storyshell

There was this thing between me and the girl. It was a wall. No, a real wall.

She lived in the apartment next door, with her mother, and I lived with my sister, an invalid. The girl next door was probably about 25. I was definitely 50. I work late, as a janitor, and I don’t come in until 4 am. The girl left at 7 am each weekday, to go to her job at some diner, I was sure. She was dressed in a pink skirt, a white blouse, and a tiara and she carried a black leather purse, and, she also chewed bubblegum. I know this because I have seen her many times. I can hear her alarm clock go off at 5:30 am and I can hear the shower burst on at 5:40 am and then I can hear her sing old soul songs and then stop exactly when she turned off the water. I’d then hear her tromp about, bumping into things, closing doors, sliding her windows open and shut. Finally, I’d hear silence, complete silence, and I’d wonder what she was doing. Was she praying? Was she reading something? Was she contemplating plunging from the window to leave a doll-dressed, beautiful corpse cracked and split upon the sidewalk?

One morning, I yanked myself out of bed and I timed our impromptu meeting just right. I went out to the hallway to get my newspaper that was sitting at my doorstep, just as the girl came from her apartment. She was glowing in the dull light that managed to get in through the smudged window down the hall. She was demure and had pearl skin and little eyes. She looked at me as she closed her door and she smiled and then, just as quickly, turned her head and kept walking, the pink skirt bobbing just above the small bulge of her perfect knees.

I watched her too long one day, and she looked back. I immediately glanced down to the paper I held.

“Evidence of attack…” the headline started.

I kept my head down, as I heard her get onto the elevator and heard the door slide shut. I went back into my apartment then. I was breathing like an accordion.

For a few days, weeks, I caught her out in the hall. I would just lie in the bed, waiting for her routine to finish, then I nearly darted out there to see her, in her same pink outfit, her same red hair, only the newspaper headline and the color of the light changing every day.

Finally, one cold morning, I got the courage up.

“Hey,” I said as she closed her door and I picked up the paper and read the headline. It read “Man confesses…”

“Yeah,” she said, frowning.

“You are beautiful in that dress,” I said. I smiled, acted embarrassed, and looked back to the paper.

“Oh. Well, thank you,” she said, her voice sharp as a summer morning, cutting through the cold of the hallway. “So, now I suppose you think the next thing that happens is that I fall in love with you?” And she winked, blew me a kiss, and walked away.

I stood there long after her elevator left. I stood there until my feet fell asleep.

I don’t go out in the hallway early anymore. I keep the wall between us, and I listen until she leaves. As I hear her door close and her feet landing on the hallway carpet as she walks to the elevator, I imagine her pink dress, bobbing, just above the curve of my straining heart.