Easily Amused (5 page)

K
elly’s place was a first-floor apartment in a brick building. Two units up, two units down. Because Kelly’s father was the landlord, she and Hubert had a choice apartment with window views of a seedy courtyard ringed with plastic benches and the kind of stand-up ashtrays usually only seen outside retail outlets. Kelly’s dad owned the whole complex, as far as the eye could see from the middle of the parking lot. Charmingly known as Vista View Apartments, the property was comprised of several once-grand apartments, a freestanding party room building, and a separate little house labeled “The Laundry Hut.”

As we drove through the complex’s winding roads, Hubert directed me. All the buildings looked the same. I thought back to the housewarming party and how I’d wandered about in the dark after parking on the street. If it weren’t for Hubert’s balloons, I never would have found the place.

“You can drop me off at the door,” Hubert said, indicating an entrance topped by a green and white striped awning.

But that didn’t feel right to me. Leave a guy with no wallet, no cell phone, and borrowed shoes in hostile territory?

“I think I’ll just tag along and make sure you can get in.” I pulled the car up behind Hubert’s yellow VW beetle, blocking him in, which was unavoidable since every other space had apartment numbers on them. I guess Kelly’s dad never heard of having guests.

“Suit yourself,” Hubert said cheerfully.

Crossing through the parking lot we passed several people: an older woman coming out of the Laundry Hut with a basket of towels, a couple getting into an SUV, and a young woman struggling with a stroller. Hubert bounded ahead to help. I heard her say his name in greeting, and then he folded the stroller and hefted it into her open trunk. She thanked him, and he returned to my side. “Amber Sorenson,” he said, by way of explanation. “She has the cutest baby.” As we approached the apartment, he waited for the woman with the towels; she used a key card to open the door while Hubert held the basket for her.

“Thanks, Hubert,” she said, taking back the basket. “Sorry to hear about you and Kelly. You’ll be missed around here.” She trudged off without waiting for a response.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Hubert called out after her, but she either didn’t hear or didn’t want to argue about it because she headed up the stairs without breaking stride.

“News travels fast in these here parts,” I said.

“That’s Mrs. Debrowsky. She lives right above us.”

Between the thin walls and Kelly’s loud, dramatic voice, I was willing to bet Mrs. Debrowsky had heard plenty.

We rounded the corner to find each side of the hallway lined floor to ceiling with boxes. I gave one a gentle nudge with the side of my foot. “This must be your stuff, don’t you think?”

Hubert sighed. “It’s going to take me all day to unpack this and put it back where it belongs.” He gave a half smile. “Kelly sure has been busy.”

“Should we start looking through the boxes for your keys?”

“Nah, Kelly’s home. Her car is here. She’ll let me in.”

A few minutes later he didn’t look so confident. I leaned against the tower of boxes and watched as my friend repeatedly knocked and called out Kelly’s name. When he started with the begging, I put out a hand to stop him. “I don’t think she’s going to open up. Time for plan B.”

“Maybe she’s still sleeping,” he said. “That would be good news, bad news. Man, she gets really crabby when people wake her up, but she gets over it pretty quick.” He held a fist to his chin like Rodin’s Thinker. “Maybe I should go outside and try knocking on our bedroom window.”

“You don’t have a secret key hidden somewhere? Or an extra with a neighbor?”

He shook his head. Great, keys to my house were scattered throughout the greater metropolitan area, but his apartment was locked as tight as a casino vault.

Our move to plan B was facilitated by the reappearance of Mrs. Debrowsky, who plodded toward us with an underwear load. “Kelly’s not home,” she said, resting her bosoms on the top of the basket. “So there’s no point in you banging and yelling and disturbing the whole building. She said if I saw you to tell you your car keys and wallet are in this box and you should just take your stuff and go.” She jerked her head toward a box on the top of the stack.

“Sorry about the noise,” Hubert said.

“It’s OK,” she said gruffly. As she walked away she called out, almost as if to herself, “Like I said, Hubert, I’m real sorry to see you go. When I saw that crew from the moving company stacking your stuff in the hallway, I couldn’t help but think you didn’t deserve that. You’re a nice boy.”

As I watched her turn the corner to the stairwell, her words sank in. So Kelly had actually hired a moving crew? She’d planned this for some time, that was certain. I waited for Hubert to have the breakdown he deserved—a little anger would have been appropriate. Shock or despair would have worked too. Instead, he stood there straight-faced, arms at his side like a kid competing at a spelling bee.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to meet his gaze, but he was staring over the top of my head.

“Maybe,” he said, “I could call a locksmith. My name is still on the mailbox. If I tell them I’ve been locked out, maybe they would—”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. It would just cause more trouble.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let it go, Hubert. She doesn’t want you here.”

We both stood for a second, Hubert looking like he’d been sucker-punched.

“It’s just, I don’t know what to do now,” he said, in a voice so quiet I could barely hear him. He blinked quickly so that I wouldn’t see his eyes welled up with tears, but it was too late. I saw. “Why is she doing this?” He sighed. “I feel like I’m caught in a bad dream. I just don’t know what to do.”

He didn’t know what to do, but suddenly, I did. I grabbed a box off the top of one of the stacks. “No point in standing around here any longer. Why don’t you come back with me to my house? You can give yourself a few days to sort it out.”

I
t wasn’t as simple as that, of course. Most things in life are more complicated than you’d anticipate. Like the first time I played a real game of tennis, which was in high school phys ed, embarrassingly enough. I’d seen tennis games before and even batted a ball around on the street with Hubert, but who knew playing an actual game would be so freaking hard? Apparently when I played with Hubert he’d been deliberately hitting the ball right to me, making me think I had this tennis thing down. After the first serve in gym class, I realized that tennis was far harder than I’d thought. It’s a whole other thing when people aren’t trying to make it easy.

And Kelly wasn’t trying to make it easy, believe me. Because the boxes weren’t labeled, Hubert couldn’t just grab his clothes and toiletries and leave the rest for another time. Opening them didn’t help either—the contents were a jumble: underwear mixed with yearbooks, CDs thrown in with belts and ties, a stuffed gecko mushed in between stereo speakers. One box even held an assortment of mustards. Not Kelly’s condiment of choice, apparently.

“It’ll take hours to go through all of them,” I said after we’d rifled through half a dozen boxes. “I think we’re just going to have to move them all to my house.”

“OK,” Hubert said. “If you say so.” A teenage boy came by on a skateboard, narrowly missing a box we’d pulled away from the wall. Hubert paused to give the kid a high-five as he whizzed past. “Zach, my man. How’s it goin’?”

“Pretty good, Mr. Holmes,” the boy called out.

Hubert gestured with a wave of his hand and turned to me. “I’ve told him a million times to call me Hubert, but he won’t do it. Says his mom thinks it’s disrespectful to call a grown-up by their first name.” He leaned against the door as if settling in for a long conversation. “He’s really an exceptional kid. You know how they’re always saying teenagers don’t read anymore? Not Zach—he’s a huge reader. And not just the Harry Potter books either. I’m talking about books you’d never expect a kid to read. Books like—”

“Hubert.” My voice came out more sharply than I intended. “Any thoughts on how we’re going to move this stuff?” Math wasn’t my thing, but even I could see that the square footage of cardboard in this hallway would never fit in Hubert’s VW Beetle and my Honda Civic. Taking several trips was an option, but the thought of shuttling back and forth made me tired.

“Move this stuff?” His forehead furrowed like he was doing long division in his head.

“You know. Like, move it from here to my house? Do you know anyone with a truck? Any really strong friends who owe you a favor?”

He thought for a moment and then smiled as a solution broke through. “Hey! We can call Piper.”

Piper, with her 112-pound body and spaghetti arms, wouldn’t have been my first choice, but as it turned out, Piper and her minivan were just what we needed.

She arrived within twenty minutes of getting Hubert’s call on my cell phone. When she drove up and saw us waiting by the back door, she put the van in reverse and backed over the lawn to meet us halfway.

“I’m not so sure you should have done that,” Hubert said after she climbed out of the driver’s seat. He toed the muddy rut on the grass with the tip of his donated shoe. “Kelly’s dad is kind of fussy about the grounds. He’s not going to be happy when he sees this.”

Piper pointed to the tread marks. “That?” She waved a hand dismissively. “Ach, that’s nothing. That’ll grow back before you know it. Now where are all these boxes? Brandon’s halfway through a nap, and Mike’s watching the game. I don’t have all day.” Some of the larger boxes required both Hubert and me to grab hold of an end and move crab-like down the narrow hallway. Piper, always the diva, put herself in charge of holding the door. By the third trip, I could feel beads of perspiration forming on my forehead. I’d always admired the fact that Hubert had such an extensive library of hardcovers. Now I found myself wishing he were the kind of guy who collected throw pillows or ping-pong balls.

“That’s it. You’re doing great!” Piper said, shifting into cheerleading mode as we passed through the door. “Three trips down, just a few more to go.”

Hubert and I loaded our boxes into the back of the van, which was more spacious than usual since Piper had folded down the seats and emptied it of baby paraphernalia.

“We’ve barely made a dent,” I said to Piper as we went back in. I pointed to a paving stone propped up next to the doorway. “Why don’t you stick that brick in the door and come and help us out?” She grimaced but stuck her foot over the threshold to keep the door from auto-locking, and then she reached down to pick up the brick. I assumed she’d follow us, but when we returned the door was wedged open and she was nowhere in sight.

“Where the hell did she go?” I asked Hubert.

His eyes darted toward the stairwell. “I thought I heard her go upstairs, but I don’t know what she’d be doing up there. Jeez, I hope she’s back by the time we’re done.”

“She better be back sooner than that,” I muttered as I headed outside.

When we returned to the building, Piper was holding the door for a stream of people carrying boxes. Hubert’s boxes. I recognized Mrs. Debrowsky, but there were also two older men I’d never seen before. Zach, minus the skateboard, was behind them, followed by a younger boy. Zach’s brother, judging by the resemblance.

“Where do you want these, Mr. Holmes?” Zach called out.

I turned to see Hubert’s reaction. “You guys are the best!” he said. “Just the best.” An expression of gratitude came over his face. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Me and Avery wanted to help,” the taller man said. “We’re really going to miss you.”

“Yeah,” added Avery, “it won’t be the same without you, that’s for sure. No one can get a Weber grill started like you, Hubert. You’ve got a knack with lighter fluid, like nobody’s business.”

“You’re such a good guy,” Mrs. Debrowsky added. “Always willing to give a hand. We appreciated it.”

Zach’s brother stepped forward. “I didn’t understand about place holders in math at all until you explained it. Now I get it.” The group nodded in unison, as if they’d all had trouble with place holders before Hubert came along.

“Aw man, don’t get me started,” Hubert said. “You guys are going to make me cry.”

Mrs. Debrowsky shifted from foot to foot. “Do you want this in the back of the van? Or what?”

“Oh yeah.” Hubert’s head jerked toward the parking lot. “I’ll show you. Either in the van or Lola’s car or my Beetle.” As they walked away, I could hear him yabbering on in appreciation. “Thanks, Fred. Thanks, Avery. This is great. You guys are unbelievable.”

I glanced at Piper, who leaned against the open door, her arms folded in satisfaction.

“This is your doing?” I asked.

She grinned. “My dad always said to work smarter, not harder.”

I had to hand it to Piper—she knew how to work it. In tenth grade she got me an extension on a paper by explaining to the teacher that my grandma was dying. I’d been far too shy and distraught to bring it up myself, and I would probably have accepted the markdown for being late. Senior year she got me a date for the homecoming dance with her boyfriend’s cousin, a guy from another school. Piper knew how to get things done. Always planning, always doing. Meanwhile, I was like a leaf floating down the river to wherever life took me. So far, my strategy wasn’t getting me anywhere. If I let Piper run my life, I’d probably be married now with a kid on the way. If it weren’t for her taste in men—more status than substance—I might consider it.

It was amazing how quickly seven people could empty a hallway. Piper kept her station as door-holder and cheerleader, urging us on at every pass through. I overheard Zach ask Hubert, “Who is that lady?” When Hubert said she was a friend, Zach said, “Dude, she’s really pretty. You should go out with
her
.” If anyone at Vista View had any loyalty to Kelly, I didn’t see it.

By the time we left, the sky was overcast and the wind had picked up. Ah, spring in Wisconsin.

We pulled out of the parking lot with Piper in the lead, Hubert right behind, and me bringing up the rear. Hubert’s neighbors stood in a row and waved as we went by. I did a parade float wave, and Hubert tapped on his car horn.