Tile angel

One bead of sweat, from the center of the forehead to her hairline. A fat sigh, puffing up her cheeks. So this is how today is going to be.

So far Amy had taken an ice cold shower, eaten ice cream, she even took the ice pack she used for sore muscles and laid on that until it became lukewarm and started to make her back feel out of alignment. There was just no substitute for a working air conditioner, and it wasn’t in the cards today.

Even putting earbuds in made her uncomfortable-what if sweat got in them and electrocuted her? What if her hair got all zootsed like in Home Alone 2 when the thief got electrocuted? She could not afford to have worse hair than she did at this moment. Not that anyone would see.

The only appropriate thing she could do was lay spread eagled on the cool tile floor of her kitchen and pray for nightfall. If she had been laying in sand she could’ve made a snow angel…or a sand angel? Amy wished she had an old juke box or a boom box so she could play music without having to worry about the earbud/electrocution problem. Ah, if it were only 1998. She’d been in 4^th grade, and had a hot pink mini boom box. It played, almost exclusively, Britney Spears and oddly enough, Aerosmith. Amy thought at the time it made her a real badass to listen to Aerosmith, even though one of the songs was from the movie Armageddon.

Her phone buzzed next to her elbow. She lolled first her head and then let the rest of her body follow til she was laying on her side. Lazily she looked at the phone.

“Hey mom.”

“Amy, did they fix you’re A/C yet?”

“No.”

“Well, sweetie have you called your landlord? I saw on the news some people are dying from heat stroke because their A/C went out and they got too tired to go to the hospital.” Amy grinded her teeth. Her mother loved watching the news and sharing ridiculous tidbits like it was gospel. Stats and facts didn’t fascinate her nearly as much as crazy anecdotes, like one about someone getting sawed in half in a parking lot (it really happened in a strip mall in Ohio). Joyce told this story to anyone who would listen for 2 months. Amy wanted to play a prank on her mom and almost hired a magician-but her dad got wind of it and talked her out of it.  

“I called this morning and they’re sending someone today.”

“When?” Joyce insisted.

“I don’t know, they give you a time window for these things. It’s always like a span of 6 hours so I have no idea.” Amy realized she was kind of whining now. As if it wasn’t bad enough she had to live in this heat.

“Ok, well are you staying cool? Drink lots of water. And take cool showers if you need. And-“

“Ok-gotta go mom, someone’s calling,” Amy lied. What followed promised to be a litany of suggestions, many of which Amy had already tested out. When they hung up, Amy began the slow process of rolling back onto the floor, this time on her front-to absorb some of the cold from the floor on her other side.

She stayed like this for another few minutes before her roommate almost tripped on her.

“Jesus Ames! I thought you fainted! Can you please get up?” Jack pleaded.

“I cannot. Come join. It’s nice down here. Hey, you should invite whats-her-face over here while we’re lying on the floor. You can look up her skirt.” Amy grinned into the tiles.

“What if she’s wearing shorts?” Jack picked his way around her to the fridge.

“Then you’ll have to ask her to leave,” Amy teased. Jack opened the fridge and poured himself iced tea. He then set himself carefully next to Amy, legs bent so his feet were flat on the floor about a foot away from her head.

Amy propped herself up. “This sucks.”

Jack sipped. “One time in high school, a buddy of mine knew this guy who went for a drive in his car with the windows down. There was some accident and he flew out the front windshield and landed on the ground. He was paralyzed for life. You know, just for perspective.”

“Dude. That was fucking dark. Also, how come guys always say ‘my buddy.’ Why can’t you just say ‘friend’?”

Jack shrugged and sipped again.

“Or is that like, a hierarchy of male friendships? Bottom rung is like ‘this guy’, and the next rung up is ‘friend’ and so on and then the top one is ‘buddy’?”

“Amy, I think you’re cracking up.” Jack mocked a concerned face, eyebrows tilted up in the middle just so.

Amy swatted his leg and placed her cheek back on the floor tile. She sighed as the cool seeped in. Probably it wasn’t good for her face to be on a surface they’d both walked on in dirty feet, but she could wash it later.

“Her name’s Jody by the way.”

“Who?” Amy picked up her head again.

“You called her whats-her-face earlier, but it’s Jody.”

“Wait. It’s Jody? Her name’s Jody?” Amy was incredulous.

“Yea, what’s wrong with that?” He shook his head a little as he asked.

“Could’ve sworn it started with a ‘K.’ Plus, I just never met anyone in real life named Jody. That was the name of that girl in Center Stage.”

“God, is everything a movie?” He rolled his eyes.

“Hey! Art reflects life ok! I’ve seen a lot of art-I’m cultured!” She faked brushing her hair behind her shoulder as she said it. He snorted.

“Where do you get this stuff?” His knees listed as he relaxed. Tea must be pretty cold.

“Movies.” She smiled obnoxiously-all teeth, and it was his turn to swat at her. “I also write my own material from time to time.” He shook his head.

And at that moment the doorbell rung. They shared a look of hope and jubilation, as yet unmatched in their 11 months and 12 days of living together. She peeled herself off the floor as he stood and strode to open the door. She hardly noticed the condensation on the floor-roughly in the outline of her prone body, a tile angel.