Fade to Black (49 page)

Our
apartment building.

Kristina prefers to think of it that way because she and Mack do, after all, live under one roof. Just not behind the same door.

But maybe someday … especially now that he’s made his first move, after all these weeks of flirting…

Anything is possible.

When the weather is nice enough for Kristina to perch on the fifth floor fire escape, she’s able to spot Mack in the distance, heading home. She discovered that by accident one evening about two months ago, when she was sitting out there to escape the heat.

This is an old building; no central air. Kristina used to have a small window unit, but of course Ray took it when he left her like the Grinch leaving Whoville.

The breakup was the first in a series of events that left Kristina wondering if she should just give up and move away, make a fresh start.

That was before she fell for Mack, of course.

Anything can happen.

That’s why you love New York. A girl like you can be waitressing one day, starring on Broadway the next.

That’s how it was supposed to work, anyway. But right after Ray moved out, Kristina lost her waitressing job because the health department closed down the restaurant. Then she tore a ligament during a dance workout—which wound up requiring surgery she couldn’t afford, particularly without health insurance. And of course, the injury has put her Broadway show auditions on hold for God only knows how long.

As a result, she’s been isolated not just from the friends she and Ray shared as a couple, but now also from all her dancer friends and all her restaurant friends—pretty much her entire social circle. She doesn’t even have family now, other than her mother’s sister in England and her father’s cousins somewhere out West, who didn’t even show up for his funeral.

It’s been a long, hot, lonely summer, and Kristina has spent it falling madly in love with the guy who moved into the apartment below her on June first …
with his wife
.

Yeah. Mack is married.

Carrie. That’s her name. Mack’s wife.

Kristina rarely sees her. She has some kind of Wall Street job, and she leaves the building really early in the morning, way before Kristina gets up.

But now that Kristina is doing office temp work at an accounting firm in the Chrysler building, Mack is pretty much on the same morning schedule.

She used to hate riding in the building’s ancient elevator, which takes forever even without stopping at other floors. She used to particularly hate when it stopped on the fourth floor and Mrs. Ogden, who smelled of old fish, would get on. Kristina was secretly almost relieved when her granddaughter found her dead on the floor of her apartment one day, having fallen, the way elderly people do, and hit her head.

Now that Mrs. Ogden is gone and Mack has moved into her apartment, whenever Kristina presses the down button and the doors close after her, she’s disappointed when it descends all the way to the lobby. On good days, it creaks to a stop on the fourth floor and Mack steps in.

He’s not the best-looking guy she’s ever known. He’s nice and tall, but somewhat lanky for her taste. His black hair is razor-trimmed above his ears, and he’s usually freshly shaven and wearing a suit. A little too put together, as far as she’s concerned. She’s always been a fan of shaggy-haired guys, the kind who go around in ragged jeans with five o’clock shadow; guys who might be hiding a tattoo or … something. Guys with an edge.

That ‘s
so
not Mack.

But somehow, it doesn’t seem to matter. For some reason, she’s drawn to him anyway.

Wife and all.

“I didn’t go looking for it. It just happened.”

How often did she hear those words from her mother, a British war bride? Mum liked to tell the story of how she fell for Kristina’s father, a young American soldier who’d married his high school sweetheart the evening before he shipped out.

Their love story was a romantic and thrilling happily-ever-after tale. Daddy divorced his hometown wife right after the war, married Mum, and they stayed madly in love until the end. Mum died a few years ago with Daddy holding her hand, and he went less than six months later—a heart attack, officially, but Kristina is certain it was a broken heart. He simply didn’t want to live without the woman he loved.

Anyway—Kristina didn’t go looking for this, either. It just happened. On that hot July night when she happened to be hanging out on her fire escape and spotted Mack below, something about him just clicked with her.

Maybe it was the way he was walking—the way his feet expertly navigated the crowded city sidewalks while his head seemed to be somewhere else, a million miles away. Somehow she sensed, even from a distance, an aura of unsettledness about him.

Until that night she’d assumed—when briefly she’d seen him in passing, and even more briefly given him a passing thought—that he was one of those boring, happily married, hopelessly domesticated guys.

That night on the fire escape, though, it occurred to her that that might not be the case.

Now she knows for sure that it isn’t.

Poor Mack.

And poor me
, Kristina thinks, pacing her apartment, wondering how she’ll manage to accidentally-on-purpose run into Mack tonight. The fire escape is out of the question in this weather.

Too bad, because it’s the perfect setup. Whenever Kristina spots Mack in the distance, coming down the block, she dashes down the four fights of stairs to the lobby. Then she takes her time checking her mailbox in the small vestibule by the door, waiting for him to come in from the street.

He always seems pleasantly surprised to see her. If he thinks it’s unusual that she’s often getting her mail at the precise moment he walks in, he hasn’t mentioned it.

They ride up in the elevator together, and she’s grateful that it takes so long, even though there’s never enough time alone with him. Sometimes she wishes the elevator would just get stuck between floors. She fantasizes about what might happen between them then, trapped in that small space together for hours, even days.

She wonders who would make the first move. Usually she imagines that it would be he because that’s sexier, but in reality, she probably wants it to be she. Yes, because part of what she loves about him is that he’s a decent guy. A guy who’s willing to make a commitment. A guy who wouldn’t make a pass at another woman.

Maybe that’s a crazy way to think about it, but Kristina can’t help it.

Crazy.

She’s crazy about him.

Maybe just plain old crazy, Kristina thinks as, aptly, Barbara Cook croons Sondheim’s “Losing My Mind.”

Kristina lives for those elevator rides with Mack. She’s pretty sure that one of these days, they’re going to wind up in each other’s arms regardless of whether they’re stuck between floors.

After all, he’s not happy with his wife. He hasn’t come right out and said that, but she can read between the lines; can see the flicker of discontentment in his green eyes whenever he mentions Carrie.

Is it any wonder? His wife doesn’t exactly have a sparkling personality. Not that she’s unpleasant, but … she’s just kind of quiet. Keeps to herself.

Plus, Carrie used to be in relatively good shape and pretty, but Kristina has noticed an obvious weight gain lately. Even her face looks bloated. In fact, she actually asked Mack—maybe a week or so ago—if Carrie was pregnant.

She was dreading the answer, because she knew that Mack having kids would change everything. It’s one thing to be in love with a married man. It’s another to be in love with a married man with a child.

She was secretly elated when he told her that Carrie wasn’t pregnant, and she could swear Mack actually winced when he said it.

Obviously, his wife is simply letting herself go, and when that happens, the marriage is in trouble.

Barbara Cook has stopped singing.

Kristina wants to hear the song again. She should probably figure out how to use the replay setting, but she’s too wrapped up in Mack to figure out anything more complicated than pressing the play button.

“
The sun comes up, I think about you…”

Yeah, tell me about it, Barbara.

Kristina hasn’t even seen Mack since Friday night, but it’s hardly out of sight, out of mind.

She spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the building’s basement laundry room, because sometimes she runs into him there over the weekend. This time, all she got for the effort was the knowledge that every stitch of clothing, bedding, and bath linens she owns is clean.

And now, because she can’t wait outside in the rain and she can’t quite see down the street from the window, she may have to go another whole day without seeing him.

That can’t happen.

Maybe she should plant herself downstairs in the vestibule and wait till he shows up.

There’s really no logical reason for a tenant to linger there, though—and there’s one pretty solid reason not to.

Jerry.

You never know when you’re going to run into the building’s part-time maintenance man, who seems to lurk around the hallways even when he’s not fixing something. He works at several other buildings in the neighborhood—Kristina knows that because he once told her, in one of his awkward, stilted, non-sequitur attempts at conversation. But lately, he’s been around here a lot more than usual.

Or maybe it’s just that Kristina herself has been around here a lot more than usual, and she keeps running into him.

“Doesn’t he give you the creeps?” Kristina asked her neighbor Allison, when they were chatting in the laundry room yesterday afternoon. Jerry had come in and out several times, ostensibly to fix a washing machine that seemed to be working just fine.

“I don’t know—he’s just kind of simple-minded, I think.”

“What about the stuff that’s been stolen around the building lately?” Kristina pointed out. A few tenants have reported thefts over the past couple of months. Not major heists—just loose cash, some jewelry, and—oddly—women’s clothing.

“Including their underwear,” Kristina added with a shudder.

“How do you know that?”

“They told me—you know, the people who got robbed. Whoever did it is a pervert, and it seems like he must have had keys, too. I mean, it’s not like the doors were broken down.”

“Yeah, but the windows were open. Someone could have easily crawled in from the fire escapes. Look, I really doubt it was Jerry. He’s really just a kid—”

“ He’s twenty-four.”

“That’s how old I am, exactly. He seems younger. How do you know his age?”

“He told me once. Like I care.”

“Well, in any case…” Allison shrugged. “I can’t imagine him hurting a fly. He seems harmless.”

“Okay, maybe he’s not a thief. But harmless? The way he was looking at us…” Kristina shuddered again.

“Not us—
you
.”

True. For some reason, Jerry didn’t appear to be the least bit interested in Allison, who happens to be a drop-dead-gorgeous blue-eyed blonde.

No, he seemed fixated on Kristina—continually sneaking glances at her as he crouched in front of the washing machine, then falling all over himself to retrieve a rolling quarter she dropped.

Yes, he always acts utterly smitten when she sees him around the building—which is much more often than she’d like. It’s almost as if he’s lying in wait for her…

The way you lie in wait for Mack?

She weighs the risk of running into Jerry if she goes downstairs right now against the risk of not seeing Mack for another twenty-four hours.

Easy decision.

Kristina hurries over to the full-length mirror.

Checking her refection, she tosses aside the tweed suit jacket she wore to her temp job and unbuttons the second button of the white blouse beneath. After a moment’s hesitation, she also daringly unbuttons the third, for optimum cleavage.

Hmm—still a little frumpy. She makes a mental note to take her knee-length skirt to a tailor to be shortened after this wearing. The suit is a couple of seasons old, but it’s still decent, and Allison mentioned yesterday that miniskirts are back in style. Kristina has great legs, a dancer’s legs. Why not show them off?

She does a quick makeup touch-up and dabs perfume behind each ear. Then she spreads her fingers and rakes them from her scalp to the ends of her curly, shoulder-length dark hair, tousling it just enough to look bedroom sexy, but not bed-head messy.

There. Good to go.

She slips her feet into a pair of pumps and hurries for the door, glancing at her watch. Perfect timing.

She hurriedly descends four fights of steps to the first floor, opens the door from the stairwell…

And literally crashes into the bulky, imposing figure of Jerry.

Kristina wobbles on her feet. Jerry puts his hands on her upper arms to steady her. Her nostrils twitch at the ripe scent of his sweat.

“Sorry!” he says.

“It’s okay.”

She’s no longer wobbling, but he doesn’t move his hands. She looks pointedly down at them. His finger-nails are dirty. His grip is unpleasantly strong.

She finches.

He gets the hint.

Removing his hands, he shoves them into the pockets of his jeans. A lot of young guys are wearing their pants baggy, ragged, and low lately—a trendy nod to gangsta rap—but Kristina knows Jerry isn’t making a fashion statement.

No, with him, it’s classic, clueless-handyman butt crack.

Between that and his breath—which is bad, no surprise there—it’s all she can do to hold back a shudder. Especially when she sees him take in her deliberately displayed décolletage.

That’s not for you! That’s for Mack!

Beneath his blond crew cut, Jerry’s plump face is flushed. “Kristina…”

He knows her first name?

Maybe that shouldn’t be surprising, but somehow, it is. Or at least, the sound of it on his lips. Surprising, and repulsive.

“Are you busy?”

“
Busy?
”

“Yeah. I thought…” His hands push deeper into his pockets, his shoulders hunching toward his jowls. He licks his lips and a strand of saliva stretches between them until he speaks again. “I thought—I mean if you aren’t busy—then maybe I thought—I mean, I did think—that you could … that maybe we…”