Page 16 of The Vacancy In Room 10

“That’s good. Good answer,” Ashley with an ey says.

“Yeah,” the other agrees. “Do you know Bob’s Pancake House and Cozy Waffle get their eggs from Gleeson’s where they debeak their chickens?”

“Pardon?” I say, not sure if I’m supposed to have a response to this.

“Oh, my gosh, they do, they crack off the end of the chicken’s beaks so they can’t fight, but the only reason they fight is cause they stack ’em up like Velveeta slices in these little cages. Oh. It was on a TikTok clip from an Oprah show I saw. Oprah cried. The cameraman had to come up and bring her a Kleenex. Her mascara ran a little. Sad.”

“So sad,” the other Ashley echoes. Then she makes a pouty face and a heart shape with her hands.

They ask me where I see myself in five years and if I have customer service experience and a bunch of other mindless questions they read from an interview form the owner supplied, and by the end of it, I’m so utterly demoralized that two high school girls have my fate in their hands that I think I’ll start screaming. I feel like I could actually just leap on the table and screech out a primal howl and start throwing breakfast burritos at everyone’s face at the utter injustice of the position I’m in, but then, Ashleigh with an eigh asks me if I can start next weekend—the graveyard shift—to see how I handle the 3:00 a.m. drunks.

“Really?” I say, my eyes welling and my expression softening and my hatred for myself growing with every moment I sit here in gratitude for a barfly shift at the goddamn Egg Platter. I actually think she expected me to refuse the Saturday graveyard offer, but I can’t, can I? “Yes, that works,” I say, standing up and trying to rush the ending of this meeting before anything changes or they change their mind.

When I leave, I feel lighter. The sun is beginning to set, and the air is dewy. The smell of the deep fat fryer wafting from the back of the building reminds me of the county fair as a kid, and I smile. I actually smile. It feels like the very humble start of something.

I drive around a while and feel like I want to call someone to tell them the good news, and I’m struck hard, maybe for the first time really, that I have no one to call. I mean, the shift from having girls’ brunch and cocktail parties and real estate dinners and organizing charity events to living at The Sycamores and being broke happened so fast I couldn’t process it all, and nobody calls me. My book club and Sunday brunch friends don’t answer my posts or messages, not really. A few curt, noncommittal responses when I’ve asked to get together. I guess our friends were really his friends. Whoever he’s with is the new Sunday brunch “wife,” and I’ve vanished.

There were a few neighbors and yoga girls who were small-talk friends, but when your life crumbles, you really see it all for what it is, and there is no one to call.

I don’t cry. Of course, I could never call them anyway to tell them such pathetic news. That I have the first thing of my own in years and it’s a diner job. They’d laugh me right off the phone, wouldn’t they?

I drive to Gunther’s Pub because it’s only a few blocks from the apartments and I can walk home if I need to. I usually wouldn’t spend the money on drinks, but I have something to celebrate, finally. A small step in the right direction. So I play Van Halen on the jukebox, and I make out with some guy with cowboy boots on the tiny dance floor and drink too many whiskey sours and stay too late.

And then, when it’s almost last call, I decide to stumble the few blocks home with my sandals in my hand so I don’t roll an ankle. When I enter the iron gate to the pool area to cross to my unit, I hear something. The pool water is still, and the night is quiet, all the residents long asleep except for a sound—like a low rumbling voice, then a cry, it sounds like.

I drop my shoes and tiptoe quietly down the concrete walk, keeping close against the building, so I’m not seen. Then I hear crying.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!?” a male voice seethes.

I see Rosa now. Holy shit. She’s standing around the corner from her apartment door and her husband, Eddie, has her by the hair. He’s in her face. She doesn’t respond to him. Then he picks up a brick and slams it with enormous force into the wall next to her head—inches from her face.

I gasp and cover my mouth with both hands, then quickly duck behind the corner of the building. I don’t know what to do. Should I call the cops or will it be too late if I don’t try to help her now?

The crash of the brick must have startled the chick in 203. Anna. Because I see lights come on, and her door crack open. Most people are used to chaos around here and wouldn’t bat an eye at a loud noise, but she’s new.

“You wanna end up like him!?” he yells, then he smacks her head into the wall with a crack, and she falls to the ground.

I lose my breath. The shock of it paralyzes me for a moment. Then he storms off, and I can hear his pickup start up in the parking lot. I run to Rosa on the ground, and she is quietly crying, holding her hand over the gash on the back of her head.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” I stutter, still shocked. “I’m gonna get some... I...have a first aid kit. We can...”

“No. I’m fine,” she says, holding the wall behind her and unsteadily pushing herself to her feet.

“Rosa, you’re not fine. I can wait with you till the cops come. We can get you...”

“No cops,” she says, and then she squeezes my arm hard. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, so please. Stay away.” Then she holds the side of her purse up to her bleeding head, stopping the trail of small dots of blood pooling on the concrete, and walks away from me until she disappears behind her apartment door, and then the lights go dark.

I look up to Anna on the balcony, her hand cupping her mouth. She looks back at me, our eyes lock, and a helpless, vacant stare is exchanged, suspended in the heavy air for a few moments, and then she rushes back inside. Probably to pack her things and get the hell out of here as fast as she can, if she has any sense.

7

ANNA

Maggots. It’s all I can see when I close my eyes. Wriggling, wet maggots. I have to shake out my hands and take deep breaths to get the image out of my mind—the feel of them falling onto my skin. My stomach lurches as I try to unsee it and focus on the road.

I drive around searching for a Starbucks in this godforsaken neighborhood and think about the threats, and then the woman from 103 being struck by her husband. Do I tell someone? Are any of these surreal events connected to Henry?

I was asked to stop back at the police station later today for some more questions. They still have Henry’s laptop and don’t have the phone records back yet, so I think maybe it’s about that. Maybe they found something new. If I tell the police about any of this when I go in, is an unsigned note and a box of insects enough for them to give a shit about? No, because I can already hear them telling me there is nothing they can do about passive pranks with no suspect or actual threat—probably kids having some fun. They’ll make a report and put it in a file cabinet, is what they’ll do. But Rosa from 103—do I get involved?

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