Heat Wave: Richmond

Chapter 4

For someone who’s never been inside the apartment upstairs before, Nadia sure seems to know where everything is. The moment I unlock the door, she walks right in and starts the tour. “This is my bedroom,” she says, pointing down the short hall leading off the door. “Downstairs, I mean. You’re going to love the closet.”

Kyle and I follow her into the apartment’s only bedroom, which looks spacious now but I’m sure will shrink once I move my full-size futon in. There’s a ceiling fan, which is nice, a window covered with mini-blinds that looks out over the street, and a single walk-in closet. She’s right, I do love it—there are three rods for hanging clothes and, along the back wall, enough shelves for storage that I won’t have to bother buying a dresser. I’ve been using a system of stackable cubes since I graduated from college. As I was packing up my things, I thought they might be a bit dated, but an actual piece of honest-to-God furniture isn’t in my budget. Problem solved.

Nadia spins around in the center of the bedroom, arms flung wide, face turned up to the fan above. “God! I forgot how big these rooms are!” she says with a laugh. Then she stumbles to a stop and holds up her hands. “Wait! Listen! Hear that?”

Kyle and I exchange a look. “Hear what?” he asks, bemused.

She laughs. “That’s my fan! You can hear it through the floor!”

Maybe I hear a very faint squeak, but I can’t be sure because, at that moment, the central air conditioning kicks in and the fan drowns out everything else. Still, she laughs again, pleased. “Did you hear it?”

With a shake of his head, Kyle says, “If he can hear your fan, I bet he’ll hear that plug-in vibe of yours whenever you rub one out.”

Her smile disappears. Balling her hand into a fist, she punches him in the arm, hard enough for him to flinch. “First off, it’s cordless,” she snaps. “You’re thinking of the Magic Wand I used to have, but I had to pitch that, remember? Damn thing just about blew a circuit when the cord frayed.” She glares at me, as if daring me to say something.

I take a step back, hands up. “I don’t even know what you two are talking about. A magic what?”

“It’s a vibrator,” Kyle mutters. “Almost set her bed on fire—”

“Hey!” She punches him again, harder this time. “You don’t hear me airing all your dirty laundry, do you? Like the time when maintenance came by to change the filters and you were—”

“Moving on!” Kyle storms out of the bedroom and back down the hall. At the door to the apartment, he stops and hollers, “Danny? Come on, man. Don’t listen to her. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Nadia smirks. Under her breath, she mutters, “Bullshit. I know all the downlow. You want the dirt, you come to me.”

Back out in the hallway, Kyle’s waiting at a door catty-corner to the apartment’s tiny entrance foyer. “This is your utility room,” he says, glaring at Nadia as we approach. He opens the door and clicks on the light inside the room, where there’s a washing machine, clothes dryer, and water heater. “Breaker panel’s in here, too. We had to flip the switches back when she blew them with her Magic Wand.”

“Keep it up. I’m going to deck you,” Nadia warns.

Kyle continues the tour. “A/C control,” he says, pointing at the thermostat on the wall beside the door to the utility room. Across the narrow hall is another door, which Kyle tags, “Bathroom.”

Then we walk out into the main part of the apartment. A large space opens out towards the balcony and the kitchen is off to the right, hemmed in by a chest-high countertop that could double as a bar. “Kitchen,” Kyle says with a sweep of his arm. “Oh look, Nads, he has a microwave installed under the cabinet. That’s nice.”

“Don’t call me Nads,” she grouses. “We had to buy our own microwave. Lucky bastard.”

That is pretty cool. There’s also a full-size fridge, an oven with a four-burner stovetop and fan, ample cabinet space for all the new pots and pans I’ll probably never use, and a dishwasher so I won’t have to actually use the sink to clean up after myself like Rob’s girlfriend is always saying I should. I’m half in love with this place.

Beside the kitchen is a small nook Kyle generously calls the dining room. It’ll fit a small table and chair set, so I’ll have to add that to my list of things to buy at some point. The living room takes up the rest of the apartment. One corner is given over to a nice fireplace that I’ll try out when the weather cools down, but it’s July and too hot to even think about lighting it up just yet. Actually, the whole room is pretty toasty thanks to the sun slanting through the mini-blinds drawn down over the balcony doors beside the fireplace.

Well, door—only one opens. The other is a floor-to-ceiling door-shaped window fashioned to look like the door beside it, but other than let in a lot of light and heat, it doesn’t have much purpose.

“You’re going to want to invest in a pair of blackout curtains,” Nadia says, turning the wand on the mini-blinds to let even more light into the room. “We get the afternoon sun and, believe me, it can get pretty damn hot up in here during the summer.”

I frown at her and Kyle. “Well, there’s central air, right?”

Kyle shrugs. “You’re upstairs, heat rises, that’s basic physics. When it’s ninety degrees outside, you probably won’t be able to cool it down past seventy in here if you’re lucky. I’d buy the curtains, if I were you. Keeps the sun out, and keeps nosy neighbors from looking in.”

“I’m up here,” I say with a laugh. “Who’s going to be able to see anything anyway?”

Closing the blinds again, Nadia asks, “What do you plan to do, walk around naked or something? Because if so, I know someone who might be interested.”

Kyle’s arms are crossed in front of his chest; now he leans forward and nudges her with his elbow. “Nads, stop.”

Does she mean herself or him? I’d love to ask, but I’m almost afraid to know.