Page 28 of The Tenant
Whitney tilts her head to the side. “You don’t look so hot, Blake. Maybe you should try to get more sleep.”
“Thanks for the tip.” I have to bite back the string of swear words I’m tempted to hurl in her direction. “Like I said, just…whatever you were doing, stop it.”
She has an amused look on her face. “You got it, boss. Is that all?”
“Yeah, that’s all.”
“Fantastic.”
Then she shuts the door in my face.
I trudge down the steps back to my own bedroom. My heart is still racing from being woken up abruptly and from my encounter with Whitney. I’ll be lucky if I fall back asleep in the next hour. All I can say is that if the noises start up again, I can’t be held accountable for my actions.
17
There is a rottingsmell in the kitchen.
I’ve been noticing it more and more over the last month or so. But today, as I step into the kitchen to grab a beer to help me unwind from another truly awful day at my temp job—during which I almost went to battle with the jammed copy machine—the stench is overpowering. I have to clasp a hand over my nose.
My first thought isit’s Whitney’s fault.
It’s been two weeks since I confronted Whitney about the thumping noise in the middle of the night. I heard it one more time a week later, but the sound again stopped the second I got into the stairwell, and instead of having another frustrating encounter with a smirking Whitney, I instead went downstairs to the first floor and passed out on the couch watching television.
Sadly, it wasn’t even the worst night of sleep I’ve gotten in the last month or so. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but my sleep has been shit. I’ve got a permanent pair of bags under my eyes.
So I’m not in the mood to deal with a mystery smell in my kitchen. I look around the countertops, trying to figure out the source. A swarm of fruit flies whirls around my face. That’s another thing. The fruit fly situation in the kitchen has become almost unbearable. I asked Krista if she would make cookies a few days ago, and she said she didn’t want to because there were too many flies in the kitchen.
I yank open the refrigerator, trying to see if I can find the culprit in there. The smell is definitely pretty bad in here. I crouch down, peering inside. It’s the usual mix of condiments, a loaf of bread, some cold cuts, fat-free yogurt, and a dozen eggs. But then I notice a few of those Styrofoam containers in the back of the fridge—the kind that Whitney brings home from the diner.
I take them out, and as soon as I have them in my hands, I have no doubt that this is the cause of the smell. They smellawful. Like there’s a tiny rotting carcass inside.
I stare down at the containers, not wanting to even touch them without gloves on. Yet I can’t stifle a sick curiosity. I need to know what’s inside. I need to confirm that these really are the source of the smell.
So I open the first box.
I’m immediately sorry I did. The contents of the Styrofoam box are enough to make my stomach turn. It used to be french fries and a chicken sandwich, but the bun has turned almost completely green with mold. The french fries had also been slathered in some sort of sauce, which has clearly turned, and the fries themselves have also gone green. The stench is unbearable.
Damn it, Whitney.
I don’t bother opening the other two containers, because I’m pretty sure what’s in them is just as bad. I toss all three right in the garbage, and then I seal the bag and take it outside. I don’t even want this crap in my house anymore.
When I get back to the kitchen, it smells just as bad. There are about a dozen fruit flies on the counter, and I kill as many of them as I can with my bare hand. But I’m not sure how easy it will be to get rid of them.
“What are you doing, Blake?”
Krista has materialized at the kitchen, dressed in her clothes for work. She caught me smashing the life out of a fruit fly that was perched on the refrigerator, using more force than technically necessary.
I turn around, taking a breath to calm myself. “Whitney left rotting food in the fridge.”
She crinkles her nose. “Yeah. Wow. It smells terrible.”
“No kidding.”
She brightens. “I have that air freshener in the bedroom. I could spray it around the kitchen.”
I know the air freshener she is talking about because she sprays it in the bathroom sometimes. It smells overwhelmingly of flowers and makes my eyes itch. In general, I hate it, but it’s better than the way the kitchen currently smells. Anything to cover up the smell of rotting food. But we have a bigger problem right now.
“I don’t want Whitney to live here anymore,” I say to her.
