The Day That Got Away From Her

Sweat droplets drip down the small of my back like a leaking faucet. Drip, drop, drip, drop. The sweat isn’t confined to my back, it covers every inch of my body. The heat is stifling. I sigh and check my watch, the band sticking to my wrist. 3:45pm, the air conditioning technician is late. What was taking him so long? The customer service representative told me that even with the heat index as high as it is they were relatively slow this summer, apparently, I was one of the few with a faulting unit. She said she could get a technician out within 2 hours. That was over 3 hours ago.

This is ridiculous I think, for the amount of money I pay in rent the apartment complex should have a designated air conditioning company they use. Instead, the leasing department informed me that they didn’t have a specific company on their payroll. I needed to locate and hire my own air conditioning technician. What is the point of renting, if not to be able to rely on your landlord to fix things like this when they go wrong? I have to wait, what else can I do? I need to do something to prevent myself from dialing the landlord and screaming obscenities. I pull myself up off the kitchen flood and walk to the fridge to refill my iced tea.

As I refill my glass with both tea and ice cubes the familiar feelings of depression flow through me. Last year at this time I was sitting in a kitchen twice the size as the one I’m in now, reading the news off my tablet, enjoying the cool ocean breeze. What a difference a year makes. What a terrible awful difference. I long for the beautiful beach breeze of North Carolina. Yes, it was hot back home this time of the year but the air from the ocean always cooled you down. Plus, living on a waterfront property meant being in a bikini the majority of the time I was outside. Unfortunately, I wasn’t In NC anymore, I was in the Big Apple, stuffed into a tiny Manhattan apartment with a broken air conditioner.

“Mam, if you don’t answer in the next 10 seconds I’m going to my next apt.” A deep voice jolts me from my memories back into my present state.

“I’m here don’t leave” I nearly screech. It takes me all of 1.3 seconds to hurdle myself to the front door and pull it open.

“Come in I say breathlessly. I didn’t hear you, I’m so sorry”

The A/C technician is turning away as my door swings open but when he sees the desperation on my face he sighs and turns back around.

“Don’t keep me waiting, I have a lot of people to see today.” He snarls.

“Of course,” I say sheepishly. I’m in such a foul mood that I want to tell him he is in fact the one keeping me waiting, but as I look him over, I feel it’s best if I just show him where the A/C unit is. There is something about him that is off-putting.

I show him to the corner of my tiny apartment, and he kneels on the floor, taking out his box of equipment. He’s a larger man probably in his mid-forties. His hands and forearms are muscular. Most likely from the work he does I think as I look over him absentmindedly. When he was standing, he towered over my 5’4 frame. I can tell he has muscles under his white shirt now that he is turned away from me and I can see his back and shoulders. He takes his ball cap off wiping away his own sweaty brow. As he removes the hat, I notice its wet with sweat and grime. I see there is oil, or some other thick liquid spilled on it. I shudder, realizing what a miserable job he must have.

“Are you going to sit there and stare at me the entire time it takes me to fix this?” He snarls.

“N, no” I stammer. “Can I get you some iced tea?”

He looks me up and down making me uncomfortable. He doesn’t say another word as he pulls his gaze back to the A/C unit.

I don’t know what else to do so I walk into the only other room in my apartment, the bedroom. The second room serves as my bedroom and my office all in one. I sit down at my desk. Why is this man being so mean to me? When I called the repair company the receptionist told me they were slow and that her technician would be happy to take a look at my unit. Something just doesn’t add up. I start to scroll aimlessly through my phone when I notice the local new station states that it’s the hottest day of the year so far. The hottest day of the year and my a/c unit breaks, of course that’s just my luck. I continue to scroll trying not to feel sorry for myself when I see a headline about a murdered woman found in her apartment. I shudder as I read the article.

Three women have been found brutally murdered in the neighborhood just a few blocks away from mine. There is no sign of forced entry, nothing has been stolen and there is no known motive. Each of the women were stabbed in their place of residence, all of them aged in their 30’s. A cold feeling flashes through me. All of these murders happened within a mile radius of my apartment. I turned 27 weeks ago. Is this a serial killer, and if so, am I at risk? Just as I’m trying to catch my breath and talk myself down from the ledge, I hear footsteps on my wooden floor.

I physically jump when the technician says “Mam.”

“Yes,” I whisper as I jerk my neck around to look at him.

“I need a different part; it’s in my truck.” He looks at me strangely as I nod my head, unable to say anything.

Am I being ridiculous? I type rapidly on my phone, texting my best friend while the technician is downstairs getting the part he needs. Mellissa and I have been friends for about 6 weeks, but she is the only friend that I have in the city. All my co -workers are just that, co-workers. I met Melissa at a yoga class, and we’ve hung out a few times. I wouldn’t consider us great friends yet, only because we haven’t had enough time to get to know each other. But I don’t have anyone else to talk to right now.

I fill Melissa in as quickly as I can via text and now, I’m waiting impatiently for her to get back to me. My WhatsApp tells me my flurry of texts has been delivered to Melissa’s phone, but she has yet to read them. In the 15 minutes that the technician has been out of my apartment my emotions have ping ponged back and forth. One moment I’ve decided not to answer my door, toss his equipment into the hallway, and tell him to leave when he returns. It’s obvious that he is the man who killed all those poor women. The next moment I want to welcome him back with open arms, thanking him for fixing my A/C unit, telling him I would have died from heat exhaustion if it wasn’t for him. I’m being an emotional basket case; I even checked the app on my phone that tells me when my period is about to start. My emotions have to be hormone induced, don’t they? Just as I convince myself that I’m being emotional due to my cycle, I revert back and justify refusing to let him back into the apartment. The irrational fear I feel is my gut instinct, survival mode is kicking in. I can’t possibly open the door for him when he comes back. I don’t care if it’s the hottest day of the year, sweating is better then being dead.

My decision is finally made for me when the doorknob twists and in he walks. I didn’t even lock the door; I gasp as I run into the hallway from my bedroom. I’m such an idiot, a silly fool, I was so focused on texting Malissa I went into my bedroom without locking the door. What is wrong with me? This isn’t North Carolina, I’m in Manhattan for Christ’s sake. The technician walks directly over to my A/c unit and gets back to work. For the next 45 minutes I sit on the couch behind him as he works, praying to all the Gods I can think of but never believed in to spare me.

“All done” the technician stares at me blankly. That’ll be $425 dollars even.

I hand him my credit card as I hear the A/C unit kick on. I’m starting to breath easier now, feeling foolish for my thoughts. As he hands me the tablet to sign, I notice a dark stain on his nailbeds. It looks like the same liquid that I guessed was oil when he removed his ball cap to wipe his brow. But this time it looks brow, or dark red. I sign and he hands me back my card, stares at me for a moment too long, and then walks out the door.

After locking the door, I fall onto my bed and let out a sigh of relief. I’m exhausted. I don’t have my phone next to me, its on the couch in my front room. I don’t check to see if Melissa ever got back to me, because honestly what does it matter now? Let her worry a little anyways, she was too busy to call a friend back in a potential life-threatening situation. I look out my window and the sun is still high. My eyes are heavy, I tell myself I deserve a short nap, finally being able to relax that I’m alone. I let myself drift into slumber as my apartment is getting colder with each passing moment.

A noise in my living room wakes me from my sleep. I’m confused as I look out my window and the sun is no longer in the sky. The lights of the city illuminate my bedroom. Did I really sleep for the remainder of the day? What was the sound that woke me? The thoughts hammer my brain so much that I’m confused as I place each foot onto the wood flooring, appreciating how cool it is under my bare toes. I walk unsteadily into my living room, relaxing as I remember locking the door after the technician left earlier in the day. It might take me a little while, but I’ll get used to city living. My eyes aren’t adjusted as I just work up, so I grope my way toward the lamp. When I turn the knob, the lamp doesn’t shine brightly. I turn it again, but still, it stays dark. Is the bulb out? I try to think when I last changed it. Have I even changed it since I moved in? I shuffle over to the other side of the couch making a mental note to order bulbs off amazon as soon as I find my phone. When I turn the knob on the second lamp it doesn’t turn on either. What’s going on? I turn around towards the living room window and find the drapes have been drawn shut. My breath starts to quicken, I didn’t shut the drapes, I never do. Being on the top floor I don’t need privacy. Plus, I had the windows open allowing the air to flow before the A/C unit was fixed. I closed the windows after it was fixed but I did not pull the drapes closed.

The noise comes again, this time behind me, near the door. I quickly turn and see the door is closed. It hasn’t been pushed open, there is no sign of forced entry. Involuntarily I suck in my breath remembering the news article I read about the three murdered women. No sign of forced entry it stated. But I locked the door. I remember turning the deadbolt. I’m sweating now, despite the chilly air that’s pushing its way through the vents. I slowly walk over to the small table where I keep my keys. I see the ceramic dish I constructed in elementary school, a pitiful mud brown color of multiple glazes I used. The dish is empty, my keys are gone.

“Are you looking for these?” He says.

I recognize the technician’s voice immediately. I turn to see him standing between myself and the door holding the keys in his hand.

“I took them when you were in your bedroom preoccupied with your phone. You made it quite easy. All of you make it quite easy. “

He is beside me in two steps, one hand over my face muffling my scream. Suddenly I feel shooting pain in my side and warm liquid running down my cool skin. More pain on the other side, followed by more liquid. The feeling is a lot like the sweat I had running down my body earlier in the day. Oh, what I would give for this to be only sweat. Can I start this day over? Can I take back all of the whining and complaining I had done regarding the heat? I’ll take the heat, please God, I’ll take the broken air conditioner.  I double over myself, my screams still muffled by the technician’s hand. As my eyes flutter, I can tell I’m losing consciousness, but I can see his hat, the same one he had on hours earlier. I see the oily liquid that I noticed earlier, and I realize the stain is from blood. Blood of how many women, I’ll never know.