Page 2 of Stay Awake
Despite the pain, I don’t move my foot out of the way.
“You need to go,” she tells me.
“That’s my apartment.” I point to the top of the landing.
“That’s where we live,” says the man. “You’ve made a mistake.”
I almost believe him until I catch a glimpse of the distinctive tiled hallway floor and the dark timber staircase banister with its curved edge. They’re unique period features preserved to maintain the building’s heritage character.
“I’ve lived upstairs with Amy for years.”
Recognition flashes across his face at my mention of Amy. I exhale in relief. We’re no longer talking at cross-purposes.
“Amy Decker?” he asks.
“Yes!”
“That’s the doctor whose junk mail we get,” he tells his girlfriend, as if I’m not here.
I want to tell him that Amy still lives here. As do I. I bite my tongue, aware they have the upper hand. After all, I’m the one standing out in the cold.
Soft warm light beckons from the partly open apartment door upstairs. I ache with a crushing longing to go up there and resume my life. The only way to do that is to convince them to let me in.
“I’m so sorry for the mix-up,” I grovel. “It’s been one of those nights! I’ve lost my purse and my phone.” I shiver in the cold. “Can I at least use your phone to call my boyfriend, Marco, to come and get me? It’s freezing out here.”
The woman gives me a death stare. I could die of hypothermia on the doorstep for all she cares. Her boyfriend is more sympathetic.
I look up at him, my eyes wide and pleading. He hesitates and then pushes open the street door to let me in. His girlfriend stares daggers at him for caving in. Her feet stomp angrily all the way up to the landing.
Chapter
Two
Wednesday 3:08A.M.
All my certainty disappears like a popped bubble when I’m inside. I’ve made an embarrassing blunder. It isn’t my apartment. Sure, the layout is the same. But the decor is entirely different.
The apartment looks like the cover of an Ikea catalogue, its interior designed to an inch of its life in a mélange of whites and natural accents. Even the kitchen cabinets are new.
My seasoned teak dinner table, my tattered Persian rug, and my colorful artisan bookshelf filled with my eclectic collection of books and magazines have all been replaced with minimalist designer chic.
I’m about to make my apologies and leave when I catch a glimpse of brightly painted flower boxes in the apartment window across the way. I’ve stared at that view for years. This is definitely my apartment.
My head spins with questions. Who are these people? Where’s my stuff? Most importantly, though I can hardly bear to dwell on it, why have I forgotten that I don’t live here anymore?
“Where’s Shawna?” I ask, sticking to practicalities.
“Who?”
“My cat!”
“There was a one-eyed ginger cat that kept sneaking in last winter. We took it to the shelter.”
“You had my cat killed?” I’m horrified they’d be so callous.
“We didn’t have her killed. We gave her to the animal shelter.”
“What do you think they do to half-blind cats?”
