Page 15 of The Vacancy In Room 10

He jumps a little.

“Sorry, hey, hold up a sec,” I say and pop out the front door.

“Oh, hey, Cass. You scared me.”

“Sorry, hey. Yeah. I was just wondering if you could do me a teensy favor?”

“Sure, what’s up?” he asks, tugging his messenger bag back up on his shoulder.

“That new chick in 203, you met her? Anna?”

“Uh, yeah. I did.”

“Oh, good. Well, I need someone to help her with her AC.”

“Someone, meaning me?” he asks.

“It’s a thousand degrees. I feel bad for her. You know the owners made a big deal when Leonard’s microwave blew up and started the fire in 111, so I mean I wasn’t here then, but still, there’s a rule—no electrical and no more HVAC. I guess they think I’m gonna start snorting the Freon or something, but it’s a liability thing.”

“That’s not true, I saw you rewiring someone’s outlet a couple days ago,” he says.

Damn. I thought that would work. “Right, right,” I say, chewing my lip and giving up on finding another excuse. “It creeps me out, okay. Being in there. His widow. It’s all...”

“You want me to do it,” he interrupts.

“You teach science, right? You can probably sort it out.”

“Look, I would, but the last thing I would think she needs right now is some guy showing up with a tool belt to—No, that’s creepy. Just call the owner.”

“I did. You know how they are. It’ll take forever. You own a tool belt?” I ask, trying not to smirk.

“No, that was just... I mean...”

“I’ll take a hundred bucks off your rent if you fix it.”

He pauses and considers. “Do you have the authority to do that?” he asks.

“I mean, if you fell from the balcony ’cause the railing was loose or got your balls stuck in the pool suction valve—you know, something you’d sue for—then I would, yeah. So I can bend the truth a bit here.”

“Wait, if I fell from a balcony, and it was the apartment management’s fault, I’d only be offered a hundred bucks in credit?” he asks.

“Christ, Callum. I don’t know. It’s all I got, give me a break here. Just forget it.”

“No, sorry,” he says before I’m all the way back through the office door. “I’m happy to help, of course. Sorry.”

“Thank you,” I say and slam the door, then I grab my keys and exit the back to my car so I can get to the Egg Platter by 4:30.

I wait in a red vinyl booth and watch a line cook press the life out of a sad grayish burger patty with a spatula. A middle-aged waitress with saggy eyes places a runny plate of eggs in front of a man so lonely-looking it could take your breath away. He wears a baggy suit, and his hair is greasy, and it makes my stomach hurt to look at him. The pimply teenaged cash register kid sticks his face under the soft-serve machine and squeezes vanilla-chocolate swirl into his mouth until the waitress flicks him in the back of the head. Then, two teen girls appear and sit on the opposite side of the booth from me.

I’m startled for a moment until I see their respective name tags: Ashley and Ashleigh. They introduce themselves as the assistant manager and the second shift supervisor.

Ashleigh—with the eigh—looks my résumé up and down and then asks, “What makes you want to join the Egg Platter family?”

Oh, god. I have to make my face remain in an appropriate expression while I try to impress two children for a job I don’t want. Here goes.

“Um,” I begin, then I see a sign behind the counter that says “Free range chickens. Organic.”

“Your high standards. Organic chickens. That’s...important,” I say, nodding too many times.

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