Page 83 of The Tenant
“Hi, Whitney!” I say cheerfully. The name feels like acid on my tongue.
She lifts her eyes, which are slightly red-rimmed. “Oh. Hey, Krista.”
I join her in the kitchen, leaning against the counter in a position I hope seems friendly enough. “Everything okay?”
“Sort of.” She manages a lopsided smile. “Blake is pissed off at me for eating his cereal, even though he told me it was fine.”
“Did he say he was pissed?”
Her jaw twitches. “He came to the diner and yelled at me while I was working.”
Oh, Blake. I almost burst out laughing. It’s not like him at all, but he’s been under a lot of stress lately and barely sleeping. “I’m so sorry he did that to you. That is not acceptable.”
“I didn’t even eat that much cereal,” she says. “Hardly any!”
“Blake is…” I choose my words carefully. “He’s difficult. He’s not an easy man to get along with, and he likes everything just so. I have to be honest with you. He wasn’t excited to have a tenant move in, but he agreed because money has been tight since he lost his job.”
Amanda nods in understanding. “I got a feeling he was fired…”
“Oh, he was,” I confirm. “There was…well, there was anincident. And now, of course, he’s having trouble finding something else.”
I can’t give her all the gory details, but I can hint at Blake’s wrongdoing. It will be enough to get the wheels turning in her brain.
“Look,” I say. “I like having you live here, Whitney. I’ll make sure Blake doesn’t bother you, but it might be a good idea to stay out of his way. No point in poking the dragon.”
She rubs her face with her palms. She looks tired. “Yeah. I have definitely learned my lesson. Honestly, I thought we would become friends. He seems like such a nice guy.”
From the look on her face, I’m pretty sure that’s not all she was thinking about him. I saw how close she sat next to him on the couch when they were alone that night. Nice guy or nice in bed? She didn’t want to be his friend. She wantedhim.
That’s about to change completely.
55
Blakeand I don’t go out to dinner much anymore.
We don’t have much money, so eating out is a luxury we can’t afford. Fortunately, I like to cook, and I love to bake, so it’s not a major sacrifice for me.
But tonight is Friday night, so we decided to go out. We went to this cheap, hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant that is known for smothering their food in spicy and delicious sauces. Technically, it’s more of a takeout place, because you order at a counter. But they have seats, and after you place your order, they bring your food to you. And if you order a margarita, it comes with a little umbrella in it.
Blake is sitting across from me while we wait for our food. He got a steak burrito, and I got the burrito bowl to avoid the carbs—after all, I will be single again very soon. He’s wearing a T-shirt and scratching absently at his arm. He has a horrendous rash from the small amounts of fragranced detergent I have been mixing with his hypoallergenic one. The rash itself makes his skin red and bumpy, and he’s got angry scratch marks running up the length of his arm because it’s intensely itchy.
He also has dark hollows under his eyes from not sleeping well. He was already suffering from insomnia since losing his job, but I got the brilliant idea to blast a soundtrack of ominous thumping noises on my phone in the middle of the night. I hide the phone at the top of our closet so it sounds like it’s coming from above us, and then the second Blake leaves the room to confront Amanda, I shut it off. I doubt he’s gotten one decent night of sleep in the last month. It’s easy to drive someone out of their mind when you know them well enough.
I almost feel sorry for him.
Almost.
He and Amanda hate each other now. I have helped things along considerably by leaving little sticky notes from Blake inside her door. The notes say things like “stop leaving the light on in the kitchen” or “please request permission twenty-four hours in advance before using our television,” and all of them are signed with Blake’s name. When the two of them are together, she looks like she wants to strangle him with her bare hands. If she had anywhere else to go, she would be gone. But since her last landlord thinks she’s a drug dealer, she doesn’t have a lot of options.
“I’m thinking about selling the brownstone,” he blurts out.
My heart sinks. If he sells the brownstone, Amanda will have to move out. It will all be over. “What? You love our house.”
“I do,” he admits. “But, Krista, I can’t afford it anymore. I can’t make the mortgage payments. I’ll find something else cheaper, maybe in Queens or something.”
“Queens? Oh God, we’re both going to have a horrible commute.”
“I know.” He rakes a hand through his hair, which makes it stand up a bit. He used to be the most put-together guy I ever knew, and now he’s a mess. “But what do you want me to do? I can’t pay the mortgage.”
