Page 14 of The Tenant
I manage a lopsided smile. “Krista and I aren’t married.”
“Oh!” Her eyelashes flutter, and she touches a hand to her chest. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought—”
“No big deal,” I say. “I mean, we’re engaged. So, you know, wewillbe married.”
“Did you set a date?”
No. I was working superhuman hours after my proposal, and once I got fired, I didn’t feel like planning a wedding I couldn’t even afford. But I’m not sharing any of that with Whitney. “Not yet.”
She stares at me for another few beats—long enough to make me squirm—but then she goes right back to unpacking her belongings. As she refolds her clothing and places it in drawers, it hits home that it’s too late to turn back.
Whitney lives here now.
“So…uh…” I rub the back of my neck. “I’ll leave you to it then. But…” I feel like I have to say something else before I go, so I add, “We should have dinner sometime.”
Whitney lifts her eyes from the box she’d been ripping open with her bare hands. “Dinner? Withyou?”
“And Krista,” I say, in case it wasn’t obvious. Christ, I don’t want her to think I’m hitting on her five seconds after moving in.
“Oh, sure,” she says. “That sounds great!”
Her enthusiasm makes me feel a little better about everything. Yes, we are bringing a stranger into our home, but Whitney seems really nice. Maybe the three of us will have a great time together.
But even if we become the best of friends, soon I’m going to find a job that’s even better than the one I lost, and then we’ll show her the door.
8
My plansfor the morning include changing the water in the fish tank.
Krista used to handle this particular chore, but now that I have more free time than she does, it’s on me. Actually, I’ve taken on most of the cleaning duties in the house, and I don’t mind it. My mother was always a stickler for a clean house, so I’ve learned to take satisfaction in vacuuming the floors and scrubbing the countertops until they shine. I even make the bed on mornings when Krista wakes up before me. For some reason, she finds this hilarious and teases me mercilessly about it (something about “Mr. Suzy Homemaker”).
Cleaning the fish tank is one of the more involved chores in our household. I can’t just pour out all the water and then fill it up again, because apparently, that would kill the fish. So I have to extract twenty percent of the water—no more, no less. Oh, and I can’t pour tap water in to replace it, because that wouldalsokill the fish. I have to mix the tap water with a dechlorinator. After that, I have to remove the debris from the bottom of the tank using a siphon.
It’s a ridiculous amount of work, but at the same time, I can’t let anything happen to Goldy. She’s our practicechild, and if we let her die, that seems like an ominous harbinger for the future. (We call the fish “her” because it goes with the name, but we have no solid evidence to support the idea that she’s female.) After I’m done with Goldy’s tank, I’ll go to the gym and work out. I feel like I have to keep moving all the time these days, or else I’ll sleep all day and lie awake all night.
While Krista is in the shower, I head downstairs to clean the fish tank. I’ve got all the supplies ready, but then I get weirdly mesmerized by the sight of Goldy swimming back and forth across her small tank. Before I know it, I’ve been standing there for five minutes, not moving.
“What the hell happened to me?” I ask Goldy.
Goldy swims in a circle until she’s facing me.
“What if I never get another job? What if I lose the house?”
Goldy looks at me. She doesn’t have much to say on the matter.
Okay, now I’m having a conversation with a fish. Maybe my blood sugar is low. I need to eat some breakfast.
When I get to the kitchen, I am startled to find Whitney there. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. She’s lived with us for two days now, and it’s her right to use our kitchen. But I’m still getting used to this stranger occupying my house.
Also, Whitney isn’t dressed. I mean, she’s notundressed, but all the other times I’ve seen her, she’s been wearing regular clothing or once a bathrobe when I caught her coming out of the shower. But now she’s wearing a skimpy tank top with what looks like a pair of tiny pajama shorts.
Also, I can see her nipples through the tank top. Which is bad news, considering I’m wearing boxer shorts.
“Good morning, Blake,” she says cheerfully as she stares into the fridge, oblivious to howcoldit is in there.
“Hey, Whitney.”Don’t look at her erect nipples. Don’t look at her erect nipples.“Did you sleep well?”
She turns from the fridge empty-handed. “Wonderful. The bed is super comfortable.”
