Apartment Complex

Mom was not happy about the move. I promised her she wouldn’t have to pack or carry a thing. She didn’t. I slung her suitcase-sized brown purse over my right shoulder and was struggling to balance two cardboard boxes of cheap glassware in the elevator when we ran into Rachel from 17C. I made introductions between floors.

“Mom finally agreed to move in with me,” I said. Rachel had heard the whole saga.

“Welcome,” she said a bit too enthusiastically. “I hope you’ll be happy here.”

Mom just stared at the numbers clicking off the floors whizzing past. It had taken three years to convince her to sell the old house, and Mom made sure everyone knew that she was miserable about the decision. But it had to be done. Even if I could make the drive to Heuertown every weekend to do yard work and clean her house, there was still the rest of the week when she was alone. I tried to hire help. The people never lasted. Mom wouldn’t even consider a senior community.

“Assisted living?” she sneered. “Sounds like an iron lung.”

But the day the owner of The Stage phoned to say Mom was at his bar trying to order a beer for her dog – a collie we’d put down a few months earlier — the move was no longer up for debate. I put her house on the market. The realtor suggested it would show better if we de-cluttered. I asked my siblings if there was anything they wanted hoping one of them might volunteer to fly home and help out. My sister wrote back, “It’s all yours!” She included a link to eBay. My brother never even responded.

The elevator stopped at the fourteenth floor.

“This is us,” I said as the doors opened.

“There was no thirteen,” Mom said.

“A lot of buildings don’t have a thirteenth floor,” I said. “Some people are superstitious.”

“Call it anything you want,” Mom snapped. “This is the thirteenth floor!”

Rachel held the door and mouthed, good luck. I exited carrying both boxes while trying to usher Mom out with my elbow not weighed down by her gigantic leather purse.

I moved Mom’s old bed and nightstand into what had been my home office. Her recliner took up most the living room. The red carnival glass I put on a windowsill by the kitchen sink. The afternoon sun cast pretty ruby shadows across the countertop.

“If that fades,” Mom said, leaving the thought to dangle like a vague threat.

I made tea. It was too hot. The wafer cookies from Petite Eats I served, tasted like dog biscuits. Later, I took her on a full tour of the building. I showed her where to pick up the mail in the lobby, and gave her a duplicate key for the box. We toured the laundry room in the basement. I told her where I kept a stash of quarters for the washer. The dryer took dollar bills. We went up to the rooftop. There’s a spot where she could grow container tomatoes come spring. The view is spectacular. We stood for a while looking out over the city as dusk fell, watching the other high-rises light up against the night.

“Everyone’s stacked on top of each other,” Mom said. “We’re like caged chickens in a Chinese street market.”

A couple weeks before Halloween, the super posted a notice in the lobby about trick-or-treating etiquette. Next to it was a large Manila envelope filled with cutout paper pumpkins. You were advised to tape one to your door so kids knew they could knock for candy. Rachel called it reverse pumpkin Passover.

On the way home from work, I stopped at the store to pick up a few things and threw in a couple bags of fun-size Snickers. Mom thumbed through her mail order catalogs while I put away groceries. I’d never known her to order anything.

“Apples don’t need to go in the fridge,” she snipped.

I left one on the counter for her even though she couldn’t eat apples because of her teeth or lack thereof. The bags of candy I shoved back on a high shelf of the far cupboard so I wouldn’t be tempted.

“You better hope some kid with a nut allergy doesn’t come trick-or-treating at your door,” Mom said. “I read in Good Housekeeping about a boy flying to Oklahoma to see his divorced dad, and when the stewardess handed out the snack packs of peanuts, he died. It said so in the magazine.”

“That’s a shame,” I said putting away the cereal. I’d forgotten toilet paper and toothpaste.

“He died dead, just like that, because of nuts in the air.”

The next day I stopped at the mart to grab the essentials and bought a bag of Tootsie Pops, too.

Things were getting tense at work. Corporate denied rumors of layoffs but everyone was jumpy. Some idiot in printing and distribution circulated a cartoon of a suit in a guillotine with the basket beside the victim labeled Department Head, then acted surprised when he was sent to H.R.

My office has a large window overlooking the cubicles. I closed the door but kept the blinds open.

“Have a seat,” I said trying to keep it casual. “It’s Rick, right?”

“Richard,” he said coolly.

The cubes were doing a lousy job pretending to work. My body language all but shouted nothing-to-see-here-people. I smiled, offered coffee. Cream? Sugar?

“Richard,” I said, “tell me what’s going on?”

He said he had nothing to say which I’ve come to learn is code for I am a dam of complaints ready to burst. Two sips into his coffee — cream, no sugar – Richard sprang a leak no Dutch boy’s thumb could plug.

“There’s this woman in my department,” he said. “She wears way too much perfume; a cheap, nasty fragrance.”

He asked her, politely, to please refrain.

“And she just rolled her eyes.”

He developed a rash, “an allergic reaction.” He’s sure the perfume was to blame. His manager, who he referred to several times during the conversation as my less than super-visor, did nothing to help.

“She just tells me, ‘Focus on the job, Richard. Focus on the job.’”

He did a spot-on imitation of her. I smiled. I shouldn’t have, I know, but I did. Richard looked pleased with his self and added in a conspiratorial tone.

“She’s turned everyone in the department against me.”

Richard told stories. He shared secrets. He had theories. I let him rattle on, every once in a while murmuring an encouraging I understand and sure or that must be very frustrating for you. After a while, I asked him what he needed to do his job effectively. Oh, Richard was chock full of ideas. We had to fire the perfume woman, obviously, and take a closer look at his supervisor’s job performance. He requested a different cubicle, one closer to the window. He needed to telecommute on Fridays and occasionally on Mondays, too. Oh, and he was overdo for a raise.

I took notes. After each of his demands I asked if he was certain that this particular staff change, cubicle move, raise or what-have-you was really necessary for him to get the job done.

“Absolutely essential,” he insisted.

I put a bold check mark by each itemized grievance, summarized everything we’d discussed, and drew the meeting to a close.

“I wish we could accommodate you, Richard,” I said in a tone that was all humble regrets and apologies. “I really do.”

He crossed his arms and his face contorted into a smug I-knew-you-would-do-nothing expression.

“Unfortunately,” I calmly continued. “At the present time, the company cannot afford to make the kind of changes you require to be successful at your job.”

Richard looked pissed. He still wasn’t getting it. Time to hammer it home.

“We need someone who can do the job under current conditions. I’m so sorry, Richard,” I said rising to stand. “You will be missed.”

I extended my hand across the desk in a gesture of professional finality. Richard looked stunned. The skin of his face turned a lighter shade of pale. I could practically hear the gears and cogs of his brain clunking to WTF mode. Keeping my eyes locked on his, I let an awkward silence hang in the air along with my outstretched hand. Seconds passed. Nothing. I stood firm. Finally, Richard made the slightest move, resigned to surrender a handshake.

Just then my office phone rang. I ignored it but the spell was broken. It rang a second time, my direct line. I glanced at the flashing caller ID for a split second.

“I’ll let you get that call,” Richard said excusing himself.

“It can wait,” I insisted but he was already out the door. I watched him scurry through the maze of cubicles while I picked up the phone.

“Hi, Mom. Everything okay?”

“Where did you put my pills? I can’t find them. I’m supposed to take one now and you’ve put them some place stupid.”

Halloween night, we had about a dozen kids. Mom followed me to the door each time but stood back and said nothing. We had a couple super heroes and three fancy princesses in a row. I greeted the pirates with an Argh! I offered to get dog biscuits for the little boy dressed in a furry Dalmatian costume. He shook his head so furiously ears flapped all over his face. Most the kids were shy at first but responded with sing-songy thank-yous after some prompting from parents. I recognized the twins from my floor, two boys, maybe five years old, dressed as Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street. Their Mom wore a Big Bird costume. I let them choose extra candy from the bowl.

“Did you see that one kid?” Mom asked before the door clicked closed. “A giant yellow chicken!”

I stopped for Chinese on the way home from work on Thursday. Dry sautéed string beans, two spring rolls, rice, and one Kung Pao chicken. Hung Lo on the corner wasn’t great food but it was cheap and close. It took three minutes to walk back to my apartment with take-out and an hour if they delivered. Don’t ask me why.

I ran across the lobby to catch the elevator. The doors were closing. I swung the plastic bag through to trip the sensor, and when the doors parted, I slipped in to find an embarrassed Rachel pressed against the back wall.

“You’re pretty fierce with a Hung Lo bag,” she said.

“Sorry, but you know how slow this elevator is.”

“I was half-hoping the door would close, you’d drop the bag, and I’d get a nice meal in the deal.”

“You obviously haven’t eaten at Hung Lo’s.”

She laughed. I hadn’t seen her for a while and said as much. She mumbled something about being busy with work.

“Sure,” I said. “Work’s a bitch.

She agreed that it was, in fact, a bitch, and then we still had a couple more floors to go. By the time I said goodbye and got out on 14, the whole elevator reeked of greasy chicken and white rice.

I found Mom sitting in the dark in the kitchen. I flipped the light switch.

“You feeling alright?”

She hardly registered my presence.

“Chinese,” I said. “Do you want to try chopsticks tonight?”

No response. I set the table putting each item down with a deliberate clunk. Plates. Glasses. Knives. Forks. I stuck serving spoons in the paper cartons and called it good.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” I pulled an open bottle of white Zinfandel from the fridge. Mom rarely drank but I definitely needed something so poured us both glasses. That morning, one of our department heads went to the ER thinking she was having a heart attack. She wasn’t but I spent the rest of the day dealing with the aftermath. Everyone had a story about being worked to death.

“So, how was your day?” I asked Mom.

“Ellen is no Oprah!”

Before I could come up with a proper response to that comment, Mom was explaining the plot of a movie, or maybe it was a documentary, she’d tuned in halfway through so didn’t know the title and her storyline recollection was a bit spotty. Mom habitually channel hopped. As far as I knew, she’d never seen any show in its entirety but that didn’t stop her from complaining about the parts she did happen to catch.

“That actor Montgomery Clift,” she said. “He played a priest.”

Everyone used to say Dad looked like Montgomery Clift — and some whispered that Dad shared the same secret — so I guessed the movie might have left Mom feeling sad. She bit into a spring roll. Grease dribbled down her chin. I wiped my own chin hoping she’d mimic me. She didn’t. Instead she helped herself to white rice and green beans. She said the priest struggled with his sacred vows, a doctor at a hospital was having an affair with one of his patients, and there was a lot of sparkling jewelry, mostly rubies and sapphires. Mom talked about television the way she watched it, jumping back-and-forth until my head hurt. I downed my first glass of wine in about 90 seconds.

“Mom,” I finally interrupted. “You’ve got something on your chin.”

She swiped at her face with a paper napkin and got up from the table in a huff. Lately, it seemed any little thing might set her off.

“Come on, Mom,” I pleaded. “You’ve hardly touched your dinner.”

“You know I don’t like chicken!”

She went into the living room, turned on a sitcom, and cranked the volume full blast. There was no point asking her to turn it down. I helped myself to seconds and drank the wine I’d poured for Mom. I could hardly hear myself think through the canned laughter. Everything was hysterically funny until it abruptly wasn’t.

I stuck the leftovers in the fridge even though I’d probably throw them out in a couple days. The cellophane-wrapped fortune cookies went into the cupboard with all the others. I loaded the dishwasher. Mom paused on a game show.

I opened another bottle of wine. The first had been half-empty. I sat at the kitchen table and drank the second bottle to the halfway point. I flipped through Mom’s Eddie Bauer catalog. Khaki pants never looked that good in real life.

About ten o’clock I found Mom asleep in the recliner, still clutching the television remote. I draped a ratty afghan over her, one she crocheted back when she still did that sort of thing. The light from the screen softened the lines of her face and she looked almost happy. Then a commercial came on. A mop appeared to be stalking a woman. Mom looked lurid in the light. I reached beneath the blanket, slipped the remote from her hand, and clicked to off. The only sound was the shuffle of our upstairs neighbor walking slowly across our ceiling.

It snowed the second Saturday of November. I’d been out late the night before and woke to the sight of big flakes falling slowly past my bedroom window. I wrapped the duvet around me like a robe and padded into the kitchen.

The place was a mess. I’d been a last minute sub at an auction for a charity my boss supposedly supported but never found time to attend. Mom spent a rare evening alone. Dirty pots and pans sat on the stove. Her dishes remained on the table. I’d bought frozen meals for Mom but she hated microwaves, said they “made the food radioactive.”

I ran some water and left everything to soak. I put a mug in the microwave for tea. When it dinged ready, I stirred in a package of instant cocoa instead.

I found Mom in the living room staring out the window.

“Pretty, huh?” I said.

I held the mug in both hands for warmth even though the thermostat was set at seventy-three since she’d moved in. I took a sip. It tasted of marshmallow-flavored cardboard.

“You sure you don’t want any?”

She ignored me. We stood side-by-side watching the dirty gray sins of the world erased by white.

“Flat roofs,” Mom said. “They can’t handle the weight of all this snow. “

I dumped the hot chocolate into the kitchen sink. The dishwater grew murky. I turned the tap to scalding hot and added lemon-scented dish soap. The window above the kitchen sink steamed over. Condensation formed on Mom’s fancy red stemware. I picked up a glass still dripping with bubbles, closed my eyes and tried to imagine the color dancing across my soapy skin.