Want them up here?”
If either of them thinks this is strange, they don’t let on. “No. You can leave them on the sidewalk in front of my car.”
I follow them back outside. As they unload the stack of flat cardboard, I walk to the back of my car, where I retrieve a small black bag from the
cargo area. I thank them again as they climb back into the truck. There are only a few things left to take care of.
The layout of the apartment is simple. Front door opens to a small living room with a kitchen against the back wall. A narrow hallway leads to a bathroom and bedroom. Beige carpet meets beige linoleum meets beige walls.
In the kitchen area, I unzip the black bag and remove four menus from nearby restaurants and three pictures I printed from the kiosk at CVS of Ryan and me, plus seven magnets to hold each item in place on the refrigerator. Next, I grab the assortment of condiments and pour half of each one down the sink drain before lining them in the door of the refrigerator. Moving to the bathroom, black bag in tow, I pull out the shampoo and conditioner then pour half of each down the drain like I did with the condiments, before putting the bottles on the edge of the tub. Unwrapping a bar of Lever 2000 soap, I set it on top of the drain in the sink and turn the water on, rotating it every few minutes until the logo is gone and the edges are dulled, then drop it into the small built-in space on the shower wall. Toothpaste is last. Starting from the bottom, I squeeze a portion out but leave a glob or two on the rim of the sink, just like I do at Ryan’s house, even though I know he’ll fuss about it. Leaving the cap off, I drop the tube on the counter near the faucet.
Last stop is the bedroom. I pull out an assortment of wire and plastic hangers, the last items in the bag, and space them out on the empty metal rod. Back in the small living room, I scatter the neat pile of boxes around until the floor is littered with them. I pick two boxes, one filled with books and one filled with an assortment of old perfume bottles, and pull them open. The box with books is easy to unpack so it’s only a minute or so before I have several small piles next to the box as if I haven’t gotten around to packing them yet.
The perfume bottles take a little more time. I move the box to the small kitchen counter and unwrap the four on top, setting them down on the Formica surface. The light from the window hits them just right, and the thin, colorful glass acts like a prism, shooting rays of blue, purple, pink, and green around the dingy room.
Of all the shopping I did this week, the perfume bottles were the hardest and, surprisingly, the most fun to find. It’s a fluke, really, that I even needed to search for them, but after running across a Facebook post Ryan was
tagged in, I knew this was just the sort of item I needed to “collect.” He had gotten his mother one for her birthday last year. It was an Art Deco piece, a ball of etched glass wrapped in silver and adorned with small, mirrored squares, and looked exactly like the type of gift Jay Gatsby would have given Daisy. It was beautiful, and from the smile on her face, she loved it.
And if I was the type of girl who collected things, this would definitely be it.
I survey the room a final time. Everything looks exactly as I want it to. That I’m all packed except for the few lingering things I didn’t get to, a few random possessions left to put away.
“Knock, knock,” a voice says from the doorway, and I spin around. It’s the woman who works in the office of this complex, the woman I rented this apartment from on Monday afternoon.
She steps into the room and looks around at the mess on the floor. “I was worried when I hadn’t seen anyone here since Monday.”
I slide my hands into my front pockets and lean back against the wall next to the kitchen counter, crossing one ankle in front of the other. My movements are slow but calculated. It worries me she’s here, checking on me, and that she’ll feel the same need to do so on Saturday, when Ryan is here moving me out. I picked a place where neighbors don’t bother to get to know one another, and the rent includes utilities since units can be leased by the week. And one week was all I needed.
It must have piqued her interest when I rented one of the few unfurnished units. Usually if someone goes to the trouble of moving furniture in, they plan on staying longer than seven days, but I didn’t want Ryan to think my life was so transient that I didn’t even have my own couch so the furnished unit wasn’t an option. And here we are on day four and there’s nothing to show for my stay except eight boxes, strategically placed around the room.
Her hand runs along the top of the nearest box and she’s eyeing the perfume bottles on the counter. I know her type. Her makeup is heavy, her clothes tight, and once upon a time she would have been considered pretty, but the years have not been kind to her. Her eyes soak in everything happening around her. This is the sort of place that is rented for illicit purposes, and she rules over all of it, constantly on the lookout for any situation she can use to her advantage. And now she has crossed the parking
lot and walked right into my apartment because she knows I’ve got something going on but can’t figure out how to use it against me.
“Just want to make sure you’re getting settled in,” she says.
“I am,” I answer, then glance at the name tag pinned to her low-cut blouse. “Shawna, your concern is unnecessary. And unwelcome.”
Her back stiffens. My brusque tone is in opposition to my relaxed stance. She walked in here thinking she owned this situation, understood it on some level, but I’ve thrown her.
“Should I still presume this unit will be empty and your key returned by five p.m. on Sunday?” she asks.
“As I presume there will be no more unexpected visits,” I answer, tilting my head toward the door and giving her a small smile.
She clucks her tongue against the roof of her mouth, then turns to leave. It takes everything in me not to throw the bolt closed behind her. But I’m almost finished here, and there’s still more to be done before Ryan crosses the Louisiana state line at five thirty this afternoon.
