Page 11 of The Vacancy In Room 10

She looks at it and doesn’t seem at all disturbed or surprised even. “Huh.”

“What do you mean, huh?” I snap. “It’s a threat.”

“I mean, not really.”

“I could call the police.”

“Go for it,” she says, and I find myself prickling with annoyance.

“Just... Are there any... Do you know why someone would leave this for me?”

“I mean, everyone here is a quack if you haven’t figured that out yet. Yesterday I had to pull four Reese’s Pieces out of a kid’s nose with pliers in 107, and last week I had to drain the whole pool ’cause someone took a shit in it. Could be anyone. Probably a kid—a prank.”

“Yeah,” I agree, a bit defeated.

“Ask the ‘pool girls,’ they see everything,” she says, nodding toward the women who are permanent fixtures at the table by the pool. “And bat your eyes at one of the guys around the place. You’ll get your AC fixed,” she says as she descends the concrete stairs.

I sleep most of the day away in front of a box fan with a melted ice pack on my chest on a bare mattress. The days and nights run together, and I have no working body clock anymore. Maybe I’m still in shock. Everybody mourns differently, they say. It would be easy to let myself sob into his pillow and try to capture that last remaining scent of him, but instead I stripped the bed and washed everything because allowing myself to fall into the darkness threatening to pull me under is something I know I’d never return from. So I try to be just strong enough not to follow in Henry’s footsteps, although somedays I imagine myself going to sleep on the train tracks at Willow’s Crossing, only a few blocks away behind the liquor store, and then it would all be done. But finding answers is what keeps me here, in this utter shit pile of an apartment building.

The horizon begins to look like a watercolor with blazing orange streaks and purple clouds, and the air is cooling ever so slightly outside, so I pull a High Life out of the mini fridge and sit in the terribly uncomfortable metal chair that’s propped outside the front door. I never knew Henry to drink High Life, and I can’t imagine him acquiring a chair like this, but I guess there’s a lot I don’t know about him, isn’t there?

The loudest of the pool girls is swimming with an infant in her arms, cooing at him and swooshing his little legs through the water, side to side. He smiles and flexes his fingers in delight.

I see face-tattoo guy from 119 watching the woman, her giant breasts floating above the water’s surface. I almost call him a perv, but I don’t. The old me would have, but this version of myself can’t quite muster up the emotional energy to care.

Then I see Callum in the small adjacent parking lot next to the building; he steps out of a beat-up Volkswagen and beeps the door locked. When he crosses the concrete patio surrounding the pool to get to his door, he looks so incredibly out of place here in his shirt and tie, pants that are a little too baggy and a messenger bag strapped across his chest that takes me aback a little. He must have come from work. Henry’s school, I think, and I take a deep breath and push the thought of our life before it all crumbled to bits out of my mind. Maybe Callum is the place to start. He knew Henry. I have to start somewhere.

I wait a couple of hours until dusk fully sets in. Everyone is inside their units, and the pool is glossy and actually looks almost pretty in the dark with its blue light and calm surface. Smells of curry and onions and hamburger grease spill out of open apartment windows. No wonder the pool girls are always outside; it seems other folks don’t have AC, either, and their lives and conversations are on display for anyone walking past. A soundtrack of crickets chirping, meat sizzling, the clanging of forks scraping across dinner plates, a baby crying, and a couple arguing plays all around me.

Before the sun fully sets, I make a decision. I’ll try to talk to Callum. It’s a place to start. My hands shake as I pull out two more High Lifes from the fridge and walk down the concrete slab to 114 and knock.

His face is a mix of confusion and surprise when he sees me standing there.

“Uhhh. Anna, right?” he asks, trying to rearrange his expression into something pleasant. I’m surprised he remembers my name.

“Yeah, yes. I’m...sorry to just show up. Am I interrupting you?”

“I, um... I guess not,” he says, but I get the distinct feeling that he doesn’t want me here, just showing up unannounced while he’s trying to relax. “What can I do for you?”

“I just...I wanted to ask a little bit about Henry, if you have time. Or I mean not even right now if you’re busy, but I just...I know you worked with him and knew him, so I just...had a few questions.”

“I mean, I don’t know what I can offer, really. We weren’t very close or anything, but yeah. Of course. You can come in if you want,” he says.

I nod and hand him the two beers in my hand.

“Oh, okay. Thanks,” he says, and he must think I’m an idiot. High Life for God’s sake. Why am I even bringing alcohol to a strange man’s apartment? What must this guy think?

Inside, Hamburger Helper sits half-eaten in a skillet on the stove and the place smells like...childhood. Ground beef and onions mixed with dewy summer air coming through the window screen. The TV plays a ball game and bathes the room in a flickery blue. He turns the volume down and apologizes for the mess.

It’s not actually that messy. I can still see the feminine touches his wife must have added to the place. Throw pillows on the sofa, an accent wall, and wispy curtains. The rest is covered with man stuff—an Xbox console, a mountain bike leaning against the wall, a beanbag chair, and empty Pepsi and beer cans cluttering the coffee table.

I sit on the edge of an armchair—definitely the wife’s choice—and he picks up a few cans and throws them away as if they were an annoyance, left there by someone else, before he sits across from me on the sofa and hands me one of the High Lifes he’s opened. He’s wearing cargo shorts and a tight T-shirt, and I find myself noticing the way the sleeves hug his biceps, and how big his six-foot-three-inch frame looks in the tiny apartment. Sad and out of place—a giant in a cage sort of vibe. He has a short tapered haircut and sad, dark eyes that avoid mine when he speaks. I don’t quite know what to make of him besides that he’s clearly a broken man, so maybe he does fit in here better than I thought.

“I’m so sorry about Henry,” he says, picking at the label on his beer. Then he makes eye contact. “He was an amazing guy. The kids loved him.”

“Thanks,” I say, forcing myself to hold back tears at the sound of his name. “I guess I...I just wanted to ask about when he got laid off from the school. I feel like... I don’t know... He told me it was budget cuts, but that’s when I feel like things sort of changed with him, and so I always wondered if he was being... I don’t know, being honest with me about that. If there was anything else going on...happening, that was...off?”

Callum takes a deep breath and blows it out through pursed lips. “I mean, besides the silly rumors about Mira, you mean? I don’t know, not that I noticed. But I don’t think that had to do with his getting let go. The arts are always getting cut. A music teacher was laid off last week, too, so I mean, I don’t really know.”

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