The Ninth Floor (5 page)

Bee sipped,
swallowing several times.

“What
happened?”

“It’s nothing
to worry about,” the nurse said.

I was about to
press the issue when Dr. Sadler pulled her over to the side. I looked down at
Bee. “What happened?” I repeated.

“I don’t know.”
Her eyes darted away from mine.

“Bee.”

“I saw her.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Simpson,”
she hissed.

“Well, she is
your roommate.”

“No.” Bee
shook her head. “She died yesterday.”

I frowned. “I
was here yesterday. I don’t remember—”

“It happened
sometime in the night. I wasn’t awake but the nurse, Leigh, told me before you
got here.”

“Was she very
sick?” I felt bad for all the mean thoughts I had about Mrs. Simpson.

“No.” Bee’s
eyes filled with tears. “She was fine until she started hearing the voices.”

I squeezed her
hand, knowing what she was thinking. Bee had been hearing voices too. Was she
next?

The nurse left
and Dr. Sadler came over to us. “How are you feeling, Bee?”

They went
through their normal routine of questions. I sat in the chair watching them and
thinking maybe Bee should be moved to a different hospital. Real or not, if the
ghosts were causing her this much stress, she’d be better off somewhere else. I
followed Dr. Sadler out of the door. He smiled at me. “Did you need something,
Ryan?”

“What happened
in there?”

“Mrs. Simpson
passed away last night, and Bee had a bad dream or a hallucination about her
this morning. Sadly, it’s normal for patients experiencing liver failure. Try
not to feed into it. It won’t help her.”

“Maybe we
should move her to a different hospital.”

He shook his
head. “I wouldn’t recommend it. I’ll adjust her medications and hopefully that
will help with the nightmares, but she needs a transplant. That’s the only
long-term solution.”

I caught my
bottom lip between my teeth, trying to decide what to do.

“I know this
hard—on her and on the family. You have to be strong.”

I looked at
the floor instead of rolling my eyes.
Thank you, Captain Obvious.

*

The store was dark and locked up
tight when I got there after visiting hours. I climbed the steps to the
apartment, worrying about everything. All I wanted to do was go to Bee’s house
and crash into my nice clean bed. I unlocked my door and turned on a light,
surveying the space.

With the boxes
pushed to one side of the living room I could see it better. The windows were
nearly floor to ceiling. The other side though had boxes four deep against the
walls in stacks that went above my head. The bedrooms were even more loaded
with junk, and the kitchen was probably a fire hazard. I glanced into the
bathroom, however, and determined that was where Vivian and I would start. I
could squeeze my mattress into the small cleared space in the living room.
Other than that, all I really needed was a bathroom.

There was a
knock on the door. I ran over and opened it to find Vivian with a bottle of
wine.

“Wine sounded
so much better than ice cream.” She pushed past me and wrinkled her nose.

“No time for
wine. We have a lot to do.”

“Ryan, don’t
be silly. There’s always time for wine.”

I laughed. “But
there aren’t always glasses or a corkscrew.”

She held up a
bag of red solo cups and produced a wine opener from her jacket pocket. Then
she shoved everything into my arms and inspected the space. “This could
actually be very cool. Look at those windows. So what’s first?”

“The bathroom,
I think.”

We took a ton
of junk to the dumpster downstairs. Vivian was a trooper about the whole manual
labor thing. I had her pegged as a princess and figured she’d bail as soon as
she saw the mess we were dealing with, but she stayed. We went down to the shop
to get the cleaning supplies and she grabbed the stereo.

“No Britney,”
I said as she plugged it in.

Moments later,
Adele was blaring from the speakers, and we were happily singing and scrubbing.
While I worked on the bathtub, Vivian opened the wine. This definitely wasn’t
as bad as I thought it would be.

Vivian handed
me a plastic cup of wine, and I took a break, resting on the side of the tub
while she polished the mirror.

So far the
bathroom was a monument to the time the building was erected. The floor was
covered with one-by-one white tiles with tiny black diamond shaped tiles
separating each square. The tile continued half way up the wall where it met a
black border of tiles. Above that the walls were painted, but the paint was
faded and peeling. All the fixtures were silver. There was a pedestal sink and
a huge white claw foot tub. I absolutely loved it.

I sipped my
wine, contemplating whether or not I should paint, when Vivian said, “It would
look so cool if you painted the top half of the room teal.”

I had trouble
picturing it. “You think?”

“Yeah,
definitely. We could take down this cheap cabinet mirror and replace it with a
pretty black framed mirror. I think the fixtures are okay for now. They’re
cleaning up nice.”

I looked at my
watch. It wasn’t too late and the room was pretty clean. “Do you want to run to
the store with me?”

“Sure.”

We picked up
dinner and Vivian picked out the paint and mirror she liked, but by the time we
headed back, I was too tired to do any more work. So we dropped off the stuff,
locked up, and headed to Bee’s house to eat. Another package sat on my porch,
again marked with only my name. I took it inside with us but left it by the
door while we sat at the kitchen table eating pizza and drinking wine. Vivian
regaled me with stories from her wild escapades. “Why are you back?” I asked.

Her face went
serious. “I had a moment of startling clarity about my life.”

“So you
decided to devote your life to helping others, and I’m your charity case?” I
laughed.

“Not quite.”
She grinned back. “In eight years, I never made another friend like you.”

I shook my
head, not knowing what to say. Before I came back, I wouldn’t have even listed
Vivian as a friend. We’d been friendly in school, but we didn’t hang out a lot.
“I feel horrible, like I’m using you. Not that I’m not grateful—I am. I couldn’t
do this without your help, but we haven’t seen or spoken to each other in such
a long time.”

Vivian rolled
her eyes. “In college I made lots of friends who loved to hang out with me and
party with me, so long as I was buying. Even after I left school, I was still
in that scene. Then one day, Daddy threatened to cut me off.” She shrugged. “I
realized that, without his money, I’d have no one. That’s when I decided to
return to work on fixing myself. I’ve thought a lot about you since I came
back. You were the only person who was never interested in my money and always
honest with me. You, Ryan Sterling, might be my only real friend.” She held up
her wine glass to me and then took a drink.

“Viv, you have
a lot more depth than people give you credit for.”

“I like to
think so.” She laughed. “So the moral of the story is don’t feel bad for
needing my help because I’m getting as much out of this as you are.”

“I have my
doubts, but thank you.”

After we ate,
we moved to the living room and conversation shifted back to the apartment
above Blueberry.

“It’s such a
great space—and I have so many ideas about what you can do with it.” Viv went
on about every possible color combination and all the different styles I could
go with. Between the comfortable couch and the white noise of her constant
chatter, my eyelids grew heavy.

Vivian kicked
me and my eyes snapped open. “So what have you been up to since you left?
Inquiring minds …“

“Mmmm, I went
to J-school at Columbia and got a job working for a newspaper. I worked in Boston until Bee called me, and I quit and came back. That’s pretty much it.” I took a sip
of my wine. “How about you?”

“Art school
for a while. Did some traveling, you know, stuff like that. Daddy still has a
summer home here that he never uses, so when I wanted to sort out my life I
moved in. Oh—” Her hands clasped over her mouth and her eyes lit up. “You could
move in with me. It’d be just like old times—plus a lot less work.”

I wrinkled my
nose and shook my head. “I like the work. It makes it feel like it’s mine.
Plus, I’ll be able to see that I accomplished something when I look at it after
it’s done.”

“I guess I
kind of get that.”

“So why did
you want the job?”

“Honestly, I’m
bored out of my mind. Working at Blueberry is the most fun I’ve had in a while.
I get to be useful and help people by doing something I’m actually good
at—shopping—and my dad is happy I’m showing some responsibility.”

I took another
sip of my wine and thought about Vivian’s situation. She was probably really
lonely. “You wouldn’t want to decorate the apartment, would you? I really don’t
have time to do much. I was planning on finishing the bathroom then leaving the
rest as is until I could get to it.”

Her face lit
up like she won an Academy Award. “Yes,” she squealed, clapping her hands.

I laughed and
handed her my credit card. “Don’t go crazy. Simple, nice, and comfortable.”

“You won’t be
sorry. And you cannot live there like it is. Who knows what kind of bugs or
vermin could be living in those boxes.”

We talked
until the wee hours of the morning. By the time I showed Vivian to a guest room
and headed to my bedroom, the wine was long gone and I’d have to be up in three
hours to make it to the hospital by the start of visiting hours.

I’d almost
drifted off to sleep when I realized I’d forgotten all about the package.

I frowned at the sound of birds
chirping good morning to the sunrise and knew it was going to be one of those
days. I walked to the bathroom, “accidentally” thumping Vivian’s door as I went
past. In the small shower stall, I let cold water rain over me, hoping it would
wake me up. My mouth was dry and cottony. I would’ve given anything to go back
to bed.

When I got out
of the shower, I dug through my suitcase for something I could wear to my
parents’ house in the evening and still be comfortable in during the day. I
settled on taupe riding pants, knee-high brown leather boots, and a long
cream-colored cable knit sweater with a blue and white cashmere infinity scarf.
I may not have been as formal as my mother would like, but at least I wasn’t in
torn jeans.

I knocked on
Vivian’s door before I went downstairs. “Hey, you have to get up. You need to
open the store in two hours.”

She groaned,
and I opened the door. “I just went to sleep.”

“Tell me about
it.”

She sat up. “Can
I borrow some of your clothes? My house is
so
far away.”

I crossed my
arms over my chest and tapped my foot. “Will you inventory the new shipment
before you open today?”

“I guess,” she
grumbled.

“Clothes are
in my bedroom.” I waved. “Gotta run. Lock the door behind you. Coffee’s in the
kitchen.”

I was making a
fresh pot of coffee when the box caught my eye. While it brewed, I opened the
mystery package. Another note was on the top.

Did you
miss me?

I set the note
aside and pulled back the tissue paper. The “gift” was a framed newspaper
clipping of a picture from a children’s charity event we attended as a family
when I was about sixteen. The glass had a jagged crack across it, but it still
wasn’t quite as creepy as the doll. I put everything back in the box and sat it
with the other. Goosebumps covered my arms. What was Ashley getting at with
these gifts? What if it wasn’t Ashley? I shook off the thought. I didn’t have
time to worry about it. I poured a travel cup of coffee and left.

When I parked
at the hospital, I pulled my phone out of my purse before going inside. I
texted Briggs, delighting in the fact that I’d be waking him up, and said I’d
be ready for the dogs in a week or so. I was in the elevator when he texted
back that he thought they were happier with him. What the hell was that
supposed to mean? I told him that the dogs barely tolerated him and loved me,
so put them on a plane, dammit. By the time I stepped off the elevator my phone
was ringing. I looked down to see Briggs’s stupid smiling face.

“What?”

“I told you I
can’t fly Sid and Nancy by themselves. If you want them, you have to come get
them.” His voice made me a little wobbly, but my anger with him kept me
focused.

“I’ve already
checked with the airline and you can fly them here. I’ll arrange and pay for
everything. All you have to do is get a note from the vet saying they’re
healthy and take them to the airport—then you’ll never have to hear my voice
again.”

He was silent
so long I thought he’d hung up on me. Seriously, what was his problem? “Briggs?
Hello.”

“Fine.”

“Fine. I’ll
email the flight information.”

The phone
clicked off with no goodbye. I really had no idea what had gotten into him. We
never fought, not even once. Briggs was always level-headed and calm. Then
overnight he hated me to the point he couldn’t stand to talk to me. My heart
wasn’t broken—it was pulverized. It took a moment for the fact that his voice
hadn’t sounded tired to sink in. He was already awake.

I walked into
Bee’s room, shaking my head. Dr. Sadler was already there, talking to her. He
didn’t look up at me, but Bee turned and smiled. She seemed so weak and tired I
was afraid to hug her. Her stomach was more distended than it had been the day
before, and Dr. Sadler tapped his fingers against it gently while listening to
her breathing with his stethoscope.